Bana BA Metsi 10th year anniversary
Our trip started at 6oclock on Friday morning as we sat at the side of the road waiting for a lift that we had arranged for night before with a woman that we did not know, she was going to take us all the way to Bana Ba Metsi, when she arrived her car was packed with food (mainly cabbages) for the ceremony the smell was strong to say the least, we settled in for the long journey, when we arrived at Shakaway (over ¾ of the way ) we stopped to pick up food for the weekend, as we came out of the shop a convoy of government cars drove passed it turned out it was the president who was also attending the ceremony, we clambered back into the car and headed for the ferry crossing which is the only way across the river, we were lucky that there was no queue the ferry as you can wait for up to 3 hours as the ferry can only take 3 cars across at a time, the ferry has two small motors attached to the back so it is not the fastest thing in the world but crossing is always nice the scenery is beautiful, on the other side it is a further 40ks of dirt road, only two weeks beforehand we had been up here in a two whiled drive car and spend about 20ks going sideward’s down the road, but because of the president coming they had tried to fix the unfixable road and it was better than I have ever seen it (still un-passable by British standards) we arrived at Bana Ba Metsi and found the other two boys ( Tom& Darren) we dumped our stuff in there house and I went to work with Darren we had to collect vast amounts of fire wood as the cooks had to start cooking at 5 in the morning (we had to get up at 4 to get them) all the way till the evening so a lot of wood was required, Darren, I and one of the groups of boys (the boys are split into work groups to get more work done) filled the buky up at least 4 times driving further into the bush each time to find dead/ fallen wood to load up, by the end of Friday we were all exhausted and crashed out by a small fire and chatted, Darren and I were up at 4 to go collect the woman that were cooking the food, when we got back we decided to get some sleep, as we went back to bed Tom and Gordon had to get up to go and mark out parking spots for the cars that would be turning up. No sooner than we had lay down to get some shut eye some of the boys came and said that we were needed to drive and collect some people so that they could look around the centre before the ceremony started, as we left I was dragged off to help Tom usher in cars full of government executives, we had cleared a path thought he bush the previous day leading to the football pitch were the president would be landing his helicopter, so as we were trying to park these cars there were BDF (Botswana deafens force) hurtling around the bush in there 4*4 with mounted machine guns on the back it was quit amusing as they had got bored waiting around and were racing each other on marked out courses. Eventually the president flew himself and his family in from the local BDF camp and was escorted thought the bush by several heavily armed cars, by the time we had finished all our jobs the ceremony was under way so we stood at the back and tried to watch, we kept getting pulled away to sort out any problems that occurred through the day which was alright to start with as we missed the speeches which I have always found boring but as the day got on and the heat picked up we were getting sick and tired of walking around dressed smartly doing dirty jobs, luckily we did not miss some of the traditional dancing and Darren playing his bag pipes for the president, there was a film grew there from the Botswana major news company and two days later Darren was on the local news with a video of him playing his pipes. After the president had left and we had dropped most of the gests (500) at the ferry we came back and decided to go swimming with the boys which is always fun as I have said before they just want to drown you, and after we got out we organised a staff vs students football match which was highly entertaining as we could cheat and they could not we won 5-4 but only because of a spectacular dive from Tom which conceded a penalty. That night we surprised the kids with fire works which they when mental over, when the kids went to bed the celebrations of a successful event and the stresses of the passed few weeks were relived started for the older generation, needless to say we were all feeling fragile in the morning, then it was time to head home.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Xmas holiday (Mike)
Our trip started on the 18th of December at 4am, Dunga (one of the
men we work with) took us to the bus stop which was a petrol station out of town we had been told by the locals that we should be there early to get a definite seat on the 11 hour bus, you can’t book seats and didn’t fancy standing for that long. The bus
stop was completely deserted; not even bus drivers; just empty buses, so we sat down to wait. At about 5:30 the first driver turned up and gave us some weird looks, as if to say, why are you here this early? We then had to avoid drunks, crazy people, taxi drivers and a mixture of all three for another hour and a half before we could get on the bus, which in spite of its planned departure time didn’t then leave until 8 am. By this time we just wanted to be off the overly crowded, hot, sweaty, VERY cramped bus which seats I did not fit in. When we finally left I discovered that Botswana bus drivers are probably faster than Hamilton around a track even with a bus full of people he was easily hitting 140Kh which is impressive considering the amount of donkeys, cows and locals wandering along in the middle of the road! After a while we both starting to drift off into a mild comer due to heat and the lack of oxygen, it is times like these when you REALY appreciate your iPod even though trying to listen to it without any one seeing it so that when you do finally get to sleep (this never happens) it doesn’t get stolen. We arrived in Gabs bang on time, we had booked into a motel for the night right next to the bus station, after we booked in we had some
food and were both asleep by 8.
I slept like a drunk 40 year old man and struggled to get up
when our alarms went off in the morning at 5am (which isn’t that early as we get up at his time everyday), but early as our bus was not due to leave till 6:30, but its a lucky thing we set them early as our bus to Jo-berg was not leaving from where we
though it was and after walking around a lot, we decided to get a taxi to the bus. After a 15 min journey, at break neck speeds, we arrived as the bus turned up so we boarded straight away and settled in for a much shorter journey. We left Gabs and about an hour later we were at the border so we all piled off and into immigration which were we told would tack forever but we thought it went really quickly and everyone had been overreacting until we realised that we had only done a tiny bit of it. We then had to queue in the sun for 2 hours to go through the main part of it. Final everyone was through and on the bus; we set off and immediately started to see green grass and hills, this was an extremely nice site after seeing nothing higher then my knees and no grass for 4 months. Then in true African style the bus broke down in the middle of no where!! A two hour delay followed whilst the in-tier bus though they new how to fix it and took it interns telling the mechanic what was wrong with it non of them were Wright and the mechanic finally got it fixed, having a mechanic on every bus would seem a weird thing but theses buses break down 1s in every 2 journeys they do so there is 1 on every bus. Then the bus driver (the only one that has ever done this) drove slowly the rest of the journey, we were 4 hours late getting into Jo-berg by which time the person I had arranged to meet and spend so time with, had given up and gone home! We got off the bus, collected the next bus tickets and boarded straight away, heading for Umtata. This bus was by far the nicest bus I have EVER been in, even at home, the chairs were huge and sooo comfy, just as well as this was going to be the longest bus we had to take the whole holiday.
When we arrived in Umtata it was the early hours of the morning. We meet up with some other volunteers, after a short combi ride, arrived at their project where they had arranged accommodation for us. We dropped our bags and went to have a look around. There project, it was a cool project but I still prefer mine. We stayed there for 2 days finding out a bit about their project which was really interesting and planning the quickest way to do the next leg of our trip. We set off on another long journey to Plettenberg Bay where we were meeting Tom and Darren (from the Botswana Bana Ba Métis Project). We had to get a mini bus to Port-Elizabeth and then from there to Plet, after the bus dropped us of in Plet there was a short transfer by taxi to the backpackers which was in the middle of no where. We arrived, exhausted and crashed out.
When I got up in the morning I could not find Gordon so I took my book and lay in a hammock, in the sun, and fell asleep again! I woke up to Tom and Darren both jumping on me which, in a hammock, was not a good idea we ended up on a pile on the floor very quickly with some very dodgy looks from everyone around us! The next few days were extremely fun including doing the world’s highest bungee jump on Xmas day and enjoying a traditional SA xmas meal cooked by the backpackers, it was a full spread taking up 2 table tennis tables and had 5 different types of meat including tong and some other meat which we decided we did not want to know what I was. We were supposed to do the worlds 2nd best skydive but it was cancelled twice due to bad weather.
We set off from there on another long bus trip to Cape Town, the bus did not leave until the evening and the guys at the backpackers thought it would be funny if they got us drunk before we travelled !!?? So after buying us a lot of alcohol we all clambered into the back of the backpacker’s shuttle bus and they dropped us off at the bus station. This bus journey was one of the worst that any of us had done and was not helped by alcohol in the system! When we arrived in Cape Town we walked to the backpackers which was further than we thought…. And when we got there it was locked up (7:00am), we had to phone another volunteer to come let us in (they were there already)! Once again we booked in and crashed out on some sofas as our rooms still had people in!
Later we met up with the rest of the volunteers and sat around catching up with everything. Bright and earl….. Well lunch time, 4 of us decided to climbed Table Mountain we were lucky and there was an amazing view at the top. Then it was down to some serious r and r with some tourist trips and good meals out. New Years Eve there was a Massive party held in the street, which we decided to dressed as sailors for! On our last day we arranged to take the train to Stellenbosch and joined the wine tour there. We visited 4 different distilleries, it was really interesting and entertaining too as you HAD to drink at each place during the course of the afternoon we amused our self’s with trying to give detailed descriptions of each wine we tasted all of us giving a different one and only occasionally getting it correct.
Then it was farewell time to the other PT volunteers and the 4 of us headed back on the overnight bus to Jo-berg. Completing the first part of our trip in reverse and making it safely back to our project on the 8th the boys then stayed with us until the 11th when they had to return to there project, we were all very tired but with really good memories, some good photos and stories to tell!
men we work with) took us to the bus stop which was a petrol station out of town we had been told by the locals that we should be there early to get a definite seat on the 11 hour bus, you can’t book seats and didn’t fancy standing for that long. The bus
stop was completely deserted; not even bus drivers; just empty buses, so we sat down to wait. At about 5:30 the first driver turned up and gave us some weird looks, as if to say, why are you here this early? We then had to avoid drunks, crazy people, taxi drivers and a mixture of all three for another hour and a half before we could get on the bus, which in spite of its planned departure time didn’t then leave until 8 am. By this time we just wanted to be off the overly crowded, hot, sweaty, VERY cramped bus which seats I did not fit in. When we finally left I discovered that Botswana bus drivers are probably faster than Hamilton around a track even with a bus full of people he was easily hitting 140Kh which is impressive considering the amount of donkeys, cows and locals wandering along in the middle of the road! After a while we both starting to drift off into a mild comer due to heat and the lack of oxygen, it is times like these when you REALY appreciate your iPod even though trying to listen to it without any one seeing it so that when you do finally get to sleep (this never happens) it doesn’t get stolen. We arrived in Gabs bang on time, we had booked into a motel for the night right next to the bus station, after we booked in we had some
food and were both asleep by 8.
I slept like a drunk 40 year old man and struggled to get up
when our alarms went off in the morning at 5am (which isn’t that early as we get up at his time everyday), but early as our bus was not due to leave till 6:30, but its a lucky thing we set them early as our bus to Jo-berg was not leaving from where we
though it was and after walking around a lot, we decided to get a taxi to the bus. After a 15 min journey, at break neck speeds, we arrived as the bus turned up so we boarded straight away and settled in for a much shorter journey. We left Gabs and about an hour later we were at the border so we all piled off and into immigration which were we told would tack forever but we thought it went really quickly and everyone had been overreacting until we realised that we had only done a tiny bit of it. We then had to queue in the sun for 2 hours to go through the main part of it. Final everyone was through and on the bus; we set off and immediately started to see green grass and hills, this was an extremely nice site after seeing nothing higher then my knees and no grass for 4 months. Then in true African style the bus broke down in the middle of no where!! A two hour delay followed whilst the in-tier bus though they new how to fix it and took it interns telling the mechanic what was wrong with it non of them were Wright and the mechanic finally got it fixed, having a mechanic on every bus would seem a weird thing but theses buses break down 1s in every 2 journeys they do so there is 1 on every bus. Then the bus driver (the only one that has ever done this) drove slowly the rest of the journey, we were 4 hours late getting into Jo-berg by which time the person I had arranged to meet and spend so time with, had given up and gone home! We got off the bus, collected the next bus tickets and boarded straight away, heading for Umtata. This bus was by far the nicest bus I have EVER been in, even at home, the chairs were huge and sooo comfy, just as well as this was going to be the longest bus we had to take the whole holiday.
When we arrived in Umtata it was the early hours of the morning. We meet up with some other volunteers, after a short combi ride, arrived at their project where they had arranged accommodation for us. We dropped our bags and went to have a look around. There project, it was a cool project but I still prefer mine. We stayed there for 2 days finding out a bit about their project which was really interesting and planning the quickest way to do the next leg of our trip. We set off on another long journey to Plettenberg Bay where we were meeting Tom and Darren (from the Botswana Bana Ba Métis Project). We had to get a mini bus to Port-Elizabeth and then from there to Plet, after the bus dropped us of in Plet there was a short transfer by taxi to the backpackers which was in the middle of no where. We arrived, exhausted and crashed out.
When I got up in the morning I could not find Gordon so I took my book and lay in a hammock, in the sun, and fell asleep again! I woke up to Tom and Darren both jumping on me which, in a hammock, was not a good idea we ended up on a pile on the floor very quickly with some very dodgy looks from everyone around us! The next few days were extremely fun including doing the world’s highest bungee jump on Xmas day and enjoying a traditional SA xmas meal cooked by the backpackers, it was a full spread taking up 2 table tennis tables and had 5 different types of meat including tong and some other meat which we decided we did not want to know what I was. We were supposed to do the worlds 2nd best skydive but it was cancelled twice due to bad weather.
We set off from there on another long bus trip to Cape Town, the bus did not leave until the evening and the guys at the backpackers thought it would be funny if they got us drunk before we travelled !!?? So after buying us a lot of alcohol we all clambered into the back of the backpacker’s shuttle bus and they dropped us off at the bus station. This bus journey was one of the worst that any of us had done and was not helped by alcohol in the system! When we arrived in Cape Town we walked to the backpackers which was further than we thought…. And when we got there it was locked up (7:00am), we had to phone another volunteer to come let us in (they were there already)! Once again we booked in and crashed out on some sofas as our rooms still had people in!
Later we met up with the rest of the volunteers and sat around catching up with everything. Bright and earl….. Well lunch time, 4 of us decided to climbed Table Mountain we were lucky and there was an amazing view at the top. Then it was down to some serious r and r with some tourist trips and good meals out. New Years Eve there was a Massive party held in the street, which we decided to dressed as sailors for! On our last day we arranged to take the train to Stellenbosch and joined the wine tour there. We visited 4 different distilleries, it was really interesting and entertaining too as you HAD to drink at each place during the course of the afternoon we amused our self’s with trying to give detailed descriptions of each wine we tasted all of us giving a different one and only occasionally getting it correct.
Then it was farewell time to the other PT volunteers and the 4 of us headed back on the overnight bus to Jo-berg. Completing the first part of our trip in reverse and making it safely back to our project on the 8th the boys then stayed with us until the 11th when they had to return to there project, we were all very tired but with really good memories, some good photos and stories to tell!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
random stuff (mike)
Right it’s been a while since iv done one of these so thought id try write one before our holidays.
2 weekends ago Tom and Darren came to visit us for the start of there holiday they arrived mid day on Thursday and brought with them about 25 tired and arrogant teenagers from Bana Ba Metsi (there project) we had to organize all there transport home which meant pilling them literally roof high in the car to drop them off home at the end of the day. After which the 3 of us went to rugby which was a good laugh apart from we had no shoes so our feet were more than a little sour. on the way back we decided to go buy chine’s as non of us had had any junk food since we got here, we all worked in covered in sweat, sand, dirt and waking like old men because of our feet. we were in need of a serious drink, we ordered our food and sat down to water (we decided to get a takeaway due to our stat and the fact that Gordon was at home waiting for his dinner) 1 and a half hours later we still REALY needed a drink and no sing of food, we’d started to which we hadn’t got a takeaway and were eating in as everyone was walking in getting there food, eating and leaving whilst we had to sit there and watch. Eventually we got the food and headed for home, when we got home we all tucked in and finished the food rather quickly by this time it was quit l8 so we decided to have baths (as we don’t have a shower, and not all together) and go to bed. They came into work with us the next day and were surprised at the amount of energy that the kids had and there knack for climbing people whilst they are working, something I am only just getting used to. Fri night we headed to a party, as we arrived people were already leaving for another one and we were ordered/ dragged with them, we convoyed it to the other side of town (about 4 cars full) we got to this bar but shortly left in the convoy for another party that we had heard about at the informs river lodge, having enough of driving around we stayed there for what was left of the night, we got home in the early hours of Saturday morning. On Saturday we all slept for a bit then headed to Vincent’s house for a bri and a swim, after we got a phone call from two other volunteers (John and Fraser from Namibia) they were supposed to arrive on fri but we lost contact with them until the call on Saturday evening but when they arrived one thing lead to another and we left Vincent’s in the early hours of Sunday again. I woke up to my phone ringing (in my opinion to early) with an invitation for all of us to go wakeboarding on the delta with Brett and a few mates, we spent the whole day mucking about in/on the river this resulted in some beasty tan lines and a good day out, in the evening we headed to the backpackers as we all love the burgers there and we only have them when we are all together we ordered the food sat down and by the time the food came two of the guys were asleep, we ate the food headed home and all crashed out on sofas and beds. An early start as Tom and Darren had to be at the bus for 5 and we had to get them there an hours early but all was cool and we sent them on there way to start there holiday. We had john and Fraser with us until Tuesday when we again got them on a bus so they could start the holiday. And then back to work for us.
The weekend after we were looking forward to a quiet weekend and to catch up on some lost sleep. That didn’t happen. Friday night we had our BBL (Bana Ba Letsatsi) fundraiser which went on till 2 in the morning with us driving kids around, dropping them home and generally doing a lot, it was very successfully and we raised a lot more than we thought we would which is always good. Then on Saturday night we had one of our friends Stagg dos…… I won’t go into details but it was a good night. On Sunday we got an invite to an afternoon bri.
Iv been franticly trying to organize last minute travel plans for our holiday which starts next week and as Fiona is leaving to get married on Sunday its mayhem in the office. But everything is coming together.
On Thursday night we got a call as we arrived at a m8s house for a chilled evening that in the 2 hour tropical rain storm we had on of the families who’s kids come to the center had had there home washed away (they live in a tent) so we had to go get half of the kids (6), take them to the center were we picked up clothes and bedding for them then take them to our house, feed them and look after them for the night it was an interesting evening but was it was fun.
2 weekends ago Tom and Darren came to visit us for the start of there holiday they arrived mid day on Thursday and brought with them about 25 tired and arrogant teenagers from Bana Ba Metsi (there project) we had to organize all there transport home which meant pilling them literally roof high in the car to drop them off home at the end of the day. After which the 3 of us went to rugby which was a good laugh apart from we had no shoes so our feet were more than a little sour. on the way back we decided to go buy chine’s as non of us had had any junk food since we got here, we all worked in covered in sweat, sand, dirt and waking like old men because of our feet. we were in need of a serious drink, we ordered our food and sat down to water (we decided to get a takeaway due to our stat and the fact that Gordon was at home waiting for his dinner) 1 and a half hours later we still REALY needed a drink and no sing of food, we’d started to which we hadn’t got a takeaway and were eating in as everyone was walking in getting there food, eating and leaving whilst we had to sit there and watch. Eventually we got the food and headed for home, when we got home we all tucked in and finished the food rather quickly by this time it was quit l8 so we decided to have baths (as we don’t have a shower, and not all together) and go to bed. They came into work with us the next day and were surprised at the amount of energy that the kids had and there knack for climbing people whilst they are working, something I am only just getting used to. Fri night we headed to a party, as we arrived people were already leaving for another one and we were ordered/ dragged with them, we convoyed it to the other side of town (about 4 cars full) we got to this bar but shortly left in the convoy for another party that we had heard about at the informs river lodge, having enough of driving around we stayed there for what was left of the night, we got home in the early hours of Saturday morning. On Saturday we all slept for a bit then headed to Vincent’s house for a bri and a swim, after we got a phone call from two other volunteers (John and Fraser from Namibia) they were supposed to arrive on fri but we lost contact with them until the call on Saturday evening but when they arrived one thing lead to another and we left Vincent’s in the early hours of Sunday again. I woke up to my phone ringing (in my opinion to early) with an invitation for all of us to go wakeboarding on the delta with Brett and a few mates, we spent the whole day mucking about in/on the river this resulted in some beasty tan lines and a good day out, in the evening we headed to the backpackers as we all love the burgers there and we only have them when we are all together we ordered the food sat down and by the time the food came two of the guys were asleep, we ate the food headed home and all crashed out on sofas and beds. An early start as Tom and Darren had to be at the bus for 5 and we had to get them there an hours early but all was cool and we sent them on there way to start there holiday. We had john and Fraser with us until Tuesday when we again got them on a bus so they could start the holiday. And then back to work for us.
The weekend after we were looking forward to a quiet weekend and to catch up on some lost sleep. That didn’t happen. Friday night we had our BBL (Bana Ba Letsatsi) fundraiser which went on till 2 in the morning with us driving kids around, dropping them home and generally doing a lot, it was very successfully and we raised a lot more than we thought we would which is always good. Then on Saturday night we had one of our friends Stagg dos…… I won’t go into details but it was a good night. On Sunday we got an invite to an afternoon bri.
Iv been franticly trying to organize last minute travel plans for our holiday which starts next week and as Fiona is leaving to get married on Sunday its mayhem in the office. But everything is coming together.
On Thursday night we got a call as we arrived at a m8s house for a chilled evening that in the 2 hour tropical rain storm we had on of the families who’s kids come to the center had had there home washed away (they live in a tent) so we had to go get half of the kids (6), take them to the center were we picked up clothes and bedding for them then take them to our house, feed them and look after them for the night it was an interesting evening but was it was fun.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Rain, Rugby and Pink Lightning
OK, how cool is that pic? I'll be honest, I didnt take it, I dont really know how people manage to get pictures of lightning so perfect, as you know, it goes as fast as it appears. This is however what the lightning looked like last Thursday (3rd November).
Leading up to the storms was a few days of big heavy clouds out on the horizon and every person you talked to was just waiting for rain. The morning of the storm though, everyone thought the chance had passed since the skies were empty and the sun was doing its usual "I'll kill you with heat" thing.
So, after a long morning of moaning about the heat (which was boiling, everyone, even the Motswanan's were complaining) by around 3 in the afternoon huge rain clouds had rolled in over our heads and winds started picking up.
I found that the reactions by the kids to the wind (which was quite strong to be fair) were a little over zealous, I mean, running for cover when there was really no need. My reaction was to go outside and stand in the strongest wind I could find enjoying the sudden drop in temperature. At 4, usual closing time, i heard the first crack of thunder in the distance which produced a huge grin on my face as I totally love lightning and the whole lightning storm thing. At around 4.15, when we finally finished work, I was waiting outside for Mike to come back from dropping some kids off when it began raining. (To all you people back home in "Sunny Scotland" or really in most anywhere else in the world but here, rain is not really anything special, here though, its almost as good as money raining from the sky, you miss it so much.) After standing in the rain for 15 mins, getting weird looks from the Motswanans passing by in their cars and running to escape the "heavy rain" (more like a drizzle).
Before too long I was in the car on the way home to get ready for touch rugby with a bunch of local (mostly white) guys. After a quick munch and change we were back in the car on the way to the pitch when the real show began. Both of us had our windows down and were in danger of crashing the car for want of watching the lightning as it lit the grey sky in a pink hue. Once we arrived at the pitch and everyone commented on how the weather was finally perfect for rugby since there was rain and cloud and it was as close to home as it could have been.
So, everyone then went on to play a full 2 hours of rugby under sheets (and I do mean sheets) of pink lightning. My single favorite show of lightning was seeing the lightning start at one point in the cloud and breaking into 5 forks of lightning that raced across the sky from left to right. Was AWESOME!
(Once again, not my picture but close enough to what I saw)
Friday, November 27, 2009
STEVE!!!
This is Steve...
Steve was happily sitting under some sheet metal, just chillin with his two brothers, when the world started to move as the sheet metal was removed and he was faced with around seven kids who had one thought... Kill the Geckos...
Lucky for Steve, a white guy was doing work right next to the metal. After realizing that the kids are not just stamping on the ground for no reason and there is actually three Geckos under attack he quickly ran over and stopped the kids. After removing Steve's two older brothers (Being bitten by one particularly angry brother) and setting them free far away from wee hands, he proceeded to catch Steve. As you can see, Steve is well cool, enough said!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
my trip to somewere (Mike)
Last weekend I went on a little trip to visit the other two volunteers
in Botswana Tom and Darren at Bana Ba Metsi,. This involved a 6 hour bus ride,
1 hour combi, a dodgy ferry and then a 45k hitch. All was
accomplished within a day but not without its problems and experiences. Which started with what should have been the easiest bit ; boarding the bus. This literally means scrumming down and charging for the door (hoping that you don’t fall over), once on you find a seat quickly and watch the bus fill up till all the seats are gone. Then they bring even more people on and they start to sit on people’ laps! We ended up with nearly every seat having two people on it and there being
queue, two abreast, in the alley waiting for anyone to move an inch so that they could sit down. This is fine for the first half an hour but for a six hours bus journey I think it’s a bit much, I’m pretty sure the sides of the bus were bending.
After about 5 hours I started wishing that we could just arrive so that we could unload the bus but that would have been easy and ‘non African, so what happened was something African, the bus broke down in the middle of know where, with no phone reception! We were all told to get off the bus whilst they fixed it, an hour later standing in the mid day sun, the bus was fixed and we all scrambled back on and headed for Shakawe.I got off the bus, happy to breath some fresh air, and then tried to find a combi. I soon established that there was only one and because of the
bus breaking down we had missed it. So we sat around at the bus stop ( a
stick in the ground) and waited for it to come back, when it arrived it was
packed full of people but, in the non deterred African way, we all
crammed into it, with people getting on the roof with the bags and some
on the back, and off we set to the ferry. At the ferry we just managed to
get on one that was going our way. On the other side I started to walk and
hitch; I got about 10k with many cars not stopping so I decided that I
would walk a bit further and then phone Darren to come and get me. He arrived
soon after and took me to their project; I was greeted by some of their
kids and then shown to their house, we stayed the night.
In the morning we got a lift to the road and then sat around in the shade waiting for a passing car; luckily the first car that passed ( after about an hour)
was happy to give us a lift so we piled into the back of the buky (like
a pick up truck but with a smaller cab and a bigger back) and settled in
for the drive. All was going well until about an hour into the journey when there was a massive bang and the front cow bar came off, ripped the water pipe out
and bent the front bumper, so we had to stop and fix it which was easy
enough. Then we were back on our way; we eventually got to the cross
roads were we were getting out and then got another hitch to the river
side. We took a mokoro (local dug out tree log which acts like a canoe) to the island were we where we staying for the next 2 days. When we eventually got there we found out that we were supposed to bring our own food, so we got a boat back to the main land, borrowed a car and went into town to buy food from the local shop (a
shipping container). Then back to the island to start our weekend,!
We did pretty much nothing but chill, talk and a sunset mokoro ride the
whole weekend but it was just what we needed. At the end of the weekend we
left and got another hitch with 6 other locals, one of which was quite
large, all crammed into the back of another buky. We got back to their
project a lot faster and still had a whole day to spare, so we went
swimming with the kids, which translates as them trying to drown us! Then did some manual work in the afternoon and chilled in the evening and just chatted.
On Tuesday the heavens opened and it looked like I was going to be stuck there, I was supposed to be leaving that day. Then Steve, their boss, told me that he was driving back to Maun and I could get a lift with him so all was good. We got about 200kms and he pulled over in the middle of no where saying that this was where we were spending the night. He got out a tarpaulin, made himself a shelter, and went to
bed ! He had locked the car so I decided that the safest place was on the
roof of the car so that’s where I slept; under the millions of stars and
an amazing lighting storm in the distance. We were up very early and he
dropped me off at the centre where I went straight to work.
in Botswana Tom and Darren at Bana Ba Metsi,. This involved a 6 hour bus ride,
1 hour combi, a dodgy ferry and then a 45k hitch. All was
accomplished within a day but not without its problems and experiences. Which started with what should have been the easiest bit ; boarding the bus. This literally means scrumming down and charging for the door (hoping that you don’t fall over), once on you find a seat quickly and watch the bus fill up till all the seats are gone. Then they bring even more people on and they start to sit on people’ laps! We ended up with nearly every seat having two people on it and there being
queue, two abreast, in the alley waiting for anyone to move an inch so that they could sit down. This is fine for the first half an hour but for a six hours bus journey I think it’s a bit much, I’m pretty sure the sides of the bus were bending.
After about 5 hours I started wishing that we could just arrive so that we could unload the bus but that would have been easy and ‘non African, so what happened was something African, the bus broke down in the middle of know where, with no phone reception! We were all told to get off the bus whilst they fixed it, an hour later standing in the mid day sun, the bus was fixed and we all scrambled back on and headed for Shakawe.I got off the bus, happy to breath some fresh air, and then tried to find a combi. I soon established that there was only one and because of the
bus breaking down we had missed it. So we sat around at the bus stop ( a
stick in the ground) and waited for it to come back, when it arrived it was
packed full of people but, in the non deterred African way, we all
crammed into it, with people getting on the roof with the bags and some
on the back, and off we set to the ferry. At the ferry we just managed to
get on one that was going our way. On the other side I started to walk and
hitch; I got about 10k with many cars not stopping so I decided that I
would walk a bit further and then phone Darren to come and get me. He arrived
soon after and took me to their project; I was greeted by some of their
kids and then shown to their house, we stayed the night.
In the morning we got a lift to the road and then sat around in the shade waiting for a passing car; luckily the first car that passed ( after about an hour)
was happy to give us a lift so we piled into the back of the buky (like
a pick up truck but with a smaller cab and a bigger back) and settled in
for the drive. All was going well until about an hour into the journey when there was a massive bang and the front cow bar came off, ripped the water pipe out
and bent the front bumper, so we had to stop and fix it which was easy
enough. Then we were back on our way; we eventually got to the cross
roads were we were getting out and then got another hitch to the river
side. We took a mokoro (local dug out tree log which acts like a canoe) to the island were we where we staying for the next 2 days. When we eventually got there we found out that we were supposed to bring our own food, so we got a boat back to the main land, borrowed a car and went into town to buy food from the local shop (a
shipping container). Then back to the island to start our weekend,!
We did pretty much nothing but chill, talk and a sunset mokoro ride the
whole weekend but it was just what we needed. At the end of the weekend we
left and got another hitch with 6 other locals, one of which was quite
large, all crammed into the back of another buky. We got back to their
project a lot faster and still had a whole day to spare, so we went
swimming with the kids, which translates as them trying to drown us! Then did some manual work in the afternoon and chilled in the evening and just chatted.
On Tuesday the heavens opened and it looked like I was going to be stuck there, I was supposed to be leaving that day. Then Steve, their boss, told me that he was driving back to Maun and I could get a lift with him so all was good. We got about 200kms and he pulled over in the middle of no where saying that this was where we were spending the night. He got out a tarpaulin, made himself a shelter, and went to
bed ! He had locked the car so I decided that the safest place was on the
roof of the car so that’s where I slept; under the millions of stars and
an amazing lighting storm in the distance. We were up very early and he
dropped me off at the centre where I went straight to work.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Killer Palm Trees!
Well, as it happens, we had not seen any signs of rain or storms or anything for... well, the whole time we where here! And in this place, the thought of a large storm and rain makes you happy, more than happy, 3 months with full on heat and sun is kinda hard to handle, as you may be able to imagine. Of course, this can not last forever, with the rainy season closing in a storm would eventually be seen.
For us, the real signs came on the 12th of November, with the first real sighting of clouds on the horizon and a slight (and I really mean slight) drop in temperature...
Before the sun found its way behind the horizon the winds began... (I now know why we are the ONLY people who have let palm trees grow right next to our house...)
When these things fall on the roof it sounds like someone is throwing grenades at the place. Now imagine what would happen if it fell on you head...
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