Good ol' Uncle Bob...

In most offices around Gabs, at least one room has a poster from the Southern Africa Development Community, a forum for the leaders of a dozen regional countries to promote economic growth. This poster has a picture of the heads of state of all the member countries. What makes this tidbit relevant is that on every poster I’ve seen in Botswana, the portrait of Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe has been defaced – thumbtacks through the eyes, devil horns, outright shredding… you get the idea. The depredations of “Uncle Bob” have been very well documented elsewhere, so I won’t go into them in great detail here, except to say that seeing this poster made me feel better – hating Robert Mugabe isn’t just a pastime for pedantic, culturally biased Western outsiders like me. It’s something all the people of Africa can enjoy! And so they should – Zimbabwe under his recent rule has become a terrifying object lesson in how the cruel ambitions of a single person can squeeze the vitality from a country of amazing people and nearly boundless potential.

Zimbabweans don’t get much respect in Botswana. The recent troubles have sent a steady stream of Zimbabwean immigrants, legal and otherwise, into Botswana in search of work and political and economic stability. Zimbabweans are consistently blamed for Botswana’s quickly rising violent crime rates, for the paucity of good jobs, for urban overcrowding, for pollution, and (I presume) for bad weather and the lack of anything good on TV. They’re pretty much the all-purpose targets for any variety of generic frustration from most Batswana.

I suspect I see why. Though I’m only in-country for a day, my experience with Zimbabweans in Victoria Falls have corroborated my encounters with their countrymen in Botswana: they all shared the good nature, fine sense of humor, admirable work ethic and sophisticated manners that are so conspicuously absent in Botswana proper. Where the Tswana border staff this afternoon offered only surly indifference and a rank indignation that we had interrupted their sitting-around-and-doing-nothing time, their Zimbabwean counterparts on the other side of the crossing were cheerful and helpful beyond words. They joked with sincere cheer about our (failed) attempts to weasel our way out of the $30US visa fee; on request, they found the largest passport stamps possible to give us an adequate souvenir of our entry into one of Africa’s more maligned countries; they gave directions, thanked us for our time, apologized for the unavoidable delay, and actually *smiled* as they sent us on our way.

This may not seem so remarkable to those of you reading from home, but I assure you, anyone who has spent much time here will drool at the thought of encountering so much plain old *friendliness* of the sort that’s somehow been scoured from Botswana by an as-yet unexplained combination of government and local culture. One more example – in Vic Falls we pulled into a gas station, which a small sign dolefully informed us had no gasoline or diesel of any kind. We just wanted to get our oil and water checked – only the latter was deficient, and the attendant happily replenished it while apologizing for the absence of fuel. He subsequently washed our windshield, without being asked, while chatting with us about our travels – and then refused payment! After we had badgered him into accepting a few bucks for his troubles and driven off, we all, more or less simultaneously, offered some amazed remark such as “Guys, we’re not in Botswana anymore.”

Tonight, we’re camped at the small but very pleasant Tokkie’s Lodge, a backpackers’ hostel ten minutes’ drive from the Falls. The British owner, Ron, in the great tradition of hostel operators’ everywhere, has been a huge help in arranging for our lodgings in Livingstone tomorrow night and suggested the fine restaurant I described with excruciating verbosity earlier. The two dogs, Softy and Nuts, are quiet and friendly black lab crosses who wander happily around the small fenced grounds and visit everyone in sight.

Zimbabwe, for what little time I’ve spent here, is fascinating, and I wish I had more time to explore it. Tomorrow we’ll be hitting Vic Falls and seeing what we can of this tiny corner, but it’s no substitute for seeing the rest of the country, particularly Harare, the heart of the Great Zimbabwean empire of five centuries ago. I’m coming back someday… and I hope that Zimbabwe’s still here when I do.

Life in Africa is hard...

Tonight’s dinner, our one designated splurge in the entire trip, cost just over half a million dollars for the four of us. To be sure, it was tasty. We whetted our appetites with pickled slices of baby crocodile tail, exquisitely presented with cleansing, tissue-thin apple shavings. For mains, we all feasted on exotic delights: Kathryn and Nathalie each had a lean and succulent cutlet of kudu, a large antelope, served with fresh cranberry and mashed sweet potatoes. Serena enjoyed the warthog fillet, which was far tastier than any pork I’ve had. I had “Nyami Nyami”, a Zambezi bream fish nicknamed for the serpent god of the great river who offers his flesh to the people of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was perfectly sautéed in coconut cream curry, and served with delicious roasted veggies (which I normally disdain as empty vitamins), some of which were quite new to me. It was easily the finest food I’ve had in my entire time in Southern Africa – even by Vancouver standards, this was a world-class meal.

The restaurant was at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, a beautiful and distressingly up-market, multi-story wooden edifice that caters mainly to wealthy (and mostly ancient) tourists. We all feasted on equally exotic delights: Kathryn and Nathalie each had a lean and succulent cutlet of kudu, a large antelope, served with fresh cranberry and mashed sweet potatoes. Serena enjoyed the warthog fillet, which was far tastier than any pork I’ve had.. We enjoyed a sundowner (the Southern African term for a beer or ten enjoyed in the fading light) on the beautiful terraced balcony that serves as the Lodge’s bar. It overlooked a well-wooded flat expanse of the Zambezi river valley, which stretched almost infinitely under another incomparable orange African sunset. The balcony isn’t far from a collection of smallish watering holes, each a few metres in diameter, which are floodlit to give the patrons a chance to view any animals that wander in for a drink after dark. Though hopeful for giraffes and lions, we saw only a smattering of unique birds and the hyperactive vervet monkeys that clambered playfully over the hotel roof behind us while we waited for the dinner bell.

Sadly, we had to reject our helpful server’s first dinner recommendation, the Boma, or “Eating Place” (in what language I remember not, probably Zulu or Matabele). Though the four-hour buffet of authentic Southern African cuisine sounded nearly irresistible, and Lonely Planet told us it was possibly the best meal available in all of Africa, we paled at the prospect of paying well over a million dollars each for dinner. So we headed up to the lesser-yet-still-wonderful restaurant that rested above the bar. It is a multi tiered, low-lit place constructed entirely of polished wood, with decor and service the equal of the ritziest places I’ve seen in Canada, though of course with an African flavour. Enormous woven carpets and tapestries with startlingly detailed depictions of local wildlife hung from the 15-m vaulted thatch ceiling. The wall were all open to the air and hung over the Zambezi plain below.

The restaurant had its own excellent view of the watering hole, and the lights were kept just barely bright enough to read the menus, to facilitate viewing of the unfortunately absent wildlife. Somehow, with no noticeable chemicals or other means, the whole place was entirely free of mosquitoes and other bugs, something entirely alien to my experience in the region. I don’t know how they did it, but at this point I’d give my arm for the secret.

With the exception of the young children of the Italian family seated behind us, we four, all in our mid-20s, were the youngest people there, by a couple of decades. Wealthy European, South African and American tourists abounded, having an extraordinarily insulated, but no doubt very entertaining, African experience. After finishing our dinner, we examined the place around us with awe and observed that the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge serves its patrons precisely the Africa they want to see, an Africa of abundant wildlife, comfort, and neatly captured bits of allegedly genuine local culture. As if to drive home the point, an impeccably talented men’s a cappella, clad in bright t-shirts featuring enormous savannah animals, exploded into a fine rendition of Neil Diamond’s “I am the Lion”.

Enjoying the surprisingly good music, basking in the glow of extraordinary food, and debating with my companions the appropriateness of enjoying such luxury in a country in precipitous decline, I asked myself two questions, and found two simple answers. Is the sheltered experience of some tourists, enjoying game drives and luxury lodges, the Real Africa ™? Of course not. Is it worth doing at least once while I’m here? Hell, yes.

They're everywhere!

We headed north from Nata, and began the long drive to Kasane, the border post with Zimbabwe. The ride was incredibly flat, with straight roads and two-storey high acacia trees covering the plains that flanked us on both sides. It would have been lethally dull, except…

Elephants!!!!

About an hour north of tiny Nata, we non-driving passengers were staring at a huge eagle on a roadside tree, when our esteemed chauffeur Kathryn blurted “Other side! Other side!” Like puppets we jerked around to catch an enormous bull elephant emerging from the thick brush twenty meters to the left of the road. He was massive and, I think, very old. His skin was wrinkled with age, and his left tusk was broken halfway. He glanced passively at us as we sped by.

Shrieking with glee at our first sighting of a wild elephant, we launched into a group hug and then set about looking for more. We saw a dozen or so in the next two hours, before the brush became too thick to see anything. They were grouped by twos and threes, some idly chewing foliage, others crossing the road, and several who ambled away into the trees with studied indifference as we approached.

No giraffes did I see, though Nathalie and Kathryn claim to have glimpsed one. Eventually the ride became as dull as we’d initially feared, though only for the final two hours. We still never stopped intensely starting at the trees, though, ready to shout hectically about another pachyderm sighting.

On the road again...

Botswana has twice as many donkeys as people. Since there are only 1.5 million people in a country of half a million square km, that may not add up to a huge donkey density. Yet since most of the three million spent yesterday blocking the highway, and last night clustered near our tent making suspiciously exuberant noises while we tried to sleep, they seem as numerous as the mosquitoes.

We’re heading out now from Planet Baobab, a spartan but comfortable scattering of huts and gravel campsites that sits on the immense salt pans of east-central Botswana. The highway north from Gaborone (itself at Bots’ southern border with South Africa) runs through this fossil of what was once a vast inland sea, which dried only a few thousand years ago. Too salty to grow more than hardy grasses and the weird, disproportioned baobab tree, the pans flood briefly with each rainy season, and become an incomparable breeding ground for hundreds of different bird species. Even now, in the dry season, I see a new (and noisy) bird every few minutes. The variety is impressive, and the landscape foreboding. Tempting posters advertise half-day quad-bike rides out into the pans, and for a moment I mull it over.

But we’ve stopped here only for the night. Yesterday, Nathalie (Quebecoise roommate) and Kathryn (Nat’s Brit buddy) set out from Gabs, and drove 600 (flat, straight, dull) kilometres north to the tiny village of Gweta. Planet Baobab waits in Gweta, its entrance marked inexplicably by a house-sized grey concrete aardvark and a metre-wide replica of Earth, carved of scrap metal and resting atop a five-metre-high termite mound. We’re now about 400 kilometres south of our immediate goal, the confusing quadruple border between Botswana, up-and-coming Namibia, inscrutable Zambia, and troubled Zimbabwe.

We met with Kristy, Elaine and Serena at the lodge last night. Kristy’s another volunteer in Gabs (from Coquitlam, amazingly enough), Elaine’s an Irishwoman who has wandered through some of the harshest parts of Central Africa and now teaches refugees and Johannesburg, and Serena’s a newly-arrive Italian volunteer under Elaine’s tutelage. After a few hours of constant prodding from everyone else present, Serena realized that her work in Joburg could wait a week, and our three became four.

Splitting a couple of tents, we slept fitfully. The salt ground was as cushiony as cement, and blowing up the air mattress for just one night seemed foolish, so tossing and turning was more constant than real rest. I was designated Killer of Critters and Investigator of Strange Noises, since Nathalie’s midnight attempt lead us stoically along the darkened paths of Planet Baobab ended seconds in, when a hidden bird shrieked like all the hounds of hell, sending all of us (but especially her) leaping backwards in terror. As a result, what little sleep could be had was interrupted by those joyful, just-out-of-sight donkeys and the occasional entreaty of, “Paul! Wake up! Something just moved outside the tent!” But, having shown the great foresight to avoid getting my drivers’ license for the last ten years, I can sleep happily in the car. All’s well.

Our ultimate objective is the legendary Victoria Falls, a wall of water that dwarfs Niagara and divides Zambia and Zimbabwe. After a few days exploring the falls from both sides, then we’ll step a bit deeper into Zambia for a couple of nights at Jungle Junction, a small and secluded island hideaway where the bar and library are both well-stocked. The final leg will take us back into northern Botswana for two nights at Chobe National Park, home to 30,000 elephants and more than a few carnivorous beasties. Being the underpaid volunteers that we are (except for accountant Kathryn, who we consistently lambaste for having a real job), we’re doing it all on the cheap: camping everywhere, cooking for ourselves when possible, and haggling over every price that isn’t enforced with an AK-47. May our way be clear, and our mosquitoes non-malarial. Eventually, you’ll find all the details here.

Puppy!

Natalie, Steve and I, roommates, have adopted a wiggly and timid street dog we’ve named Spock for his enormous pointy ears. He’s about three years old, and is a mutt about half the size of my beloved labs back home. I’m nearly certain that he’s part African wild dog (a never-domesticated savannah species), but he’s a surprisingly cheerful, friendly critter considering the tough life he’s surely had. He doesn’t even bark or growl.

Spock doesn’t actually live at our house, since he’s not the cleanest critter around, but he seems much happier and more relaxed now that he clearly feels welcome somewhere. Of course, none of us are here to stay, so we’re trying to start a house tradition of feeding little Spock, so that our successors keep him happy and healthy (comparatively speaking).

Animals are not well treated here. Most people don’t feed their pets, leaving them to scrounge from garbage bins and chase smaller animals for food. As a result, emaciated stray dogs wander most neighbourhoods alone or in mini-packs of two or three.

Violence against animals is sadly common. A lot of people think nothing of arbitrarily kicking any creature, pet or stray, who’s in the way or merely begging for food. This harshness is pervasive enough that I agonized over how to praise my insane horse in Lesotho, since she had known far more cruelty than affection in her life. I know that this callousness is born of the difficult lives of poverty and struggle led by most people in the region, but it’s very, very hard to tolerate nonetheless.

But Spock’s adjusting well. Though he has the meekness and fearful eyes of an abused dog, he calmed quickly when he saw we meant no harm. Within minutes of wandering into our yard he was rolling over for tummy rubs and playing puppyish games of nipping lightly at our fingers. Several times a week he comes to visit, he gets a bowlful of actual dog food (which it took him some time to recognize as edible) which he eats with remarkably polite and subservient table manners, rather than the reckless wolfing you’d expect. He gets tummy rubs and ear scratches once we’ve checked him for ticks, and spends as much time as we allow simply lounging in the safety and calm of our walled yard. He sleeps most nights under a patch of trees just outside the property (hence the ticks) and waits eagerly, more for attention than food, incredibly enough, most evenings when we come home from work. He's no substitute for my own puppies back home, but he's a sweet little guy and he'll do fine in the interim.

PS Speaking of animals, my friend Kelly, who lives on the outskirts of Gabs, has just had half a troop of baboons take up residence in her garden. This may sound excitingly exotic, and it was for about five minutes, but baboons are horrid creatures with huge teeth and notoriously foul tempers. She's still trying to figure out what to do about them. Updates to follow.

Oww...

In the Red Cross Ofice, when you need to run errands outside the building, you grab one of two company drivers and have him run you all over town. This isn't particularly noteworthy, except:

1. Yesterday's driver proudly proclaimed "This is my favourite music!" as he played a custom-made CD of the twangiest, whiniest, cruelest American country tunes imaginable.

2. Today's driver played a Milli Vanilli CD (god knows where he found it, but it hasn't aged well since 1990).

Now my brain hurts...

Success!

As exciting as my three days of unemployment were (like a mini-vacation, really), I couldn't stay a gentleman of leisure indefinitely, lest the Canucks funding me turn off the tap.

So now I work for the Botswana Red Cross, trying to get their network and database up and running before I leave, and maybe developing a new PR strategy for them if time permits. They'll let me take my already-planned trip up to Zimbabwe, and they mighty friendly people to boot. Funny how accomodating people are when you show up offering free labour.

Plus, the Red Cross looks a whole lot better on my resume than an environmental organization that's as unknown and unproductive as it is unpronounceable.

Yay me!

Sluggish blogger... and big news!

Took about ten minutes to load the "New Post" page, so time is short. Were Blogger faster, I'd have put this up much sooner...

As is widely known, my job has gradually deteriorated from merely boring and uchallenging to being a festering sore on my psyche. I have been without a computer to work on for a month, and have gotten increasingly frustrated.

So...

I quit! Yesterday! Gleefully! They're really mad about it, but if bothered them that much, they shouldn't have brought me 15,000 klicks without having a pc for me to sit at. With the rapid and much appreciated approval of my Canadian paymasters, I've begun a solo quest for new employment to fill out my remaining two months here (Holy Crazy Calendars, Batman! How is it just two months left?)

I'm going over to ACHAP (the Bill Gates-funded agency overseeing antiretroviral treatment in Botswana) after I finish typing, and I might have a line into a Red Cross job, working for the First Lady of Botswana. We'll see how it all goes, but at the moment I'm mainly rejoicing at having taken the plunge.