German print, school starts and Steven

good day today, the kids went back to school and had a nice day. We are back in full swing now and afternoon activities start back up next week. jacob leaves for his class trip, a week in Durban with his classmates. They fly to Durban next Wednesday. I remember going to the zoo or Kings Island for my class trip..... Never went to Durban

Went shopping for german print fabric today and stumbled into joyce's shop..she is a dress maker here, specializing specifcally in traditional botswana dresses, hats and embroidery... They are great dresses, she tried to sell me a shirt, but I told her a white man just doesn't look as cool in it .... I tried it on, she told me i looked "authenic", I told her she was full of it. Here's a few photos of her and her shop... The German print is not authentic Botswana, but the usage of it is.. it is their style of clothing, worn for special occasions(weddings, etc.)... Joyce makes shoes, hats,etc out of it... I plan on her making some pilow cases for us.... She won 3rd place at the arts fair this year for her work.

In other photos is our guard Steven.... He is built like a linebacker, but as sweet as can be. he recently had a child pass away, i think that happened in january.....He now has 3 children. I have been wanting to take his photo since he's been working here, and had a chance today.. he loved the photos, was looking at them still an hour after i gave them to him. he told me he looked beautiful and wants me to take photos of him in his suit ...

it is now May 14th and he hasn't had a day off of work since mid february... He told me yesterday he wants to try and take a sunday off so he can go to church.....

can you imagine? everyday from 6am-6pm.. He watches the day pass by peering over top our wall, reading week old newspapers and sittng under a tree.. he makes about 8 bucks a day. But he is always so kind to us and our kids... I want to bring him back home with us.... He brings his own water boiler and radio that we bought him for Xmas everyday...makes tea and listens to the radio...

also photographed was BK, a young guy who has been doing odd jobs around our property for the past 8 months(first photo). He's a cool guy who I think has a crush on Celeste. One other photo... a clothesline near our home. a killer dog lives there.

We had dinner last night at jeff and Jen's house.. they had visitors in from tennessee who were taking in the local sites.

all for now.. hope all is well at home.

school starts tomorrow

I had thought over the weekend that the kids were going back to school on Monday of this week. Well , I was wrong... The kids had yesterday and today off as well, and head back full time tomorrow.. it's been a long, restful, holiday and I think the kids are ready for their return. We went up and bought their winter versions of their uniforms today and they are now set.

Michelle and I had the wonderful opportunity of opening up a local bank account yesterday.. It took us 2.5 hours.... It was awesome.. We headed to the Main Mall, waited in line, filled out some paperwork, waited in line again and finally got it set up... i knew the line was bad when people from Botswana started to complain about the wait...

Today, I went to the Air Botswana office today to finalize some things for my sister and brother who are coming in a month, and have gotten the best service ever.. A woman named Khumo has helped me the past 3 times I've been there and is constantly calling me to ask questions, finalize details , etc. It has been a real pleasant surprise, the local customer service has always been a bit lacking.

We had a nice Mother's day, took michelle for ice cream to sanitas (which has a tea garden and playground for the kids)in the afternoon and had a nice dinner in the evening.. http://www.sanitas.co.bw/

Michelle is working in Mochudi today( the picture above) about a 45 minute drive from gabs while the kids enjoy their last day of relaxation. Here's a video from mochudi to give you an idea of the place michelle works on tuesdays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc9QBysjyuU

As for us, we are eating Skyline this evening to celebrate the return to school.

I apologize for the uneventfulness of these past entries.. Life has become a bit patterned and uneventful... but please keep up with us.... We are planning big stuff soon.... maybe.

Hope that holds your interest for at least 5 more months.

If there's anything anyone would like to know about any facet of life here that you feel I may need to cover, please let me know.... Perhaps you could email me and dare me to do something or maybe make a video of something you'd like to see. We could make this blog like a call in/request show. I plan on going back out to take photos and more videos of the villages once the kids go back to school, so i'm really looking forward that.

One note about the video.. i think the song is "hitching a ride" and the video may highlight this aspect of life here... I didn't get through the whole thing, our internet is too slow... but I should note that hitching rides is totally normal and widely accepted.. We normally give people rides all the time when travelling through the country and surrouding areas... It's actually alot of fun and is greatly appreciated by those you give the ride to..

All for now.

Happy mother's day , quirky kids and a bike ride through the desert

We are enjoying our morning here in botswana as we try in some way to celebrate Mother's day with the kids.. Michelle's plan for the day is to cook a nice meal this evening and knit with Celeste.. No she hasn't turned 85 but that's what she wants to do.. The kids made her a few things to hang up, Kate woke up at 7 to put the finishing touches on her gift....

all the young kids are outside now enjoying the weather and acting like dogs. maura is in underpants of course... One other note of the kids,, franny is like no other child we have had.

When she gets upset she does one of 2 things.... she falls on the floor, stares at the ground, huffs and puffs and then rolls around... you can't pick her up or in any way console her, she refuses.. The other thing she does, which for some reason reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock movies, is if she gets upset,, she slowly walks backward, usually against the wall, and hides herself behind the curtains... it's very dramatic, quite skillfull and sadly strange.

What's funny is Jude tries the same tactic sometimes when he gets upset, and can't pull it off.. like a football player doing yoga.

Maura has reached another strange stage in her fear of something.... She had a bad dream a few weeks ago and is now scared of giants.... all the time... she needs us to watch her go to the bathroom(somtimes just to see the bowel movement she just had), she won't lay down in her bed without someone with her and worries about them when she goes outside. It's been very convenient.

Right now the kids are playing a great game.... Let's pretend we're sleeping... it's great....

Last night we went out to celebrate a fellow doctor's major accomplishment.. In an effort to raise money for the Botswana/Baylor Clinic, our friend Jonathan biked from Windhoek, Namibia to Gaborone. He did this also to coincide with his 40th birthday. Basically it's 1600+ kms across the Kalahari Desert...

He arrived yesterday at noon and is a national superstar...It was cool to see and he about 240,000 pula/ 40,000usd. for the HIV clinic.

attached are photos from the celebration(maura and kate eating cake in the conference room) , a group photo of michelle and her co-workers as well as one of Michelle.. obviously..

All for now.

Btv , national anthem and local music video

Just to give you an idea of the local television station, here's a video promo for "BTV", our television station here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I7_ci-48so
You can find anything on "You Tube"...... Here's the national anthem of Botswana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zRj2FA37o&feature=related .

And here's a music video shot in the parking lot of one of our strip malls. I think it is BBS mall, where we rent our movies at "Vee's Videos"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY_pTSnoVSQ&feature=related

I've got lots for you to watch today... because i don't have much else to report.. We are heading to Odi this afternoon, Kate has a birthday party and sleepover to go to..... Odi is one of my favorite villages .. after that... who knows...... the weather is still gorgeous and i plan on getting all the kids out and running around somewere... I think.

One last video to lay on you before i go........... In August, michelle, Jacob and I will head with his class to the salt pans where Jacob and his classmates will hike for 33 kms. to raise money for cancer patients here. Jacob will begin training for this in the next few weeks..... We will go there, set up tent and camp for a weekend. if you want to see what this looks like, check this out......
It is amazing looking, a bit creepy in terms of how desolate it is, but apparently in the middle of this is an amazing baobab tree forest... so we got that going for us... I can't wait for this trip...not any animals, except scorpions, some antelope and meerkats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE23h4mk6ho&feature=related .

hope all is well at home.

Chuck Norris, pot smoke and "tail of the goat"

it's 12;30 in botswana right now and our neighbors over the wall are smoking dope like there's no tomorrow. We are all probably getting a contact buzz from the scent. I guess that explains why Jude is demanding to watch "fantasia" while listening to Pink floyd's "the wall". I'm sure they're using it for medicinal reasons.

Michelle and i went out for a bit last night to celebrate me getting old. We went to a local bar at the Main Mall called "Qhwest". We had a great time, met some locals name Kaiser, Charlie and Mooketsi, all professionals who trained in either England or the U.S. We had a nice time discussing things and again realized how ignorant we are about the rest of the world. The discussion was entertaining and I did walk away with a sense that although I am ignorant of most of this region, my perception of the place is correct... I think... Make sense?

They talked of travelling through Botswana, and said it was the "last of free roam Africa" , where you can really feel you are in the wild.....no paved roads, chance of never seeing anyone else for weeks, etc. Travelling through this place is a wild and unique, but i'm not sure if it's the "last" of these places . He talked of people camping in the bush with little babies, and having hyenas take the children right out of the tent... don't worry, we won't take the twins anywhere like that... but if I do, i'll be sure to dress them in their meat suits.

They told us that Chuck Norris comes here every year to vacation..... Then it must be wild.. one side note.... In my search for an image of Chuck Norris, I came across the website.. I'm sure it's very popular and I'm just out of the loop, but it was funny.

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Another thing I wanted to mention today was the "tail of the goat" . basically its a thumbs up or thumbs down that people use here... It's just like everywhere else and has the same connotations... If the thumb is up, the tail of the goat is up, and everything is "Sharpo", slang for cool, great, awesome, ok , etc. Thumbs down, tail of the goat down, not so good...

not rocket science, but i thought I'd pass that little tid bit on to you....

i'm good for something.

All for now.

big day

Today is a beautiful day here in gabs, not much going on.. we rearranged things in the home, just to make it look a little normal, cleaned and folded laundry. It's been a nice morning, although i am feeling under the weather. We'll braai tonight and enjoy the wonderful weather(which is much like home right now). We had rain on sunday, but other than that, I haven't seen a cloud in the sky for weeks. Here's a random video of us at groot marico and Michelle and i at Khutse... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgOLlGkGvjw Hope all is well at home . To celebrate my birthday today, here's one of my favorite Monty Python skits...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LexvNQy2B_k

tuesday

not much going on today, we've hit a boring part of our story here in botswana.. the kids are doing great though...

maura, Jude and franny are growing like weeds as are Jacob and Kate. I am turning 35 tomorrow and want to throw up at the thought of it.

But we'll see what happens.. maybe we'll have 5 more kids in the second half of my 30's..

Kids headed to a friends house tonight... Thank God.

All for now.