rain & holidays

Dumela!

So here I am sitting writing a blog post when I am supposed to be on my way to work. I was just about to step out the door when the rain started pouring down. Since I have a 20ish minute walk to work I am giving it a rain delay since rain here rarely lasts long and I do not want to destroy my notebooks and everything. Although rain is a welcome thing here since water is always a problem. Hopefully we will get enough to increase water pressure so it makes it to the house.

Most importantly hopefully people’s livestock will stop dying nice we get more rain. Each piece of livestock that dies is a big financial hit to the individual as a cow can be worth 3-4 thousand pula (I believe). Since we have been here we have seen many animals dying and just lying on the side of the road. The largest area with dead animals we have seen is at the Hukuntsi pan. Animals come there for water and end up dying. It is heart breaking and disturbing how quickly I have gotten used to seeing dead animals.

On the amazing side rain has made this place so much more green than it used to be. There are little splotches of color all over and maybe we can get a bit of a garden started soon. We just need more seeds…shopping trip time. Shopping, that’s not an easy thing this far out. In Hukuntsi we can get the necessities, but to get anything extra (which includes things like cheese, lentils, split peas, or any food that could add variety or misc things like seeds for a garden) or go to a bank to get money we have to go to Jwaneng which entails a 3-4 hour bus ride. We can make it a daytrip which would allow us to have 1 or 3 hrs there depending on which bus we take. Nothing is easy here!

Outside of my tangent, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday! John and I went to Kang to spend Christmas and got a wonderful surprise of taking a daytrip to Lerucama Bushcamp. It was beautiful up there and we had a wonderful time. There were 4 families there and the few of us from the Peace Corps who joined them. On the way up there we were able to spot a turtle (which we stopped to move off the road) and a chameleon. With the chameleon everyone piled out of the car to get a better look and it crawled under the car. Eventually we got it to climb on a branch and moved it off of the road as well. The whole event reminded me of a time when I was a teenager learning to drive and my dad and I were driving somewhere. We noticed a turtle and he stopped the car to move it off of the road. I felt at home immediately with our new friends once this happened.

Once we got there everyone mingled with some coffee and cookies. Next was a church service for those interested. After more mingling, we had a feast. Later in the evening once the animals were more likely to be spotted we got to go on a game drive where we saw ostriches, wildebeest, warthogs, zebras, camels, a tortoise, vultures, and some beautiful birds. There was also a lot of card playing including some Uno with the kids. It was a great way to spend the day and the hospitality was amazing! They also sent us home with some real butter which I cannot find anywhere, especially this far out. John and I cooked some popcorn last night and put real butter on it…mmm mmm.

This is our new house, or shall I say home, for the next few years.

On a side not we saw and killed our first scorpion last night. It was running on the outside wall of our house and almost ran inside. Checking shoes before sticking your foot in it is important with all the scorpions and black widows around here.