Lions Club

Lions Club

Did you think I was going to talk about the animals? Sorry totally different topic. Last night I went to a Lions club meeting. I had never heard of the ’lions club’ before coming here but maybe some of you have. It is an international voluntary organisation that raises money to help people particularly those with eyesight problems. Something like the Rotary.

The meeting could not have been more different from the WI if it tried.

Venue: where the WI met in a very sumptuous setting of poolside garden area with comfortable deck chairs; this meeting was held in a Botswana family house. The lion club owned the property and rented it out to a local at a reasonable rent on the understanding that once a month he vacated it and let the members meet there between 6.30- 9. It was stifling hot, no air-conditioning or fan, plastic chairs and cramped. The carpet was torn and stained and the wallpaper peeling off the walls.

Food: where WI had sausage rolls, cut sandwiches, tea, coffee, juice and cake; Lions club had half a can of coke each and some pakoras

People: where the WI was all white, middle class, Stepford wives dressed to kill, well coiffured and professionally made up, the lions club were mainly Asian, two white (me being one) and two black (one a man) all dressed comfortably and casually not a scrap of make up between us, unless you count the marriage mark Asian women have on their foreheads.

Meeting: where the WI was organised, structured and balanced; the lions club forgot the minutes, everyone talked at the same time, no decisions were made and lots of noise. Great fun and such a pleasure to watch. Sometimes they broke into other languages so I really didn’t know what was going on half the time but it was clearly significant cos there was such passion.

There were similarities: they all were involved in fundraising; which mainly consisted of orgainsing something around food. The lions’ club functions cost around 30 pula (2.50) and the WI funtion was 65 pula (£5.50). It was explained to me that Asians won’t spend as much as white people to attend. They were all committed to their causes and wanted to help people. Both meetings started with a blessing: the WI had a prayer and the lions read out their code of ethics.

For me they were interesting; very different but highly entertaining. Both clubs made me feel welcome and wanted me to join. It will be fascinating to see the politics of both as I get to know them better. The WI was much bigger group to that of the Lions club. Two of the women in the lions club come from Zambia (one white the other black). They did not spend any time talking but I got to talking to the black woman. She was a teacher in Zambia but is not working here mainly because it is difficult for foreigners to get work here. She doesn’t have children and is a bit bored. She was much younger than the others. This was only her second meeting.

Two of the Asian women lived in my street so I offered them a lift home. Neither drove. Since then, one of them has come over to mine for tea and brought with her some interesting Asian food. I think I might put on weight here.

She is lonely. She doesn’t work and hasn’t since she married her husband in 1985. They are both from Sri Lanka. It was an arranged marriage and doesn’t seem the happiest from what she was saying. She said she wouldn’t talk to him as she did with me. She can’t tell him things. I had just met her. She had lived with him for over 20 years. But she says in her culture you don’t leave just cos you are unhappy. She is Hindu and a Tamil. She told me a horrific story of when she was young. When the Sinhalese group (dominant group in Sri Lanka) tried to butcher a lot of the Tamils. She and her family had to hide for over two months first with a neighbour and then in a convent. When they went home, everything they owned had been smashed or stolen; they hadn’t even left a light bulb. She said she as lucky cos some of her fellow Tamils were butchered. She says this is why she still doesn’t care about possessions. She knows how easy it is to lose them and that life is more important.

How shallow did that make me feel? Just last week I was missing my stuff.

She is also very religious and after explaining reincarnation to me she was horrified that I did not pray every day and did not have a god. She could not see how I could function as a being without recourse to god. I on the other hand had difficulty with her belief that nature punishes the wicked; hence we have volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. It take all sorts I suppose.

What an interesting morning I had. Not my usual conversation before 11am but certainly an eye-opener.

People

People

We have met so many people here whose lives are so different from my own, not better but different.

Some of them have led very exciting lives going to dangerous or very isolated places. It would take chapters to write about all of them and I don’t really know them that well yet but let me talk about one couple we have met here. It is early days yet so we don’t know that much but I am getting bits and pieces.

George met this couple first at the bird club and I have since met the woman at the WI and Pilates class and them both at the friends of the museum club. We have been round to their home for a braai. And it is some home. They bought it 16 years ago and built it over that time. They have a magnificent outside area for braais with a bar; fridge, thatched covered roof, no walls and enough room for thirty people to sit comfortably. We have some pics of it which we will put up.

They are in their mid to late seventies I would guess. She was born in county Mayo Ireland and was a teacher in London for a year and came out to Nigeria in her early twenties to do a year’s voluntary work and has never gone back. Ron worked for Barclay’s bank and was sent all over the world for them. When he was 30 he met Grace in Nigeria and they married and since they have travelled around Africa wherever his job took them. When they got to Botswana about 30 years ago they liked it so much he asked Barclay’s if he could stay here and they have.

They have two children who she educated at home till they were about 10 then they sent them to boarding school. He explained they had a choice to give the children a good stable education or move all over the place with the parents and so they chose the stable education for the children. The kids both live in the UK now. He said it was Grace’s teaching in their formative years that was the making of them.

He is retired and says he doesn’t do much but here is what I know he does:

He is on the board for the school for Deaf children. They raise money to keep the school going (it is the same one I have been to help give out clothes. I’ll tell you about that experience in another blog).

As part of the rotary club, he runs a food kitchen every Saturday where he feeds 250 children every week sometimes from his own pocket if they haven’t raised enough that week to pay for it.

He is a ‘friend of the museum’ and was the chair for 10 years. He was a founding member who got the museum opened in the first place. He, along with another woman, is raising funds to build a culture centre here around the museum. They want an outside building to host cultural events like dances singing or African story telling. He wants to have an education centre for children to come to learn about their cultural heritage. At the museum meeting I went to, one of the local Motswana people (he is a self proclaimed King of Kings and well known in Francistown) said he was angry that so many expats were on the committee (the chair is a local Motswana black man and the secretary and third generation white Motswana white woman). At the time I thought he made sense cos there were a lot of local people at the meeting. But none of them including the King of Kings volunteered to help. Ron was a bit peeved by the comments cos he has been trying for years to get more people involved especially Motswana. There is quite a bit about expats in the paper. Quite a number of commentaries ask for the expats to leave and that there are too many of them taking the jobs from local people.

He is an active member of the Catholic Church and helps with hospital visits.

He is working with another woman I have met (her story is amazing one of the pioneers here) to get a small nature reserve off the ground here to protect birds and animals from the encroaching town.

He supports some aids orphans directly.

And he is in various clubs like the bird club. Yet he tells me he doesn’t do much. Before you think he is a saint and really boring with self righteousness. Let me tell you he is not. He has a great sense of humour and drinks like a fish which in my book is ok.

He gets very angry when white people come out here and just take a good living from the country and give nothing back. He sees lots of white people come here and earn an awful lot of money (most are employed by companies from developed world and earn European style wages and often pay no tax). He and his wife certainly don’t do that.

They have lots of stories of the early days here when it was much less developed with fewer facilities. Francistown doesn’t have a theatre, cinema or many other leisure facilities but there is still plenty to do if you want to get involved.

He, like most others here, has had staff who have died of Aids. I think I have said it runs at around 68% for some groups. They all have theories about why it is so high here but most of them revolve around the Africans (at least here in Botswana) all like to have mistresses as well as wives. Apparently there is a growing trend here for educated black women not to marry. They stay with a guy till they have a couple of children and then get rid of him cos the men are lazy and spend their money on their other women so they just don’t marry them cos then the men can’t get their money or their dowry price.

I am loving hearing all the tales and different thoeries about this and that. People out here that I have met at least are not politcally correct. If they think it they say it. I juts love such openness. Just does not happen at home.

Evia 17th march

Evia cleans house for us and lives in a building attached to ours. She has her own entrance to this house and is very pleased because many domestics either have to live out (which would be more expensive) or live in the house. She is Zimbabwean in her 30s. I am not sure how old but she has a 13yr old daughter. She went home to Zimbabwe last week to buy a plot of land. She was so proud of herself that when she returned that the first thing she did was to show us her receipts which proved she had bought land. I suggested she frame them. She has saved enough money to buy this land working for George since July 2006. George pays her 600 pula a month which is about 50 pounds a month. Along with the accommodation, which consists of fairly big sitting cum living room with ensuite bathroom, she also gets her food and two days off a week. Before you start screaming: 'is that all she gets?' in our defence, this is more than the average of 500 pula a month without any food or accommodation thrown in. I am not being defensive (I hope) but just trying to paint a picture of life here. White people pay £500 a month for their rented house but £50 a month for someone to work for them. Unfair? Yes! But for Evia, who is without working permit it is a fortune. This money is enough for her to send money home to her mother every month to keep her sister, her mum, her daughter and her sister’s three children. And save enough to buy this plot of land. She intends to start saving so that she can have a house built on the land. She is hoping to start by august and have it all finished before George’s contract is finished. Lots of Botswanas want the Zimbabweans to go home cos they feel they are thieves. But they have a reputation of being hard working.

When I first came I thought having a maid was the height of idleness but everyone tells me that people need work and if I did it myself then Evia and people like her would be penniless. The position in Zimbabwe is so bad that thousands come over every week and most of them get bussed right back cos they are entering illegally. Apparently the situation is worse in South Africa where the Zimbabweans are flooding the country looking for work.

Recently, Evia’s sister Rutendo came over to find work too. She stays with Evia in her room while looking. She had been getting piece work which has earned her about 20 pula a day (less than 2 pounds). She went for an interview last Thursday to work for a Motswana family. They wanted her to work 7 days a week looking after 4 children and do all the cleaning. She was offered 270 pula (just over 20 pounds) a month with accommodation.

When they came back they told me about the job they were uncertain whether to take it. I asked how much they had asked for. Rutendo had asked to be paid 500 pula but the woman offered 270. Evia asked me if I would allow my sister to work under these conditions for this money. Ahhhh. This was a really difficult question. To me 270 for so much work with no days off seemed pure exploitation of this girl who had no papers to work in this country. She has a passport but no work permit. Evia doesn’t have one either. They cost about 100 pounds and these women just can’t afford it. But then 270 pula was more than nothing and it was a job instead of looking for irregular piece work every day.

I asked them what the Motswana woman was like. Did they think she would be good to Rutendo (allegedly a lot of people here beat their maids)? How did she feel about no days off for church and meeting friends (they are both church goers). Eventually they left to talk about it. I really didn’t want to give advice. And for once I buttoned my lip and didn’t offer any. They came back next day to say they had decided she wasn’t going to take it and just look further. I was glad. I don’t think it is right for her to take this job. Since then she has found work three days a week with a white family, has a regular piece job with a neighbour here and another job on a Saturday- all of which adds up to around 500 pula.

They are really hard working women who just want a chance to save to help their families. They would stay in Zimbabwe if they could. They are proud of it but not what is happening there. Evia’s daughter lives in Bulawayo cos Evia is paying for her to go to school. She lives alone at 13. Gets herself up for school, shops, and cooks and cleans for herself. She lived with an uncle last year but Evia felt he wanted too much money to look after her so the girl has to manage her own money and organise herself to get to school, shop and clean at 13. I think of my own children (sorry Vicky and Sophie if you read this) who I worried about going to university flats at 18. You really do have to grow up quicker here. They are the lucky ones. So many are Aids orphans. Too many.

Anyway Evia’s daughter (Precious) won a merit in Maths recently and we gave Evia some money to buy her a present to congratulate her. Evia bought a pair of fur lined practical boots because it will soon be winter there and she wanted her to be warm. I can’t believe it ever gets cold enough to need boots. Imagine getting a merit in Maths when you don’t have your mum asking you to do your homework or get you off to school. That’s dedication and deep desire to do well. Education means so much more to people here. They want it to be a way out of poverty.

Evia can’t wait for Mugabe to die either cos she wants to live and work in her own country but like thousands of Zimbabweans who have to risk being picked up by police and sent home, she has no choice.

When I was having reflexology yesterday at the local spa. Yep there are spas. In fact there are a lot of them. The woman who was doing my feet told me she came from Zimbabwe. She was ‘coloured’ not black. She told me her husband and to children still lived in Bulawayo but she had to come to Botswana to work. She used to have a business of her own but it collapsed and she moved here. She has all the papers and goes back every fortnight to see her family. It is a three hour drive but takes her nearer 7 because of the checkpoints and border control. She told me she will have to reduce her visits to once a month because she only has 4 pages left in her passport and she is not entitled to get it renewed for another two years.

Without me even asking, she told me that she wished Mugabe was dead. She said he has ruined the country and she fearer that next year’s elections would be rigged and he would get back in. She can’t understand why the rest of the world had abandoned Zimbabwe.

I had intended keeping each of these short so I’ll stop now.

Am I really in Africa?

Sometimes it is difficult to believe I am in Africa. We watch American films, the BBC, Sky news; we eat the same kind of food we would eat at home- maybe less stodge and more salads but just the same. Mainly cos I am cooking it so it is what I know. We live in a house with running water and electricity. We get newspapers and we have internet. It is certainly nothing like the scenes we get on TVs at home about Africa. There are no huge squatters’ tents; there are no refugee camps, no torn limbs because of land mines and I don’t look out onto a dusty plain full of giraffes and lions as you see on that African vet TV programme whose name escapes me. We live in a town that looks a lot like Glenrothes. It has shopping malls; street lights, roads, housing estates and roundabouts, there are traffic jams at rush hour, car dealerships, bars restaurants and nightclubs. Mercedes are ten a penny. Lots of people drive four by fours.

Then something happens to remind you. Like people come to the electric gate everyday to ask for piece work or food. Or you find a snake in the garden, or you see a bush baby in the trees at night, or you go to the petrol station and they have run out of petrol. There are street traders who sell sweeties and biscuits singly. (I remember being able to buy a single cigarette from shops at home a very long time ago). There are street phones where someone with a phone lets you make a call for a price. You get offered impala stew or crocodile strips at the local restaurant as a speciality. You can briaa (barbecue) every day, not just twice a year when the sun shines. People hold ‘bring and briaas’ here (and no I haven’t made a typo this has nothing to do with church fundraising. It is briaa at someone’s house where you bring your own food.)

Some of the women still wear traditional clothes, especially on a Sunday (but not the men or the young women. They wear western gear.) You see women pushing wheel barrows full of scrap metal they have found to sell. You see women cutting down reeds to make makeshift roofs for village houses. Women carry all sorts on their heads often very heavy loads. Children do run barefoot. In the villages most people have outside toilets. Donkeys pull heavy loads.

One day I was reading the paper, I realised that there was both capital and corporal punishment here. Flogging on your bare buttocks seems to be a favoured form of punishment. One young man was sentenced to 10 lashes on his bare buttocks for being a peeping tom in the student residences at the university in Gaborone (the capital city). This was I suppose slightly shocking for me but what was even more surprising was that the judge said that the young man rather than doing this kind of thing should use the internet to find porn sites to satisfy his need to watch. I laughed out loud. Can you imagine a judge saying that to a felon in Britain?

Another thing you see in the paper is lots are adverts for doctors who use ‘traditional methods and medicine’. They claim to cure all sots of things: making your heart’s desire fall in love with you; providing you with good luck in gambling; improve your erections and help you find work.
A wonderful mix of worlds and cultures.

Homes

10th march 2007

Homes

I have been in a few of the white people’s homes now. (I have been told that the local black people don’t invite you home - we’ll have to see). Just like home you can buy according to how much money you have and there is opportunity to buy big.

However, I seemed to have noticed a difference between those whites who have permanent jobs here in Botswana and those who are moving around from contract to contract. The white Africans (expats) who are moving from contract to contract all have fixed homes somewhere else (most frequently in South Africa but I have heard of a few with homes in Namibia, but rarely here in Botswana. So their houses here in Francistown are mainly rented. These rented homes come unfurnished so they have mix match of furniture and decoration. Cos they all think of their real home as the place they will stay when they retire; depending on how far they move each time and whether their new employer will pay removal fees they take some stuff with them and they buy new stuff where ever they go and keep their real furniture for when they retire. It seems a sad way to live. Never having you own things around you; always waiting in some sense for life to start. Apparently you can sell your second hand stuff quite easily cos new ex pats are always arriving looking for stuff. George didn’t find any stuff like this when he moved in so everything is new but not really all that nice. Functional and basic rather than the beautiful things we have at home. Unlike South Africa or Zimbabwe Botswana doesn’t have a history of a craft culture (except basket weaving), so there isn’t much choice. A lot of the furniture available is like something your granny would think was old fashioned and imported from South Africa.

The main contract work is the mines (here near Francistown they could be copper, gold, diamonds and nickel). When the husbands move the families have to move too and start again. Their children go to private schools: English speaking schools that mainly follow English system of ASA and A levels. Some even board in South Africa when they reach secondary age. The women generally don’t work cos they would have to move home every few years. One of the people I met said the Afrikaners spend all their time shopping and going to the spa. I am not sure what they buy cos although there are a lot of shops here there doesn’t seem to be much you would want to buy. But it takes all sorts I suppose.

Because there are so few homes with security (high walls and electric fences), the rental price is driven up. Many houses are in complexes so they feel like gated communities (ours is in an ordinary street with black, Asian and one other white family so not all the house are security fenced, but it seems to be safe cos we haven’t been robbed yet at all. Most of the white people I have met have stories of fairly regular robberies). The mines will pay well over the odds to house their ex pat managers and their families. (The workers are housed nearer the mines without families). So rent here is extraordinary high. We pay about £500 a month for this house. You could pay upwards of £1000 here a month so if you have any thoughts of this part of Africa being cheap for white people; think again. It would be cheaper in some parts of Botswana. In Gaborone, the capital city, rent for our house would only be around £300. And way out in rural areas it would be cheaper still because they are fewer jobs. Middle class black people live with this kind of security too. Indeed one of the people in this street has 24 hrs security guard and dog walking the grounds.

Our house does have a pool but it is very small- four strokes and you have got to the other end but heh still fab when you are very hot; a small garden front and back, with three bathrooms and three bedrooms. The kitchen is a good size but not well laid out. The house has the potential to be a lovely but the fixtures are cheap and nasty. I am resisting the urge to spend money on a rented house. Floors and carpets are tacky and old. Tiles are poorly fitted, bathrooms leak. But we were lucky to get it cos there are so few houses for rent cos the mines are doing really well just now. I think it might have been better if George had bought property when he arrived and then sold when we left but it seems a waste to do that now cos he has already been here 10 months. But there are even fewer houses to buy and who knows what the situation for resale would be. One woman bought a house in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 20 years ago to prepare for her retirement and now it is not even possible for her to go there never mind live in the house. She like most others can’t wait for Mugabe to die so that things might improve. I am never sure what it is safe to ask white expats Zimbabweans about Zim cos some seem to talk of Rhodesia with fondness.

The expats who live here permanently have bought their own homes and they are mostly just gorgeous. Well maintained gardens, bigger pools and lovely situations (labour is cheap I’ll talk about this in another update). We were in one last night and the furniture was fantastic. It all came from Zimbabwe before Zim became so impossible to visit. It is really not recommended that any white visit Zim now. The pieces were large, dark and beautifully finished all individually made. She had lots of lovely wall hangings and little bits and pieces – a real home and not just makeshift one. They were British, in their late 50s and don’t think they will retire here cos of the health care system. They both love it though and feel really appreciative of the lifestyle they have here. They don’t want to go back to Britain and hope they don’t have to for quite a while. Here they can afford a full-time maid and a gardener. They wouldn’t get that at home on a teacher’s salary.

You can’t imagine how many people I have met who say they came over for a two year contract and then decided to live here. A lot of the whites in Botswana have moved here from Zimbabwe cos it is too difficult for them there now. Another big group is the white South Africans who are finding it increasingly difficult to find work in South Africa. There is a policy of black citizens first. This policy has come into Botswana too. They advertise for Motswana (someone form Botswana is called a Motswanan) It is becoming increasingly difficult for whites to find jobs here unless you really have a skill that they don’t have yet. It is right to redress several hundred years of injustice and exploitation but many second or third generation white people feel they are African and feel a deep sense of injustice. They don’t want their children to move to Europe to find work but feel they will have to cos there is nothing for them in Africa. Another side to the picture out here you don’t think about back home. It is a very complicated situation. I don’t really understand the subtleties enough to talk about it. But it is interesting times here. Everyone tells me Botswana is very, very different form the rest of Africa. It is stable, well governed, fairly rich in minerals but the government ploughs it back into the infrastructure here rather than lining some official pockets.

But it is still poor. There are people who are starving. Unemployment is running at 27 percent (compared with over 50 per cent in Zambia). In Francis town Aids is running at 68% which is the highest in Botswana. It is mainly cos of the mines so I am told (more about this later).

9th of March 2007

Insects and beasties

There are so many different types of insects here and they all seem so big. We have had crickets, praying mantis, butterflies, beetles and all kinds of creepy crawlies. There are things that jump, scuttle, hop, hover, fly, dive-bomb, float, slither.

here is the resident preying mantis about 100mm long.

I try not to notice them but it is hard not to. Surprisingly some of them are quite beautiful: different colours and shapes from those I am used to. Still gives me the creeps though. There is a wasp-like thing that seems to carry another body on its back looking like it is giving something a piggy back. Spiders are just huge. Even the small ones give bites and I so avoid them like the plague. I can see why you have to clean thoroughly very day. Avia does a great job of keeping them out of the house but they are impossible to control outside. We do have a little gecko which scrambles round the main room but it is almost a pet! Well that is what George says but when I see it scuttle across the walls I hold my breath. I am a woose.

We had an ant colony by our pool (I know I still can’t used to saying it without laughing) and we had to kill them and they kamikazed into the swimming pool. It was horrible. We had to rake them out with the pool net. Their wee dead bodies covered the entire surface. Not nice. I kept having visions of the cartoon film about the ant world. Felt like a mass murderer, but not for long cos it was much better not to have ants crawling up my legs. They give me the shivers. I am not really cut out for all these bugs. The dragonflys drink from the pool - free!

We did see one huge thing that was like a slug but 500 times bigger. It was a millipede apparently but I didn’t count its legs. It was so disgusting but harmless, George says. (Are you sensing a theme here? Everything is harmless according to George. Funny thing though is that everyone else has tales of things which kill or maim you). Anyway back to the millipede, it had a thick body about as thick as two fingers, dark brown, slimy and slug type. Yeuch! To offset this, there are some beautiful butterflies.

There are of course mozzies. The wee beggars get everywhere and seem to bite me lots no matter what I put on – fresh blood I suppose. Luckily they are not malarial here so no need to take anything but I itch like blazes and come up in huge lumps. The worst of it is I don’t hear them coming. At least European mozzies have the decency to make a lot of noise before they suck you dry.

Yesterday we saw a praying mantis that looked like a dry leaf. It was amazing. You could pick out its legs and the praying posture but if you hadn’t looked closely you would really have thought it was a leaf and brushed it away.

George is into bird watching now so we spent last Sunday at the dam nearby which has a number of different species. But the garden has some delightful ones sitting in the trees. There is one about the size of a humming bird, just the most beautiful azure belly. Gorgeous to watch. We have a bird table in the garden and so I watch them come down. It is strange to be content to just watch them but it is fascinating seeing the different varieties. I spend time here doing nothing much but watching. I can’t believe it really but I do think I am not really taking part in life– I suppose it is cos I don’t have a connection to anything here. The house is on loan, the furniture is not something I will ever take home, and I am just borrowing this time from somewhere. It is a strange feeling. In fact I think I feel a little bit like a teenager without any of the angst – no responsibilities accept to myself. I intend to savour every moment of it.

Thursday 1st March

I went to my first ever WI meeting. I was not sure what to expect but I really didn't expect sausage rolls, cut sandwiches and chocolate cake out by the pool in the shaded summer house. There were about 16 women there, all white but from different countries: Australia, Zambia, Russia, Botswana but the most prevalent was British. There were no South African women. Although they make up the biggest number of white women here in the town, apparently Afrikaners don’t mix much with others. There were about two women under 40. By far the biggest group was over 60. The women seemed to fall into two categories: those who follow their husbands cos of mine work and those that follow them for short term contracts.

I have only met two women who came here as part of their own careers. One was a single woman and the other was one of George’s colleagues. Her husband follows her round different African countries very unusual apparently and some of the women commented on it to me asking if I knew anything more. I didn’t. In the WI, very few women work but most do a lot of voluntary stuff. Mainly fundraising rather than direct contact with groups. Those wives that do work set up their own businesses. There is scope for that here but it needs the entrepreneur spirit and I just don’t have that so I don’t think I will be doing that. It is hard to get jobs here if you are white. Botswana has a policy of employing citizens before expats. Quite rightly I’d say. Expats tend to move on, especially women when their husbands do, and organizations don’t want someone to start a job do it for a while build up experience and then move on. It leaves them with a big hole to fill.

We had a guest speaker who has started a project in a nearby village. He used to be a banker but got fed up making mega bucks and now wants to help the villagers create employment (high unemployment here among rural and uneducated people). He talked and then there were questions. It was all very churchy if you know what I mean. The evening was fun. Well ok not fun but really different. I didn't do much except listen (honest I hardly talked at all) cos really I didn't understand a lot about the people or places or things they were talking about. They were mainly discussing who they would give their money to and what they were doing to raise more. (St Patrick’s dinner was going to be the next one. I volunteered to find out about Irish puddings cos none of us knew what was traditionally Irish and I have Access to internet.)

I went away with a bag of wool to knit squares (they make them up for cot blankets for the hospital) and have agreed to help on a committee! What am I like? Looks like I am just falling into the place and decisions about whether to stay or go homeare melting away. I just can't help but get involved. I don't like sitting on the side lines. They have a library every Saturday and I have joined that too cos run out of books to read. To buy them here is horrendously expensive. About twice the cost of back home. When I started the knitting I remembered how to cast on and how to knit but for the life of me couldn’t remember how to cast off. Internet to the rescue and got 6 squares already. I am off to the school for the deaf children this pm to hand out clothes. Never really saw myself as a do gooder. New image! Tell you about that another time.

March 1st 2007

Snakes and things
I have been here nearly 2 weeks already. I thought I should write a few things down as much to remind myself of what is going on as to tell others.

It took George about a week to adjust to me being here. Although he was glad to see me it was clear that I upset his routines. He spent a lot of the first week biting his lip and tongue which is a damned sight more than I would have done if it was the other way round. We seem to have settled into our own wee routines now so he might save that lip and tongue from a lot of pain. He has bought me flowers twice and chocs once so I reckon I need to stay away more often cos I haven’t had them before.

On my first full day here Avia, the maid, found a snake in the garden and shouted for George. She was very anxious and didn’t want to go back outside till it was gone. He killed it and put it in the bucket. My hero! I am not sure the environmentalist would approve especially since it was a harmless one but he saved the day for Avia. The paper had just reported about a man who died after being bitten by a snake while on the toilet. It was an outside earth closet so unlikely to ever happen to me. The snake was a black mamba! Dangerous things. One of George’s colleagues recently found a cobra in his garden. These wee things remind me that I am in Africa cos it is easy to forget sometimes cos of all the mod cos we take for granted at home are here too.

Avia’s sister has come over from Zimbabwe looking for work and George got her a job with one of his colleagues but she only lasted a week so she is back with us for a while. In her first day she had to ask about how to put the teat on the baby’s bottle and I don’t think that went down well. They don’t seem to have been very tolerant that she didn’t know about such things.

When George was at one of his bird watching weekends he met a woman who volunteered to show me the ropes in Francistown. On my first Sunday she invited us over for tea at 4pm. We got tea and little tuna sandwiches with the crusts cut off and cake, Victoria sponge cake, with yellow icing. Very proper and English. She was Zambian though so it all came as a bit of a surprise for me. Her husband was English and had come over to South Africa 25 years ago on a short contract and had never gone back. It seems many of them do that. They come on short contracts and love the life style and never go back.

I am not sure what the expats like about the lifestyle cos when we were at their house, another ex-pat couple came round and the four of them spent the early evening talking about safety (personal and house). They all had gruesome stories of robberies and some with violence. The South African guy who is about 6foot six and heavy set said he would feel safer if he could carry a handgun. He felt the Botswana government was wrong not letting him protect himself. George and I nearly choked on our delicate crust free sannies. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for us to suggest that if he carried a gun then someone might get killed and that could be him.

They then went on to talk about maids and staff generally and how unreliable they are. How they will steal from you and you have to watch them every minute. This was an afternoon organised to help me settle in! What would they have said if they wanted to put me off? When I said I thought we could trust Avia and that she was a hard worker. I was told that new people are naïve and underestimate the ‘African’. Mmmm

They also move around a lot (Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, and Malawi) following the contract so never seem to have their own stuff with them. They talked about leaving their best stuff in their ‘real’ homes. I am not sure I could do that for over 25 yrs. I like having my things around me. I don’t think I would make a good nomad. Maybe it makes you rethink what really is important to you and what you really need.

On Sunday George and I were in ‘our’ pool. It was good fun and really strange to play in your own pool. Not something I thought we would ever do. The next day it rained all day. The first rain they had for while. They were all very pleased to see it. It is the rainy season and they have hardly any of it. Surprisingly I was pleased too cos it cooled things down. It is too hot to sit in the sun after 10 am in the morning. It means I am working but I have to say not as hard as I should.

I am off to the WI tonight. It meets once a fortnight and I am not sure what to expect. Let you know in next instalment

Junes 2nd week

June’s second week

We are just back from a long weekend in Kasane (Friday 28th July to Tuesday 1st August). We stayed in a five star lodge that was just magnificent. All the rooms had a veranda facing the Chobe River, which runs through the Chobe National Game Reserve. Hot and cold running service. Very African in style, well at least the Africa Europeans expect. The foyer didn’t have a roof but did have a big tree in the middle called a Baobab tree. The terrace looked over the Chobe and we watched the sunset sipping G and Ts before dinner where animals that we saw in the reserve were often on the menu: like Impala, wart hogs, guinea fowl and kubu. We didn’t even have to pour our own wine or turn down the bed for sleeping. George managed to get a special offer that he had seen in the local paper that made it affordable! We were the only Brits there. We met Americans, Ozzies, Italians (one couple on honeymoon); French; German; South African; Zimbabwean, Dutch; Japanese and of course some Batswana people. They were mainly middle aged, which I suppose you would expect. But there were a few couples (without children) in their late 20s early 30s there. Very much a couple place, not really for families.

It is difficult to select which part of the trip to talk about first. It was all such an experience. We started most days early around 6ish to get the most from the day. This meant we were abed by around 9pm. The beds had been turned down when we were at dinner and chocolate left on the pillow! Most days we went to bed dazed with so many new sensations. Often, even I was left speechless by what we were seeing. Not something that happens a lot.

We are definitely not in Kansas now Toto. (You have to be a friend of Dorothy to get this quote.)
Zimbabweans come across the border at Kasane to buy things here. They can’t buy a lot of everyday things in Zimbabwe. Very few of them have cars so they wait for lifts from busses or passing cars but each one has enough bags to fill a car boot so don’t know who gives them a lift. The buses all have roof racks to take the extra loads. When you go for petrol, they are always there with any plastic containers they can find to fill up with either petrol or paraffin. We saw petrol being put in 2-litre coke bottles! You can’t get fuel in Zim. They even take plastic bags from dustbins to use again to carry the things they buy. You can’t get carrier bags in Zim either.

Goats, donkeys, cows and dogs all roam freely here so you often see herds of them grazing by the side of the road un-tethered and sometimes they decide to go to the other side which is dangerous for both them and you. We didn’t see much road kill (except one unfortuante donkey), so maybe they are adept at avoiding cars. But something you don’t expect to see is a troop of baboons crossing the road. This was what surprised me that even on the road nowhere near the game reserves, which are fenced in for the animals’ protection, you come across animals just crossing the road or wandering around freely. We have seen elephants, baboons, and impala just wandering around. It just amazes me.

On the road to Kasane we saw quite a number of very poor communities. People who lived in makeshift houses of reeds they cut down. Some have roofs of plastic sheeting more are left open to the skies. The structures are not high enough to stand up in but they shelter them from the wind. It must get very cold at night cos the temperature drops hugely here in the winter and because of the differential it seems much colder. These people are mainly Zimbabweans looking for work.

You can’t take things for granted here.
Cash- you need to have cash with you. I am so used to using a debit card. You can’t do that here. You can’t assume that the ATM will work so you have to plan getting your money out in plenty of time. Very few places take credit cards. Of course George didn’t plan this and thought we would get money from the ATM in Kasane, but it was broken. The bank systems inside were also down so we couldn’t get cash. When we asked where the nearest ATM was we were told Francistown, which is where we came from 500 kilometres away. It was a bit worrying for a while but it worked out. We just put everything on the room bill!

When we were leaving we needed petrol for the return journey. The petrol station had run out so there was a melee of cars, trucks and people with containers of all sizes waiting. The tanker arrived and we all started to get petrol as the tanker was filling up! Oops. It took us half an hour to fill up cos the pump was working so slowly but we couldn’t go without cos the nearest petrol station was in Nata 300 kilometres away and it might be out of petrol too.

The shops have fruit and veg, which is in season not anything like you can get at home. They also run out of things. It just means rethinking how you work but for me it is taking some getting used to. I think it is easier for George cos he never shopped at home anyway! Probably more down to temperament, he doesn’t like to plan so making do with what is there works for him. I just need to adjust how I do stuff. I’ll get there. Chill June.

Way of life.
After only two weeks I am a tourist still so feel I have a long way to go before I understand the people but I have met a few Batswana now and they all seem to think their own people are too lazy. They are proud of their government cos it is one of the few governments in Africa to give every child a free education, uniform and school meals; free medical treatment for everyone; pension for all over 60 (not that many make it) and welfare for the out of work. But simultaneously they feel the government gives the people too much and it is making them lazy and dependant. They are worried that people do not have enough get up and go to start businesses. On the other hand, the Zimbabweans have a reputation for being hard workers but they are also distrusted cos it is feared they will steal.

If you have a bag here when you go shopping you have to check it in before going into the store in case you put something in the bag and steal it. In one shop, your goods are checked at the till and then again it is checked against your receipt when you leave to ensure there has been no pilfering.

Despite being an educated country AIDS is at 38% and rising. People are unwilling to heed the advice of abstinence or protection. They seem to accept that this is their lot. The government gives out free retroviral drugs but only when the blood count is so low they have full blown AIDS anyway. We met someone working in a clinic and she says the men won’t wear condoms. I think the ads need to target women. It might be easier to get them to change their habits. It doesn’t help that teenage pregnancies are high but among the wealthier groups this is changing. But fatalism or acceptance seems to be a way of life. Que sera seems to be a philosophy. Religion may also be partly to blame. People seem to think it is in God’s hands.

They think I am mad when I walk about in T shirts when they are wearing coats. But it is hot for me here.

Victoria falls



To say Victoria Falls is breathtaking is an understatement. They are just magnificent: over a kilometre in length and 108 meters drop. The noise was deafening (another George fact they were called ‘the smoke that roars’ by the local people until Livingstone came along and renamed them). You can rent raincoats to keep the spray off but we didn’t bother cos it was just great to get wet and then dry off quickly. We also met a bronze Livingstone, we presumed. You can do helicopter rides and bungee jumping but we thought we would leave that till Rachael comes. We’ll let her go first and if she enjoys we’ll do it too.

We visited the Victoria Falls hotel, which is one of these colonial built hotels. All faux nostalgia and Victoriana. It was very beautiful if you like symmetry and classical architecture. Too balanced and clean for me. I like things to be more lopsided. Looked like something out of a picture postcard. Still wouldn’t say no to a night or two there. Probably too pretentious. It does seem odd when locals can’t get anything in the shops, you can get anything at this hotel.

We had to pay £30 each to cross the border into Zimbabwe and that was more than other Nationalities pay. We pay higher cos of our governments position on Zimbabwe. We kept being told that it was safe there for tourists now and that more should come. There did seem a lot there but probably not the same throughout Zimbabwe. A plate of soup costs a million Zim dollars so for a day we were millionaires.

George’s facts
George kept coming up with ‘did you know’ type facts. One was that where we were was the only place in the world that 4 countries borders meet: Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. I feel a quiz show coming on. There were many more but I’ll keep them for another day.

The game



We have seen so many animals: giraffes, kubu, elephants, warthogs, hippos, impala, lions hunting buffalo, wild dogs which are rare, puff adders, hyenas, mongoose, crocs, baboons, the tracks of a large python but not an actual one, the tracks of a leopard but not an actual one. This is apparently really rare. We have also seen so many different birds: varied types of eagles, hornbills, different storks; lots of different kingfishers, cranes, and vultures. The list is endless. Some are really colourful. George played golf one day and was warned to watch out for the black mamba and python snakes but luckily he didn’t see either. He did see the crocs sunning themselves on the fairway though. It was amazing how close you got to the animals. We went into the park three different ways: by boat, in our own car with a map, and with a guided tour. Each time was a different time of the day and we saw much the same animals but doing different things, which was really great. I think I enjoyed the elephants spraying themselves with mud the best. Each of the herds we saw had baby animals and it was just so moving even the crocs. George and I enjoyed the day we ventured in by ourselves the most cos we felt like explorers. It was certainly adventurous even in a four by four. At one point three elephants walked out right in front of the car and we could see their eyes and if they had decided to turn round we would have been very squished. Luckily they went forwards and down to the water.

Enough for now more next week. We intend to spend this weekend at home and we are going to meet some of George’s colleagues. Whole new ball game.

PS from George



You will gather from June that we had a great time. My highlights were staying in the lodge, which was absolutely fabulous, and the fact that they had a 9 hole golf course – grass! - which of course I enjoyed playing on one afternoon while June was at the poolside. The wild dogs we saw were just great – its not everyday you will see a ‘very endangered species’ (estimates only 3000 left), and we saw a pack of them!

Vic Falls was a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Jan told me it was often hard to get accommodation ‘in the old days’, throughout the year. Another Zimbabwean I met at the petrol queue joked that if you got 2 cars, one in front of the other in Zimbabwe, it was an official traffic jam! It’s a great shame for a country that had the reputation as one of the most efficient and organised countries in Africa.

June has the house looking more like a home now. We have a settee; a carpet; some batik tablecloths we bought in a Zimbabwean craft market (for a £tenner!) as wall hangings; some wooden hippos; wooden bowls; wooden face masks; and some other stone carvings for the mantlepiece. And, a cheese grater and potato masher – no home should be without them!

The car is running really well. On the road it drives very easy - just like an ordinary car, but you can turn off road and go anywhere! I had more fun driving in Chobe Reserve. I’m planning more adventurous outings, more details later

Junes Contribution 1

Wednesday 26th July

George thinks it would be a good idea if I put up some thouhts while I am here. I have been here a week already and I have no idea of where the time has gone. Not surprising really when you visit any new place. I don’t ususally keep a diary but this might be fun to read after two years to see the differences.

First impressions
While being here is not like being in Europe or America there are so many things, which are familiar that it is very comfortable for me. There are children’s playgrounds, parks, traffic lights and cinemas. There are familiar names like Shell garage’s, Specsavers, Woolworth’s; a spar shop; but there are also chains I haven’t heard of but are clearly popular out here. The burger style joints are similar too; Nandos is one we have at home but there is one called ‘Bimbos’ here which I suppose is only for WAGs and blonds. I won’t be going in there. So on the surface it seems familiar. I am sure when I have been here a bit longer I’ll be able to scratch the surface and see what happens underneath.

Yet, there are also enough differences to make it strange and different, but in a safe way. I felt more foreign in South America than I do here. People do sometimes stare but not many. Children are more likely to than adults – hardly surprising children are always more curious. One woman (in Arabian style clothes) called me ‘white colour woman’ but not many really pay any more attention than they would to anyone. I still haven’t ventured out on my own yet. I went to town with Avia one day to buy some groceries and to get her some bits and bobs but have since learned I can’t drive here unless I get a resident’s licence so need to get special driving permit before I venture out. I could walk and probably will one day when I feel I won’t get lost. It’s not far to town about 20 minutes walk but there are no maps, so haven’t quite got my bearings despite George’s orienting day.

Francistown
The day after I arrived George gave me an orienting tour so I would know where things are but there were so many malls and areas I just am not sure yet. I can find the way from his work to here but not sure about other places. There are no pavements so you get dusty and it is hot from 1000– 1500hrs so need to try to get in early. All the goods in the shops are recognisable but the pavement sellers, of which there are many, there were a number of things that were difficult to identify: one of which was dried worms. Don’t think I will be trying those in a hurry! There are very few shops that cater for a tourist trade so most things on sale are practical and basic. No nice presents for anyone from here. No craft stalls with jewellry or nic naks. We needed a sofa for the living room and the choices were so old-fashioned that even your granny would think they were not for her. Hideous, big, lots of decorative carved dark wood and bad patterns. I had hoped for something ‘African’, but the kind that ethnic shops at home sell doesn’t happen out here, except in the tourist restaurants and hotels selling images of Africa. We did eventually find a plain sand coloured 2 seater which you might get in IKEA. (They have a Habitat in Gaborone apparently and it sells our version of African patterns and styles.) Ironic enough even for me.

All the buildings in Francis town are new or newish. Most onle story high. It seems a bit like a new town like Glenrothes. Lots of commercial, idustrial and domestic areas interspersed.

My first adventure
The pool George has is not usable yet. It is still too cloudy. He has to do a few more chemical mixes to get it right. Strangely the water would be very cold anyway and there would be no way I would go in. I feel hot most of the time but as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold. The air doesn’t hold the warmth. Not like home in the summer when you can sit outside till very late. I keep having to remind myself it is winter. I didn’t need any reminding last Saturday. George took Friday off work so we went to a lodge up by some salt pans so we could see a bit of the country and also the pans. We got up around 6am (yes on a holiday Saturday) to join a guided tour of the pans. We turned out to be the only ones on the tour. The guide told us it would be cold but I figured in Africa how cold can it get? Bloody freezing is the answer. (Apparently no-one swears here and it is especially frowned upon for woman so I have to watch my language. Really difficult. I reckon it is just a ruse on George’s part to get me to stop altogether). Anyway back to the story. We had blankets wrapped round us and it was still freezing. Because the rains had been so good this year the ‘lake’ hadn’t receded to show the pans so you couldn’t drive through them as in some years and this meant that the flamingos which are usually in their thousands, were not there. We saw one lone flamingo. However all was not lost we did see lots of pelicans, wattled cranes which are huge (bigger than our eagles), ostriches and herds of springbok. The sunrise was wonderful. What a colour the bush was, really lovely- very dramatic almost ‘out of Afrcia’ but without the elephants. We’ll have to come back in the dry season to see the flamingos.

The lodge we were staying at was ‘African’. It was decorated with giraffes on the curtains, lost of rustic features but not basic. The kind of Africa you could imagine Disney creating. Lovely. Lots of big comfy padded chairs to sip your G+T as the sun goes down. Felt very colonial. We even had a shower room that was attached to the room but outside so you could see the wilderness. Excellent sanitised start to my African adventure.

On the way home we took a wee detour to get another look at the pans/lake and as we were travelling along we saw very close to the road a herd of wilderbeast just grazing near a waterhole. We couldn’t believe it. For the first time I felt I was somewhere very different. It wasn’t like looking at a herd of cows. The other side of the road there were some more springbok grazing very close. It was truly amazing. I got quite excited. What am I going to be like when I see lions? Or elephants?

Travel companions
People hitch here all the time. Most can’t afford cars so they rely on people stopping for them. In saying that the cars that people do have are in good condition - nothing like the bashed up heaps driving around in Gambia or Peru. We stopped a couple of times to give women a lift. Each time we thought it was one woman and then out of nowhere comes more with their children. They are always quite shy of us but will talk if you ask questions. The last group has waited for an hour and half to get a lift.

Houses
In Francistown houses look like they do at home. Usually they are bungalows. The richer areas have bigger bungalows with lots of ground and electric fencing round them; the poorer ones smaller and less ground. In our street there are wide roads and lots of land. In the country side there is more variety. Some of the people live in round mud huts with thatched roofs. The richer they get the more they add. They have wooden corals round big areas and as more money comes in they develop more on the plot of land. We saw one plot with a mud hut; an outside brick built toilet, a bungalow with inside facilities. Interesting combination. Some of the mud huts had been painted; some had mud walls round them.

George’s colleagues.
I have met all of George’s colleagues now except the woman Alison who is on holiday but I think I will meet her before I go home. Like George, the two European guys are both in their late 50s but are seasoned African project workers. When George and I went out to his gold club one night all the guys in the bar (and they were all men) were well into there 50s too. There must be young guys here too cos I see a lot of young white woman out and about ‘doing lunch’ or shopping. The strangest thing I saw was a shop that gave massages and did nails but you could also hire a sunbed. Who on earth would hire a sunbed out here? Crazy. But then Avia thinks I am crazy anyway cos I sunbathe. She would never think of doing this. While we were in the bar I noticed that instead of serving nuts or crisps you can buy packets of dried meat – biltong - bit like the American beef jerky.

Avia
Avia is about 30 I guess although it is hard to tell. She seems to like it here but she only gets to see her husband at the weekend. He works as a picker on a farm about 40 miles away. She isn’t going to see her daughter till Christmas. It bothers her but there isn’t a lot she can do about it. She wants her to go to school in Zimbabwe. Today she asked me if I believed in God. I think my answer disappointed her. She believes in God and thinks that the devil is out to try to trap us at every opportunity. She said that those who don’t believe in God walk on their knees. I will have very sore knees I am afraid. She likes to watch programmes on the TV that are about angels, devils or religious. There isn’t much work for her to do here cos there is little furniture and no dusting so she watches TV a lot. I found it difficult at first to let her tidy up after me. One day I started the dishes and she said that she would do it. I let her and haven’t tried since. I suppose it must be what it is like for most men having someone to do stuff for them and magically their clothes are washed and dried and ironed. I must admit I could do with her at home but I doubt she would like Scotland – too cold.

Bye for now
Well that is my first week over. Nothing profound to say but liked writing about it. Not sure what it will be like if (when) I come out here for good. It has been great to be with George again though. Missed the silly old bugger. He has taken Friday and Monday off so we are off to visit Victoria Falls this weekend. Looking forward to that.