August 18, 2008

Maun at last! We have been here in Maun, 340 air miles north of Gaborone, for two weeks now and have stumbled and fumbled along and seem to amuse people as we try to assimilate here. It’s hard to describe how valuable the Flying Mission cultural training course was for us as it is now paying huge dividends. As we eat out, shop and navigate there is no panic as the “Gaborone experience” relates easily to here.

Our drive up from Gaborone on Saturday August 2^nd was pleasant and mostly uneventful. We took our time and stretched the drive into two 9 hour days passing over the Tropic of Capricorn on the first day. When we pulled into Francistown after about eight hours of travel, it was lunch time on a Saturday. Needing lunch ourselves, we turned into a very busy mall and found the Hungry Lion restaurant. Every time we ordered something the man said “we are out of that”. After six or seven choices, we finally asked, “What do you have?” The clerk pointed to the one item, which we then ordered. All they had was chicken, which seems to be a pretty standard dish here. We drove a short way out of town and ate delicious chicken under a road side tree.

Saturday night we spent at the Woodlands Stopover Lodge about ten kilometers north of Francistown and seven kilometers off the paved road into the bush. It was easy to find with signs pointing the way. We stayed in a chalet with indoor plumbing. It was a very clean and peaceful place with many beautiful kinds of wild birds. While there, we met a German couple “driving through Africa” in a large home made camper. They started in Germany and have been traveling for thirteen months. Over the past few days we have bumped into them twice in small shops here in Maun.

The next day we stopped for lunch at Nata Lodge just south of Nata. During lunch, we were impressed by the two foot long snake that slithered up the window while we ate there. Just a harmless bush snake and not the glass breaking cobra we initially thought it was. At Nata, the scenery changed to tropical with lots of Palm trees and sand, in addition to monster termite mounds. In the afternoon, we stopped to check out a camp in the Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve called Planet Baobab, and they claim to be the Baobab capital of the world. With so many of the huge, ancient trees everywhere in a sand setting it almost felt like we were on another planet.

Over the two day drive, we enjoyed seeing the way people live in simple brick or mud houses, and we saw many people using donkey carts as transportation. In addition, we saw lots of free roaming cattle, goats, and donkeys in the road, and three Ostriches courting on the road side. Our Pajero, ran like clock work all the way up and we averaged twenty one miles to the gallon on the highway.

When we arrived in Maun, a young short term missionary from Germany and the other FMS pilot, Travis, put on two “welcome to Maun” dinners for us. The second day here, as we were checking on a possible house to rent, Julie was offered a job teaching at the Okavango International School through a ministry called Love Botswana. The students go year round to school and start the year in January with three, one month breaks. They are on break for the month of August, so she will be starting in the last term on September 8. She will have 20 children ages 3 to 5 years old. We felt the position was an answer to our prayer for additional provision, as moving and cost of living expenses have been more than we had expected. There is a link to the school through the lovebotswana.org web site if any of you want more information.

We are currently staying at the FMS house with Travis until September 1 when the house we will rent is available. The current house we are in is a large two bedroom concrete and tile house, with the typical high ceilings you find here. Maun has been built along the Thamalakane River (pronounced tam-a-la-clann-ee) with a transient population of non-Africans mixed with local Motswana. People live in anything from nice large houses with walled landscaped yards, to small brick houses and simple round thatched roof, mud huts. The area we are in has the same mix of houses, and every evening we hear the cow bells of our neighbors small heard as they return home. We are just a short walk from the river and have been enjoying the village feel with people and animals walking by. There is a main paved road in and out of town and in town the roads a paved, but everywhere else there are sand track roads that seem to weave around through the brush to additional shops and homes. Of course, there are lots of roaming cattle, goats, and donkey’s everywhere and you really have to be careful driving especially at night.

After three days together, Travis had to fly the plane to South Africa for maintenance and was gone for a week. Colin went to the airport with him in the small FMS car so we could park it at the house while he was away. As they pulled into the airport, a policeman noticed that the registration was past due and stopped Colin, as he was the one driving, and impounded the car. He tried to explain that it was not his vehicle and had only been driving it for thirty seconds, to no avail. Colin had to pay the fine at the police station, and then wait for the registration to come from Gaborone before getting the car back. The word here for being stopped is arrested. When the police man told Colin he was being arrested, he thought he was about to see a jail cell! The policeman didn’t have a pen to write out the citation so Colin loaned him his, which he never got back. We have continued to keep a sense of humor through our new adventures here.

Each day we have poked our noses into all the little shops to see what they have, as we will be starting all over in furnishing a home for ourselves here. We are finding that you have to search for necessary things here, and choices are limited. With Travis gone, we were left on our own to adjust to our new surroundings, and process all the new things we have been learning. We are starting to accumulate a few things and have enjoyed stopping along the road out of town to look over the local crafts and workmen trying to make a living any way they can. Travis also returned with an abandoned little kitten that has kept us entertained when at the house.

Colin has his formal Botswana pilot’s license in hand and is learning the flying routes by flying along with Travis until his final check ride with the operations director of FMS in a few weeks. The biggest challenge is understanding people in the tower with the rich accent the people have here. In our evening hours, we have been able to spend more time with Christoph, the young German missionary, and had an enjoyable evening with the Baptist missionaries that have been here for 10 years. They will be moving to Zambia in December.

Cool things we have seen or experienced:

·The New Life Butcher Shop (we continue to be amazed at the choice of names for things here)

·Even with the wide spread use of computers people use three pieces of carbon paper to hand write receipts in triplicate.

·The smallest purchases receive a hand written and officially rubber stamped receipt.

·Most government offices have file draws bursting with files overflowing onto tables and floors. Like my desk, everything can be located anyway.

·Cell phone use is prohibited or strongly discouraged in government offices, banks and in any public place other than outdoors, this is a very good thing.

·Use of a cell phone while driving risks fines and possible cell phone confiscation. The deterrent works and is a good thing.

·While shaking hands or giving/receiving something your left hand holds your right arm near the elbow. When holding your right arm it is hard to strike the other person with your left and thus shows peaceful intent.

·Tea time is 10 am. A biscuit and cup of tea is in order. This is a really cool thing!

·Opposite the U.S., tea is every where, coffee most places, this is a nice experience for this tea drinker that once felt like a second rate citizen.

·Some young women curtsy while being introduced, remember America until the 1950’s?

·There are very few car/police chases. If you are breaking the law the policeman standing by the road expects you to stop when he waves you down, ninety nine percent of the people do stop!

Not so cool things we have experience:

·Julie’s overnight painful (not cool) food poisoning brought on after drinking Pure Joy Orange Juice that was bad.

·Difficulty accessing internet. We can go to an internet café and pay a lot for a very slow dial-up connection, or poke around town to get wireless by using our laptop in front of a business with an unsecured line….

·Sharp thorns that get stuck in our shoe soles.

Just a short note on some of the pictures.

• The young boy shown with the fish was on his way home with dinner when I stopped him to take a picture. No sport here, just all day fishing for something to eat for supper. He couldn’t understand my interest but did understand the Pula ( 15 cents) that I gave him (which put a smile on his face) for teaching me the secret to his success. The secret? “worms”.
• The two men posing with the chairs are road side furniture makers. Using trees found along the road or recycled lumber they do a credible job of building and finishing most any furniture you want. We bought two bed side tables for 100 Pula, the equivalent of $15.00. We asked them to pose with some of their wares which they happily did as long as we let them pose with their most cherished tool, the skill saw. You see, they start from raw wood to finished product using only hand tools until the most recent purchase of the electric saw.
• For perspective, a starting policeman earns 55 Pula a day, about $8.46.

We thank all of you for your prayers and email responses to our blog spot. It really encourages us as we navigate this new season of our lives. Please continue to pray for our health and safety and that the Lord will show us where
He can best use us here.