a baby shower, a jazz afternoon and a porn flick…

My motswana friend Tebogo was nice enough to invite me to a baby shower for her cousin on Saturday night. She told me to come at 5pm…then she rang me to tell me to come at 6pm…then at 7pm she told me to come at 7:30pm. I arrived at the address to find the street packed with cars. As I walked up to the front door I found it slightly open so I poked my head around to find about 30 sets of brown eyes staring back at me – it had already started. I finally found the face that I knew and sat down next to Tebogo. Baby showers here start with mothers giving the mother-to-be advice. Although it was all spoken in setswana it is amazing how much you can understand with just a few hand gestures and the occasional english word. There were stories about breast-feeding, nappy rash, expressing milk, using formula, having sex while pregnant and HIV/AIDS.  This session finished in a very long prayer to Jehovah spoken by the women sitting next to me. I say spoken but it was more like she had been possessed and was chanting!! Needless to say religion is an important part of life here in Bots.  After the advice had been given it was time to open the presents. Then it was on to dinner – at 9pm no less.

I then spent a very relaxing Sunday afternoon at the Gaborone Golf Club. They had a live band playing jazz in the beer garden. The crowd was a mix of expats and locals. I don’t know what it is but Africans just exude rhythm. There is actually nothing more amusing than watching a bunch of white people dancing with a bunch of Africans. White people just can’t dance!

It would have been a perfect weekend if not for a few house sharing issues last night. I was just drifting off to sleep when the 50 year old guy in the next room decided to put on a movie at high volume…and it was a porn flick. After two hours of moaning and groaning I finally fell to sleep. But I was then woken in the middle of the night by the same guy’s mobile phone ringing to the tune of some foreign language pop song. As the phone rung out I could hear the guy still snoring. As I was about to fall asleep the mobile phone started up again. This happened another 5 or 6 times during the night!! Grrr. Living alone certainly seems attractive right about now!

And now I’ve just been bitten by a mosquito in my armpit. Is this not one of the most annoying places to get bitten?? Oh woe is me!  I need a good night’s sleep.

not so in love with botswana today

Well today certainly hasn’t been the highlight of my time in Botswana. In fact there have been a few times today when I’ve wondered when the next flight home to Australia is.  It’s just been one of those days. Everyone has those days…don’t they???

It started last night when a guy ran into the back of me for the second time in about four months!!

I was stopped, blinker on, waiting to turn right into a side street at about 6:30pm. As I was waiting for a car to pass I heard the screeching sound of skidding tyres on bitumen coming from behind. A second later I felt the thud as my car was propelled forward. Don’t worry Mum and Dad I’m not hurt or broken. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for my car.

After the initial shock I drove my car off the road. The guy’s attention had apparently wandered to some kids playing on the side of the road and he hadn’t seen me until too late. He swerved to miss me but collided with the left rear corner of my car.

I rang the police and they arrived shortly after. They got our versions of the accident and made a quick sketch of the accident. We then had to head back to the central police station. Only problem was the bumper was jammed on to my rear left tyre. But alas, Ngaire came to the rescue with her Leatherman!!!

Once back at the station I had to write my account of the accident and sign the statement. Now here’s where it gets a little funny. So the other driver was charged with reckless driving. The result – a 500 pula fine (approx 85AUD). But apparently the fine is optional! If the accused pays the fine you are allowed to take your car home that night. But if he doesn’t the car has to stay overnight. Go figure. Well my bloke didn’t have the money so my poor little bruised and battered Rav4 had a sleepover at the cop shop last night.

This morning I had to return at 7am to drive to the Testing Centre. Of course we didn’t leave for the Testing Centre until 8am but I was prepared for the wait and had brought a book. You never go anywhere in Africa without a good book! After having my car tested (for what I am not quite sure) I returned to the police station to ‘book’ my police report. I have to go and pick up the report on Wednesday afternoon. Why I couldn’t just get the report then and there is another Botswanarism!!!

So of course the insurance company can’t process my claim until I have the police report so I’m playing the waiting game yet again. Grrr.

Getting the quotes for the repairs is another story. Dialogue went something like this:

“Dumela Mma”

“Dumela Rra”

“I want to marry you! I love you! We will return to Australia together!”.

“Can you please just give me a quote for the repairs?”

“We must be friends. I want an Australian girlfriend. What is your number?”

“I have enough friends Rra. Please can I just get a quote for the repairs?”

“I want to return to Australia with you. When are you returning to Australia. We will go together.”

“Aaaagh!!!!”

Happy Australia Day Australia

Unfortunately Botswana doesn’t celebrate Australia Day with a public holiday so I am forced to sit at work today. However there will be a few beers this evening at the local pub to celebrate the occasion. We have also convinced some New Zealanders to join us. Of course this just confirms that all New Zealanders wish to be Australian!!!!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to celebrate Australia Day (perhaps a little prematurely) with other Aussies living in Gabs. The Australian High Commission in Pretoria organised an Australia Day breakfast with the special guest being the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith. In fact it is the first time that an Australian Foreign Minister has visited Botswana so it was an occasion to be marked.

It was a great chance to actually meet the other aussies here who total only about 25. There was a lot of hand shaking and introductions. The two most commonly asked questions were certainly “What do you do here?” and “How long have you been here?”.

Ngaire and I managed to be invited to sit next to the minister during breakfast. I think this was probably because we were the youngest ones in the room!

It was a fun breakfast and perhaps if the Australian foreign policy changes here in Botswana we will have Ngaire to thank. She had a little whisper in his ear…

My niece and nephew celebrating Australia Day. Thanks for the photo big sis!

sin city…africa that is not vegas

Sadly Heather has flown the coup so she will no longer be my sidekick in this blog. But as a tribute to her I have included her photos of our weekend in South Africa’s version of Las Vegas.

We spent two nights in Sun City which is about a 4 hour drive south east of Gabs. There are four hotels to choose from ranging from only-just-affordable-if-you-stretch-the-budget to  I-can’t-even-count-that-high. It is worth a visit though and included in the price is a buffet breakfast and entry to the Valley of the Waves.

The five star enormously expensive Palace Hotel

Our opinion of the fact that us commoners were not allowed to enter the hotel or even its gardens.

View of the front of the Palace from the Valley of the Waves

Valley of the Waves

The water slide that almost ate Heather’s bikini bottoms. The slide is almost 90deg.

And Heather thought she was so funny…

Does this remind anyone else of Magic Mountain?

the week that was…

It has certainly been an emotional roller coaster this week.

Heather’s friend Ngaire arrived from Perth to start her 2 year contract with the University of Botswana. It’s been good to have another Australian around.

Sadly Heather’s job has fallen through so she is returning to Australia in a week. Nothing has gone right for her since we arrived. A three month wait to get registered as a health professional with the Ministry of Health and then when she finally gets a job and they renege on her contract. Add to that a great deal of frustration with the immigration department.

There is an upside though. Due to Heather’s imminent departure we have packed in everything we haven’t got around to doing in the last six month. This has included climbing Kgale Hill, visting the Odi Weavers (where Heather bought a wall hanging that tells the story of village life) and going on a game drive and cheetah visit at the Mokolodi Game Reserve. We  are also making sure she has sampled the food at every restaurant in town!

The cheetah visit was pretty amazing and not to mention a little scary when they started fighting not 1metre from where I was standing in their enclosure. They were purring most of the time just like domestic cats but this didn’t make me feel any safer! I could see the headlines – ‘Cheetahs have Australians for dinner’.

Here’s the pics from Mokolodi.

View of Gaborone Dam from Mokolodi

According to our guide Benjamin, a group of giraffes is called a journey

One of many impala that we saw

A Kudu illustrating the art of releasing his bowels. Apparently they can jump as high as 12 feet (according to our guide Benjamin) and often cause quite a few deaths when they jump over car headlights and land in the windscreen.

Heather giving the cute little cheetah a pat.

The two cheetahs we saw were 12 years old which is quite old in cheetah terms. Life expectancy is about 14 years.

They were pretty cute – in a scary I-could-kill-you-in-a-second kind of way.

she sells sea shells by the sea shore…

We had a fantastic holiday over the Christmas/New Year break to Namibia.

We stayed our first night of the trip in Ghanzi which is close to the Botswana border with Namibia. It was about a 6 hour drive from Gaborone. There is not much to see at Ghanzi. It really is just a halfway point if you are travelling up to Maun or across to Windhoek in Namibia. They say that the unpublished unemployment rate in Bots is about 40% but I reckon from what I saw in Ghanzi it was about 80%! To be fair I guess it was the holidays. We stayed in a rondavel (traditional style circular hut) for the night at the Kalahari Arms Hotel.

We managed to make it to Windhoek (the capital of Namibia) the next day. We were pleasantly surprised. It was a lovely big city with well manicured public gardens and an obvious German influence.  This is certainly the most developed and well maintained city that I have actually seen in east and southern Africa (admittedly we haven’t seen much of SA).

We stayed at a large complex called Hotel Safari about 5 minutes out of the city centre. It had 2 swimming pools, a brand new gym, 4 restaurants and a beer garden. We stayed over Christmas and consumed a large part of their buffet lunch on Christmas Day. We then sun baked in the shade by the pool for the rest of the afternoon. What a hard life and a very relaxing Christmas Day!

We stayed 3 nights in Windhoek before making the four hour drive to the coastal town of Swakopmund.  Apparently this is one of the most popular tourist destinations of Namibia, especially over the holidays. It was booked out.  In recent years it has transformed into the adrenaline junkie capital of Namibia with quad biking, sand boarding, skydiving etc on offer. But for us adrenaline-less junkies we chose the more sedate adventure of a 5 hour nature and sand dune drive.

The town is quoted as being ‘more German than Germany’. And this is absolutely true. The architecture, not unlike Windhoek, is a mix of traditional German and modern European. It is a quaint little town bordered on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and the other by the largest sand dunes I have ever seen. For me it felt like a German oasis in the middle of the African desert.  It was not like any other town I have seen in Africa.

We spent our days shopping, eating seafood, playing in the sand dunes and sampling all the beers Namibia has to offer. It was certainly a bit surreal to be visiting a German seaside town in Africa and I had to keep telling myself that we hadn’t changed continents.

Heather had a small issue with her Botswana visa so we made the long (over 2000kms) journey back to Bots through South Africa. This was in case she got rejected for entry into Bots and I had to put her on a plan headed back to Oz in J’burg. Thankfully she got back in without any dramas.

Note: 90 day visas for Bots are reissued every year.  Great timing really as we re-entered on the first of January.

Here are a few photos from our trip. Enjoy.

Parliament House gardens in Windhoek

Windhoek city skyline

German looking building in Windhoek

Heather at Christmas lunch

Namibia’s unique Welwitschia plant. It’s a bit Day of the Triffids meets Little Shop of Horrors.

‘Moonscape’ view near Swakopmund

Sand dunes at Swakopmund

More sand dunes

Me attempting a handstand on a dune.

German pub in Swakopmund

An Early Botswana Christmas

Well yesterday we celebrated our first Christmas in Botswana. Yes it was a bit early but we won’t be around on Christmas Day so we wanted to cook a Christmas lunch before we went.

As you can see below, we bought a single use charcoal braai (bbq) and cooked garlic prawns and salmon for lunch. How could two Aussies not have prawns on the barbie for Christmas lunch?? Don’t think too much about where the closest ocean is though – we tried not to!

For dessert we munched on a delicious milk tart. It was no Balfour’s custard tart but it was pretty close (sorry this will only make sense to you South Aussies out there)! You may argue that a milk tart is not a traditional festive season dessert but I tend to differ. Consider the traditional Christmas drink of egg nog. Is milk tart not just a solidified version???  I’m afraid I have way too much time on my hands to ponder this.

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you have a fantastic New Year wherever you are! We will certainly be thinking of all our family and friends back in Oz on Christmas day – put a prawn on the barbie and have a cold Coopers Ale for me. Cheers!

Mochudi

Last weekend we drove to Mochudi which is about 40 mins out of the city.

Mochudi is known for two things: a leather shop and a museum. In fact the museum is said to be one of the best in Botswana. I say ‘said to be’ because we didn’t actually find out about it until after we got back to Gabs.

The leather shop is situated on the corner at the turn off to Mochudi. It has a wide range of handmade goods from shoes, bags, wallets, belts and even traditional clothing. If it’s made of leather, it’s likely that they sell it!

We really liked Mochudi. It was one of the most picturesque local villages we’ve been to. It sits in amongst hills and large boulder formations which the roads wind and weave in and around.

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree

So it’s time to get into the Christmas spirit. Last year I made some cardboard Christmas trees for our place complete with real cherries hanging as decorations. This year Heather decided she wanted to beat the designer at her own game by taking on the challenge of making our Botswana cardboard Christmas tree. She took this task very seriously. So much so that any ‘helpful’ advice from me was very unwelcome. There were prototypes and sketch drawings until she came up with the master piece you see below. A lack of scissors, a utility knife and a table meant the floor and a bread knife were the successful tools. I love the outcome. Its palm tree meets pine tree! Just the thing for a wet, hot Christmas. Who said occupational therapists aren’t creative, especially when in their pyjamas!!

the prototypes…

are pins allowed???

Voila, the final product!

a wedding…botswana style

We were lucky enough to get invited to my friend Tebogo’s wedding on the weekend. It was held in her home village called Mabutsane. It’s about a 3 hour drive west of Gaborone.

I was quite excited by the invite and even had a skirt and top made out of traditional material (called shweshwe). Of course being a designer I couldn’t simply buy one off the shelf. Instead, as always,  I decided to do things the hard way. I was assured by the dressmaker that my dress would be ready for a fitting last Thursday. When I arrived for my fitting during my lunch break I was told to come back the next day as it was not ready yet. In fact I noticed the material still folded in the bag I had left it in. So I returned the next day, again in my lunch break, only to find my skirt and top in pieces. I guess at least it had been started!! I was starting to get a little concerned as I had no back-up plan in case it wasn’t finished and the wedding was the following day. My stress levels  increased when the dressmaker said that she just had to sew the top and bottom together to form the dress. “Uhmmm it’s not supposed to be a dress” I said. “Oh” said the dressmaker, “come by later this afternoon”. When I returned at the end of the day I only had to sit for about an hour or two before she was finished. Hmm the skirt was too tight and I couldn’t actually get the top over my head but at least it was finished!

The wedding was a fun and new experience. Apparently by Botswana standards it was a relatively small wedding just as Tebogo wanted. There were many speeches (all in Setswana) and lots of food. There were even a few San people who had wandered in from the desert. The only hitch was Tebogo got stung by a black scorpion (apparently the most deadly) at about 11pm and I had to drive her to the local medical centre to get the anti-venom injected. She was later admitted to the local hospital which was an hour and a half drive away. Not quite the wedding night either of them had planned but thankfully Tebogo is much better now. According to her, the pain of a scorpion bite is worse than child-birth!!

But that’s not the end of the wedding celebrations. There will be another wedding reception in a few weeks time at the groom’s home village – about 40km out of Gabs.