lions during poker?

How many times in your life does a poker game get stopped due to the fact that there are lions roaring in the distance? That's what happened to us on saturday. It was the wildest, scariest and at the same time, obvious thing to happen when we camped at Khutse. earlier in the evening, after a 30 minute game drive, we stumbled upon 2 male and one female lion drinking from the watering hole that was about 2 kms. from our camp.. they were huge..... absolutely huge... and scary.. I was there for one night, Jacob was there for 2... It was a great camping experience, knowing you were not the big man on campus, and that there were lions, leopards, hyenas, wildcats living in the same environment. Just going out to look for wood for the fire was a invigorating experience...... Jacob and I had a nylon tent, and really didn't feel comfortable sleeping in our little tent, so we opted for the truck... I was going to keep the sun roof open for fresh air during the night, but someone told me that mambas can lift themselves off the ground and can crawl over the truck.. so I opted to sleep in the stale air of our truck.... Jacob shovel sledded across the salt pans and we played "capture the flag" in the bush... we were introduced to chakalaka sausage and I had a great mid afternoon shower in a bucket shower(picture shown) . Here's some photos from the trip.. mostly those of jake and his friends here...... The ones of the kids on the roof were during our "sundowner" by the watering hole.... we all had a drink and a snack and watched the sun go down near the watering hole, where 5 minutes later, we saw the lions drinking..
The ride there was absolutely surreal... you hit the last village(pictured) and the tar road turns to dirt.. for 2hours. Once you hit the game reserve.. it was 1.5 hours drive into the bush... there were no other groups camping within 20 miles of us.... One of the pictures is the dirt road to Khutse...... The other picture is of a squashed puff adder on the side of the road...
The experience is one we will always remember... Peeing our pants in the tent while Jacob and I woried whether what we heard and felt was the wind or a lion/hyena hitting our tent...

goodbye to Matt and hello to lions!

Matt leaves us today after a week or so. Hopefully his time here was a good one, it was great to have him here, sharing our experiences of screaming kids and bad food. He leaves today around noon.... 6 am your time..

Jacob is out in the bush already camping, i am headed out after I write this message. It's a bout a 5 hour drive, 2 hours of dirt roads. Looking forward to the experience. We are camping right out in the middle of it all.... Lions, hyenas, scorpions , snakes, etc..... You are required to have a lion proof tent... or so they say... We are going with a bunch of American families for a night out under the stars. Check out the blog for a few photos on late sunday or monday.. If for some reason the blog isn't updated in the next week or so, that means that my tent wasn't as well lion proofed as I first thought. Attached are a few photos from Matt's camera.... here's some great shots. I'll put a few more of his up next time as well.

Ok, headed out.. GO CARDS!!!!!! GO XU!!!

alot of lost golf balls..

After showing matt some of the local villages and African life, we took a morning and hung out in suburbia Botswana.. we went golfing at Phakalane about 30 minutes outside of the city.. http://www.phakalane.com/ . It feels just like some gross gated community in the U.S. Lots of huge homes, a great golf course, etc.. It was a great morning of golf, with the loss of a ton of golf balls. the problem with missing the fairways in Botswana is that if you hit it in the bush, there ain't no way you'd want to go search for it... lots of critters lurk, some of them are poisonous.. really poisonous.

Tonight we are taking matt to Mokolodi for a game drive and dinner at a great outdoor restaurant... http://www.mokolodi.com/ . Here's our wonderful president meeting who he thought was Snufulupogus from Sesame Street, when in fact it was a real elephant.. (joke) This happened at Mokolodi as well.

Hope all is well at home... the Cards come on at 3:30 this morning... so i'll see if i can stay up to see it. can anyone send me their DVR player ?

Go Cards

so far, so good.

Matt and I headed to gabane today to visit with my good friends at the chubuku stands and other areas of the village.. We met Bashi, OJ, Rosy, Alicia and all the crew.. they were in rare form, 3 sheets to the wind at 10 am. We did see a rare sight... the were slaughtering a cow right outside the butcher shop when we arrived. I didn't have the stomach to take close photos, but I think Matt got a few from a distance.. We visited with our friends at the pottery shop and are planning on quiz night at the bull and bush bar this evening... Tomorrow, I believe we head out to golf with the warthogs in Phakalane.

Here's a photo of Matt at a dusty bar in Odi..we had visited the Odi weavers and stopped at the "Take 2 bar"... they were playing some great music when we arrived, only to have it change to Maria Carey when we sat down to enjoy our beverages.... None the less, we had a nice visit with a few of the locals. And beers were a buck.

tuli block.

well. we all survived the weekend.. the trip to tuli was great.. Matt and Michelle commented on how well they were taken care of by their guide Abraham.... a true bushman.. Jacob is a font of information about hyenas, jackyls and baobab trees.. Today Matt and I will visit Odi to see the weavers and then who knows what. The weather is perfect... it's 8:30 am now... so it will get hot again today. But a few pics from their trip and here's a video for your pleasure.. not too excitingbut it give you a sense of the landscape... Matt has some great photos as well, and I'll post them when I get them.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKnPAhzOcEs A note on the photos... Giraffes, hyenas... and a huge baobab tree that is supposedly 3000 years old...Oh yeah and franny looking ragged as ever.

happy easter from Botswana

Well it's holiday time again, which means nothing but "Air Supply" and pot smoke in the air... Our neighbors are enjoying their day off of work...feel like I'm living next to a continuous grateful dead concert, but for some reason, all the hippie kids think that Air Supply is the music to get high to.

Anyway, holidays are a bit lonely around this joint(no pun intended), the city is deserted, busses were packed with people heading out of town and back to their home villages... There's obviously no family, and with Michelle, Matt and the 2 older kids on safari, I am sitting around watching the 3 little ones beat the hell out of each other... I've been enjoying watching a basketball game a night here for the past few days, and hope to catch a few more tonight..

Matt, Michelle and the kids seem to be living it up in Tuli Block...Apparently they have a local guide with them 24/7.. he even eats dinner with them.. I don't think the game viewing has been all that spectacular... no big game, just zebras, antelope, giraffes, etc.. but they have seen hyenas and Michelle just texted me and said they saw a cobra next to the pool they were swimming in... So, that's very cool!!!! I've been here for 6 months and am dying to see a snake, matt gets off the plane and one is swimming in the same pool with him.. Oh yeah,, Matt and Cathy, this is the pool we'll be going to when you come over...

As for me, I've watched 6 episodes of backyardigans and are playing checkers with Maura. Kind of missing home today... but looking forward to showing Matt the sites when they return from their trip to the bush..

OK, gotta go. maura and i are living it up with a new version of checkers... you can move anywhere and everywhere on each turn.. here's a few photos of animals... these are from chobe.

happy easter everyone... and GO CARDS! I shed a tear watching UK go down the other night.... did they have any business being there? Ouch

monkeys in the backyard

well, Matt Dixon is on his way over to visit.. should be here sometime around 7pm our time.. 1 pm yours.... We're looking forward to it.. Tomorrow they take off to Tuli Block to stay in a very cool place, surrounded by elephants, lions, wild dogs, etc. http://www.tulilodge.com/....
We feel like giving him no time to get used to the time change, might as well keep him busy as soon as he gets off the plane..
As Michelle was leaving for a jog this mornig she noticed Steven the security guard throwing rocks in our tree.. Apparently there were monkeys jumping from tree to tree and on our roof... Here's some video of them in our back yard, as well as the kids reactions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH-Uc_xVfdQ ..... Jude and Franny dug the two monkeys hanging out on our wall..
Michelle works today but just for a short time.. The rest of the city has shut down for the weekend due to the holiday...... It's literally a ghost town...
All for now... go cards!!!

CARDS!

That's all i got for today... nothing to report.. looking forward to watching my first college game of the year... Here's some photos of maura at her school party.. And of course.... my team.. GO CARDS!

botswana pace.... Maura's tea party

Maura and I had a great time at her school's tea party. we had cupcakes, tea, egg salad sandwiches and blew bubbles.. she's really digging school and i hope her time at Dipeo continues to be a good experience.

I have been thinking most of the day how different this place is from home. Besides all of the obvious things, the whole way of life feels different.. There's facets of life here that are truly surreal... like the fact that you can be 10 minutes out of gaborone and be in a true african village, or the fact that i heard a marching band practicing in the middle of a field as I was dropping Maura off for school. But the one thing I will always remember about living here is the feeling of never feeling rushed.. We truly are loving our time here, and I think it is strictly for that reason. People are kind, they wave to you and acknowledge you when you do the same in return, when a traffic light is broken, people yield for each other, and apologize with sincerity when they accidentally go out of turn.. Being a foreigner with 5 kids with a set of mawelanas(twins), brings an onslaught of stares, but beside that, people are wonderful.

the schooling structure here would be inviting(my opinion) to anyone from the U.S.. all extra activities are in the day and there's no serious pressure put on the kids with sports... i have learned to take athletics in stride and honestly, enjoy them 3 times more than at home.. wait, except for baseball..

the pace is awesome and I think it will be difficult to return once we get finished with our time here... People, children especially, are patient... They will wait in lines for days. And they don't mind. We've learned to do the same... I was reading old blog posts during the time when I was waiting for the car to arrive,, and now... If i receive something within 5 months, I'd be happy.

Most Botswana find work to be highly overrated, and enjoy doing nothing during the weekend. They entertain themselves by sitting under a tree on stumps or plastic chairs, braiding hair or just talking..

Michelle and i keep up the discussion of what we feel we will change about our lifestyle when we return... I'm still not sure.... Probably a better appreciation of the simple things... I sound like a promo for "It's a Wonderful Life" , but it's true..

Why am I writing this today? Because I have nothing else to report....

And even though I've become a true believer in simplicity, let me just say how psyched I am about the fact that we will be watching the opening round of March madness on our cable television on Thursday night.. Michelle is going to a botswana wedding, I am going to be able to see Xavier play in the first game... don't care too much about XU, but hopefully I'll be able to check out the C_A_R_D_S soon..

Ok, enough pontificating about nothing.. here's one of my favorite photos I've taken since we've been here....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Well, you'd be surprised... but St. Patrick's day has no significance here... We are all alone in our celebrating, except for a few other american families.. There is an O'hagans restaurant here, but I'm not sure of their Irish flair.. We had samoosas there one night, as well as garlic bread and mealie pap.. they do have Guinness though. I went to get sausage at the shop, for my bangers and mash, and all the sausages were rotten.. god they stunk.. I was checking out and the bag boy said... 'you want this?' We smelled the package together and we agreed..It wasn't a good buy. then came the fiasco of returning an item that you didn't want.. I had just bought it, was at the same checkout counter.. but was directed to the Inquiry kiosk, told to wait, had to explain why I didn;t want the sausage, filled out an explanation form, and made the swap for Boerwurst instead of pork sausage. Luckily, the bottle shop next door had Guinness.. My friend Dineo asked who this St. patrick was I was celebrating.. i told her it wasn't worth explaining.. basically everyone gets drunk, calls it a day and that's it.. that elplanation seemed to suffice.

We had a great weekend, nothing happened.. Looking forward to Michelle's brother Matt arriving on Friday. take my advice matt, take advantage of the free drinks. It rained all weekend , uprooting trees in our backyard and flooding the streets. It turned cold.. probably feels exactly what it is at home. hopefully it will warm up for the weekend. The kids are still doing great... Maura is really digging school... They don't publicly state that they are a Christian school, but she's been coming home with some small projects that are religiously charged.It's kind of scary. Yet, she's making easter eggs, and we have a teddy bear tea party tomorrow. Jude and franny continue to master the local language.... Celeste has taught them Maoto(foot) as well. And Jude continues to wow locals with his greeting as we walk past people... Something like.... doodoodoodooo-rrrrrrraaaaaa! good stuff.

Tuesday morning now...... went out for a bit last night after dinner with friends paul and Jonathan. Went to Linga Longa and O'Hagans... not very exciting... no irish flair, a few green balloons, but nothing else. http://www.pub.co.bw/ Check out this web site.. they pride themselves on 8 different draft beers.. What they don't tell you is that none of those draft beers are working... that is the actual place we went by the way. The photos for the day are... Kate with Dineo, Boitumelo and Gofa at the local bottle shop, and a decorated home in Gabane.

goodbye to Megan, and my trip to Mmangkodi

Yesterday was an extremely eventful day, and one of the nicest I've had in a while.. I was busy all morning painting the mural, while the three older kids were at school. From there I had and appointment with Fr. Tshiamo at the Reneestwe orphanage in a village named Mmangkodi, about 35 minutes outside of Gaborone.. I wasn't sure what to expect upon my arrival.. the side roads in the village were a bit tough to drive, due to decay and all the rain we've had.. but it was a beautiful drive and the people in the village were kind enough to help me find my way to the parish.

The orphanage apparently takes care of around 70-80 children, who come after school each day. They were wonderful children, who laughed, sang prayers and enjoyed laughing at my attempts at speaking setswana.. they had lunch, taught me some new words and then played for the rest of the day. after speaking with Fr. Tshiamo, I realized how difficult things are for these children... they are cared for my grandparents,, aunts and uncles once their day is finished at the orphanage. Each child is given food baskets throughout the year from the government, b/c of the fact that they have lost their parent.. But due to lack of work, poverty , etc.. many of these guardians sell their food in order to make money,leaving the child without much to eat.. He told me of his struggles to keep the place running, and we spoke of things that perhaps we could do to help his cause.. At least 15 of the families have been destroyed by AIDS.

The children were playing most of the time I was there.. their toys were 1 deflated soccer ball (for the boys) and a rolled up sock with which the girls were playing a version of dodgeball with.. they have a playground, which is in need of some fixing up, but the kids did't seem to care.

There is a woman who seems to be the main caregiver to the kids(Janet) and a young man named Manga who teaches them drama and morality.

The kids were fantastic.. Loving, laughing and playing the whole time I was there. It put alot of perspective on our lives and how lucky we are.... It made my problems and concerns seem ridiculous. I asked Father what they needed.. He said... everything.. Money, books, toys, clothes.. etc.. THey have a small bus that they want to use to take the kids on small trips, but they can't afford gas for it.. they have a room with shelves for a library collection, but maybe 12 books.. Anything would be a step forward for them.. But overall, the place seemed very warm and inviting for the children.... I left the orphanage as children came running, hugging my leg and shaking my hand... I plan to go back very soon...Here's a link to a photo slideshow of my visit. The accompanying music is from a local group called Matsieng... They are extremely popular, you here this music on the radio 24/7.. They're like the "New Kids on the Block" of Botswana. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWOx9dioUog

Last night we said goodbye to a good friend of ours , Megan, who is moving to Lesotho this weekend.. there was a great party for her where all the people from the clinic came to bid her fairwell.. All the Batswana women and men led the celebration in traditional singing and dancing.. It was awesome. We plan on throwing parties everytime we have a visitor , just so they can experience the joy and beauty of this event.... Here's a few photos..

Jing -Jing

Maura has a new friend here in Botswana... Her name is Jing-Jing.. Maura says that "she has pink lips and she loves her mom." That's good enough for me. we are doing well here... just hoping that the children continue to draw on the wall, to cover the remaining white spots. It's horrible, looks like a nuthouse.

Michelle is on call this weekend and will be happy to be finished with the hospital work. Jacob is practicing soccer and they have dubbed their team "Northside United."

I apologize for the dull quality of the posts recently.. Life here has become routine, we haven't had a trip in a while and all the crazy aspects of life here are now normal to us.. like the fact that the only time people can register to get married here is on thursday, because that's the only day of the week that the marriage license office is open. Or the fact that they are using plaster of paris and plaster wrap to repair our gutters???? THey look like giant casts.

I went for a run today and I think encountered my first snake.. I didn't stick around to find out... just got hissed at from the tall grass as i ran through a park. I hate snakes... God and the hiss was loud and sounded venomous.

Michelle and I are becoming very old. We both fell asleep at 8:30 last night. what's up with that?

A couple photos for the day... Here's an electric box outside our place.. It is kept closed by the rock that is propped up against its door(i'm sure that's up to code) A man came by from the electric company... moved the rock, did a reading, put the rock back in its place as if all main electric boxes around the world are closed with a rock . other photos, A man in a Gabane shop, and the Gabance tailor....