in the okavango delta

hej folks.

well, i am telling you, it is not easy to find a cheap tour into the delta. but the delta and maun as well, they are expensive. i would have liked to spend a few nights in the delta, but unfortunaltelly, i8 couldn’t make it.

instead, i went on a mokoro-tour. a mokoro is a little boat with which polers take you through the tiny, tiny cannels that run through the eastern delta, that is thickly covered by reed.

during the day, it is hard to see animals in the delta. they would all come out mostly in the early cool hours of the morning. the special experience of a mokoro trip is the unique quietness of the boat trip. you would feel like you are completely alone in the world. besides, you can still see some nice birds… you know how much i love that;).

still, i was lucky to see at least some very amazing ones: giraffes and a hippo.

african attire

Kgaphamadi

I would have loved to put so many pictures online… but you will never believe how long this one allready took me. so, you and me will have to wait for more village experience to come.

the other day, we went to kgaphamadi. it is a settlement near pakalane in the south-west of botswana. above, you see the hut of a sangoma, a traditional healer. my chef speakes very badly of them. for him and many other christians sangomas use evil powers with which they might heal or not heal illnesses or sickness. but in the long run, they will bring distress to the people.

kgaphamadi is one of the poorer villages around. there is still no public transport and the kids walk to school every day – 10 kms there and 10 kms back. also, they don’t have running water or electricity and will have to walk for hours to fetch water.

we went to kgaphamadi as my chef likes to give out food baskets to the poorer lot of the village. that is, what we have been doing that day.

as for me, i mostly enjoyed seeing rural life. the diversity between town and village life is immense. in the towns you would feel like in your average european town, in the villages you finally arrive in africa – with all its good and bad sides. you will find solidarity next to outrange poverty.

in the villages, you will find traditionally kitchens. they would be quare compounds without roof, where the women would cook on fire wood.

life in the villages, doesn’t change much. you would wake up int he mornings, cook your breakfast and afterwards you would have time to go to see your neighbours. when there is work to do, you would normally do it in the wee hours of the mornings, as it is getting hot fast during the day. there are different things to do during the day, from ploughing the fields to cattle and goat herding.

i realized, i would be totally bored just after a few days, if i was living a life like that one. i do have so many possibilities how to organize my day, that people here will never know.

Maun

I arrived savely in Maun. I came by bus yesterday. The jounrey from gaborone took me close to 12 hours and now i’m excited looking forward looking the okavango delta up here in the north.

i will let you hear soon.

take good care of yourself.

meetings the chiefs

some time back, i had met the paramount chief of tlokweng, who is also the chairmen of the house of chiefs that advises parliament on certain issues. i came back today to say goodbye as i will be leaving tlokweng on monday, going up north.

on saturday, of of kgosi gaborones deputy chiefs, kgosi moses, had come to the wccc, where i work and joined a widows and widower breakfast we had had. we were cooking breakfast for widowed poor and giving out food baskets and clothing afterwards.

today, i cam back to the kgotla, the local government as you might call it, although that wont quite catch what the kgotla is all about. i came to speak to kgosi moses about last saturday and his long carrier in government and army. he is almost 80 years, now, and had quite a few stories to tell… years ago, he had met germans somewhere in tansania and still knew to great me with “guten tag” and “guten morgen”.

also, kgosi gaborone took some time for me, after i had booked an appointment with him a few days earlier. he told me to invite him to germany once and to come back to say hello, when i’m back in botswana. i would like do to both, although both requires money i don’t have right now.

looking forward to see the delta

time is running out. i am using my last days to run all the errands in town, i couldn’t until now. i meet some people of the youth dialogue era and the botswana society last week and today.

also, i meet a lady at the WCCC who just opened her own ngo: reunion center of reconsiliation. it works on re-integrating ex-prisoners in society by giving them working opportunity on farms and so on. she has been in prison herself and told us about how challenging her situation was after she got out and her whole family had turned her down.

actually, i meet a lot of people here who are very excited about giving me jobs;). but i doubt that either of them has any funds to pay. but i might go into funding myself, since i met quite a few people who would pay for a fundraiser from europe or america to keep their ngo running.

i am at a point, where i am just really looking forward to my future. i am so excited what it might bring.

also, right now, i am excited about finishing up in gaborone and leaving to the north. i will miss some people i met here… but still, i feel it is my time to travel. i wanna go places, now!

how the people of botswana decided to build an university

you know, before botswana became independent, yu could not find a single town in the whole region of nowadays botswana. actually, it only consisted of wide plains of desert and bush scattered with houses.

that has changed a bit since then. the biggest city till today is gaborone, the capitol, in the far south of the country. at the time of indepence in 1966 it was no more than a small village. until today, the city center is quite small and people would say, that it hasn’t lost its village character since then.

for the last 50 years, botswana has worked on independence in all areas you might think of. of of them is the area of education. at indenpendence, the country only had a hand full of schools and not a single university. so, the people decided to build their own university. it is nowadays located on a huge campus in the city center and it’s extending constantly. back in the days, everyone in the country contributed to building the university with their own wealth.

that means, that everyone would come a bring a cow or so to gaborone. cattle are actually one of the most valualbe things in botswana and having many cows will mean, that you are a rich man or woman. so, everyone would bring something of their valuables to contribute to build ub (the university of botswana).

the people realized, that education is your strongest weapon in your fight for independece. until today, the vision of ub is: education is a shield. it will defense you against any aggression.

people, keep empowering yourselves through education, they say.

thinking of Port Elizabeth

folks! quite a few of you might remember, that i used to study in port elizabeth/south africa some time ago. this entry is especially for those, who spend time with me, there… studying, partying, travelling, cooking, whatever…

here, in gaborone, it seems to me, that i meet port elizabeth on every corner i turn. i came across so many people allreadz who used to study in pe as well. we would end up charing experiences about living and studying there. actually, it looks like, that quite a lot batswana go to pe for their studies. well, it is a good university, though. probably one of the best in thewhole of southern africa.

pe-folks… i have been thinking about you. lets meet up at some point to chare old memories and spend some time together.

greetings out of the african summer.

martina

my illusions on African summers

folks, I really wonder.

Botswana just made me loose all my illusions on African summer. Last week, it was raining for days non-stop. I cross my fingers, I had actually packed one of my woolen pullovers… otherwise I would have died of cold;). really, you will never believe, how cold summer can get down here when the rain comes.

Actually, this year is a quite dry one. So, people are still waiting for the first big rain to come, that will wash away last year’s soil. Now it looks like the big rain will never fall, as it would normally come on October or latest November. Rain in Botswana is probably more important than the diamonds, on which the national economy depends.

If there is no rain, there will be no harvesting and people will suffer. There is a national Drought Program, though. The government will give out food to the people to survive. Also, especially the northern aereas of Botswana (I live in the far south) do lie under national water restrictions. That means, there are not alloewd to use any water for special needs raging from washing your car to flushing your toilet. Here in Tlokweng, we don’t have any of those resttrictions.

Actually, if you live in or around Gaborone as I do, you will stay in the most luxurious place you can imagine. Someone called Gaborone a “plastic world” the other day. And I think, he is true. People here don’t know what it is like to live without running water or electricity, although most of them do have relatives in the villages, which they would visit regularly or would have been born in a village.

Pula is the Setswana Word for Rain, the currency here is called Pula as well. This might show you, how important rain is. Whenever you meet people on a long rainy day, when your clothes are drenched, when you’re cold and the streets are flooded… people will just smile at you and say in their typical calm manner: We are blessed.

No one would ever think about complaining about the rain, although you wont see many people out during rainy days. People will stay away from work, they will just stay inside of their houses and sleep or watch tv. Because honestly: what else is there to do on a day like this?

making ginger beer

on special request with very special greetings to Goettingen:). take good care of yourself.