So, I guess some people know by now, but for those who don’t, this week has been pretty rough. I left maseru last Wednesday, july 23, and returned to ha thaba bosiu in the late afternoon/early evening. I arrived just as my oldest host brother, tefo was driving into the family compound. He stepped out of the car followed by a woman whom I’d never met, and who I later found out was my oldest host sister, tukiso, who lives in maseru. She was shaking and crying, and generally looked very ill. My host brother, just nodded to me and kept on walking. I figured I’d give them a couple minutes to settle and then go to make sure everything was ok, so I went into my house, put my bags down, and then headed out to my pit latrine. I ran into a relative, ‘m’e mapekola, who had lived behind my old house, and I asked her if everything was ok. She said no and mumbled a couple things, and then didn’t say any more. I went to my pit latrine and then went back in my house and began to unpack, unsure what to do next. A couple minutes later I saw my youngest host sister, lerato, walk by, and I went out to ask her if everything was ok. She said no, and then said that I should go and talk with tefo.
I walked to the front of my family’s house, and tefo was standing outside. I asked him what was going on, and he said that my youngest host brother, tsotlo, had hanged himself the day before, on Tuesday afternoon. I stared at him in shock for a couple seconds and my eyes began to tear up, and I asked him if I could go inside to see ‘m’e. he said “yes” so I entered the house, and my ‘m’e was lying on a mattress on the living room floor, covered in blankets, with family and friends sitting in chairs all around her. I had found some of the living room furniture in my house when I got home, and I suppose that it had been removed to make room for my ‘m’e’s bed, and for visitors. She looked at me and just began crying. And I began crying, and went up to her and rubbed her shoulder for a minute or two, and then offered my condolences and asked if there was anything I could do. She had really liked the chai tea that my mother had sent from the states, so I went and made her some, and just left all of the tea that my mother had sent in the house so that she could have more whenever she wanted.
I stayed with my ‘m’e, and family and friends for a little while, and then left and completely broke down. I texted my sister, leslie, and she quickly called my back and listened to me cry and calmed me down, and then we just got to chat for a little while, which was really comforting to me. After that, I went in my house to think for a while, and then fell asleep.
I woke up on Thursday, took the dog for a run, and came back to a lot of activity around the house. Both family members and friends had come to help clean up the yard, fetch water, and generally do all the small things that needed to be done to get the house ready for all the visitors and for the funeral. I bathed and went to see what I could do to help. I was put on dish-washing duty. There didn’t seem to be too much I could do after that, so I went into mohale’s hoek to drop some forms off for my school principal, and to talk with another peace corps volunteer there, who is a friend.
Over the next few days, I began to piece together all that had happened. I knew that tsotlo had failed out of university, but lerato mentioned that he had been unhappy for some time (probably depressed), and had not really cared about school. She said that she, and her brother and parents had tried to talk with him, but he had not been able to say what was wrong. Unfortunately, psychology is not considered important to most people here. Few basotho seem to be interested in mental disorders and states of mind. For example, I told my principal that tsotlo had hanged himself. His response: “he was a coward.” Another volunteer’s host sister failed her school exams and her host mother was furious. The volunteer said that perhaps she had difficulty concentrating because her brother had died the week before. Her host mother said that was no excuse. The herdboy for my family actually found tsotlo. They shared a rondavel, and that rondavel was where he hanged himself. The herdboy then went and found my ntate but wouldn’t tell him what had happened. I can’t even imagine what he was going through. My ‘m’e had to be hospitalized for the night. I know that she is a diabetic, and maybe the shock of everything had caused some problems. But she had just come home Wednesday, the same day I got home.
One thing that I am thankful for is that, through all of this, I’ve gotten to know my family better, and I’ve become closer to them. Lerato and tefo’s wife, ‘m’e matreasure, have been staying out at the house, along with tukiso, and so I’ve been able to talk a lot with them, and help them with some things at home. A couple days ago we sat out for hours cleaning small pebbles out of the sorghum my family had harvested in june. We have more to do still. I’ve also been sitting out a couple hours every morning knitting. I had started a scarf, and am trying to finish it soon. I want to give it to my ‘m’e. anyways, my ntate comes and sits outside in the sun with me in the mornings. It’s warmer there than in the house. And I enjoy just sitting with him and talking some. I also got to watch a Kaiser chiefs v. Manchester united football match on Saturday. Lerato and tefo invited me to lerato’s house, along with a couple friends, to watch. It was nice to see a soccer game, and to discuss it with tefo. And I discovered a few things: tevez has a bad dribble, needs a haircut, and looks like a vampire; rooney looks ridiculous with his facial hair; cleverly makes me feel really old; and Campbell tries really hard, but doesn’t have the skill to follow through. His goal was caused by a bad touch from a team mate. The match was the final of a tournament in south Africa, and after man u. won the announcer got giggs and rooney confused. Giggs came up to talk with him for a little while, and he kept calling him rooney. It was kinda funny.
Last night, I got to sit with my family for a while before going to bed, and I started talking with them about the meaning of names in Sesotho. I found out that “tefo” means payment, or replacement. It turns out that my ‘m’e had had another son who’d died in infancy, and tefo was kind of a replacement for that.
So, tsotlo’s funeral is august 9th. I think lerato will be staying at least until then, and ‘m’e matreasure will maybe stay the entire month. ‘m’e matukiso is still sleeping on the mattress in the living room. Apparently that’s tradition, and she has to sleep and stay there until the funeral. I’m sure the house will be busy with preparations next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to help with something. Maybe I can peel carrots for the meal after the funeral. We’ll see. Anyways, I think my family is devastated, but they are doing better than last week. Hopefully they are beginning to slowly heal. Keep them in your thoughts.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
mid-service medical checkup funness
so, i've been in maseru since saturday, which means good food, bed whose springs don't dig into my hips, electricity, internet, and running showers. except not always.
one of my missions for this week was to finish my lesson plans for my biology class for the rest of the year. their textbook is horrible and inaccurate, so i usually try to make lesson plans using the vast awesomeness of the interwebbies. then i can use pictures, too. a diagram of the ear is much more attractive and comprehensible than my chalk scratchings on the board. that being said, i've been coming into the peace corps office at about 7 every morning and working until about noon, with some interuptions. i finished, which is good. and added some things to the syllabus. seriously, i'm supposed to teach about plant nutrition, but the only thing listed on the syllabus is photosynthesis. pah. nothing mentioned about gaining nutrients from the soil, water uptake, etc. i'm always hesitant to add more to the syllabus, though, because my principal has told me that i have taught my form b student things they wouldn't have to learn for another couple years. he was happy about it, but it amazed me because i feel like i'm simplifying a lot of things as much as i can. still, i don't want to go in to too much detail and just confuse my students. humph!
that was about all i did on sunday, besides buying FOOD! which always makes me happy. we did have about 16 people staying in the peace corps' t house (transit house) that night, so the place was a complete mess, and a couple people and i ended up cleaning up after some others. it happens. and the reason that there were 16 people there was that there were 5 people who were COSing (finishing peace corps) and were leaving the next day to go on trips or return home. i'm sure they had oodles of other things on their minds. i didn't really get to know too many people from the group that's leaving now because none of them live near me, but it's still really weird to see them leave. i'm probably never going to see them again. and it makes me consider where i am in my service, and what i remember of them a year ago, when they were at the same part in their service that i am now. and in one year, that will be me.
so, the five of them got up and left the next morning, and i came into the office to continue working on lessons, and to begin my mid-service medical check-up. basically this is kind of a typical doctor's check-up to make sure you're healthy, so i got blood pressure taken, i was weighed, and actually that was about it. the only thing out of the ordinary from a doctor's check-up in the states was that i got a tb test (i'm negative - w00t).
i went back to the t house to discover that some men were working on the pipes at the end of the street and that our water was cut. it was supposed to come on that night (monday night) but only worked for a half hour and then cut off again. it didn't return until mid-afternoon tuesday. so there were 12 to 16 people living in one house with no way to bathe, wash dishes, wash clothes, or flush the toilet. here's where a pit latrine would've come in really handy. it was disgusting.
it turns out a volunteer who is COSing on friday had season 2 of the american version of the office. i'd never seen any episodes before, but now have. i liked it. it's less painful than the british version. i like the british version, but can only watch a couple episodes at a time because the boss makes me cringe so badly so often. i also watched the devil wears prada and the last king of scotland last night. very different movies. but i'd never seen either of them before, and though they're now a couple years old, it still makes me feel like i'm not totally out of touch.
yesterday morning (tuesday) i came in and finished my lesson plans and then got to go to the dentist's. normal check-up. no tooth problems. and then at the end of the appointment, i got a lesson on how to properly brush my teeth and floss. this was kinda funny to me, as i still have vague memories of learning these things courtesy of cartoon toothbrushes and toothpaste sometime around kindergarten, but i nodded my head and said ok. by the way, you should use circular motions, 10 circles per tooth, when brushing, except on the front teeth when you switch to vertical movements. just fyi.
oh, the new group is about to swear in. they just got their site placements, and three are coming to mohale's hoek! i'm really excited. i'm not sure where all of them are going to be living, but it'll be exciting to meet new people. there are no volunteers leaving mohale's hoek now, either, so i don't have to say goodbye to any people that were neighbors, which is nice.
so, i'm leaving maseru in a little while to return home to ha thaba bosiu. i'm hopefully not going to be back until mid-september. sorry i forgot to bring my namibia pics, but one of the girls in the group has set up a flickr account so you can check out her pictures if you want: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jopis/
one of my missions for this week was to finish my lesson plans for my biology class for the rest of the year. their textbook is horrible and inaccurate, so i usually try to make lesson plans using the vast awesomeness of the interwebbies. then i can use pictures, too. a diagram of the ear is much more attractive and comprehensible than my chalk scratchings on the board. that being said, i've been coming into the peace corps office at about 7 every morning and working until about noon, with some interuptions. i finished, which is good. and added some things to the syllabus. seriously, i'm supposed to teach about plant nutrition, but the only thing listed on the syllabus is photosynthesis. pah. nothing mentioned about gaining nutrients from the soil, water uptake, etc. i'm always hesitant to add more to the syllabus, though, because my principal has told me that i have taught my form b student things they wouldn't have to learn for another couple years. he was happy about it, but it amazed me because i feel like i'm simplifying a lot of things as much as i can. still, i don't want to go in to too much detail and just confuse my students. humph!
that was about all i did on sunday, besides buying FOOD! which always makes me happy. we did have about 16 people staying in the peace corps' t house (transit house) that night, so the place was a complete mess, and a couple people and i ended up cleaning up after some others. it happens. and the reason that there were 16 people there was that there were 5 people who were COSing (finishing peace corps) and were leaving the next day to go on trips or return home. i'm sure they had oodles of other things on their minds. i didn't really get to know too many people from the group that's leaving now because none of them live near me, but it's still really weird to see them leave. i'm probably never going to see them again. and it makes me consider where i am in my service, and what i remember of them a year ago, when they were at the same part in their service that i am now. and in one year, that will be me.
so, the five of them got up and left the next morning, and i came into the office to continue working on lessons, and to begin my mid-service medical check-up. basically this is kind of a typical doctor's check-up to make sure you're healthy, so i got blood pressure taken, i was weighed, and actually that was about it. the only thing out of the ordinary from a doctor's check-up in the states was that i got a tb test (i'm negative - w00t).
i went back to the t house to discover that some men were working on the pipes at the end of the street and that our water was cut. it was supposed to come on that night (monday night) but only worked for a half hour and then cut off again. it didn't return until mid-afternoon tuesday. so there were 12 to 16 people living in one house with no way to bathe, wash dishes, wash clothes, or flush the toilet. here's where a pit latrine would've come in really handy. it was disgusting.
it turns out a volunteer who is COSing on friday had season 2 of the american version of the office. i'd never seen any episodes before, but now have. i liked it. it's less painful than the british version. i like the british version, but can only watch a couple episodes at a time because the boss makes me cringe so badly so often. i also watched the devil wears prada and the last king of scotland last night. very different movies. but i'd never seen either of them before, and though they're now a couple years old, it still makes me feel like i'm not totally out of touch.
yesterday morning (tuesday) i came in and finished my lesson plans and then got to go to the dentist's. normal check-up. no tooth problems. and then at the end of the appointment, i got a lesson on how to properly brush my teeth and floss. this was kinda funny to me, as i still have vague memories of learning these things courtesy of cartoon toothbrushes and toothpaste sometime around kindergarten, but i nodded my head and said ok. by the way, you should use circular motions, 10 circles per tooth, when brushing, except on the front teeth when you switch to vertical movements. just fyi.
oh, the new group is about to swear in. they just got their site placements, and three are coming to mohale's hoek! i'm really excited. i'm not sure where all of them are going to be living, but it'll be exciting to meet new people. there are no volunteers leaving mohale's hoek now, either, so i don't have to say goodbye to any people that were neighbors, which is nice.
so, i'm leaving maseru in a little while to return home to ha thaba bosiu. i'm hopefully not going to be back until mid-september. sorry i forgot to bring my namibia pics, but one of the girls in the group has set up a flickr account so you can check out her pictures if you want: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jopis/
Sunday, July 20, 2008
10 new posts
i just posted 10 blogs, besides this one. i was going to put pics from namibia on flickr, but unfortunately brought the wrong memory card from my site. so they won't be up for a few months. sorry about that. hope all is well with everyone.
ann
ann
first week back
i woke up the morning after arriving home and went outside to find my 'm'e just arriving back from somewhere. she walked up to me and gave me a big hug. she always brightens my day. she makes it a lot easier to return to lesotho after vacations. anyways, we talked for about a half hour on what had been going on in my absence and what plans i had for the next month or so. we are going to hopefully have a library appreciation day soon, and then an hiv/aids testing and education day in a couple of months. unfortunately, not all was pleasant news. on of my standard 6 students, who is about 13 or 14, is pregnant. the father is one of my standard 7 students. a secondary student who lives near me, and who i like a lot, came by and told me that all but 3 of my 120-something form a students had failed their june exams. most of the form b students failed, too, i later found out. my principal blamed a couple of the teachers at my school who are very lax, lazy, and just not good. basically, there is a problem with a couple of the teachers not coming to class half the time, or insulting the students. and he doesn't want to fire them because he is thinking about what will happen to their families if they are fired. which is nice, it's good that he's concerned for their welfare. all the same, he's either damaging the teachers' families or damaging the over 200 students currently at the school. apparently the school board wants to fire them. we'll see what happens with that.
i also found out that yes, my 'm'e did send my sheets to get washed by one of my students. this student used almost an entire 2 kg box of laundry detergent and half a bottle of bleach (this made me cringe) to clean my sheets. or so she claimed. sounded a bit fishy to me. seriously, maybe my dog had gotten my sheets a little muddy, but using 2 kg of soap is a little extravagant. i presume that she used a lot of my soap for herself. this is a little frustrating because she and her sister are double orphans who had asked for money. i started giving them my laundry to do a few months ago as a way for them to earn money because they need it. but i don't like being used. so i'm trying to sort out whether i want to keep trying to get them to do laundry or not.
so that was sunday. on monday, i walked into town to try to talk with the national aids commission (nac) about my proposal to put hiv/aids education phrases on the trash cans in mohale's hoek. i have a verbal consent, but am waiting for written consent. i can't start without the written consent. so basically nothing had changed in the three-plus weeks that i had been on vacation and out of town. the woman told me to return wednesday. maybe she would've heard something by then. i also started writing all of the blogs that've just been posted. it took a few hours over a couple days to complete them. i talked with a member of my support group, ntate none, who had said that the group would be gardening on tuesday. so on tuesday i headed out to garden.
i think the support group just gets me to garden for comic relief. i am not a gardener. i can't hoe a whole correctly apparently. but i did get better over the four hours spent in the garden. this is a new garden, the fourth my support group has, and we were planting peas to grow for the orphans and aids patients in the village. the how i was using was not made of finished wood, so after a couple hours i stopped to remove a splinter. i also noticed i had a blister. my support group thought this was hilarious. silly city girl with her soft hands! yeah, yeah. so, i took a break and asked the bo 'm'e if they knew any gardening songs. they sang one and then asked me to sing. d'oh! i guess i dug that hole myself, though. i couldn't think of any gardening songs, so i sang "old mcdonald". they didn't understand the lyrics, but laughed heartily when i got to the part where i snorted like a pig (the first animal mcdonald had on this particular farm was a pig). then i explained the lyrics, and that it was a childrens' song, and went on to sing a couple more verses. soon after this, ntate none returned (no idea where he'd gone). i know he returned because he ran in yelling "viva volunteers! no surrender! the spirit of no surrender!" this was actually stated in english. except the "viva" of course. this was one thing i was not expecting to hear in lesotho, and it made me burst out laughing. i have no idea where this came from or where he'd heard it in lesotho, but the fact that the phrase had made it to a small village in the middle of a very poor, small, little-known southern african country not known for revolutions was pretty surprising. ntate none said it a couple more times throughout the day, and i chuckled to myself every time.
so tuesday went and wednesday came, and i was back in town to talk with nac. except the woman never showed up. i finished writing most of the blogs about my trip and returned home. the big news wednesday evening was that my cat has apparently been sneaking off at night to visit a male cat up the hill. maybe there will be kittens for me sometime this spring/summer. nice.
thursday was the king's birthday, and my family had invited me to a celebration at the racetrack in mohale's hoek. this is where all celebrations occur. one of my host sisters is head of the criminally insane ward of the prison in mohale's hoek and was going to be participating in the ceremony. basically the prison guards and police officers did a bunch of marching together. my family was really proud of lerato (my host sister). she was one of the people closest to the front of the line, which meant she was in a position of authority. it was really nice to go and watch, just to feel like i was a part of my host family, and that i could join in with their happiness. it was also good to see lerato again. i like her a lot. she's a couple years older than me and is very nice and also very studious. she's actually trying to apply to study psychology in the uk so that she can further her career in the prisons. hopefully that will be successful.
also at this celebration, some of the prisoners were able to perform some traditional dances. it was really nice i thought, to be able to involve the prisoners, to make them feel like a part of the community.
all that finished a little after noon, so we grabbed some free food at the celebration and headed home. on friday i thought that i was going to be gardening again, but no one showed up, so i figured i walk into town again to try the woman at nac. the couple times i'd been into town earlier i had worn my ipod so as to avoid having to listen to people yelling at me. i didn't have it this time, and didn't want to go home, so i started walking. well, first a taxi conductor grabbed me to try to force me into his taxi. this isn't incredibly uncommon, but it's still really annoying and i wanted to punch him. i restrained myself and continued to walk, but also had to deal with a bunch of "good afternoon. give me money"'s from kids on the road. i braved all of this and made it into town. no luck with nac. i ran into a couple volunteers, though, and talked with them for a while and then headed home.
i got home at about 4:15, and my burglar bars on my house decided to rebel against me. i couldn't unlock them. my key wouldn't turn. i couldn't get it. my 'm'e couldn't get it. my ntate, my 'm'e's son, our neighbor, and a more skilled community member couldn't get the lock to work. so, at about 5:15 i decided alternate action would have to be taken. i called peace corps. unfortunately it was late on a friday afternoon, so they wouldn't be able to come until saturday, so i had to find another place to sleep. thankfully another volunteer, nicole, lives near me. but all of my money was locked in my house and nicole lived 6 miles away. this was too far to walk in the 45 minutes before dark. so i borrowed money from my 'm'e and showed up on nicole's doorstep at 6, locked out of my house. on the plus side, my mail had come and while i might not be able to enter my house, i had received my driver's license from the states (i'd had to renew it).
so i stayed at nicole's and got to talk with her for a while, which was nice. i like her. and then i left early the next morning to head home, as i was told that someone would be coming at about 10 am to fix my door. no one showed up until 3 pm. at that time i was hungry (food locked inside my house), thirsty (water locked inside my house), and hot (i had been sitting outside for a while). so basically i was a little cranky. but everything worked out, the lock was broken and replaced in about 20 minutes, and i had a free ride into maseru, which is where i am now.
just another typical week in lesotho.
i also found out that yes, my 'm'e did send my sheets to get washed by one of my students. this student used almost an entire 2 kg box of laundry detergent and half a bottle of bleach (this made me cringe) to clean my sheets. or so she claimed. sounded a bit fishy to me. seriously, maybe my dog had gotten my sheets a little muddy, but using 2 kg of soap is a little extravagant. i presume that she used a lot of my soap for herself. this is a little frustrating because she and her sister are double orphans who had asked for money. i started giving them my laundry to do a few months ago as a way for them to earn money because they need it. but i don't like being used. so i'm trying to sort out whether i want to keep trying to get them to do laundry or not.
so that was sunday. on monday, i walked into town to try to talk with the national aids commission (nac) about my proposal to put hiv/aids education phrases on the trash cans in mohale's hoek. i have a verbal consent, but am waiting for written consent. i can't start without the written consent. so basically nothing had changed in the three-plus weeks that i had been on vacation and out of town. the woman told me to return wednesday. maybe she would've heard something by then. i also started writing all of the blogs that've just been posted. it took a few hours over a couple days to complete them. i talked with a member of my support group, ntate none, who had said that the group would be gardening on tuesday. so on tuesday i headed out to garden.
i think the support group just gets me to garden for comic relief. i am not a gardener. i can't hoe a whole correctly apparently. but i did get better over the four hours spent in the garden. this is a new garden, the fourth my support group has, and we were planting peas to grow for the orphans and aids patients in the village. the how i was using was not made of finished wood, so after a couple hours i stopped to remove a splinter. i also noticed i had a blister. my support group thought this was hilarious. silly city girl with her soft hands! yeah, yeah. so, i took a break and asked the bo 'm'e if they knew any gardening songs. they sang one and then asked me to sing. d'oh! i guess i dug that hole myself, though. i couldn't think of any gardening songs, so i sang "old mcdonald". they didn't understand the lyrics, but laughed heartily when i got to the part where i snorted like a pig (the first animal mcdonald had on this particular farm was a pig). then i explained the lyrics, and that it was a childrens' song, and went on to sing a couple more verses. soon after this, ntate none returned (no idea where he'd gone). i know he returned because he ran in yelling "viva volunteers! no surrender! the spirit of no surrender!" this was actually stated in english. except the "viva" of course. this was one thing i was not expecting to hear in lesotho, and it made me burst out laughing. i have no idea where this came from or where he'd heard it in lesotho, but the fact that the phrase had made it to a small village in the middle of a very poor, small, little-known southern african country not known for revolutions was pretty surprising. ntate none said it a couple more times throughout the day, and i chuckled to myself every time.
so tuesday went and wednesday came, and i was back in town to talk with nac. except the woman never showed up. i finished writing most of the blogs about my trip and returned home. the big news wednesday evening was that my cat has apparently been sneaking off at night to visit a male cat up the hill. maybe there will be kittens for me sometime this spring/summer. nice.
thursday was the king's birthday, and my family had invited me to a celebration at the racetrack in mohale's hoek. this is where all celebrations occur. one of my host sisters is head of the criminally insane ward of the prison in mohale's hoek and was going to be participating in the ceremony. basically the prison guards and police officers did a bunch of marching together. my family was really proud of lerato (my host sister). she was one of the people closest to the front of the line, which meant she was in a position of authority. it was really nice to go and watch, just to feel like i was a part of my host family, and that i could join in with their happiness. it was also good to see lerato again. i like her a lot. she's a couple years older than me and is very nice and also very studious. she's actually trying to apply to study psychology in the uk so that she can further her career in the prisons. hopefully that will be successful.
also at this celebration, some of the prisoners were able to perform some traditional dances. it was really nice i thought, to be able to involve the prisoners, to make them feel like a part of the community.
all that finished a little after noon, so we grabbed some free food at the celebration and headed home. on friday i thought that i was going to be gardening again, but no one showed up, so i figured i walk into town again to try the woman at nac. the couple times i'd been into town earlier i had worn my ipod so as to avoid having to listen to people yelling at me. i didn't have it this time, and didn't want to go home, so i started walking. well, first a taxi conductor grabbed me to try to force me into his taxi. this isn't incredibly uncommon, but it's still really annoying and i wanted to punch him. i restrained myself and continued to walk, but also had to deal with a bunch of "good afternoon. give me money"'s from kids on the road. i braved all of this and made it into town. no luck with nac. i ran into a couple volunteers, though, and talked with them for a while and then headed home.
i got home at about 4:15, and my burglar bars on my house decided to rebel against me. i couldn't unlock them. my key wouldn't turn. i couldn't get it. my 'm'e couldn't get it. my ntate, my 'm'e's son, our neighbor, and a more skilled community member couldn't get the lock to work. so, at about 5:15 i decided alternate action would have to be taken. i called peace corps. unfortunately it was late on a friday afternoon, so they wouldn't be able to come until saturday, so i had to find another place to sleep. thankfully another volunteer, nicole, lives near me. but all of my money was locked in my house and nicole lived 6 miles away. this was too far to walk in the 45 minutes before dark. so i borrowed money from my 'm'e and showed up on nicole's doorstep at 6, locked out of my house. on the plus side, my mail had come and while i might not be able to enter my house, i had received my driver's license from the states (i'd had to renew it).
so i stayed at nicole's and got to talk with her for a while, which was nice. i like her. and then i left early the next morning to head home, as i was told that someone would be coming at about 10 am to fix my door. no one showed up until 3 pm. at that time i was hungry (food locked inside my house), thirsty (water locked inside my house), and hot (i had been sitting outside for a while). so basically i was a little cranky. but everything worked out, the lock was broken and replaced in about 20 minutes, and i had a free ride into maseru, which is where i am now.
just another typical week in lesotho.
Getting home
So, kyla and I left Windhoek on Friday, june 11, at 5:30. this was once again a 2 part bus ride: to upington, and the to bloem. It was uneventful. No hyperactive kids this time. Customs was colder and made me dread what Lesotho would be like, but we made it through without having our bags checked, so that’s good. We did get a seat at the very front of the double-decker bus, which was nice. The poor girl across the aisle kept having the electric panel above her fall on her head. But she said it didn’t hurt and wasn’t that heavy, so I guess that’s nice. We barely had a stopover at upington before the next but came to take us to bloem. It was the same driver we’d had before. Once again, uneventful. I finished the fourth part of Stephen king’s dark tower series. I’ve been sucked in to it. We got back to bloem an hour ahead of time. I thought this was really exciting, as it insured that I could make it all the way back to site, not just to maseru. We got to the taxi rank to discover that prices had risen r10, but that was ok. I hopped the bus and waited maybe about 45 minutes for departure. The bus left, drove about 10 minutes to a shopping center, and stopped. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh, so it turns out that taxi wasn’t actually going to van rooi, it was just taking us to another taxi that was. Ok. I switched taxis with my luggage and we were off. It takes about an hour to get to van rooi from bloem, and I noticed as we approached the border that it was getting kind of dark out. It was at this time that I realized that I’d forgotten south Africa is an hour ahead of bloem. D’oh! I crossed the border into Lesotho at dusk and turned on my phone, intending to beg housing from another volunteer living in mafeteng. Apparently my phone had gotten turned on sometime in the previous almost 3 weeks of travel, and the battery was dead. It lasted just long enough for me to get a response from the person I’d texted: “I’m in maseru. Try these other 2 people living near mafeteng.” And then it died. So, mafeteng is not somewhere to be stranded at night. It’s thug-ville. Some volunteers have been held up there. I apprehensively asked my taxi driver if there would be a taxi to mohale’s hoek that night. He responded “yes” and I breathed a sigh of relief.
We got to mafeteng and I switched taxis. Eventually the taxi to the hoek filled up. More than filled actually, by about 5 people. The guy next to me had his hand on my left thigh. He’d actually seemed nice enough at first. We chatted for a minute or 2. then comes the inevitable, “where are you from?” he guessed denmark, which surprised me. That’s not one of the better known countries to most basotho. I told him that no, I was from the states, and of course he responds by telling me that he would love to visit the states sometime. I count down, 3…2…1…and then “do you have a boyfriend?” I say I do, and he asks if the guy is black or white. I tell him that is none of his business, put on my head phones, and crank up the music. But does this deter him? No. he keeps trying to talk to me. Now, this is not an uncommon form of harassment for a female peace corps volunteer, but i’ve been on a bus for over 24 hours, I’m tired physically, I’m tired of being hit on, and on top of everything else, he’s interrupting my bon jovi. Is nothing sacred?! He ended by asking for my phone number so that he could make sure I got home safely. Many basotho men are a bit thick headed. I told him I’d be fine.
I got back to mohale’s hoek only to find that the 4 + 1 drivers were going to charge me r30 to get to my house. It usually costs r3.50. I knew it was late, but r30 is an exorbitant fee for traveling 10 km. that’s how much it costs to get to maseru. So I trudled the block to the police station, thinking that if this didn’t work I’d go and sleep in the back room of the maluti hotel, the kind of closet given to the peace corps volunteers where I am now writing this blog.
I entered the police station and explained the situation. I was returning home, forgot about the time change, r30 is too expensive to pay to get home. I was asked to sit down and a couple minutes later the policeman said, “ok, let’s go.” He apparently had gotten permission from his superior to take me home. I guess I played the lekhooa (white person)/damsel in distress card to positive effect. Or he was just really bored. It looked like a slow night. I hoped in the truck with him. A minute later another officer opened the passenger side door and got in, so I was now sandwiched between two officers. Apparently it takes not one but two male police officers to escort the white girl home. The other passenger kept up a running conversation, too, and loudly. He had taken a narcotics course in Namibia, and another police course in Botswana, and he was really scared the first time he flew in a plane. They were very nice, though, and drove me all the way to my front door. They actually started to yell to wake up my ‘m’e and ntate, but I tried to quiet them as best I could, explaining that I had a key. And my dog came out to greet me. Her entire body was wagging. Nice to have someone great me so excitedly upon my arrival home. I opened my door and walked into my house to discover I had no sheets and not blankets. Curses! I assumed my ‘m’e had taken them to get washed. She’s really thoughtful like that. I was also too tired to be very concerned. I just busted my sleeping bag back out of my backpack, curled up, and passed out.
We got to mafeteng and I switched taxis. Eventually the taxi to the hoek filled up. More than filled actually, by about 5 people. The guy next to me had his hand on my left thigh. He’d actually seemed nice enough at first. We chatted for a minute or 2. then comes the inevitable, “where are you from?” he guessed denmark, which surprised me. That’s not one of the better known countries to most basotho. I told him that no, I was from the states, and of course he responds by telling me that he would love to visit the states sometime. I count down, 3…2…1…and then “do you have a boyfriend?” I say I do, and he asks if the guy is black or white. I tell him that is none of his business, put on my head phones, and crank up the music. But does this deter him? No. he keeps trying to talk to me. Now, this is not an uncommon form of harassment for a female peace corps volunteer, but i’ve been on a bus for over 24 hours, I’m tired physically, I’m tired of being hit on, and on top of everything else, he’s interrupting my bon jovi. Is nothing sacred?! He ended by asking for my phone number so that he could make sure I got home safely. Many basotho men are a bit thick headed. I told him I’d be fine.
I got back to mohale’s hoek only to find that the 4 + 1 drivers were going to charge me r30 to get to my house. It usually costs r3.50. I knew it was late, but r30 is an exorbitant fee for traveling 10 km. that’s how much it costs to get to maseru. So I trudled the block to the police station, thinking that if this didn’t work I’d go and sleep in the back room of the maluti hotel, the kind of closet given to the peace corps volunteers where I am now writing this blog.
I entered the police station and explained the situation. I was returning home, forgot about the time change, r30 is too expensive to pay to get home. I was asked to sit down and a couple minutes later the policeman said, “ok, let’s go.” He apparently had gotten permission from his superior to take me home. I guess I played the lekhooa (white person)/damsel in distress card to positive effect. Or he was just really bored. It looked like a slow night. I hoped in the truck with him. A minute later another officer opened the passenger side door and got in, so I was now sandwiched between two officers. Apparently it takes not one but two male police officers to escort the white girl home. The other passenger kept up a running conversation, too, and loudly. He had taken a narcotics course in Namibia, and another police course in Botswana, and he was really scared the first time he flew in a plane. They were very nice, though, and drove me all the way to my front door. They actually started to yell to wake up my ‘m’e and ntate, but I tried to quiet them as best I could, explaining that I had a key. And my dog came out to greet me. Her entire body was wagging. Nice to have someone great me so excitedly upon my arrival home. I opened my door and walked into my house to discover I had no sheets and not blankets. Curses! I assumed my ‘m’e had taken them to get washed. She’s really thoughtful like that. I was also too tired to be very concerned. I just busted my sleeping bag back out of my backpack, curled up, and passed out.
Sossuvlei (dunes)
So, we got up early to go and see the dunes at sunrise. Apparently the dude working the gate at sossuvlei had a bit of a different idea of what “sunrise” meant than the rest of us. He held us, and all the other cars coming to the gate, at the entrance until I think around 7. this was at least an hour after the sun had started to peek over the horizon. George, Alfred, and the rest of us were getting a little peeved. I told george we should give the guard a lick ‘n’ learn. Eventually, we made it in. after a quick bathroom break, george sped (oh, and how) down the road towards dune 45. at one point clare mentioned that we should look at the facial expressions of all the people in the cars we were passing. There was a lot of dismay. But we got to the dunes, and the light was still good.
They are stunning. I’m not sure why there’s so much iron in the sand, but there is, and they are RED. George explained to us that the sand originally was blown from the Kalahari, and ended up in western Namibia. Still not sure why all the iron, but it’s pretty. Especially when the early morning light hits and half of the dunes are still in the dark.
We stopped at dune 45, which is supposed to be the most photogenic dune. Whatever. We got to walk up the dune, which was difficult. Sand is so tricky, it shifts! I imagine if you ran up that a few times a day, you’d be in pretty good shape. At the top we were able to soak in the view. Desert, as far as the eye (or at least my myopic eye) could see. I think it was Andrew and Stephen who had decided to bring the rugby ball with them, and then we decided to play rugby down the side of the dune. Alfred ran down the dune (and it was pretty steep). This was right after he said we shouldn’t do it because we could hurt ourselves. He looked like a springbok prancing down the dune because he had to lift his legs so high to clear the sand. Then the ball was kicked down to him. This was repeated a couple times until we reached the bottom of the dune. Mike got some good photos of Stephen kicking the ball. After this, we got to empty our shoes of sand as best we could. I still have some sossuvlei in my shoes and socks. The socks will get washed in the washing machine when I go to maseru. So, we reached the bottom of the dune and breakfast was ready. George had even cooked bacon and eggs. Heck, I’d been happy with granola and the occasional nutells.
After lunch the rugby and soccer balls were brought back out, and I was feeling a little frisky after the hike up the dune (we hadn’t done too much in the way of exercise the rest of the trip) so I was happy running around kicking and chasing balls.
When we were all packed up and ready to go, we headed further into the desert. We got out of the car and walked a short distance, to the top of a small dune. The other side was very steep. I pranced my way down it slowly. George and Alfred wrestled their way down it. It was kinda cool to see them bonding. They’d just met the first day of our trip, and they’d seemingly gotten to be good friends. They almost rammed into the back of my legs near the bottom of the dune. When we reached the bottom, we turned around to watch both Johanna and Barbara sliding down the dunes on their rear ends. This made a distinctive pattern in the dune, and was also highly amusing. At the bottom, Barbara had another funny quote: “I think it’s time to take my pants off.” I turned to Andrew, who was standing next to me, and asked, “do you think she means American pants or british pants?” we soon found out. She went behind a bush and removed the long underwear she had been wearing. I guess she was getting warm.
So, we continued on our walk, headed towards big daddy, the largest dune in the world. Those that wanted could hike up it, those that didn’t could wait in the deadvlei. I hiked up it, along with Alfred, clare, Stephen (who was feeling well enough to run some of the distance, crazy boy), kyla, and mike. That was a tough walk. I was thankfully behind Alfred, whose footsteps made little ledges into which I could place my feet to make the climb easier. Basically the sand was slightly more packed there. I got to the top, started singing “oh, we’re half way there/o-oh, livin’ on a prayer…” and then took in the view. To one side, far off in the distance, you could see what Alfred told me was the third highest mountain in Namibia. To another side, just dunes. To a third side were some dunes and some mountains. And behind us when we were looking at the third highest mountain in Namibia was the deadvlei. This area has apparently been featured in a few commercials and was in that Jennifer lopez movie, the cell. It is both beautiful and a little unnerving. It is a piece of land that dried out into cracked soil, and on which trees that have been dead for 500 years still stand. These trees can still support some weight, and have lasted because they are far enough into the middle of nothing that no parasites can reach them to destroy them. They kind of look like the living dead, tree-style. It is a very unique site.
Anyways, I left you at the top of a dune. We still had to get down the dune, and into the deadvlei. I tried to go down surfer-style, but this proved slow and ineffective, so in the end I just ran, slowly, down the dune. Stephen sped by me at one point, thoroughly enjoying himself. At the bottom, we had another shoe-emptying party, leaving little piles of sand on the deadvlei. Then we got to walk across and actually touch trees that have been dead hundreds of years. Someone might’ve gone up and hugged a tree. I don’t remember. After crossing the deadvlei, we took a landrover back to our bus. The driver apparently liked to speed as quickly as possible over the bumpy ruts in the sand. Fun ride. This is also when clare decided to dub Alfred “alfredo of nothing.” Back at the bus, and a quick lunch later, we were back on the road heading for sesriem canyon. It was an anticlimactic canyon, especially for anyone who’d seen the grand canyon. It was just so small, and there really wasn’t too much there to see. We did get a flat tire, though, and got to watch Alfred and george fix it.
Then, back to agama for our last night of the safari. This is also when I discovered that I shouldn’t had more water to drink that day, as I was starting to get a migraine. It cleared up though, and after a couple very sorry rounds of pool I went to bed.
The next morning was to be our last camp breakfast. Sigh. Then, on the road headed for Windhoek. At a gas station, we obtained another heat magazine, this one outlining the evolution of “brange” or “brangelina” or whatever their being called these days. There was also a picture of prince harry looking at a cow’s rear. Prince harry was a bit of a joke for us along the trip because one of his charity organizations, sentebale, funds mant’sase orphanage in qhalasi, by kyla’s house. Kyla actually got to meet him last October or November. She said she liked his bodyguards. Anyways, he apparently likes rugby, so the boys kept making jokes about how she should subtly suggest a game of rugby now that she knew how to play and the “accidentally” trip and fall on him. After this there should be tea and crumpets, emphasis on crumpets. Apparently this is british slang for an attractive girl. Harry is coming back to Lesotho soon. More updates as they become available.
Without much further ado, we arrived in Windhoek. All the british/Dominican republic people were leaving on an 8 pm flight the next day (Thursday), and kyla and I were going to be in Windhoek until 5:30 Friday, so george booked us at joe’s beerhouse for dinner. Sadly, Barbara opted out, as she had an early flight to Uganda the next day. So we said our goodbyes outside the cardboard box and headed in to clean up for dinner.
I really liked the cardboard box. One of the receptionists in particular was hilarious. She happened to be on staff when kyla and I entered, so it was good to see her again. We said “hey” and then headed for the showers.
Dinner that night was nice. Joe’s is known for it’s game, although I question our waitresses ability to correctly label different slabs of meat. I got a dish that included a large chunk of ostrich beside a large chunk of springbok beside a large chunk of oryk. Look ma, I’m eating meat! There was also some vegetables and potato thingies involved. And a flaming shot glass of some vile liquor. All the while a warthog head was staring down at me from the wall. It was good to see everyone one last time. Except it turned out that it wasn’t one last time. Everyone was going shopping before the flight the next day, so we decided to meet for lunch. I didn’t need to go shopping so I went for a run and then headed for zoo park on the corner of fidel castro st. and independence ave. to listen to music and wait. So we got to meet up once again, and then go shopping for a little while after lunch. Kyla bought a necklace charm of Africa that she had been wanting since she got to Africa. She had just been waiting for the perfect one. So that was exciting for her. And then, they left. I’m kinda jealous of them, actually. They all live relatively close to one another, so it’s easier for them to keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll still be able to stay in contact with them, though. It just makes it that much harder to return to Lesotho. Every vacation I’ve been on I’ve not wanted to return. That’s part of going on vacation I suppose, and of course you have to realize that the vacation wouldn’t stay wonderful forever, and that you wouldn’t appreciate as much if it did continue forever. Still, there are those fleeting, childish thoughts, “what if I just refuse to return?” all volunteers go through these phases, and I’m now at my year-in dip where I’m thinking “I’m here for a whole ‘nother year? Really?” and that seems enormous. I’m sure it will fly by, though. I’m measuring time left by chunks until vacation time. 1-1/2 months ‘til reconnect, then 1 week until independence week, etc. my ‘m’e did a lot to help me feel better, but that’s a story for the next blog.
Anyways, to anyone who was on the trip and who is reading this now, thanks for the wonderful time. Hope you are all well.
ann
They are stunning. I’m not sure why there’s so much iron in the sand, but there is, and they are RED. George explained to us that the sand originally was blown from the Kalahari, and ended up in western Namibia. Still not sure why all the iron, but it’s pretty. Especially when the early morning light hits and half of the dunes are still in the dark.
We stopped at dune 45, which is supposed to be the most photogenic dune. Whatever. We got to walk up the dune, which was difficult. Sand is so tricky, it shifts! I imagine if you ran up that a few times a day, you’d be in pretty good shape. At the top we were able to soak in the view. Desert, as far as the eye (or at least my myopic eye) could see. I think it was Andrew and Stephen who had decided to bring the rugby ball with them, and then we decided to play rugby down the side of the dune. Alfred ran down the dune (and it was pretty steep). This was right after he said we shouldn’t do it because we could hurt ourselves. He looked like a springbok prancing down the dune because he had to lift his legs so high to clear the sand. Then the ball was kicked down to him. This was repeated a couple times until we reached the bottom of the dune. Mike got some good photos of Stephen kicking the ball. After this, we got to empty our shoes of sand as best we could. I still have some sossuvlei in my shoes and socks. The socks will get washed in the washing machine when I go to maseru. So, we reached the bottom of the dune and breakfast was ready. George had even cooked bacon and eggs. Heck, I’d been happy with granola and the occasional nutells.
After lunch the rugby and soccer balls were brought back out, and I was feeling a little frisky after the hike up the dune (we hadn’t done too much in the way of exercise the rest of the trip) so I was happy running around kicking and chasing balls.
When we were all packed up and ready to go, we headed further into the desert. We got out of the car and walked a short distance, to the top of a small dune. The other side was very steep. I pranced my way down it slowly. George and Alfred wrestled their way down it. It was kinda cool to see them bonding. They’d just met the first day of our trip, and they’d seemingly gotten to be good friends. They almost rammed into the back of my legs near the bottom of the dune. When we reached the bottom, we turned around to watch both Johanna and Barbara sliding down the dunes on their rear ends. This made a distinctive pattern in the dune, and was also highly amusing. At the bottom, Barbara had another funny quote: “I think it’s time to take my pants off.” I turned to Andrew, who was standing next to me, and asked, “do you think she means American pants or british pants?” we soon found out. She went behind a bush and removed the long underwear she had been wearing. I guess she was getting warm.
So, we continued on our walk, headed towards big daddy, the largest dune in the world. Those that wanted could hike up it, those that didn’t could wait in the deadvlei. I hiked up it, along with Alfred, clare, Stephen (who was feeling well enough to run some of the distance, crazy boy), kyla, and mike. That was a tough walk. I was thankfully behind Alfred, whose footsteps made little ledges into which I could place my feet to make the climb easier. Basically the sand was slightly more packed there. I got to the top, started singing “oh, we’re half way there/o-oh, livin’ on a prayer…” and then took in the view. To one side, far off in the distance, you could see what Alfred told me was the third highest mountain in Namibia. To another side, just dunes. To a third side were some dunes and some mountains. And behind us when we were looking at the third highest mountain in Namibia was the deadvlei. This area has apparently been featured in a few commercials and was in that Jennifer lopez movie, the cell. It is both beautiful and a little unnerving. It is a piece of land that dried out into cracked soil, and on which trees that have been dead for 500 years still stand. These trees can still support some weight, and have lasted because they are far enough into the middle of nothing that no parasites can reach them to destroy them. They kind of look like the living dead, tree-style. It is a very unique site.
Anyways, I left you at the top of a dune. We still had to get down the dune, and into the deadvlei. I tried to go down surfer-style, but this proved slow and ineffective, so in the end I just ran, slowly, down the dune. Stephen sped by me at one point, thoroughly enjoying himself. At the bottom, we had another shoe-emptying party, leaving little piles of sand on the deadvlei. Then we got to walk across and actually touch trees that have been dead hundreds of years. Someone might’ve gone up and hugged a tree. I don’t remember. After crossing the deadvlei, we took a landrover back to our bus. The driver apparently liked to speed as quickly as possible over the bumpy ruts in the sand. Fun ride. This is also when clare decided to dub Alfred “alfredo of nothing.” Back at the bus, and a quick lunch later, we were back on the road heading for sesriem canyon. It was an anticlimactic canyon, especially for anyone who’d seen the grand canyon. It was just so small, and there really wasn’t too much there to see. We did get a flat tire, though, and got to watch Alfred and george fix it.
Then, back to agama for our last night of the safari. This is also when I discovered that I shouldn’t had more water to drink that day, as I was starting to get a migraine. It cleared up though, and after a couple very sorry rounds of pool I went to bed.
The next morning was to be our last camp breakfast. Sigh. Then, on the road headed for Windhoek. At a gas station, we obtained another heat magazine, this one outlining the evolution of “brange” or “brangelina” or whatever their being called these days. There was also a picture of prince harry looking at a cow’s rear. Prince harry was a bit of a joke for us along the trip because one of his charity organizations, sentebale, funds mant’sase orphanage in qhalasi, by kyla’s house. Kyla actually got to meet him last October or November. She said she liked his bodyguards. Anyways, he apparently likes rugby, so the boys kept making jokes about how she should subtly suggest a game of rugby now that she knew how to play and the “accidentally” trip and fall on him. After this there should be tea and crumpets, emphasis on crumpets. Apparently this is british slang for an attractive girl. Harry is coming back to Lesotho soon. More updates as they become available.
Without much further ado, we arrived in Windhoek. All the british/Dominican republic people were leaving on an 8 pm flight the next day (Thursday), and kyla and I were going to be in Windhoek until 5:30 Friday, so george booked us at joe’s beerhouse for dinner. Sadly, Barbara opted out, as she had an early flight to Uganda the next day. So we said our goodbyes outside the cardboard box and headed in to clean up for dinner.
I really liked the cardboard box. One of the receptionists in particular was hilarious. She happened to be on staff when kyla and I entered, so it was good to see her again. We said “hey” and then headed for the showers.
Dinner that night was nice. Joe’s is known for it’s game, although I question our waitresses ability to correctly label different slabs of meat. I got a dish that included a large chunk of ostrich beside a large chunk of springbok beside a large chunk of oryk. Look ma, I’m eating meat! There was also some vegetables and potato thingies involved. And a flaming shot glass of some vile liquor. All the while a warthog head was staring down at me from the wall. It was good to see everyone one last time. Except it turned out that it wasn’t one last time. Everyone was going shopping before the flight the next day, so we decided to meet for lunch. I didn’t need to go shopping so I went for a run and then headed for zoo park on the corner of fidel castro st. and independence ave. to listen to music and wait. So we got to meet up once again, and then go shopping for a little while after lunch. Kyla bought a necklace charm of Africa that she had been wanting since she got to Africa. She had just been waiting for the perfect one. So that was exciting for her. And then, they left. I’m kinda jealous of them, actually. They all live relatively close to one another, so it’s easier for them to keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll still be able to stay in contact with them, though. It just makes it that much harder to return to Lesotho. Every vacation I’ve been on I’ve not wanted to return. That’s part of going on vacation I suppose, and of course you have to realize that the vacation wouldn’t stay wonderful forever, and that you wouldn’t appreciate as much if it did continue forever. Still, there are those fleeting, childish thoughts, “what if I just refuse to return?” all volunteers go through these phases, and I’m now at my year-in dip where I’m thinking “I’m here for a whole ‘nother year? Really?” and that seems enormous. I’m sure it will fly by, though. I’m measuring time left by chunks until vacation time. 1-1/2 months ‘til reconnect, then 1 week until independence week, etc. my ‘m’e did a lot to help me feel better, but that’s a story for the next blog.
Anyways, to anyone who was on the trip and who is reading this now, thanks for the wonderful time. Hope you are all well.
ann
Interlude 2
Sadly, we saw no cheetah in etosha. I think they’re very hard to spot (get it, spot? Cheetahs have spots, and they’re hard to spot – I am hilarious), but I was hoping. I guess that just means I’ll have to plan another trip…
So, upon leaving etosha we headed south. After an hour and a bit, we came to a town where we could grab some goods for the road, and buy cake and coffee at an apparently well-known café. Maybe it was well-known, but its service left something to be desired. I gave up on getting my coffee after about 20 minutes of waiting. I also think pastries and sweets in general in southern Africa aren’t as good as they are in the states. Probably because they aren’t as sweet. Possibly because they aren’t as fatty. Ah, well. Onward we went.
Our next stop was the petrified forest. Actually, it was just a place with some random pieces of wood that had apparently floated down a river thousands of years ago and then petrified. I need to read up again on the chemistry behind this process. Another thing to do when I have the time and am near the internet for a while. So, when I return to the states in a year. This was my least favorite part of the trip. I didn’t think it was too impressive. From the petrified forest we headed to a place spelled twefylfontein, or something similar. To us it sounded like “trifle fountain” so we were hoping for some good treats. We got rock carvings. Some of them were cool, and there was some symbolism in them that was interesting, and it was pretty neat that they can last as long as they can, but all in all, I didn’t think this part of the trip was too great either. I’m much more of an animal and nature person than a rock carvings person, I guess.
We were going to see the organ pipes, which are a set of rocks that looked like organ pipes next. We never got there.
I guess I could digress here to describe the landscape. Thus far we had been in a reedy, watery delta, savannah-like grasslands, and now we were approaching large hills and mountains. The rock carvings were all on hills. And there were rocks all over the hills. For anyone who has read the hobbit, I think there was a description of the far side of the mountains that it looked as if giants had been having rock wars and throwing rocks at each other. Tolkein could’ve gotten his idea from the “trifle fountain” area. While the carvings weren’t too impressive, I loved the landscape.
So, we never made it to the organ pipes because a desert elephant had been spotted, so we went to check it out. We actually got pretty close, too, before it flared its ears out.
This is a sign that the elephant is unhappy. An unhappy elephant is one that you do not want to be around.
We retreated a little ways and watched it eat. My camera died.
Eventually we were told we had to leave because it was getting dark and we had to set up camp. As it turned out, Alfred and george had already been to the site and set it up for us. We just had to get out our mattresses and luggage. This turned into a mattress fight involving everyone but Stephen (who was feeling better, but not yet well) and mike (who just wasn’t there). I think kyla started the fight, and then there was an unspoken agreement to pounce on mike when he came to get his mattress. Plan: executed. Unfortunately he could run a bit faster with no mattress than we could run with our mattresses so the mission was not entirely successful.
While waiting for dinner we went down to the bar so that mike could quench his passion for a gin and tonic (and hey, who was I to say “no” to one as well?) and there was even a fire near the bar by which we could sit! Hooray! So we hung out for a while, then went back to camp and had dinner, then hung out some more. And then I decided that it was a lovely night, lovely enough in fact to sleep outside. I had never slept outside before, but figured there could be a first time for everything. And we were farther away from animals than we’d been on the entire trip. So I dragged my mattress and sleeping bag from my tent, set it by the fire, watched the stars for a bit, and fell asleep. I awoke early the next morning (I was usually one of the first up, along with kyla – maybe it’s a peace corps thing) to mike getting out of his tent. He said he’d heard noises and started getting worried, thinking about me outside, and thinking that the noises were hyenas. They were chickens. I figured one of the guides would have told me if it was completely unsafe to sleep outside.
After waking up and eating, we packed our bags and left for swakopmund, and for civilization.
That day, I’m pretty sure, was the day of the lick ‘n’ learns. It was also the day of stinkiness.
So first, the lick ‘n’ learns. We stopped in a small town to buy some more supplies, and in a shop mike came across lollipops called lick ‘n’ learns, with either street signs or letters from the alphabet on them. They came in strings of maybe five or so, and he bought a couple and would occasionally pass them around or hand a street sign to george (who was driving) when he thought it appropriate. This became a joke for the rest of the trip. Also, when he got back into the bus with them, Stephen mentioned “there must be some really smart kids out there with really bad teeth.” After laughing, I realized that he must be feeling better if he was able to make a joke. So the lollipops also marked stephen’s recovery, and return to the world.
Then, we went to visit the largest seal colony in the world. What you aren’t told is how completely wretched these animals smell. Sure they look cute, but you don’t want to be around them for more than five minutes. And the ocean around the colony was completely discolored by seal defecation. No wonder they smell. So I took a couple photos and returned to the less pungent bus. After a while, when everyone was back on, we drove down into swakopmund, which is a city on the ocean. This means fresh fish! We got there early afternoon, grabbed lunch, and then I and quite a few other people took a nap. Mike went sky diving. I was a little jealous. Some day I will have to do this, too. Johanna went on a plane ride over the desert. They both really enjoyed what they did, so that’s good.
We went to a proper restaurant for dinner. And yes, I finally had fish, fresh, and of an un-canned variety. And it was good. Stephen tried to eat, but ended up not being hungry. And so I watched as Alfred, who was sitting across the table from me, devoured an entire pizza, stephen’s dinner, and then desert. The man is amazing. Meanwhile george was completely exhausted by the drive, and the past week and a half of work, and he was falling asleep over his massive plate of meat. Eventually he got a to go bag and went and slept in the bus.
I ordered desert, to share with someone. I was actually excited about this because desert is something I don’t get much of in Lesotho, especially sundaes. You can find ice cream bars in maseru, but that’s not the same. So we ordered a banana split. It came – with no bananas. “sorry, we’re out” the waitress explained as she walked away. So really the banana well, … split. Only in Africa. It was nice to go out to a proper restaurant, though. I even put some make-up on and did the whole girl thing. I felt like myself again for the first time in a year. This feeling was even stronger a couple days later, when we as a group went out in Windhoek.
That night we slept in beds, which was nice, but I actually hadn’t minded the tents. The mattress on the floor of my tent was more comfortable than my bed at ha thaba bosiu. It has no springs to dig into my hips as I sleep. The next morning, we got up and left for the last part of the trip, sossuvlei, the dunes. We drove for a lot of the day, and saw some beautiful hill and mountain landscapes along the way. We stopped a couple times to take photos. We also stopped at the tropic of Capricorn for another photo-op. we made it to our last campsite, agama, late afternoon. It was a nice, quiet site. The showers and toilets were very close to use, and the ceiling only partially complete, so we actually could look through the poles of the ceiling at the stars as we showered and used the toilet. Can you add romanticism to using the bathroom?
There was a bar up at the lodge, as well as a pool table and…PUPPIES! Clare was very excited over the puppies. Actually, I think the male was an adult, and was an American Staffordshire terrier. He had an Afrikaans name I couldn’t pronounce. The female, sadie, was a puppy, and I think was an English Staffordshire terrier (is that right?). she was really cute. So, we sat at the bar, had a couple gin and tonics, and played with the puppies until dinner. After dinner, we sat at the bar, drank a couple beers, and played pool. There was a group of students from emory university in Georgia there, too. Southern accents abounded. After a while we headed back down to camp, and I lay out on the ground to watch the stars. I saw at least two, maybe three shooting stars. Perfect.
Then, to bed, and the next day on to…
So, upon leaving etosha we headed south. After an hour and a bit, we came to a town where we could grab some goods for the road, and buy cake and coffee at an apparently well-known café. Maybe it was well-known, but its service left something to be desired. I gave up on getting my coffee after about 20 minutes of waiting. I also think pastries and sweets in general in southern Africa aren’t as good as they are in the states. Probably because they aren’t as sweet. Possibly because they aren’t as fatty. Ah, well. Onward we went.
Our next stop was the petrified forest. Actually, it was just a place with some random pieces of wood that had apparently floated down a river thousands of years ago and then petrified. I need to read up again on the chemistry behind this process. Another thing to do when I have the time and am near the internet for a while. So, when I return to the states in a year. This was my least favorite part of the trip. I didn’t think it was too impressive. From the petrified forest we headed to a place spelled twefylfontein, or something similar. To us it sounded like “trifle fountain” so we were hoping for some good treats. We got rock carvings. Some of them were cool, and there was some symbolism in them that was interesting, and it was pretty neat that they can last as long as they can, but all in all, I didn’t think this part of the trip was too great either. I’m much more of an animal and nature person than a rock carvings person, I guess.
We were going to see the organ pipes, which are a set of rocks that looked like organ pipes next. We never got there.
I guess I could digress here to describe the landscape. Thus far we had been in a reedy, watery delta, savannah-like grasslands, and now we were approaching large hills and mountains. The rock carvings were all on hills. And there were rocks all over the hills. For anyone who has read the hobbit, I think there was a description of the far side of the mountains that it looked as if giants had been having rock wars and throwing rocks at each other. Tolkein could’ve gotten his idea from the “trifle fountain” area. While the carvings weren’t too impressive, I loved the landscape.
So, we never made it to the organ pipes because a desert elephant had been spotted, so we went to check it out. We actually got pretty close, too, before it flared its ears out.
This is a sign that the elephant is unhappy. An unhappy elephant is one that you do not want to be around.
We retreated a little ways and watched it eat. My camera died.
Eventually we were told we had to leave because it was getting dark and we had to set up camp. As it turned out, Alfred and george had already been to the site and set it up for us. We just had to get out our mattresses and luggage. This turned into a mattress fight involving everyone but Stephen (who was feeling better, but not yet well) and mike (who just wasn’t there). I think kyla started the fight, and then there was an unspoken agreement to pounce on mike when he came to get his mattress. Plan: executed. Unfortunately he could run a bit faster with no mattress than we could run with our mattresses so the mission was not entirely successful.
While waiting for dinner we went down to the bar so that mike could quench his passion for a gin and tonic (and hey, who was I to say “no” to one as well?) and there was even a fire near the bar by which we could sit! Hooray! So we hung out for a while, then went back to camp and had dinner, then hung out some more. And then I decided that it was a lovely night, lovely enough in fact to sleep outside. I had never slept outside before, but figured there could be a first time for everything. And we were farther away from animals than we’d been on the entire trip. So I dragged my mattress and sleeping bag from my tent, set it by the fire, watched the stars for a bit, and fell asleep. I awoke early the next morning (I was usually one of the first up, along with kyla – maybe it’s a peace corps thing) to mike getting out of his tent. He said he’d heard noises and started getting worried, thinking about me outside, and thinking that the noises were hyenas. They were chickens. I figured one of the guides would have told me if it was completely unsafe to sleep outside.
After waking up and eating, we packed our bags and left for swakopmund, and for civilization.
That day, I’m pretty sure, was the day of the lick ‘n’ learns. It was also the day of stinkiness.
So first, the lick ‘n’ learns. We stopped in a small town to buy some more supplies, and in a shop mike came across lollipops called lick ‘n’ learns, with either street signs or letters from the alphabet on them. They came in strings of maybe five or so, and he bought a couple and would occasionally pass them around or hand a street sign to george (who was driving) when he thought it appropriate. This became a joke for the rest of the trip. Also, when he got back into the bus with them, Stephen mentioned “there must be some really smart kids out there with really bad teeth.” After laughing, I realized that he must be feeling better if he was able to make a joke. So the lollipops also marked stephen’s recovery, and return to the world.
Then, we went to visit the largest seal colony in the world. What you aren’t told is how completely wretched these animals smell. Sure they look cute, but you don’t want to be around them for more than five minutes. And the ocean around the colony was completely discolored by seal defecation. No wonder they smell. So I took a couple photos and returned to the less pungent bus. After a while, when everyone was back on, we drove down into swakopmund, which is a city on the ocean. This means fresh fish! We got there early afternoon, grabbed lunch, and then I and quite a few other people took a nap. Mike went sky diving. I was a little jealous. Some day I will have to do this, too. Johanna went on a plane ride over the desert. They both really enjoyed what they did, so that’s good.
We went to a proper restaurant for dinner. And yes, I finally had fish, fresh, and of an un-canned variety. And it was good. Stephen tried to eat, but ended up not being hungry. And so I watched as Alfred, who was sitting across the table from me, devoured an entire pizza, stephen’s dinner, and then desert. The man is amazing. Meanwhile george was completely exhausted by the drive, and the past week and a half of work, and he was falling asleep over his massive plate of meat. Eventually he got a to go bag and went and slept in the bus.
I ordered desert, to share with someone. I was actually excited about this because desert is something I don’t get much of in Lesotho, especially sundaes. You can find ice cream bars in maseru, but that’s not the same. So we ordered a banana split. It came – with no bananas. “sorry, we’re out” the waitress explained as she walked away. So really the banana well, … split. Only in Africa. It was nice to go out to a proper restaurant, though. I even put some make-up on and did the whole girl thing. I felt like myself again for the first time in a year. This feeling was even stronger a couple days later, when we as a group went out in Windhoek.
That night we slept in beds, which was nice, but I actually hadn’t minded the tents. The mattress on the floor of my tent was more comfortable than my bed at ha thaba bosiu. It has no springs to dig into my hips as I sleep. The next morning, we got up and left for the last part of the trip, sossuvlei, the dunes. We drove for a lot of the day, and saw some beautiful hill and mountain landscapes along the way. We stopped a couple times to take photos. We also stopped at the tropic of Capricorn for another photo-op. we made it to our last campsite, agama, late afternoon. It was a nice, quiet site. The showers and toilets were very close to use, and the ceiling only partially complete, so we actually could look through the poles of the ceiling at the stars as we showered and used the toilet. Can you add romanticism to using the bathroom?
There was a bar up at the lodge, as well as a pool table and…PUPPIES! Clare was very excited over the puppies. Actually, I think the male was an adult, and was an American Staffordshire terrier. He had an Afrikaans name I couldn’t pronounce. The female, sadie, was a puppy, and I think was an English Staffordshire terrier (is that right?). she was really cute. So, we sat at the bar, had a couple gin and tonics, and played with the puppies until dinner. After dinner, we sat at the bar, drank a couple beers, and played pool. There was a group of students from emory university in Georgia there, too. Southern accents abounded. After a while we headed back down to camp, and I lay out on the ground to watch the stars. I saw at least two, maybe three shooting stars. Perfect.
Then, to bed, and the next day on to…
Etosha
Etosha is a very large wildlife preserve. I can’t remember its dimensions and unfortunately I am writing this blog from mohale’s hoek, where there is no internet, but if I remember when I’m in maseru I’ll look up the size on the interwebbies. Don’t count on it. Inside of etosha are numerous roads leading to watering holes, marshy areas, etc. there are also three campsites protected from wildlife by fencing. I have also forgotten the names of these campsites. But we stayed in the first campsite for two nights, then skipped over the middle campsite and stayed in the third and largest campsite for the last night in the park. I liked our first campsite best, as it was a bit less crowded and more peaceful. We were also much closer to the bathrooms, and therefore showers, in the first site.
While the fencing keeps out most large and harmful beasties, not all wildlife is prevented from entering the campsites. The first things we (or, at least I) saw upon entering the camp, whatever it’s name was, were WARTHOGS!!! So, we got to get out of the bus and check them out while george was checking us in. they are sooooo cute, in a ridiculous, ugly sort of way. They crack me up, anyways. I’m not sure that anyone else understands my love (sigh) but I guess that’s just the way of the world. After george checked us in, we headed out for our campsite and set up tents. Then we bummed around with the soccer ball, then the rugby ball, then both. That night, we met some other fuzzy neighbors of our campsite – jackals. These particular ones had black fur down their backs, while the rest of them were brown. I later discovered you could buy their coats at a store on independence ave. in Windhoek. I wonder how much of a market there is for jackal fur? Anyways, these animals are so acclimated to people that they will come within a couple of feet of you, albeit cautiously, in the hopes of getting food. I think kids see them as similar to dogs and feed them. This is another good reason to make sure your tent is securely zipped at night. No one wants to wake up in the morning to a jackals snuggling and looking for food.
Much more eerie than the jackals were the other night noises. We were right beside the fence separating the camp from the wildlife, and there was a lion right on the other side of the fence. I had never heard a lion call before (except in movies, and well that’s just not the same) and it is awe-inspiring and incredibly powerful. That, combined with the knowledge that this powerful, sharp-toothed and clawed beast is maybe only a couple hundred yards away, is enough to give you the chills. Kyla kept trying to convince herself that it was a zebra. Unfortunately, I’m not that good with words and therefore cannot fully describe the feeling of sitting in the dark around a fire listening to what ended up being a couple lions calling back and forth, and sounding almost as if they are surrounding the camp. Surreal to be sure, amongst other emotions.
And with that, we went to bed.
We woke up early the next morning, skipped breakfast, and headed out to hunt more wildlife. I thought about elmer fudd a couple times both in the delta and in etosha except, instead of “we’re hunting wabbits”, “we’re hunting ewephants,” or zebra, or whatever. Anyways, we had to get up early because most of the game is out and about drinking and eating in the morning and then in the evening. They take siestas during the heat of the day. We wandered around to different watering holes and across a marshy area. Unfortunately, now is about when I started to forget to record everything that I was seeing. I do remember watching a duck with her young in the marsh. The ducklings kept trying to come out of the tall grass and the mother would swim to them and scold them back into hiding. We also returned to the watering hole we had visited the day before, in time to watch a couple giraffes fighting. I had never considered giraffe wars before. They didn’t really strike me as animals that did much fighting. Ya learn something new every day.
Giraffes fight with their necks. Basically, these two were exchanging hits which included one banging its neck against the others, and the other giraffe returning the bow. This went on for a little while, until a mediator showed up to stop it. George said that giraffes can actually kill each other this way. They hit the other animals next hard enough to burst some blood vessels, and that’s that. Wow. I had never thought about how strong a giraffe neck must be before.
We went to another watering hole full of a variety of animals: zebra, giraffe, elephants, springbok, kudu, eland (if I remember correctly – this is questionable), some birds, and a single warthog looking adorably lost amongst the crowd. And just as at bars, which are social scenes as well as scenes of fights, watering holes are crowded enough for some tempers to rise. There was one particularly feisty zebra at this hole that kept picking fights with the other zebra. We stayed for a while and watched as the animals slowly started to drift away. We saw quite a few springbok leap off into the brush. Then we headed back to camp. Oh, somewhere in this time we also saw a female lion hunting for food. I think we scared her game away, so she probably wasn’t too pleased with us.
At camp we saw another semi-domesticated wild beast: mongooses, who will always remind me of riki tiki tavi. They were scrounging in trash cans near an abandoned camp site, looking for food I presume. There were lots of them, too. They were amusing to watch for a while. They move so quickly! But then lunch called, and I have my priorities down, so I ate. We had a few hours to rest after that, until late afternoon when we would head out again. Most of the group wanted to head to the pool. I hadn’t brought a bathing suit with me, and besides that I figured the water would be freezing cold (it was winter after all, and the nights were pretty cold), so I declined going into the water but walked with the group to the pool, intending to quietly read while all the insane people jumped into uber cold h2o.
Plan foiled!
Maybe about 15 minutes or so after arriving at the pool I was dumped in, clothes and all. And clare, being the kind person she is, had even borrowed my camera to photograph this. Pictures on flickr for anyone interested. The last picture of me in the pool is the one right before I started hyperventilating from the cold. I was dragged very ungracefully, but thankfully very quickly, from the water and place in the sunniest part of the pool area available. I’ve had one other experience with cold water, and that was in Arizona when I went to visit my aunt and uncle with my family. I was maybe about 10 at the time. I turned blue. Cold water is NOT my friend. But the sun was warm, and I recuperated quickly enough to pass the rugby ball around the pool for a while. Lesson: do NOT throw ann into cold bodies of water. We left at about 3:30 to get ready for the next game drive, and I decided to take a quick, very HOT shower to warm myself before getting back on the bus. I was still shaking when we set out on the drive. I think it was more that my nerves were on end than that I was still cold, though.
On this drive, we saw many of the same animals that we had already seen. The really memorable part of it was near the end. We were driving down the road and suddenly there was a lion walking right next to the bus. Mind you, this was also right at sunset. Very picturesque. I got an ok picture of him (this was a full-maned male), and if you zoom in you can see how golden his eyes are.
Unfortunately kyla started to feel bad about this time. She gamely kept trying to watch the lion, but ended up with her head in a plastic bag a lot. We followed the lion for a while. At one point he crossed the road and stared right at us. I think he was getting peeved. Eventually, we had to leave, as the sun was setting and we had to get to camp. There was another car right behind us, though, and then a ministry car pulled up as we left. George wasn’t sure, but he said that he thought the first car might have been trying to do some poaching. So I guess these things happen even in massive, touristy game parks like etosha.
We got back to camp to find a massive bus parked by our site, and oodles of tents of annoying, young tourists surrounding ours. This put a damper on our evening and the next morning. Seriously, someone from our group passed by them on the way to the toilet and heard them making fart jokes. Glad I wasn’t part of the group. And also, I can’t imagine being in a group that large to do a safari. Eight was a good number. Large enough so that it’s not awkward (george said he’d been a guide on a safari with just one person – talk about awkward) but not so big as to create friction amongst people and scare off the game.
Kyla headed straight for the bathroom and then bed. I went to the bar and bought her some boiled water and then for the most part left her alone. I figure most people don’t want to be bothered when their ill. She thinks she just had maybe a small stomach flu or something, and after spending the night throwing up and spending a lot of the next day sleeping, she was ok again.
Other than annoying tourists and illnesses, the night passed pretty uneventfully. I couldn’t get to sleep and so stayed up reading for a while after everyone else had gone to bed. A jackal came within a foot of me before darting away.
I, and I think most of the rest of us, were rudely awakened at 4 in the morning by the very loud sounds of the large group of young tourists packing up to leave. Seriously, they seemed to have no consideration for the fact that others were trying to sleep still. They were laughing and joking as they took down their tents. I felt like punching someone. I rolled out of my tent, figuring I’d be unable to sleep and went to the bathroom, where there was a group of young adult girls. I asked if they were from the large tour group outside. When they answered in the affirmative, I tried to give them the evil eye, but it might have gotten lost within my bleary-eyed expression. It was lost on them, anyways.
Well, eventually my group got going, packed up, and headed for the next campsite we were to visit in etosha. We did some more game driving on the way, and didn’t make it to the other camp until around lunch time. Kyla spent the time sprawled out on the back seat attempting to sleep, and recovering. Meanwhile, Stephen was falling ill. He’d started feeling bad a little after kyla, and had some of the same symptoms, so they might have gotten the same thing. He was much sicker, though. He turned white and looked catatonic. We started thinking that maybe he’d contracted malaria, so after we got to camp and got lunch, george and Alfred took him and mike (his brother) and hour drive to see the doctor. I took a nap.
This camp was much larger than the first, and there were many more people. I didn’t like it as much. But we were even closer to the fence than we had been at the last camp and could watch elephants and zebra heading for the watering hole that was right beside the camp. There was also a large weaver bird nest near the camp, and more squirrels.
After I woke up, I went to visit the watering hole that was located next to the camp. The watering hole is apparently very popular and often visited. When I went, there were a bunch of elephants hanging out, drinking, tossing dirt on their heads (to cool off?), etc. I tried to photograph a baby elephant at exactly the wrong time, when he was turning and starting to use the bathroom. Dang it! I got some good photos too, though, and got a couple photos of giraffes’ reflections in the water.
So, dusk was approaching, and then night, and george still hadn’t returned with the others. And he’d taken the wood and food with him. So, enterprising individuals that we are, we decided to take care of things ourselves. Some people walked to the store to buy wood and biscuits. I walked to the campsite next to us and asked for a match. I got a bic lighter, but figured that would do. Then I walked back and gave the lighter to kyla, who is aces at starting a fire. Her father insisted she learn this as a child. Thankfully, some of our fire-starters had been left, and she soon had a nice fire going. I returned the lighter to its owner.
We also had snacks. Yum. Maybe about 15 minutes or so late, george returned, and we found out that Stephen didn’t have malaria, but some nasty form of the flu. He went to bed and we made dinner. After dinner, we headed back down to the watering hole, now lit by floodlights (ain’t technology grand). Clare and Andrew had been there in time to see a rhino come to the watering hole, walk up to the fence, do a couple circles in place, and plot down for a nap. When we got there it was snoring. Clare likened it to a big dog. Several more rhinos came and went while we sat out, both black and white rhinos. We then left for a little while to go to the bar and get bottled water, returned to watch the rhinos, and then went to bed.
Oh, somewhere around this time I found an 80’s buddy! So I got to share my ipod and dance in my car seat to 80’s music with mike. And when Stephen was feeling better, he wanted to listen to the top gun songs and to new kids on the block. Life was good.
So, the next morning we got up, said goodbye to etosha, and moved on to…
While the fencing keeps out most large and harmful beasties, not all wildlife is prevented from entering the campsites. The first things we (or, at least I) saw upon entering the camp, whatever it’s name was, were WARTHOGS!!! So, we got to get out of the bus and check them out while george was checking us in. they are sooooo cute, in a ridiculous, ugly sort of way. They crack me up, anyways. I’m not sure that anyone else understands my love (sigh) but I guess that’s just the way of the world. After george checked us in, we headed out for our campsite and set up tents. Then we bummed around with the soccer ball, then the rugby ball, then both. That night, we met some other fuzzy neighbors of our campsite – jackals. These particular ones had black fur down their backs, while the rest of them were brown. I later discovered you could buy their coats at a store on independence ave. in Windhoek. I wonder how much of a market there is for jackal fur? Anyways, these animals are so acclimated to people that they will come within a couple of feet of you, albeit cautiously, in the hopes of getting food. I think kids see them as similar to dogs and feed them. This is another good reason to make sure your tent is securely zipped at night. No one wants to wake up in the morning to a jackals snuggling and looking for food.
Much more eerie than the jackals were the other night noises. We were right beside the fence separating the camp from the wildlife, and there was a lion right on the other side of the fence. I had never heard a lion call before (except in movies, and well that’s just not the same) and it is awe-inspiring and incredibly powerful. That, combined with the knowledge that this powerful, sharp-toothed and clawed beast is maybe only a couple hundred yards away, is enough to give you the chills. Kyla kept trying to convince herself that it was a zebra. Unfortunately, I’m not that good with words and therefore cannot fully describe the feeling of sitting in the dark around a fire listening to what ended up being a couple lions calling back and forth, and sounding almost as if they are surrounding the camp. Surreal to be sure, amongst other emotions.
And with that, we went to bed.
We woke up early the next morning, skipped breakfast, and headed out to hunt more wildlife. I thought about elmer fudd a couple times both in the delta and in etosha except, instead of “we’re hunting wabbits”, “we’re hunting ewephants,” or zebra, or whatever. Anyways, we had to get up early because most of the game is out and about drinking and eating in the morning and then in the evening. They take siestas during the heat of the day. We wandered around to different watering holes and across a marshy area. Unfortunately, now is about when I started to forget to record everything that I was seeing. I do remember watching a duck with her young in the marsh. The ducklings kept trying to come out of the tall grass and the mother would swim to them and scold them back into hiding. We also returned to the watering hole we had visited the day before, in time to watch a couple giraffes fighting. I had never considered giraffe wars before. They didn’t really strike me as animals that did much fighting. Ya learn something new every day.
Giraffes fight with their necks. Basically, these two were exchanging hits which included one banging its neck against the others, and the other giraffe returning the bow. This went on for a little while, until a mediator showed up to stop it. George said that giraffes can actually kill each other this way. They hit the other animals next hard enough to burst some blood vessels, and that’s that. Wow. I had never thought about how strong a giraffe neck must be before.
We went to another watering hole full of a variety of animals: zebra, giraffe, elephants, springbok, kudu, eland (if I remember correctly – this is questionable), some birds, and a single warthog looking adorably lost amongst the crowd. And just as at bars, which are social scenes as well as scenes of fights, watering holes are crowded enough for some tempers to rise. There was one particularly feisty zebra at this hole that kept picking fights with the other zebra. We stayed for a while and watched as the animals slowly started to drift away. We saw quite a few springbok leap off into the brush. Then we headed back to camp. Oh, somewhere in this time we also saw a female lion hunting for food. I think we scared her game away, so she probably wasn’t too pleased with us.
At camp we saw another semi-domesticated wild beast: mongooses, who will always remind me of riki tiki tavi. They were scrounging in trash cans near an abandoned camp site, looking for food I presume. There were lots of them, too. They were amusing to watch for a while. They move so quickly! But then lunch called, and I have my priorities down, so I ate. We had a few hours to rest after that, until late afternoon when we would head out again. Most of the group wanted to head to the pool. I hadn’t brought a bathing suit with me, and besides that I figured the water would be freezing cold (it was winter after all, and the nights were pretty cold), so I declined going into the water but walked with the group to the pool, intending to quietly read while all the insane people jumped into uber cold h2o.
Plan foiled!
Maybe about 15 minutes or so after arriving at the pool I was dumped in, clothes and all. And clare, being the kind person she is, had even borrowed my camera to photograph this. Pictures on flickr for anyone interested. The last picture of me in the pool is the one right before I started hyperventilating from the cold. I was dragged very ungracefully, but thankfully very quickly, from the water and place in the sunniest part of the pool area available. I’ve had one other experience with cold water, and that was in Arizona when I went to visit my aunt and uncle with my family. I was maybe about 10 at the time. I turned blue. Cold water is NOT my friend. But the sun was warm, and I recuperated quickly enough to pass the rugby ball around the pool for a while. Lesson: do NOT throw ann into cold bodies of water. We left at about 3:30 to get ready for the next game drive, and I decided to take a quick, very HOT shower to warm myself before getting back on the bus. I was still shaking when we set out on the drive. I think it was more that my nerves were on end than that I was still cold, though.
On this drive, we saw many of the same animals that we had already seen. The really memorable part of it was near the end. We were driving down the road and suddenly there was a lion walking right next to the bus. Mind you, this was also right at sunset. Very picturesque. I got an ok picture of him (this was a full-maned male), and if you zoom in you can see how golden his eyes are.
Unfortunately kyla started to feel bad about this time. She gamely kept trying to watch the lion, but ended up with her head in a plastic bag a lot. We followed the lion for a while. At one point he crossed the road and stared right at us. I think he was getting peeved. Eventually, we had to leave, as the sun was setting and we had to get to camp. There was another car right behind us, though, and then a ministry car pulled up as we left. George wasn’t sure, but he said that he thought the first car might have been trying to do some poaching. So I guess these things happen even in massive, touristy game parks like etosha.
We got back to camp to find a massive bus parked by our site, and oodles of tents of annoying, young tourists surrounding ours. This put a damper on our evening and the next morning. Seriously, someone from our group passed by them on the way to the toilet and heard them making fart jokes. Glad I wasn’t part of the group. And also, I can’t imagine being in a group that large to do a safari. Eight was a good number. Large enough so that it’s not awkward (george said he’d been a guide on a safari with just one person – talk about awkward) but not so big as to create friction amongst people and scare off the game.
Kyla headed straight for the bathroom and then bed. I went to the bar and bought her some boiled water and then for the most part left her alone. I figure most people don’t want to be bothered when their ill. She thinks she just had maybe a small stomach flu or something, and after spending the night throwing up and spending a lot of the next day sleeping, she was ok again.
Other than annoying tourists and illnesses, the night passed pretty uneventfully. I couldn’t get to sleep and so stayed up reading for a while after everyone else had gone to bed. A jackal came within a foot of me before darting away.
I, and I think most of the rest of us, were rudely awakened at 4 in the morning by the very loud sounds of the large group of young tourists packing up to leave. Seriously, they seemed to have no consideration for the fact that others were trying to sleep still. They were laughing and joking as they took down their tents. I felt like punching someone. I rolled out of my tent, figuring I’d be unable to sleep and went to the bathroom, where there was a group of young adult girls. I asked if they were from the large tour group outside. When they answered in the affirmative, I tried to give them the evil eye, but it might have gotten lost within my bleary-eyed expression. It was lost on them, anyways.
Well, eventually my group got going, packed up, and headed for the next campsite we were to visit in etosha. We did some more game driving on the way, and didn’t make it to the other camp until around lunch time. Kyla spent the time sprawled out on the back seat attempting to sleep, and recovering. Meanwhile, Stephen was falling ill. He’d started feeling bad a little after kyla, and had some of the same symptoms, so they might have gotten the same thing. He was much sicker, though. He turned white and looked catatonic. We started thinking that maybe he’d contracted malaria, so after we got to camp and got lunch, george and Alfred took him and mike (his brother) and hour drive to see the doctor. I took a nap.
This camp was much larger than the first, and there were many more people. I didn’t like it as much. But we were even closer to the fence than we had been at the last camp and could watch elephants and zebra heading for the watering hole that was right beside the camp. There was also a large weaver bird nest near the camp, and more squirrels.
After I woke up, I went to visit the watering hole that was located next to the camp. The watering hole is apparently very popular and often visited. When I went, there were a bunch of elephants hanging out, drinking, tossing dirt on their heads (to cool off?), etc. I tried to photograph a baby elephant at exactly the wrong time, when he was turning and starting to use the bathroom. Dang it! I got some good photos too, though, and got a couple photos of giraffes’ reflections in the water.
So, dusk was approaching, and then night, and george still hadn’t returned with the others. And he’d taken the wood and food with him. So, enterprising individuals that we are, we decided to take care of things ourselves. Some people walked to the store to buy wood and biscuits. I walked to the campsite next to us and asked for a match. I got a bic lighter, but figured that would do. Then I walked back and gave the lighter to kyla, who is aces at starting a fire. Her father insisted she learn this as a child. Thankfully, some of our fire-starters had been left, and she soon had a nice fire going. I returned the lighter to its owner.
We also had snacks. Yum. Maybe about 15 minutes or so late, george returned, and we found out that Stephen didn’t have malaria, but some nasty form of the flu. He went to bed and we made dinner. After dinner, we headed back down to the watering hole, now lit by floodlights (ain’t technology grand). Clare and Andrew had been there in time to see a rhino come to the watering hole, walk up to the fence, do a couple circles in place, and plot down for a nap. When we got there it was snoring. Clare likened it to a big dog. Several more rhinos came and went while we sat out, both black and white rhinos. We then left for a little while to go to the bar and get bottled water, returned to watch the rhinos, and then went to bed.
Oh, somewhere around this time I found an 80’s buddy! So I got to share my ipod and dance in my car seat to 80’s music with mike. And when Stephen was feeling better, he wanted to listen to the top gun songs and to new kids on the block. Life was good.
So, the next morning we got up, said goodbye to etosha, and moved on to…
Interlude 1
So, I view this trip as 3 main parts, with smaller sight-seeing in between: the delta, etosha, and the sossuvlei. The first in-between I will call interlude 1.
After leaving tiger island, we returned to guma to spend one more night by the delta before heading on to etosha. We got back to guma pretty early, so we all had time to do some laundry, take showers (in the light, even!), and hang out for a while. I found a quiet, out-of-the way area by the delta where I could think. Mike ended up joining me there, and we talked for a while and then went for a walk around the campsite. We found the horse stables (they do delta pony-trekking, I think) where the older/pregnant/nursing horses who aren’t fit to ride are kept. There was one mare with a young foal, a colt if I remember correctly. I enjoyed walking through the stables. It’s been a while since I have been in a horse stable, been able to smell the smell, etc. there are horses in Lesotho, of course, but not in proper stables, and most of them aren’t trained to be particularly friendly (like most of the animals here).
We got back just in time for a game of touch rugby. I think it started off as a 4 vs 3 game, and then george and Alfred joined, making it 5 vs 4. Barbara opted not to play. Over the two weeks of this trip I got to practice throwing and kicking the rugby ball a decent amount. I did get at least a little better, especially at kicking, and I thought it was a pretty fun game. I learned a little about the rules, too, like different ways of putting the ball back in play. Anyways, if alfred’s eccentricities had not become apparent during the mud fight on tiger island, the definitely did during rugby. He takes rugby very seriously. He also prefers to kick the rugby ball, rather than throw it. My most vivid memories of this game are Alfred yelling “just kick it!” to his team-mates so that he could run forward to get the ball and score. It was amusing. My other vivid memory of this game is me tackling someone. Now, this was supposed to be a touch rugby game, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not the most graceful individual in the world. So, towards the end of the game, mike and I were both running for the rugby ball, which was loose and heading towards mike’s goal (I was playing defense). I tried to kick the ball away (this is legal, I’m pretty sure) but instead tripped mike and ended up going down as well. We landed in a pile of prickly grass and poor mike, who already had splinters in his feet, got splinters in his hand. I was also picking splinters out of my hand for the next couple days, but I guess I deserved it. The game ended soon after, and I went to take another shower (2 in one day!) because I was covered in dirt (I had fallen a couple times during the day). By then it was after dark, so I took another shower in the dark, washing my clothes as best I could. Unfortunately I had played in my jeans, and also unfortunately I discovered by the light of the next day that I had managed to rip them in an inopportune place. Drat. Anywho, that night we sat by the fire and chatted, drank beers, etc.
The next day, we headed out of the delta, out of Botswana, and back to… Namibia! We crossed the border right at a national park, so we got to drive through the park on the way to etosha. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, including sable, roan antelope, kudu, wildebeest, impala, zebra, tree squirrels, monkeys, and several types of birds. We also saw more hippos, and on the land. I had been hoping to see hippos on land. Actually I really wanted to see one trotting along, as I’ve heard they’re extremely graceful given there bulk. Unfortunately, they hippos we saw were far away and lying down. Clare and Andrew, wise british folk that they are, had thought to bring binoculars, so we were able to see the hippos through those. They looked like big gray boulders whose edges had been smoothed down. It was cool to see them on land, though, to see most of their bodies instead of just a nose or a head above water. They are amazing creatures.
We drove on and spent the night in rundu, though I can’t remember the name of the camp. We got there around dusk and everyone but I went for a boat ride on the water. I stayed to sew my pants back together. One of the boys had brought a sewing kit with him, thank goodness. I did get to watch/hear the end of the boat ride. They missed their turn to get back to camp, and I think the engine died and they got suck in the reeds. Alfred, the crazy one, decided to jump in to try to pull the boat back to camp. This didn’t work, but a crocodile did swim past him. From what I heard he got out of the water pretty quickly. The only other memorable part to the evening was that I got to try kudu meat, and I actually liked it! I have discovered a liking for game meat (more later). I think there was also a rather intense discussion about gender equality, but perhaps it is best not to expound upon that now. Eventually we went to bed. I think it was relatively early, too, since a large group of germans had taken all the space by the fire.
Next day we woke up, had breakfast, and were on the road. I think we had lunch by the road. I think it was at this lunch, by the side of the road, that we were accosted by children. It may have been another time, but I’m going to tell the story now anyways. Basically, the car had barely stopped when this gaggle of kids comes jogging across the street. They must have been lying in wait for some tourists (tourists = easy prey) and seen us coming. We got out of the car with a soccer ball (or football, if you will) that alfred had kindly purchased, and bummed around with it, and with a couple of the kids, until lunch was ready. We ate, while the kids stared and hoped for some food. One of the kids I’m pretty sure had kwashiorkor. His stomach was incredibly distended, while the rest of him was bones. And it was sad seeing them, but I guess living in Africa for a year and having to deal with people expecting hand-outs all the time had hardened me some, because I don’t think I took it nearly as badly as some of the group. Barbara gave them some cookies (biscuits) she had, and as we were leaving on of the guys in our group gave them some more food. The boy to whom he gave the food responded “tell madam [he was referring to me] that we want the football [soccer ball],” or something similar. I happened to have taken the soccer ball onto the bus. This is why I don’t feel too much pity for the kids. They can’t just say “thank you” for the food, but try to milk you for all your worth. And I guess I’m being western and wealthy and unfair, and if I was in their position I would try to get as much as I could out of every opportunity, but what can I say, I am western, and used to western forms of politeness.
Anywho, we continued from there to etosha, and arrived in time for a short game drive prior to hitting our campsite for the night. Almost as soon as we passed into the park, we came across two young male lions (their manes weren’t yet fully grown) just lying by the side of the road. We were off to a good start in the game-finding. Many of the animals in the park are so used to cars that they are completely indifferent to them. Our guide was telling us that lions can’t differentiate between cars and people in or by the cars. He had actually used this information once to scare off a lion that had come close to the car while a tourist was outside of it using the bathroom. One of george’s many fun stories. And better him than me. Anyways, these lions were completely indifferent to our presence, or to the presence of the car. So we hung out for a few minutes, lifted the top of the car up, and got some pictures. Then we moved on. A little while further down the road we spied giraffe. Now, I had wanted to see a giraffe on this trip, as I had never seen one before. Little did I know how greatly my dream would be fulfilled. We were all really excited by the first giraffes we saw, but then as we began to see 10, 20, 50, seemingly hundreds of them, their appeal died in favor of more rare sightings. Seriously, they must breed like rabbits in etosha because we saw them everywhere over the next couple of days.
Giraffes are very graceful animals, though. They look like they should be incredibly awkward, with their spindly legs and long necks. One ran right in front of our car, though, and it had an incredibly smooth, loping gait. It was like a tower moving on wheels, instead of bumping up and down as you would expect.
We turned the corner in the park and went up to a water hole. On the way we saw springbok and impala (these were also very common) and dik-diks, which george said were a relatively rare find. They were also hard to see, as their coats blended into the terrain. They looked like a cross between a rabbit and an antelope.
At the watering hole, we got to watch giraffes drink. They have two different methods: bend their knees, or spread their front legs. How they choose which method to use, I know not. We also saw some Egyptian geese. Why they were in Namibia, I know not.
By this time, it was getting late, so we headed for camp.
To be continued…
After leaving tiger island, we returned to guma to spend one more night by the delta before heading on to etosha. We got back to guma pretty early, so we all had time to do some laundry, take showers (in the light, even!), and hang out for a while. I found a quiet, out-of-the way area by the delta where I could think. Mike ended up joining me there, and we talked for a while and then went for a walk around the campsite. We found the horse stables (they do delta pony-trekking, I think) where the older/pregnant/nursing horses who aren’t fit to ride are kept. There was one mare with a young foal, a colt if I remember correctly. I enjoyed walking through the stables. It’s been a while since I have been in a horse stable, been able to smell the smell, etc. there are horses in Lesotho, of course, but not in proper stables, and most of them aren’t trained to be particularly friendly (like most of the animals here).
We got back just in time for a game of touch rugby. I think it started off as a 4 vs 3 game, and then george and Alfred joined, making it 5 vs 4. Barbara opted not to play. Over the two weeks of this trip I got to practice throwing and kicking the rugby ball a decent amount. I did get at least a little better, especially at kicking, and I thought it was a pretty fun game. I learned a little about the rules, too, like different ways of putting the ball back in play. Anyways, if alfred’s eccentricities had not become apparent during the mud fight on tiger island, the definitely did during rugby. He takes rugby very seriously. He also prefers to kick the rugby ball, rather than throw it. My most vivid memories of this game are Alfred yelling “just kick it!” to his team-mates so that he could run forward to get the ball and score. It was amusing. My other vivid memory of this game is me tackling someone. Now, this was supposed to be a touch rugby game, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not the most graceful individual in the world. So, towards the end of the game, mike and I were both running for the rugby ball, which was loose and heading towards mike’s goal (I was playing defense). I tried to kick the ball away (this is legal, I’m pretty sure) but instead tripped mike and ended up going down as well. We landed in a pile of prickly grass and poor mike, who already had splinters in his feet, got splinters in his hand. I was also picking splinters out of my hand for the next couple days, but I guess I deserved it. The game ended soon after, and I went to take another shower (2 in one day!) because I was covered in dirt (I had fallen a couple times during the day). By then it was after dark, so I took another shower in the dark, washing my clothes as best I could. Unfortunately I had played in my jeans, and also unfortunately I discovered by the light of the next day that I had managed to rip them in an inopportune place. Drat. Anywho, that night we sat by the fire and chatted, drank beers, etc.
The next day, we headed out of the delta, out of Botswana, and back to… Namibia! We crossed the border right at a national park, so we got to drive through the park on the way to etosha. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, including sable, roan antelope, kudu, wildebeest, impala, zebra, tree squirrels, monkeys, and several types of birds. We also saw more hippos, and on the land. I had been hoping to see hippos on land. Actually I really wanted to see one trotting along, as I’ve heard they’re extremely graceful given there bulk. Unfortunately, they hippos we saw were far away and lying down. Clare and Andrew, wise british folk that they are, had thought to bring binoculars, so we were able to see the hippos through those. They looked like big gray boulders whose edges had been smoothed down. It was cool to see them on land, though, to see most of their bodies instead of just a nose or a head above water. They are amazing creatures.
We drove on and spent the night in rundu, though I can’t remember the name of the camp. We got there around dusk and everyone but I went for a boat ride on the water. I stayed to sew my pants back together. One of the boys had brought a sewing kit with him, thank goodness. I did get to watch/hear the end of the boat ride. They missed their turn to get back to camp, and I think the engine died and they got suck in the reeds. Alfred, the crazy one, decided to jump in to try to pull the boat back to camp. This didn’t work, but a crocodile did swim past him. From what I heard he got out of the water pretty quickly. The only other memorable part to the evening was that I got to try kudu meat, and I actually liked it! I have discovered a liking for game meat (more later). I think there was also a rather intense discussion about gender equality, but perhaps it is best not to expound upon that now. Eventually we went to bed. I think it was relatively early, too, since a large group of germans had taken all the space by the fire.
Next day we woke up, had breakfast, and were on the road. I think we had lunch by the road. I think it was at this lunch, by the side of the road, that we were accosted by children. It may have been another time, but I’m going to tell the story now anyways. Basically, the car had barely stopped when this gaggle of kids comes jogging across the street. They must have been lying in wait for some tourists (tourists = easy prey) and seen us coming. We got out of the car with a soccer ball (or football, if you will) that alfred had kindly purchased, and bummed around with it, and with a couple of the kids, until lunch was ready. We ate, while the kids stared and hoped for some food. One of the kids I’m pretty sure had kwashiorkor. His stomach was incredibly distended, while the rest of him was bones. And it was sad seeing them, but I guess living in Africa for a year and having to deal with people expecting hand-outs all the time had hardened me some, because I don’t think I took it nearly as badly as some of the group. Barbara gave them some cookies (biscuits) she had, and as we were leaving on of the guys in our group gave them some more food. The boy to whom he gave the food responded “tell madam [he was referring to me] that we want the football [soccer ball],” or something similar. I happened to have taken the soccer ball onto the bus. This is why I don’t feel too much pity for the kids. They can’t just say “thank you” for the food, but try to milk you for all your worth. And I guess I’m being western and wealthy and unfair, and if I was in their position I would try to get as much as I could out of every opportunity, but what can I say, I am western, and used to western forms of politeness.
Anywho, we continued from there to etosha, and arrived in time for a short game drive prior to hitting our campsite for the night. Almost as soon as we passed into the park, we came across two young male lions (their manes weren’t yet fully grown) just lying by the side of the road. We were off to a good start in the game-finding. Many of the animals in the park are so used to cars that they are completely indifferent to them. Our guide was telling us that lions can’t differentiate between cars and people in or by the cars. He had actually used this information once to scare off a lion that had come close to the car while a tourist was outside of it using the bathroom. One of george’s many fun stories. And better him than me. Anyways, these lions were completely indifferent to our presence, or to the presence of the car. So we hung out for a few minutes, lifted the top of the car up, and got some pictures. Then we moved on. A little while further down the road we spied giraffe. Now, I had wanted to see a giraffe on this trip, as I had never seen one before. Little did I know how greatly my dream would be fulfilled. We were all really excited by the first giraffes we saw, but then as we began to see 10, 20, 50, seemingly hundreds of them, their appeal died in favor of more rare sightings. Seriously, they must breed like rabbits in etosha because we saw them everywhere over the next couple of days.
Giraffes are very graceful animals, though. They look like they should be incredibly awkward, with their spindly legs and long necks. One ran right in front of our car, though, and it had an incredibly smooth, loping gait. It was like a tower moving on wheels, instead of bumping up and down as you would expect.
We turned the corner in the park and went up to a water hole. On the way we saw springbok and impala (these were also very common) and dik-diks, which george said were a relatively rare find. They were also hard to see, as their coats blended into the terrain. They looked like a cross between a rabbit and an antelope.
At the watering hole, we got to watch giraffes drink. They have two different methods: bend their knees, or spread their front legs. How they choose which method to use, I know not. We also saw some Egyptian geese. Why they were in Namibia, I know not.
By this time, it was getting late, so we headed for camp.
To be continued…
In the Okavango delta
After breakfast the next day, and after our tents, etc. were packed, we headed down to the water, to a motorboat that would take us into the delta. There are crocodiles in the water near that campsite, I think, but I didn’t see any. After we were all on the motorboat, we rode for maybe 20 minutes into the delta. The area of the delta near the campsite is relatively open, but then the delta becomes reedy, and channels actually have to be cut to allow the boat through. The reeds amazed me. They were a few feet tall, and so densely packed that you could only see water for a couple feet surrounding the motorboat, and then the mokoros. Beyond that, it looked just like a field, kind of like tall grass on solid ground. Beautiful. So, once the motorboat reached its destination, we transferred to mokoros, which are flat-bottomed and small, and kinda reminded me of canoes. Instead of paddles, though, each mokoro had a man at the back who was a poler. He had a pole that he would dip into the water and push against the bottom of the delta to move and to steer. Kyla’s and my poler was named risk. No joke. He was also very young, and a little shy. It took him a day to warm up to us and start talking.
The polers poled for about and hour and a half, I think, and we got to see more fields of reeds. There were also lilly pads everywhere, and a lot of sharp plants. We had been warned to keep our hands inside the mokoros, but sometimes the plants would dangle into the boats, so I got a few scratches. And the polers generally tried to follow narrow paths through the reeds that I think were made by hippos or elephants (did you know elephants could swim? I didn’t), but I think my poler was a little inexperienced, so we did a bit of off-roading into the reeds over the next couple days.
So, this journey ended at a small island that we dubbed “tiger island”. I think it has a name, and I think the name sounds something like that, but it isn’t actually tiger island. There are no tigers on this island. There were, however elephant and hippo footprints, and we did hear a couple hippo in the water less that 150 m away the first night we were there. We set up our tents and then lounged for a while. Most of the wildlife sleeps during the day, so we weren’t going in search of anything until 4 pm. A hole in the sand behind a bush was dug for us to use as a pit latrine, and a kind of toilet seat-thingy was brought along with our luggage so we could use the bathroom.
At 4, we headed for another island to hunt hippos, etc. on the way, we saw a fish eagle. Actually, we saw a lot of these over the days we were in the delta. When we got to the island, our guides, who were also our mokoro polers (they stayed on tiger island with us while we were in the delta) showed us around, pointed out elephant, hippo, and leopard tracks, taught us the difference between female and male elephant droppings (the female’s are in a nice, neat pile, while the male’s are spread) and the difference between hippo and elephant spores (hippo’s are greener and really spread around). The polers also pointed out a couple plants used for weaving baskets, one of which grew into a tree and produced a kind of edible fruit and seed. I actually have one back at ha thaba bosiu. A cross was carved into it, courtesy of on of the british blokes. I named it kris (kris kross’ll make you jump, jump). One thing I thought was interesting were the number of downed trees near our campsite, and on other islands. Elephants scratch themselves against the trees hard enough to knock them over. Durn.
After wandering around this island (we didn’t see any animals other than birds) we returned to camp, ate dinner, talked around the fire (I miss fires now), slept. I was awakened early in the morning by my tent being shaken. I thought it was george waking us up (he liked jokes and pranks, so this was something he would do) but it turned out that it was some animal, not sure which, brushing against the tent. I thought it was kinda cool, perhaps in a slightly unnerving way.
When we finally got up that morning, and after breakfast, we went with the polers to the hippo pool, as all of us were keen to see hippo. We found them, and sat very quietly watching them for a while. There was an adult male, an adult female, and a baby. One of them got pretty close to us and reared its head and neck out of the water with its mouth wide open. It was a beautiful and powerful image. I would never want to mess with an angry hippo. In fact, the polers decided it was time to leave after that. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the hippo, but some of the people I was with did. We had discussed setting up a group site on flickr and if that happens you’ll be able to see it. It was something out of national geographic.
After leaving the hippos, we went quickly for a walk around another island. This is actually where kriss, my nut, was picked up, and then back to camp for lunch and a rest before going out again at 4. after lunch, we hung out for a bit reading heat magazine (a trashy celeb magazine from England) and thoroughly enjoying it, and then some people decided they wanted to try to pole in the mokoros. I was not one of them. Mike, Stephen, Andrew, clare, kyla, george, and Alfred went out, and this quickly turned into a tip the mokoro contest. Kyla, in her effort to tip mike’s mokoro, was dubbed the “evil American witch”. I just watched all of this. Once everyone was thoroughly soaked, a mud fight ensued using mud from the bottom of the delta. Kyla left the water at this point. I was increasingly tempted to join, as it looked like loads of fun, but never did. I just sat at the water’s edge. The fight actually turned into a WWII re-enactment of germany (Alfred and george) vs. England. I think it ended in a truce, as America refused to enter, but I’m not quite sure. After everyone rinsed as best they could in the delta, we had a couple races. One of the guys discovered that the grass near our site is really prickly. He ended up have to get a few splinters removed over the course of the next few days. Then we went out again at 4 to visit another couple islands. This time we saw elephants, which was nice. The head guide actually tried to chase one of them our way (sounded crazy to me, but I guess he knew what he was doing?) with no success. Hopefully some of my pictures will be ok. After that, we returned to camp. I think this was the night which included some of barbara’s funny jokes. The main one involved her confusion over the term “shag” which she, being southern, thought of as a dance but which the brits knew as something else. I won’t tell the full story out of consideration for the delicacy of some reader’s ears, but hilarity ensued. I went to bed crying from laughter. Barbara also announced a slight crush on the elder of the polers. She actually had her picture taken with him the next day. It was cute.
The morning we left the delta, we saw loads of monkeys in the trees near out campsite. I think they were vervet monkeys. Oh, I forgot to mention the alarm clock bird. He was really annoying and started making sounds like an alarm clock every night before we went to bed. He was also known as the go away bird. Anyways, we packed up and left tiger island. We had an uneventful trip back to guma. I think some people saw more fish eagles, but I missed them. We got back to guma early enough to hang out for a while, but I’ll leave that fun-ness for the next blog, as this one is already about three pages.
Oh, so I know I said I’d stop writing, but I just have to reiterate how wonderful I thought the delta was. I can’t decide whether this or the dunes was the best part of the trip. The delta was just so peaceful. We saw no other people in the delta the entire time we were there. It was just our group and guides. And there were no people trying to yell at each other from a half mile away. It was really nice just being in a small group of people with whom I got along, and hearing no one else. Hearing nothing else in fact, besides the sounds of nature. Hippos and water, and even the annoying go away bird really beat yelling people, donkeys braying, taxis, etc.
The polers poled for about and hour and a half, I think, and we got to see more fields of reeds. There were also lilly pads everywhere, and a lot of sharp plants. We had been warned to keep our hands inside the mokoros, but sometimes the plants would dangle into the boats, so I got a few scratches. And the polers generally tried to follow narrow paths through the reeds that I think were made by hippos or elephants (did you know elephants could swim? I didn’t), but I think my poler was a little inexperienced, so we did a bit of off-roading into the reeds over the next couple days.
So, this journey ended at a small island that we dubbed “tiger island”. I think it has a name, and I think the name sounds something like that, but it isn’t actually tiger island. There are no tigers on this island. There were, however elephant and hippo footprints, and we did hear a couple hippo in the water less that 150 m away the first night we were there. We set up our tents and then lounged for a while. Most of the wildlife sleeps during the day, so we weren’t going in search of anything until 4 pm. A hole in the sand behind a bush was dug for us to use as a pit latrine, and a kind of toilet seat-thingy was brought along with our luggage so we could use the bathroom.
At 4, we headed for another island to hunt hippos, etc. on the way, we saw a fish eagle. Actually, we saw a lot of these over the days we were in the delta. When we got to the island, our guides, who were also our mokoro polers (they stayed on tiger island with us while we were in the delta) showed us around, pointed out elephant, hippo, and leopard tracks, taught us the difference between female and male elephant droppings (the female’s are in a nice, neat pile, while the male’s are spread) and the difference between hippo and elephant spores (hippo’s are greener and really spread around). The polers also pointed out a couple plants used for weaving baskets, one of which grew into a tree and produced a kind of edible fruit and seed. I actually have one back at ha thaba bosiu. A cross was carved into it, courtesy of on of the british blokes. I named it kris (kris kross’ll make you jump, jump). One thing I thought was interesting were the number of downed trees near our campsite, and on other islands. Elephants scratch themselves against the trees hard enough to knock them over. Durn.
After wandering around this island (we didn’t see any animals other than birds) we returned to camp, ate dinner, talked around the fire (I miss fires now), slept. I was awakened early in the morning by my tent being shaken. I thought it was george waking us up (he liked jokes and pranks, so this was something he would do) but it turned out that it was some animal, not sure which, brushing against the tent. I thought it was kinda cool, perhaps in a slightly unnerving way.
When we finally got up that morning, and after breakfast, we went with the polers to the hippo pool, as all of us were keen to see hippo. We found them, and sat very quietly watching them for a while. There was an adult male, an adult female, and a baby. One of them got pretty close to us and reared its head and neck out of the water with its mouth wide open. It was a beautiful and powerful image. I would never want to mess with an angry hippo. In fact, the polers decided it was time to leave after that. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the hippo, but some of the people I was with did. We had discussed setting up a group site on flickr and if that happens you’ll be able to see it. It was something out of national geographic.
After leaving the hippos, we went quickly for a walk around another island. This is actually where kriss, my nut, was picked up, and then back to camp for lunch and a rest before going out again at 4. after lunch, we hung out for a bit reading heat magazine (a trashy celeb magazine from England) and thoroughly enjoying it, and then some people decided they wanted to try to pole in the mokoros. I was not one of them. Mike, Stephen, Andrew, clare, kyla, george, and Alfred went out, and this quickly turned into a tip the mokoro contest. Kyla, in her effort to tip mike’s mokoro, was dubbed the “evil American witch”. I just watched all of this. Once everyone was thoroughly soaked, a mud fight ensued using mud from the bottom of the delta. Kyla left the water at this point. I was increasingly tempted to join, as it looked like loads of fun, but never did. I just sat at the water’s edge. The fight actually turned into a WWII re-enactment of germany (Alfred and george) vs. England. I think it ended in a truce, as America refused to enter, but I’m not quite sure. After everyone rinsed as best they could in the delta, we had a couple races. One of the guys discovered that the grass near our site is really prickly. He ended up have to get a few splinters removed over the course of the next few days. Then we went out again at 4 to visit another couple islands. This time we saw elephants, which was nice. The head guide actually tried to chase one of them our way (sounded crazy to me, but I guess he knew what he was doing?) with no success. Hopefully some of my pictures will be ok. After that, we returned to camp. I think this was the night which included some of barbara’s funny jokes. The main one involved her confusion over the term “shag” which she, being southern, thought of as a dance but which the brits knew as something else. I won’t tell the full story out of consideration for the delicacy of some reader’s ears, but hilarity ensued. I went to bed crying from laughter. Barbara also announced a slight crush on the elder of the polers. She actually had her picture taken with him the next day. It was cute.
The morning we left the delta, we saw loads of monkeys in the trees near out campsite. I think they were vervet monkeys. Oh, I forgot to mention the alarm clock bird. He was really annoying and started making sounds like an alarm clock every night before we went to bed. He was also known as the go away bird. Anyways, we packed up and left tiger island. We had an uneventful trip back to guma. I think some people saw more fish eagles, but I missed them. We got back to guma early enough to hang out for a while, but I’ll leave that fun-ness for the next blog, as this one is already about three pages.
Oh, so I know I said I’d stop writing, but I just have to reiterate how wonderful I thought the delta was. I can’t decide whether this or the dunes was the best part of the trip. The delta was just so peaceful. We saw no other people in the delta the entire time we were there. It was just our group and guides. And there were no people trying to yell at each other from a half mile away. It was really nice just being in a small group of people with whom I got along, and hearing no one else. Hearing nothing else in fact, besides the sounds of nature. Hippos and water, and even the annoying go away bird really beat yelling people, donkeys braying, taxis, etc.
To the Okavango delta…and beyond!
So, we were picked up at the cardboard box on Thursday, june 26, by a guy named george who turned out to be our guide, and his assistant Alfred (or, as the brits dubbed him, alfredo of nothing) who turned out to be crazy. we had a 15-seater bus whose roof opened and which had oodles of storage space for food, tents, luggage, etc. because yes, we were camping. Kyla and I boarded the bus, the first of the eight people who were going on this safari. We stopped next at a hotel to get another woman. The first thing that registered to me about her was her voice. She was still outside the bus when I heard her speak and thought “she’s from the south!” yep, turned out she was from Georgia, she was in her mid-sixties, and she had been a peace corps volunteer in uganda from 2003-2005. She dubbed herself “mamma” for the trip, as the next closes person in age to her was in his mid-thirties. Actually, sometimes when she spoke, the things she said, or her mannerisms, did remind me of my mother. I told her that once. She was a lot of fun on the trip, and I wish I’d kept a collection of some of the things she said, because they were priceless. She was doing this tour and then returning to Uganda to visit for the second time since her tour with peace corps had finished.
The rest of the group we met at the airport. There were 3 british guys, mike and Stephen, who were brothers, and Andrew, who was not. There was also one british girl, clare, and Johanna, who was originally from the domincan republic but who had been living in London for five years. She had a massive camera that I nick-named “the beast”. So I’ll probably say this again sometime, but I think this trip was the best vacation I’ve ever been on. It was very worth it, and I think a lot of that had to do with the people on the trip, including the guides. I hadn’t really put that much thought into the people with whom I’d be traveling, but they were all really laid back and wonderful. I actually didn’t think about the fact that I could’ve ended up with some difficult people on the trip until a couple days in, when one of the brits mentioned that she had booked the safari through an English company in an effort to avoid Americans. Apparently there are a lot of difficult American travelers out there. George had a couple of stories about them, though the people he liked least were the Italians. I think/hope that they felt differently about Barbara, kyla, and me. We all got along very well. I guess it’s just really important to be laid back and have a since of humor, and not complain all the time on vacations, especially ones such as these.
Moving right along…
Once we’d all been picked up, we drove the entire day from Namibia to Botswana and up to our first campsite. We saw warthogs crossing the street on the way, which made me happy because I love warthogs. One of the british guys, mike, ended up buying me a warthog post card because I kept talking about them so much. The warthog is covered in mud and really cute. It’s now stuck to my wall above my bed so I can look at it every night before I go to sleep.
We got to our first campsite at dusk. We saw cheetahs there, but they were in cages. We also saw wild dogs, which I thought were behind a protective fence, but I was told they were actually in cages, too.
Once at site, we were taught how to set up tents. It’s not that difficult, really. I never got to be very quick at it, but that’s ok. Kyla and I shared a tent. Once the tents were set up, we put our mattresses in (we all got mattresses to sleep on for the trip), and then our backpacks. I was getting cold, and went ahead and changed into my pajamas, and then proceeded to trip on my tent trying to get out of it. And of course, someone happened to be looking my way at the time, so we had a good chuckle about that. After all that, we had dinner and could take showers if we wanted. I think I ate better and was cleaner on my safari trip than I have been my entire year in Lesotho. Showers I tell you, and daily even! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can do without the lighting in my house, but I miss showers. Warm, running water, how I love thee…
Slap, slap, back to reality
After dinner at nights we’d sit around a fire talking. Kinda adds to the romanticism of the safari, doncha think. I finally found the southern cross constellation, after living in the southern hemisphere for a year. And george told funny stories about past safari trips he’d been on. Oh, I also discovered that british people say “crikey!” that night. Really. I’d just associated this with the crocodile hunter, and Australia, and I’d never heard the word used in real life before. It made me happy. Then we went to bed. I think this was the coldest night of the safari. My feet were icy and I kept waking up with a frozen nose. “my name I chilly willy, I’m frozen through and through. Da da da da da da da da, ah, e, ah choo” ran through my head quite a few nights of the trip, but on the first one especially. In the morning we awoke to find antelope tracks outside the tent. I think kyla had heard them, but I guess I had been asleep at the time. We grabbed breakfast (there was muesli and nutella, praise breakfast!) then we were on the road to the Okavango. We had to stop on the way at foot and mouth disease checkpoints to have the car sprayed and the soles of our shoes cleaned. We finally made it to guma, a camp which is right on the delta, set up tents, and got to watch the sunset over the delta. It was beautiful. We had dinner at a proper table, and then I went to take a shower. I discovered that this wasn’t the best of ideas, as it was after dark, my contacts were out, and the showers had no light. They were basically surrounded by wooden poles and ceiling-less. And while it is nice to have a view of the stars while showering, it’s also nice to be able to see, especially when you’re also trying to do laundry in the shower. I was made fun of for taking to long. Ah, well. And we were lulled to sleep that night by the sound of hippos. So, another night passed, and the next day we were on to the delta…
The rest of the group we met at the airport. There were 3 british guys, mike and Stephen, who were brothers, and Andrew, who was not. There was also one british girl, clare, and Johanna, who was originally from the domincan republic but who had been living in London for five years. She had a massive camera that I nick-named “the beast”. So I’ll probably say this again sometime, but I think this trip was the best vacation I’ve ever been on. It was very worth it, and I think a lot of that had to do with the people on the trip, including the guides. I hadn’t really put that much thought into the people with whom I’d be traveling, but they were all really laid back and wonderful. I actually didn’t think about the fact that I could’ve ended up with some difficult people on the trip until a couple days in, when one of the brits mentioned that she had booked the safari through an English company in an effort to avoid Americans. Apparently there are a lot of difficult American travelers out there. George had a couple of stories about them, though the people he liked least were the Italians. I think/hope that they felt differently about Barbara, kyla, and me. We all got along very well. I guess it’s just really important to be laid back and have a since of humor, and not complain all the time on vacations, especially ones such as these.
Moving right along…
Once we’d all been picked up, we drove the entire day from Namibia to Botswana and up to our first campsite. We saw warthogs crossing the street on the way, which made me happy because I love warthogs. One of the british guys, mike, ended up buying me a warthog post card because I kept talking about them so much. The warthog is covered in mud and really cute. It’s now stuck to my wall above my bed so I can look at it every night before I go to sleep.
We got to our first campsite at dusk. We saw cheetahs there, but they were in cages. We also saw wild dogs, which I thought were behind a protective fence, but I was told they were actually in cages, too.
Once at site, we were taught how to set up tents. It’s not that difficult, really. I never got to be very quick at it, but that’s ok. Kyla and I shared a tent. Once the tents were set up, we put our mattresses in (we all got mattresses to sleep on for the trip), and then our backpacks. I was getting cold, and went ahead and changed into my pajamas, and then proceeded to trip on my tent trying to get out of it. And of course, someone happened to be looking my way at the time, so we had a good chuckle about that. After all that, we had dinner and could take showers if we wanted. I think I ate better and was cleaner on my safari trip than I have been my entire year in Lesotho. Showers I tell you, and daily even! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can do without the lighting in my house, but I miss showers. Warm, running water, how I love thee…
Slap, slap, back to reality
After dinner at nights we’d sit around a fire talking. Kinda adds to the romanticism of the safari, doncha think. I finally found the southern cross constellation, after living in the southern hemisphere for a year. And george told funny stories about past safari trips he’d been on. Oh, I also discovered that british people say “crikey!” that night. Really. I’d just associated this with the crocodile hunter, and Australia, and I’d never heard the word used in real life before. It made me happy. Then we went to bed. I think this was the coldest night of the safari. My feet were icy and I kept waking up with a frozen nose. “my name I chilly willy, I’m frozen through and through. Da da da da da da da da, ah, e, ah choo” ran through my head quite a few nights of the trip, but on the first one especially. In the morning we awoke to find antelope tracks outside the tent. I think kyla had heard them, but I guess I had been asleep at the time. We grabbed breakfast (there was muesli and nutella, praise breakfast!) then we were on the road to the Okavango. We had to stop on the way at foot and mouth disease checkpoints to have the car sprayed and the soles of our shoes cleaned. We finally made it to guma, a camp which is right on the delta, set up tents, and got to watch the sunset over the delta. It was beautiful. We had dinner at a proper table, and then I went to take a shower. I discovered that this wasn’t the best of ideas, as it was after dark, my contacts were out, and the showers had no light. They were basically surrounded by wooden poles and ceiling-less. And while it is nice to have a view of the stars while showering, it’s also nice to be able to see, especially when you’re also trying to do laundry in the shower. I was made fun of for taking to long. Ah, well. And we were lulled to sleep that night by the sound of hippos. So, another night passed, and the next day we were on to the delta…
Windhoek
We drove into Windhoek when it was still dark out. Actually it was really pretty. We rounded this large hill and there we lights spread out across the horizon. Lights! And everywhere! I knew I would like the city. It is a pretty city, and so much larger than maseru. That’s not saying too much, but there were more shops, actual museums and art galleries, 2 malls, well-paved roads and sidewalks, and streets with names like fidel castro and Robert mugabe. There was a nice, small but grassy park on the corner of independence ave. and fidel castro st. where I spent an hour or so just relaxing one day.
So kyla and I arrived at the cardboard box at maybe around 6 am, only to discover that reception didn’t open until 7. at 7, we found out that we couldn’t check in until 10 am because that’s when everyone who was leaving that day had to be out of their rooms. It turned out that we didn’t get to go to our rooms until mid-afternoon, which was a little rough after sitting on a bus for almost 24 hours. In the time in between, we went to a mall near us that had a grocery store and bought some food, and checked out some stores. I was determined to find an outlet plug for my ipod. This proved tricky, but after 2 days of searching I finally succeeded. We also went down post street mall, which has a bunch of crafts that vendors lay out daily to sell. I’ve started to feel that most places in Africa have all the same crafts, or very similar ones, but there actually was some unique stuff in Windhoek. Everyone I’d talked with had told me to buy things in swazi, because that’s where all the crafts were. True, they are cheapest there as far as I can tell, but I think there was cooler and better quality stuff in the shops in Windhoek.
After we finally got to our rooms, we went to sleep to the soothing sound of the man sharing our room snoring. The next day, which would be Tuesday, we decided to go check out the history museum. I was excited just by the fact that I was in an area of the world that had such museums. And, while we were there, a school group came in for a tour. That was really nice to see. The museum had info on Namibian animals, and Europeans settlers, and an area that looked kind of new on the native tribes of Namibia, so we spent a couple hours going through all of that. Then we walked down the street to an art gallery which was not impressive at all. By then we were hungry, and we were going to go to joe’s beerhouse for lunch, as we had been told that was the place to go to try game food in Namibia, but it is open only for dinner, so we had Indian instead. After that I walked a couple miles to the other, larger mall in Windhoek in search of my elusive ipod charger. No dice, but I did find FUDGE!@!! Okay, yes, I was excited about this find. It had been a while, and I went through a massive chunk of chocolate fudge in less than a day. Sooooooooooooo worth it. And then, on the way back I noticed an electronics shop. And they had my ipod charger. It was a good day. And to top it off, I found a pretty cool craft market. I’d found a lot of craft shops with more expensive items, but this was an area with some nice but more modestly priced goods. I still didn’t but anything, but it was fun to look. I did really like the ostrich egg lamps I found, but I guess they wouldn’t be much use without electricity L.
I spent Wednesday mostly resting, relaxing, and reading. And between Monday night and Tuesday, we’d had to change rooms. Turned out that we were sharing a room with a guy from Chicago who’d just finished uni and was in Namibia to visit his brother who was a peace corps volunteer in rundu, in northern Namibia. So it was nice to talk with him for a while. Actually, I spent Wednesday evening talking with him over a jug (yes jug, because I am that quality) of wine about what his brother was doing, Chicago, etc. Perhaps not the smartest idea considering my safari was to start the next day, but oh well.
So kyla and I arrived at the cardboard box at maybe around 6 am, only to discover that reception didn’t open until 7. at 7, we found out that we couldn’t check in until 10 am because that’s when everyone who was leaving that day had to be out of their rooms. It turned out that we didn’t get to go to our rooms until mid-afternoon, which was a little rough after sitting on a bus for almost 24 hours. In the time in between, we went to a mall near us that had a grocery store and bought some food, and checked out some stores. I was determined to find an outlet plug for my ipod. This proved tricky, but after 2 days of searching I finally succeeded. We also went down post street mall, which has a bunch of crafts that vendors lay out daily to sell. I’ve started to feel that most places in Africa have all the same crafts, or very similar ones, but there actually was some unique stuff in Windhoek. Everyone I’d talked with had told me to buy things in swazi, because that’s where all the crafts were. True, they are cheapest there as far as I can tell, but I think there was cooler and better quality stuff in the shops in Windhoek.
After we finally got to our rooms, we went to sleep to the soothing sound of the man sharing our room snoring. The next day, which would be Tuesday, we decided to go check out the history museum. I was excited just by the fact that I was in an area of the world that had such museums. And, while we were there, a school group came in for a tour. That was really nice to see. The museum had info on Namibian animals, and Europeans settlers, and an area that looked kind of new on the native tribes of Namibia, so we spent a couple hours going through all of that. Then we walked down the street to an art gallery which was not impressive at all. By then we were hungry, and we were going to go to joe’s beerhouse for lunch, as we had been told that was the place to go to try game food in Namibia, but it is open only for dinner, so we had Indian instead. After that I walked a couple miles to the other, larger mall in Windhoek in search of my elusive ipod charger. No dice, but I did find FUDGE!@!! Okay, yes, I was excited about this find. It had been a while, and I went through a massive chunk of chocolate fudge in less than a day. Sooooooooooooo worth it. And then, on the way back I noticed an electronics shop. And they had my ipod charger. It was a good day. And to top it off, I found a pretty cool craft market. I’d found a lot of craft shops with more expensive items, but this was an area with some nice but more modestly priced goods. I still didn’t but anything, but it was fun to look. I did really like the ostrich egg lamps I found, but I guess they wouldn’t be much use without electricity L.
I spent Wednesday mostly resting, relaxing, and reading. And between Monday night and Tuesday, we’d had to change rooms. Turned out that we were sharing a room with a guy from Chicago who’d just finished uni and was in Namibia to visit his brother who was a peace corps volunteer in rundu, in northern Namibia. So it was nice to talk with him for a while. Actually, I spent Wednesday evening talking with him over a jug (yes jug, because I am that quality) of wine about what his brother was doing, Chicago, etc. Perhaps not the smartest idea considering my safari was to start the next day, but oh well.
Getting to Namibia – I don’t like hyperactive 14-year-olds
So, I’m writing this retrospectively, about 3 or 4 weeks so, and I’m sure I’ll miss some points, but anyways, here goes…
Kyla and I left Lesotho Saturday, June 21st to spend the night in Bloemfontein because our bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 Sunday morning. Kyla’s birthday was actually on Sunday, so we had a bit of a party in our hotel room Saturday night in celebration. For us, that basically means decent food (cheese, truffles, sushi, mmmmmmmmmm) while sitting in bed watching quality television. This included a show called “pimp my ride” whose purpose seemed to be to take trashy cars and make them as gaudy as possible, and “the amazing race” whose contestants included teams titled “beauty queens” and “male models”. So yes, calling the shows quality is a stretch. It’s nice to see that other countries are getting the best of America. I also love that I can now claim that, thanks to peace corps and my time in Lesotho, I have now seen an episode of both “survivor” and “the amazing race”. These are the things that make this job worthwhile. Anyways, after a nice sleep on a large bed whose springs I couldn’t feel, Kyla and I woke up and walked to the bus station.
The bus actually left on time. My bus to cape town earlier this year was 3 hours late. The trip to Windhoek was to be made in 2 parts – bloem to upington, and then upington to Windhoek. The first part was pretty uneventful, as I recall. When we got to upington, we had time to grab a bite to eat, and then boarded a new bus, a double-decker, for the second half of the journey. We were sitting in the second row from the front of the bus, on the second level. In front of us and to the left were two Americans, a woman and her 16-year-old nephew. It was fun talking with them. The boy was actually an aspiring photographer who was hoping to one day work for national geographic. He had come to Africa with a lot of equipment and apparently had gotten some good photos. He gave us his website, but I don’t think it’ll be ready for a while. He was actually extending his stay in the hopes of getting to Zimbabwe if things cooled down. Good luck.
There was also a south African guy sitting in front of us. I think he was maybe a couple years older than me, and he had worked in Namibia but currently had a farm in south Africa. We were invited to visit if we wanted. This happens a lot, as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten a few invites to visit people’s farms. Kyla and I actually hitch-hiked from Lesotho to bloem (don’t worry mom – it’s safe) and were invited to stay at the woman’s house next time we visited.
And then there was the boy sitting next to me. He was 14 years old and really nice, but had an inability to sit down and be quiet. I talked with him for a little while and then pulled out my book as a subtle hint that I wanted some quiet. This didn’t work. He just kept talking and occasionally asked “am I bothering you?” which was almost more exasperating because the answer was so obvious. So I put on my ipod. This is part of the reason I love my ipod. It can block people out, especially bo-ntate who are hitting on me in taxis, though it’s not 100% effective, as you will find out in a few blogs. Anyways, cranking the music up blocked him out, and kyla eventually handed him a book of puzzles to occupy him and shut him up.
Eventually we reached the south African border. We all had to get out, get passports stamped, and get back on the bus in the middle of a kinda chilly night. This should have been all we had to do, but someone (guess who – yep, the 14 year old) was carrying produce across the border which isn’t allowed (I think there’d been some disease issues) so we all had to get out, get our luggage, and have it scanned. This was another hour and a half of standing in the cold. The girl behind me made a joke about the border patrol thinking I was an American terrorist. She was nice, though, so we got talking, and that helped pass the time. When we finally got back on the bus the 14 year old actually started complaining about the way the immigration officers had treated him. Seriously, everyone was upset at the delay, and not very happy with him, and he was complaining about his vegetables being examined. Sigh.
About 10 km down the road we stopped again to go through Namibian immigration. Then, we were on our way. The bus driver was apparently determined to make it to Windhoek on time, despite the delay, and I guess he must have been driving quickly because we did make it there when we were supposed to. Kyla and I got our luggage, hopped the free shuttle to the cardboard box (yes, that is the actual name of the backpackers – like it?) and drove off into the sunrise.
Kyla and I left Lesotho Saturday, June 21st to spend the night in Bloemfontein because our bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 Sunday morning. Kyla’s birthday was actually on Sunday, so we had a bit of a party in our hotel room Saturday night in celebration. For us, that basically means decent food (cheese, truffles, sushi, mmmmmmmmmm) while sitting in bed watching quality television. This included a show called “pimp my ride” whose purpose seemed to be to take trashy cars and make them as gaudy as possible, and “the amazing race” whose contestants included teams titled “beauty queens” and “male models”. So yes, calling the shows quality is a stretch. It’s nice to see that other countries are getting the best of America. I also love that I can now claim that, thanks to peace corps and my time in Lesotho, I have now seen an episode of both “survivor” and “the amazing race”. These are the things that make this job worthwhile. Anyways, after a nice sleep on a large bed whose springs I couldn’t feel, Kyla and I woke up and walked to the bus station.
The bus actually left on time. My bus to cape town earlier this year was 3 hours late. The trip to Windhoek was to be made in 2 parts – bloem to upington, and then upington to Windhoek. The first part was pretty uneventful, as I recall. When we got to upington, we had time to grab a bite to eat, and then boarded a new bus, a double-decker, for the second half of the journey. We were sitting in the second row from the front of the bus, on the second level. In front of us and to the left were two Americans, a woman and her 16-year-old nephew. It was fun talking with them. The boy was actually an aspiring photographer who was hoping to one day work for national geographic. He had come to Africa with a lot of equipment and apparently had gotten some good photos. He gave us his website, but I don’t think it’ll be ready for a while. He was actually extending his stay in the hopes of getting to Zimbabwe if things cooled down. Good luck.
There was also a south African guy sitting in front of us. I think he was maybe a couple years older than me, and he had worked in Namibia but currently had a farm in south Africa. We were invited to visit if we wanted. This happens a lot, as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten a few invites to visit people’s farms. Kyla and I actually hitch-hiked from Lesotho to bloem (don’t worry mom – it’s safe) and were invited to stay at the woman’s house next time we visited.
And then there was the boy sitting next to me. He was 14 years old and really nice, but had an inability to sit down and be quiet. I talked with him for a little while and then pulled out my book as a subtle hint that I wanted some quiet. This didn’t work. He just kept talking and occasionally asked “am I bothering you?” which was almost more exasperating because the answer was so obvious. So I put on my ipod. This is part of the reason I love my ipod. It can block people out, especially bo-ntate who are hitting on me in taxis, though it’s not 100% effective, as you will find out in a few blogs. Anyways, cranking the music up blocked him out, and kyla eventually handed him a book of puzzles to occupy him and shut him up.
Eventually we reached the south African border. We all had to get out, get passports stamped, and get back on the bus in the middle of a kinda chilly night. This should have been all we had to do, but someone (guess who – yep, the 14 year old) was carrying produce across the border which isn’t allowed (I think there’d been some disease issues) so we all had to get out, get our luggage, and have it scanned. This was another hour and a half of standing in the cold. The girl behind me made a joke about the border patrol thinking I was an American terrorist. She was nice, though, so we got talking, and that helped pass the time. When we finally got back on the bus the 14 year old actually started complaining about the way the immigration officers had treated him. Seriously, everyone was upset at the delay, and not very happy with him, and he was complaining about his vegetables being examined. Sigh.
About 10 km down the road we stopped again to go through Namibian immigration. Then, we were on our way. The bus driver was apparently determined to make it to Windhoek on time, despite the delay, and I guess he must have been driving quickly because we did make it there when we were supposed to. Kyla and I got our luggage, hopped the free shuttle to the cardboard box (yes, that is the actual name of the backpackers – like it?) and drove off into the sunrise.
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