Goodbye Matt and Cathy

Sorry for the absence of posts this past week.. I was busy hanging out with Matt and Cathy and showing them some of the sites of this great place..
I think they had a good time here. They were able to see the kids school, meet my friends in Gabane, eat at Apache Spur, try a fatcake and go to Chobe National park. The trip to Chobe was outstanding... 10 hours of driving through the country, seeing nothing after nothing.. small villages, cattle, people sitting by the side of the road, going God knows where, and lots of potholes.. Only about 8 hours into the drive to see elephants on the side of the highway.. Then is when you realize you are very far from home.
While in Chobe we took our wonderful Mitsubishi Pajero(aka Babs) through the park.. you have to have a 4x4.. Perfect weather, perfect sunrises and sunsets.. We tracked a pack of 5 lions for about 3 hours(that came 3 feet from our car), saw over 200 elephants, baboons, giraffes, cape buffalo, hippos, hyenas and wild dogs, amongst other animals.. We ate warthog, impala, saw a snake, were attacked by a screeching owl, were almost attacked by an elephant, took malaria medicine, saw tradtional dancing and singing and met Calvin, our waiter.

Matt and cathy learnt the Botswana handshake, great phrases like "ke Kopa", "sharpo" and paid a woman 1 pula each to use a public toilet.

I will be posting several videos, photos, etc from the trip.. starting with some of the lion video.. This does in no way do the experience justice.. and I'm sure Matt and Cathy have better footage. But their first morning game drive, we found this crew of lions and were fortunate enough to follow them for at least 2.5 hours..



In the next few days I'll put up the elephants, baboons and some others... I hope you enjoy them.

Family here is doing great..Nothing much more to report... Michelle is still busy with work. Kate got another award at school today...for "creating interesting news and reports about her weekends and adding wonderful illustrations".. or something like that..Jacob is very busy with school work and after school activities... while Maura continues to love school.. The twins are in serious destructive mode and enjoyed an evening of destroying everything in their path tonight as I helplessly cleaned up everything they knocked over..
Hope all is well at home.. keep in touch.. and keep tuned in for some good videos.. photos..

One last thing... Kate told us yesterday the boys in her class were acting as bodyguards for some of the girls in her class... she had 5 bodyguards..

thanks matt and cathy for making the trek over to see us... Go siame.. or as Jude says... Go salami!!!