Happy Holidays!

Dumela Family and Friends,

This year has been quite an adventure. Our first few months of the year, we spent lots of time with family. For two months, we stayed with Matt’s sister and brother-in-law and their new baby, Amélie.  It was so nice to spend so much time with a young baby. While Amanda and Sean were busy with school and work, we took care of Amélie. We learned a lot and had a great time with the Cash family. We went mountain biking, snowshoeing, snowboarding, hiking and did some extreme sledding. We also got to spend some good quality time with two of our other nieces, Addison and Avery. We went on nature walks, cooked food and played silly games. We really cherish the time we were able to spend with the kiddos on the Kogle side. We also spent time with the rest of our family – sharing time between our parents’ homes. We loved spending time in the Olympia area, especially hunting for mushrooms with Eileen and Vince. We also had a fun time at Mark and Marty’s, there’s always something happening!

When we started out this year, we thought that we would be Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Ghana as science and math teachers. In March, we got a call from Peace Corps stating that our invitation had been revoked. We were told that our options were to either go to Botswana for an agriculture assignment leaving in 5 weeks or wait until the summer and one of us would have to teach English. Teaching English was one of the things we really didn’t want to do and we also couldn’t imagine waiting until August to leave, so we told them to send us the invitation for Botswana. Peace Corps Botswana is technically an HIV/AIDS program, but we were told that we would use our agricultural background to promote better nutrition. That meant we only had 5 weeks to prepare ourselves for our Peace Corps assignment. This also included preparing our family members who would be taking care of our pets and possessions. We are very grateful to Eileen and Vince for taking care of our beloved dog, Sammy, Amanda and Sean for taking care of our bunny, Daisy, and Matt’s parents for holding on to our stuff!

We can’t believe we’ve been in Botswana for over 8 months now. Time really flies. Although there are inevitable ups and downs to Peace Corps service, we have enjoyed our time in Southern Africa. We spent two months in southern Botswana before heading to our village in the Okavango Delta Region. It is really beautiful here and we couldn’t be happier with our area. We have been busy doing gardening work, helping out at the clinic and doing environmental education. This area has so much to offer - Tsodilo Hills, the Okavango River, Moremi National Park, and Namibian National Parks. We truly got lucky with our site placement. We hope friends and family visit us so we can show them this beautiful area. We look forward to seeing what 2013 has to offer us in our Peace Corps service. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we hope to promote world peace and friendship and we hope you can too. 

Wishing you peace and happiness this holiday season!

Lots of Love,

Bridgette and Matt

Chobe National Park

This post is about 2 months late…

In late October, we went to Chobe National Park in the north-eastern tip of Botswana. I had gone to the park when I was shadowing another volunteer and wanted to see it again with Matt. The fastest way for us to get to that part of the country is to go through the Caprivi Strip in Namibia. If we had a car, this journey would take less than half a day. However, as Peace Corps Volunteers, we are not allowed to have a car and renting one takes a lot of money and effort. So, we decided to hitch-hike. We got relatively lucky with rides - a government water truck to the border (which is free) and then we only waited an hour at the border for a ride that would take us to the eastern side of the Caprivi Strip. We got a ride with a truck driver delivering toilets, tiles and bathtubs to a furniture store in Katima Mulilo. He was nice enough, but he drove maddeningly slow. The Caprivi Strip is beautiful – it was much greener than Shakawe at the time and there are lots of animals. We saw kudu on the drive and lots of signs warning of elephants and wild dogs. Once we got to Katima Mulilo, we hopped on a combi to the Botswana/Namibia border. The combi driver was trying to get us to the border before it closed. We arrived 5:59, one minute before the border closed. We thought “Yes! We made it!” However we were told that the Botswana border would be closed for sure and if we crossed and tried to get back into Namibia they would have to arrest us. Hmm…what do we do? Do we cross and get stuck in between countries or do we stay the night in Namibia. Luckily, the Namibians were very nice to us. We were just going to pitch a tent somewhere, but they had us stay the night at the police station. It wasn’t a restful night – there was a prisoner who was really loud so they decided to let him out so he can join their conversation. Strange, but we figured one guy couldn’t fight off 7 police officers. The next morning we successfully crossed the border. We walked across a bridge that goes over the Zambezi River and it was breathtaking. We saw a herd of kudu and lots of signs of elephants. We were glad we didn’t end up camping on the bridge or near the Botswana gate because we would have been in the thick of wildlife habitat.

Once we got back into Botswana, we got a ride to Kasane. Along the way we saw sable antelope, zebras and an elephant! That day we set up our tent at Chobe Safari Lodge and explored Kasane. We also booked a game drive for that afternoon. The game drive was very nice – we saw tons of elephants, lots of birds, impala, warthogs, hippos and buffalo. We would have loved to see more of the park, but that will have to wait until we rent a vehicle when friends and family visit. That night, we had a lovely dinner of cheese, meat, bread, crackers and wine next to the river. The next day we went to Pandamatenga to visit another Peace Corps Volunteer’s garden project. It was interesting to hear how she went about planning the garden and the techniques she used. We had lunch at a cute little lodge then had a drink at an exclusive camp. The camp has a watering hole for the elephants, which was fun. There were so many elephants! Of course, elephants do a lot of damage, so the trees in the surrounding area looked sad. On our last full day, we treated ourselves to a nice breakfast at the lodge. It was so delicious and we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore. It was so good I even put some dried mango in my pocket for a later occasion. Unfortunately, the wait staff saw me do this and they got a good laugh out of it. We then relaxed by the pool and waited for our boat ride. We booked it with an acquaintance of mine, which meant that we scored a private boat ride! It was so nice to be able to take our time with the animals and especially the birds. We could totally nerd out with our binoculars and bird book. We got back in time to watch the sunset over the river from the dock. 

We really enjoyed our vacation to Chobe National Park. It is definitely a destination that we will take visitors. Next time we would like to have our own vehicle so we can explore the park and head to Victoria Falls which is only two hours away from Kasane.  

 

The Ever Busy Floodplain

As most of you know we live next to a floodplain for the Okavango River. As we desperately wait for the rains, there is a minimal amount of water in the flood plain, but enough to draw animals (both domestic and wild) to sustain themselves. Eventually, after the Angolan Highlands receive all their rain for the year, the Okavango River will gradually rise and the floodplain will be full yet again. But in the mean time, there is a lot of activity going on in the flood plain. Every morning cows, donkeys, and an occasional horse migrate along a path on the north side of our plot to enter the floodplain. Like clockwork, the animals stage at the entry point until about two to three hours after sunrise. Your guess is as good as mine on why they wait, but I have a feeling it is to avoid crocs and hippos (as I will explain later).     

Throughout the day, the animals (mainly domestic) graze on grasses, lilies and whatever else they can get. Women also leave early in the morning to collect reeds and grass thatching for the traditional houses in this region. The thatching is used for the roofs of the houses and the reeds are used as walls for outdoor living spaces. Children then join in on the activities and play in the in the water; jumping off a variety of sandbars, chasing each other, trying to pile into a Mokoro (traditional canoe) or flailing about in the water. 

Again like clockwork, about three to four hours before sundown, the flood plain is vacated. On most days this correlates to the time you hear the first hippo grunt in the reeds. Unfortunately, every now and then, a cow gets stuck in the mud and eventually dies (either naturally or by a farmer’s gun). The cow is then left to whoever wants it/or who can get to it, the dogs, and an occasional croc (although we have never seen this).  But we did experience something both exciting and terrifying the other day.

It was about 6 pm and we just got done eating dinner on our front porch. When we were sitting around I heard a slight splashing in the flood plain that I knew was a hippo. I walked down by myself and saw that it was on the opposite side of the flood plain and was walking towards the main channel of the river. I quickly told Bridge there was a hippo and she came down to check him out too. As we noticed, just before he did, there were to lone donkeys still on a sand bar in his path. Then in the blink of an eye, the hippo spotted the donkeys and charged them.  The hippo covered approximately 100 meters in about 10 seconds. If you convert that it is about 36 km/hr or 22 mph; quite impressive and also terrifying. After seeing the hippo run, we now know why all the domestic animals vacate the flood plain at night!

 

A Typical Week

Matt’s Typical Week

Monday through Wednesday I am mainly working at the Shakawe Clinic and around the village. Monday and Tuesday morning usually involve assisting the Health Education Technician (Mphande) with the Child Welfare Clinic (aka baby weighing). This involves weighing children 5 years and younger to track the weight-to-age of the children. A couple months of the year the length of the child is also measured. Then food rations of enriched porridge, sunflower oil, and dried beans, if available are given to the mothers. Wednesday morning I attend a weekly all-staff meeting at the clinic. After baby weighing and weekly meetings, I typically do stuff throughout the village. This involves giving/assisting in a health education talk, attending Kgotla (tribal government meeting space) meeting, giving computer literacy training to clinic staff and whatever else comes up (usually quite a bit). The remainder of the week I spend at Pabalelo Trust in Samochima (~10 km south of Shakawe). Pabalelo Trust is a conservation agriculture and permagardening NGO. Here there is a combination of manual labor, research on sustainable farming techniques, and planning. In the near future we will start training local farmers on the conservation agriculture techniques. These techniques, although slightly more labor intensive, produce greater yields, are more sustainable, mitigate human and wildlife conflict,  and are environmentally friendly.

Bridgette’s Typical Week

Monday: I spend most of my day at the Shakawe Library. In the morning, I meet with a few women to talk about general health topics such as menstruation, sexual health, breast cancer and nutrition. In the afternoon, I meet with the Shakawe Youth Environmental Club. This is a small group of youth ages 14-18. They are interested in learning about environmental issues, doing service projects and learning how to become a natural scientist. After the environmental club leaves, I play with some kids using the King’s Foundation Base Pack. I also read to kids throughout the day.

Tuesday: This is my “community day.” I meet with people, research and try to get things arranged. I hope to use this day to start up a school garden at one of the primary schools. I also plan on doing a pre-natal yoga and nutrition class on Tuesday afternoons.

Wednesday-Friday: I spend these days working with Pabalelo Trust. My work includes researching funding opportunities and working at the permagardening plot. This includes activities like weeding, planting, and harvesting. We have created a record keeping tool to help us track what plants grow well at different times, how we’ve built up the soil and what pests are problems. This also helps us to determine which plants to rotate the beds with. We will soon be training local farmers in more sustainable farming techniques, named conservation agriculture.

Saturday & Sunday: Weekends are wonderful, but still busy. We do laundry, which is an all day affair since we do it by hand, clean the house and relax. We usually have bonfires at night and listen to the frogs, birds, bats and hippos.

Trainings and Workshops

A few weeks ago, we attended a grant writing workshop with SAREP in Maun. It was a really interesting workshop and we were able to help NGOs in the Delta write up some in-kind grants. After the four day training, we headed to Gaborone (Gabs) for a week and a half long training with the Peace Corps. It was so wonderful to see everyone again, even if that meant we had to sit through some not-so interesting sessions. We stayed in a great hotel called Oasis Motel that served us delicious food, had a pool and the most amazing hot showers ever.

The trip down to Gabs was excruciatingly long. From Shakawe to Maun, it's a 6 1/2 hour bus ride, with three veterinary fences where we have to stop, take out our bags and dip our shoes in a solution to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease. We stay the night in Maun, then take a 10 1/2 hour bus ride to Gabs. It is too long of a trip for us, so we hope we don't have to go to Gabs more than once or twice per year.

Since we've been back in Shakawe, we have been busy dealing with housing issues. It's too complicated to go into in detail, but we had a hard week or two dealing with these issues. Luckily, some things seem to be falling into place. The volunteers in the upper delta still don't have any furniture, which is frustrating. It seems like the people who are responsible for our housing and furniture have done absolutely nothing for the past three months. It is extremely frustrating. But, as Peace Corps Volunteers we are very patient, although our patience is faltering. We really want these issues resolved so we can finally go on a vacation!

Last week, Bridgette attended a really interesting conservation agriculture training "overseas." By overseas, I mean on the eastern side of the Okavango river. Overseas is very rural and remote, you can only get there by ferry (which doesn't always run) and the road is just sand. Once we crossed the ferry, we still had 3 hours to go on very bad, sandy roads with lots of elephants. The area has about 15,000 elephants, which means there is a lot of human-elephant conflict. Just two weeks ago, a woman was killed by a matriarch of a breeding herd. Although some people are killed by elephants, the biggest issue is crop damage. The workshop was hosted by the Okavango Elephants and People Research Project (www.oeprp.org.uk). Their interest in conservation agriculture stems from the fact that yields are doubled compared to traditional farming, so people need to protect a smaller plot. The workshop itself was really informative and it was great to see so many farmers engaged. At first they were skeptical, but by the end of the week they were ready to try some new farming techniques. For me, it was important for me to learn how people actually farm. Basically, they burn their fields, throw seeds, then plow the entire field. Not very effective and it kills the soil after years of this practice. On a personal level, it was great to see so much wildlife. I saw elephants everyday, heard hyenas make a kill one night and heard lions roaring a few nights. Luckily, I was in a camp enclosed by an electric fence!

Hippos and Happenings

I can’t believe we’ve been in Shakawe for two months. We are starting to feel settled and everyone seems to know who we are. We moved into our house about a month ago. We have two large bedrooms, running water, a hot water tank, satellite TV and we are a stone’s throw from the Okavango River. We couldn’t be happier with our house. The only downsides are that a pit latrine blocks part of our view and we have a rat/mouse problem in our attic. We were given some furniture which we will apparently have to give back soon. Alas, most BOTS 12 volunteers have yet to get their furniture, so who knows when we will get ours. The best part of living near the Okavango River is that we hear hippos every night. One morning we even went to the shore and saw two hippos eating grass. It was pretty awesome. Hippos grunt, a lot. Hearing several hippos grunt each night is not unusual. One night however, we heard some really strange sounds coming from the river. There were grunts, splashes, crashes, and something that sounded like a whale. It turns out there was a fight between two male hippos. As the winter carries on the water in the flood plain dwindles and male hippos become pretty territorial. At times they will fight to the death. It is a good reminder to stay away from the water at night. 

We’ve been pretty busy lately. We have been working on our community assessment, which has been a great way to get to know people and really learn what’s going on in Shakawe. Last week we attended the Adult Education Fair at Shakawe Primary School. It was a large regional event where adult learners took classes, showed off their crafts and we taught sex ed. We distributed close to 1,700 condoms, did 30 condom demonstrations and got about 15 other people to do condom demonstrations. Overall it was a pretty successful event. We also bought some baskets finally. Baskets woven with grass and palm leaves are an art form in this area. They are so beautiful and each one is unique. I’m glad we were able to support some of the adult learners in the area. I have a feeling we might be buying lots of baskets over the next two years (true story: Bridgette may have a basket addiction). 

Things are going well at Pabalelo Trust. We’ve planted some beans and peas in a shade net structure that had some issues with nematodes last year. Let’s hope the legumes will help out the soil. We’ve also started beets, lettuce and herbs. There are a lot of beds and it’s been fun and challenging to determine which crops to rotate in each of them. Matt and Moyambo are getting along famously. They each have a huge cup of coffee at tea time. When I say huge, I mean it. It’s a coffee mug that holds 500mL of coffee. It is pretty entertaining. 

Unfortunately, Bridgette’s primary organization has closed indefinitely. Botshelo Trust was having some serious issues. That said it’s probably a good thing they closed. Botshelo may open up again, but probably with a different mission and completely new staff. We’ll see what my next steps will be. I’d like to be just a community volunteer, not tied to any organization, but I’m not sure Peace Corps will let me do that. 

Next week we will attend a grant writing workshop at SAREP in Maun. We will be there from Tuesday-Saturday. Afterward, we head to Gaborone for In-Service Training (IST). We will be away from Shakawe for about 2 ½ weeks. It should be fun to see everyone again and to stay in a hotel with fluffy pillows and a shower.