A Green Christmas

When we were on vacation in Maryland earlier this month, we went to the NASA Goddard Visitor Center with Deb's friend Mandy. They have this cool spherical screen that they use for all kinds of educational purpose but they showed it to us just for fun. One program they ran was the weather for the past 30 days and they zoomed in on Botswana and we said, "Wow, looks like Botswana has been getting a lot of rain while we've been away." That was something of an understatement.

Yesterday after work, we drove out to Mokolodi, the local game park, just to see what was going on out there over the holidays. When we were out there in July, we made a donation for drought relief because the situation had become so bad that they were shipping out some of the DLA because there wasn't enough plant life to feed them all.

However, these days, it's freakishly green!!!

There's plenty of grass for all the DLA and even the little baby DLA!

At World's View overlooking the park:

From World's View -- that's the Gaborone Dam (the city reservoir) in the background. There's lots of water!!

Here is our rugged Toyota Hilux Surf at World's View:

The rain has had a rather negative effect on the roads through the park, so Thom enjoyed some serious 4-wheel driving. Apparently the rain has also washed out a few of the "do not enter" markers for some of the roads that are off limits to the drive-your-self-ers and we accidentally ended up in some quite dodgy territory. But we lived to tell about it and did not have to be rescued by the Park Rangers (which would have been terribly embarrassing) so just another part of the adventure.

Unbelievably this is the lake in the park. In July it was barely a mud puddle:

And then there were the giraffes!

We saw this one shortly after we entered the park:

And then coming down from World's View we came across this one:

Don't you think they're looking a little fat these days?

Happy Holidays from Hotswana!!!

We're back from vacation!

First we want to reassure our readers that we have not fallen off the edge of the earth. We have just returned to Botswana after 4 weeks of vacation. We put about 2500 miles on a rental car and had a great time visiting with family and friends in 6 states and the District of Columbia. A few lessons learned from our trip: 1) contrary to what we thought before, it is NOT impossible to take 4 weeks off from work -- they will survive without us; 2) it is not the best idea to eat all your favorite foods every day for 4 weeks straight; 3) we do not like cold weather.

It snowed while we were in Washington, DC (see below).


We had a fantastic time at the National Air and Space Museum which turns out has expanded to 2 facilities.



After being away for 4 weeks, it was really good to come home. We are now busily getting ready for celebrating Christmas in Hotswana where the temps have been around 100 all week. Looks like we might have some rain today though.

Chicken Art

This is a new addtion to our back yard. We found it a craft fair last weekend and just couldn't resist. Thom named him Tenders.

Cape Town in the Spring

To celebrate Thom's birthday, we planned a little getaway for Columbus Day weekend. We ended up driving to Johannesburg on Friday, spent the night at a hotel close to the airport, and then flew down to Cape Town on Saturday. We love Cape Town. It's so refreshing to be on the coast or down town at the Waterfront. It's a special treat after spending months in the desert.

This time we stayed right on the beach in Camps Bay. And we managed to lose our camera so all of our photos for this blog are borrowed from other websites.


We stayed at the Fairways which was nice.


But the best feature of this hotel is the restaurant Luigi's. We had dinner there Saturday night and it was unquestionably the best Italian food we have had in a very long time.

Our other fabulous restaurant experience was Codfather's. Codfather's was recommended to us by a friend who had also given us the driving directions to Johannesburg and we're just not sure if she was trying to kill us or not. After the driving directions experience we were somewhat skeptical of the restaurant she recommended. It turned out we were pleasantly surprised. At Codfather's, you get to pick your food from the fresh seafood case and you can mix and match and then they cook it perfectly. We had tuna steak, sword fish, local mahi mahi which is called something else, and prawns from Mozambique the size of lobsters (they're truly too big to be called shrimp). It was a delightful experience.

It was a just a bit too chilly and way too rainy to really enjoy being on the beach. It rained all day Sunday. We tried going down to the Waterfront and even made it to the Green Market Square craft market in a break in the rain:




The craft market experience is similar to many places in Africa and many of the "shops" have the same stuff that everyone else has. There's the typical hard sell approach because you'll find the same thing at the next shop and maybe they'll make you a better deal. When we first got there, everyone was pressuring us to come inside their booths and look at there stuff more closely. As soon as it started raining, the message changed to "buy something and then you can come inside to get 'free' shelter".

We ended up going back down to the Waterfront and spending several hours in a very nice mall to stay out of the rain. Debra was happy. Thom, not so much.

We're looking forward to going back in February when it should be hot and steamy.

Time to Build an Ark

They say it's a good sign when the rains come before Botswana Independence Day (September 30). Well, the rain came Thursday, September 28. According to some reports, we had more rain that afternoon than all of last year.

Since Thursday, we've had showers every day. Today, we're having quite a lot of rain. This is a pretty big deal. Botswana is a desert country. The currency in Botswana is the "pula". The word for rain in Setswana is "pula". See the connection?

However, some of us, accustomed to the bright sunny days with endless blue skies, are starting to feel a little depressed. Will the sun ever shine again????

This is what the Thursday afternoon storm looked like from our patio (after it got light enough to take a picture):

Trouble in Paradise

Our friend the Weaver Bird from our last blog entry built what we thought was a lovely nest but the Girl Weaver Bird did not approve.

While eating breakfast on the patio yesterday, we watched the Girl Weaver Bird totally tear apart the nest that the Boy Weaver Bird spent the past couple of weeks building. It would have made a fabulous picture story but we have realized that we just don't have the patience for photographing birds. It was quite entertaining.

This is what is left of the nest today:

For those of you who would like to see good pictures of weaver birds, check out Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Masked-Weaver

And here's a link to a video on YouTube that shows a weaver nest being built:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO12M_FP3L4&mode=related&search=

Spring in Botswana!

And so finally, after a long, cold winter, spring has come to Botswana. For most of our readership which is in the northern hemisphere we should remind you that Botswana is in the southern hemisphere so our seasons are opposite of those in the northeren hemisphere. Also on most days in the winter the temperature will get into the 70's (Farenheit) during the day and will be in the 40's over night.

So without further explanation. Here are some signs of spring....

Flowers are blooming...

This strange orange flower (above) started blooming a few days ago.

Even stranger orange flowers (above and below). We have no idea what these are.

Lizards are back...where do they go when it's cold????

And here's a Weaver Bird that is tearing apart this plant The bird is dead center in the picture ripping strips off the palm frond.

And weaving a nest in this tree. (the nest is in the center of the tree hanging from the branch)

Temps are hitting the 90s during the afternoon but falling into the 50s at night. Last week we were still hitting the 40s at night so we're definitely on a warming trend. We even had rain one day last week.

We couldn't figure out what the noise was and had to go outside and experience this weird water falling from the sky.
It's a lovely time of year.

A Trip to Gumare

A few weeks ago Thom had the opportunity to visit hospitals outside Gaborone in the North-Western part of Botswana. The purpose of the visit was to assess IT infrastructure and lab processes to determine readiness to install Lab Information systems at the hospitals. Anyhow, the journey was a lot more exciting than the work.

The trip started at the Gaborone "International" airport. At about 7:30 the pilot found us and escorted us outside to the plane. He had already loaded most of the medical supplies but we helped him carry out a few more things. The interior of the plane was not quite as "posh" as Thom expected. There is a bench on the left hand side that has seat belts for 4. The rest of the seats are put in where ever they fit.
We flew for about an hour and a half and landed at Ghantzi (pronounced 'hanzi') dropped of a passenger and then were off again about 10 minuites later. 45 minutes later we were landing at Gumare. The fact that there was animal dung all over the runway was a little diconcerting. The plane landed on the very small runway and taxied over to the "terminal" pictured below.
Because the hospital had only sent a pickup truck to meet the airplane, the entire lab assessment team could not ride together at the same time to the hospital. So Thom and one other team member stayed at the airport and waited for the second truck to arrive. During that time Thom watched the departure of the plane as it took off for it's next stop in Maun.
Once all the staff made it to the hospital the team met with the hospital Matron and then toured the labs. Sadly, Thom screwed up the coolest picture of the day. In one of the labs a large "Coke" cooler is used to store laboratory stock and samples. The really amazing thing is that the log of tempartures showed it was the most consistent of all the refrigeration equipment at the hospital.

Thom made up for screwing up the shot of the cooler by catching this shot of a chicken walking through the hospital. After the hospital visit we had some time to kill until the plane returned to pick us up. So we walked to the nearest "restaurant". The restaurant menu was goat with papa, goat with sorghum, or goat with rice because only the goat was ready when we got there (usually they have a 2nd meat choice as well). The team tried all three selections. It was pretty good and at a price of $1.50 you aren't going to hear to many people complaining. Below is Thom's lunch....
Once we finished lunch we had tea with the Matron and then headed back to the airport. Below are some random shots as we drove through Gumare on the way back to the airport.

A Reminder that This Is Africa

We are the first to admit that we have a pretty easy life here and sometimes it is difficult to remember that we live in Africa. But life here is not without its hardships. For example, yesterday...

Until a few weeks ago, we had been planning to leave the country for July 21 so that we would be able to buy the final Harry Potter book on the day it was released. We had even considered a short jaunt to London but had also more realistically thought we might just run down to Johannesburg to pick up the book. Then a few weeks ago the bookstore at Riverwalk mall assured us that they would have the books on July 21 and was a planning a big launch party for the event. The previous books in the series arrived in Botswana a couple of weeks after they were released elsewhere so this indeed was good news. Happy to support the local economy and, more importantly, pleased with the convenience of buying the books locally we pre-paid for our copies of the book and anxiously awaited the launch date.

The week leading up to July 21 we checked back at the book store and learned that the books would go on sale at 9:00 am Saturday morning (unlike most places around the world that started selling the books at 12:01 am the morning of July 21). Although it would have been fabulous to gloat about getting the book six hours earlier than Debra's little brother, we managed to work through this minor disappointment.

Our plan was to pick up the books at 9:00 am and then take a friend to pick up her truck in Zeerust, South Africa where the mechanic who had repaired it after it broke down a couple of weeks ago was bringing it. We planned to read the book as we made the trip.

At 9:15 am we were at the mall, there was no line which seemed suspicious, but we pressed on. We reached the book store and were informed that the books were held up in customs at the border and should be at the store by 10 or 11 that morning.

This disappointment was a little harder to deal with but our plans to drive to Zeerust were delayed as well so the plan was revised to stop at the mall as we drove out of town to pick up the books on the way to Zeerust. Still a good plan.

At 11:30, our friend was delayed a bit, so we went back to the mall, where now there was a crowd and very loud music (which did not seem to be related to the book launch (in fact, in some other blog we will discuss the Saturday activities at the mall)) and all kinds of people waiting in line. A friend from work was waiting in line with his daughter and they informed us that the books had not yet arrived but they were expected at any moment so they were planning to wait it out.

Unfortunately we could not wait since we had a truck waiting to be picked up in Zeerust so we met our friend, and drove to Zeerust without a new Harry Potter book to read.

Zeerust is about an hour and a half drive from Gaborone (including the border crossing) and is just a small town where you "turn left" to go on to Johannesburg/Pretoria. Thom was excited because they had a Steers in Zeerust which is about as close as you are going to get to Burger King on this continent and so he forced Debra to eat there.

We had a pleasant and uneventful drive, met the mechanic with the truck, had some lunch and headed back to Gaborone. When we returned to town, we stopped at the mall once again and finally picked up our copies of the book at 3:45 pm. Other folks also picking up their books at the time, were threatening all kinds of pain and suffering to the courier but all were supportive of the book store itself. We were just happy to get our books.

And so we hope that all of you who picked up your books at Barnes and Noble and Borders or had them delivered to your door from Amazon appreciate the efficiency of that process. We have learned not to take such things for granted.

In case you were wondering, we bought two books because neither of us was willing to wait for the other to read the book first. And we got one of each book cover (the adult and child covers)

We now have some reading to do...

Debswana - Part 2, the Zepplin

Earlier in this BLOG we talked about Thom's trip to the Jaweng diamond mine. Well, we actually saved the best for last. After the visit to the diamond mine and going to lunch there was a brief stop at the airport in Jwaneng to visit the Debswana Zepplin. That's right! It's a zepplin not a blimp.

At first Thom was a bit under-whelmed because we were stading several hundred yards away as you see in the picture to the right. Well after finally wrangling with the trying to find someone from the ground crew we were told that we could walk over to the zepplin.

The zepplin is being leased to conduct geological surveys looking for additional diamond (and other geological) deposits. And while the technology is a trade secret it pretty much has to do with directing energy into the ground and then reading reflections of the energy. They also have a lot of problems using it during the summer because it is so hot and the altitude is so high. It was Thom's understanding that during the summer months they can only use it at night.

Thom with Zepplin in background

What you can't see in the picture is the entire time the zepplin is mored there is a pilot in the cab making sure that nothing crazy happens because of the winds.

This is the mooring vehicle. Not only is this what reels the zepplin in and keeps it moored, it also adjusts the amount of helium in the zepplin. Because during the day the helium heats up and expands som of the helium must be removed so that the zepplin doesn't "pop".

Remember we pointed out that there is a pilot on board all the time. Well this is why. A huge wind whipped up from behind and lifted the tail of the zepplin almost straight up. So it was up to the pilot to ride it out and make sure that the zepplin returned back down without anything getting broken.

Brrrrrrr!

We now know why winter is low season for safaris in this part of Africa. It turns out that it can get very cold in Africa and driving around in an open air vehice across the plains at 7:00 in the morning or 7:00 at night can be down right painful.

At the end of May, Thom's mother (Kathie) and her friend (Vickie) visited from upstate New York (see photo above). Notice how bright and sunny and warm it looks.

The day after they arrived, we took them to Madikwe Game Park for a real African safari experience and very nearly got frost bite. Even the visitors from New York (where it is winter in the middle of May as well) were uncomfortably cold as you can see from the photo below.

We did manage to see some really good game on the trip. We saw elephants out wandering around, we saw a lot of rhinos (groups of 6 or more), and we even saw some wild dogs. The park had exchanged 3 dogs to help with the breeding pool since the pack is so small. The dogs were being kept in an enclosure until they could be released to join the Madikwe pack and we were able to get a really good look at them (photo below).
But our most remarkable experience on this safari was seeing a leopard very close and personal. On our first game drive Sunday evening, just after sundown there was a report that a leopard had been "spotted" close to the fence. And we found the leopard hanging out by the fence pacing up and down alongside the road that runs next to the fence. We parked and the leopard continued pacing about, at times only a couple meters away from where we were in the open truck. We spent about 15-20 minutes in very close proximity to the leopard before we had to give our spot to another group (in Madikwe only 3 vehicles are allowed to be close to an animal at any one time).

The explanation of the cat's behavior (other than just being a cat) is that it jumps the fence to hunt cattle on the Botswana side and then after it's nice steak dinner jumps back across the fence where the farmers can't shoot it. Pretty clever for a cat, don't you think?

A few other highlights:

Tau Lodge at sunrise

Vickie and Kathie learn about rhino poo