Food Runs, She tells me

My wife, Ellen, has set up most of our itinerary for our two weeks in Botswana. The first week we will spend in Dia's village of Sephofe, which to me is the most interesting part of the trip. And then we head off into some very remote territory, all in the hope of seeing elephants, lions, giraffes, meerkats, and perhaps, with a bit of luck, a random rhinoceros.

I will be driving a truck. We will be sleeping in a tent. And the animals, we are told, will be right nearby. In regards to the lions, I confess to a certain ambivalence. Seeing a family of lions up close, with nothing but nylon between you and their teeth, like this British couple did, has got to be a cool experience. (Would you have the presence of mind to film the experience? - not sure that I would).

I suspect that it's probably one of those experiences you enjoy more in the retelling than in the present. Ellen has read a lot of blogs about the places we are going, and has lots of helpful hints about people who have encountered lions in the wild. All of these posts, I remind her, were written by people who were not eaten by the lions.

The main rule to remember is this - "food runs". Meaning that if you do encounter a lion, you should remain where you are. If you try to run away, the lion is likely to perceive you as a wildebeest or some other delicious mammal and treat you the way her brain has evolved to treat you - as dinner. So, presuming we can remember this rule in real time, I am trying to picture just how this would play out. Dia, Ellen, and I sitting in the tent. The lion outside, maybe pacing, maybe growling, maybe licking a few dewdrops from the tent.

And here's the only thing I know for sure: I'm some point, I'm going to have to pee.

The truth? If we have any super animal close ups, I'm praying it's with a meerkat.

Meerkats eat bugs.

Just Lion Around

If you liked the elephant video, you might enjoy this short video taken by a British couple camping in Botswana earlier this year. They were in a tent in a park where we will be camping in just three weeks, and they woke up to find a family of lions licking the water from the screen. I'm not sure I would have the presence of mind to actually film this interaction.

Is it safe?

Is it safe?

Most of the time when we tell people we are going to Botswana, they appear worried for our safety.

So I thought I would publish this link to a story I wrote last fall comparing life in the US with life in Botswana. Since that time we have seen dozens of tragic and violent attacks in our own country. In Botswana, Dia reports that life is, for the most part, pretty mellow. Guns are rarely seen. This is a girl who spent most of the past few years living on college campuses. For entertainment she liked to go out dancing, frequently at gay nightclubs. And her career choice was likely to land her a job at Planned Parenthood. So yeah, I don't worry about her being "over there".

Speaking of southern Africa, my sister Kathy leaves tomorrow morning for Lesotho, where she will be visiting her son Walter, also a Peace Corps volunteer. They will be touring Victoria Falls and then heading across northern Botswana hoping to see some big game. There is a pretty good chance that Dia may catch up with them for part of the trip.

And we will be there - 20 days from today.  Can't wait!

Grandma Smiling as Southern African Cousins Unite

In a continent in which ancestors matter a lot, two grandchildren of a woman from New York whose own grandmother immigrated from Donegal on the northwest coast of Ireland 130 years ago met up at a music festival in Swaziland. It might seem like a coincidence that Walter Bayer, shown here looking very happy in a funny hat, and our own Dia Marie are both Peace Corps volunteers in southern Africa. Then again coincidences are not always what they seem. Walter is the son of my sister Kathleen Bayer. Both Walter and Dia grew up as part of a tight group of cousins fiercely loyal to one another, their grandmother, and Don McLean's American Pie.

Both are motivated by a desire to serve. Both are adventurous and generous in spirit. And they both like music, enough to travel for hours and hours over bumpy roads to attend the BushFire festival. After the music died, Dia and Walter traveled together to Lesotho, where he teaches at a school in Butha-Buthe, a village at least three and a half hours from the capital, Maseru. Dia helped him teach a Life Skills class, then made for the mountains (they don't call Lesotho the mountain kingdom for nothing) and after a 9,000 foot climb in the Sani Pass, last we heard she is on the road back to Sefphofe.

Walter keeps a pretty cool blog on his life there, which you can find https://wbayer21.wordpress.com/ . Cool kids doing cool things. And in just 44 days we'll be there, flies on the wall, peeking in on how a new generation takes on the challenge of building a new world. My Uncle Bob told me long before I was a parent that if you're smart and patient you'll learn a lot from your kids. How right he was.

Bring Your Fire

When last we heard from Dia she was riding in a "combi", a small bus, with a few dozen other people, some of them fellow Peace Corps volunteers, crossing the border from Botswana into South Africa, en route to Swaziland. Swaziland is an independent kingdom of barely one million people. This weekend tens of thousands of music lovers will gather there to camp and dance and sing at the tenth annual Bush Fire Mountain Music Festival. 

More than 30 musical acts will perform including "Blitz the Ambassador", "Bomb Shelter Beast", and, my personal favorite, the "Correctional Services Choir". This is not the type of story we usually hear about Africa on the news. Yet, there is this. Last year CNN said that Bush Fire was one of the seven African music  festivals you have to see. Seven.

Among the music lovers joining Dia will be her cousin, Walter Bayer. Walter teaches in a school in Lesotho, and this is the first time the two will be able to get together since they started their assignments last year. The two of them grew up around Adirondack campfires on summer trips that my parents would organize for the whole family. So this weekend, while we sit around our Memorial Day bonfire, I will get a very large smile thinking about two global adventurers from the same family, far across the ocean, hopping and bopping at the Bush Fire Mountain Festival. 

Swaziland Music Festival

For a country as little known in the US as Botswana, it is impressive that there are now 15 novels written in English about the country. I refer to the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a series by the British author Alexander McCall Smith. It features Mma. Precious Ramotswe, an entrepreneurial minded woman who sets up a series of businesses in Gabarone, beginning with her own private eye agency. She has a series of cleverly laid out adventures, and the Handsome Man's DeLuxe Cafe is the most recent of them, published in 2015.

By reading the novels (they've also been adapted for film - not so good), we have gotten some flavor for daily life in Botswana. I'm always cautious, however, when a Westerner takes on the job of characterizing another society. So I started to look up native writers, and it turns out that there are a good number of Batswana novelists. The most prominent among them is D.P. Semakaleng Monyaise, whose masterwork Go Sa Baori was published in 1999.

Unfortunately for me, all of his work is written in Setswana, and as far as I can tell none of it has been translated into English. So for now, the First Ladies Detective Agency is the best we can do. I'll let you know how realistic it seems once we get there.

If you'd like us to bring you back a souvenir, we'll be happy to do so. But it won't be ivory.

When we arrive in Botswana, at Seretse Khama International Airport, this is what we will see.

It's a life size elephant statue dedicated in 2015. It weighs 5,000 pounds, is composed of the tusks of elephants that died of natural causes, and was created by a group of young artists in Gaborone, Thapong Visual Arts. (I think Ellen would get a kick out of knowing that student artists participated in this project:).

Why create this sculpture? Why place it in the airport? It sounds as if Botswana's leaders see their future as tied to tourism, and their tourism tied to preserving the nation's wildlife. Currently a third of Africa's elephants live in Botswana, and they are protected with the fury of a lion defending her cubs. It is illegal to kill an elephant in Botswana, but poachers can be killed with impunity.

The continuing threat to the elephant herd, and thus to Botswana's economy and people, comes from illegal trafficking in ivory. Even though an international treaty signed in 1989 outlawed ivory sales, growing demand from the new consumer societies in Asia have caused an increase in slaughter of the majestic beasts.

When he dedicated the elephant statue, Botswana's President Ian Khama said that he wanted it in the airport because most of the ivory that leaves his country illegally does so in the suitcases of visiting tourists. It's an awareness thing - I guess they do want us talking about the elephant in the room.

So - if you'd like us to bring you back a souvenir, we'll be happy to do so. But it won't be ivory.

African Presidents (but not Botswana's) Set Fire to Massive Piles of Elephant Ivory

African Presidential Summit Ends with Largest Ivory Burn Ever

There are 129,000 elephants in Botswana. That's about one for every 15 people. Unlike some other places in Africa, the size of the elephant herd appears to have stabilized. Nearby Tanzania has lost more than half of its elephants in the past six years. 58,000 animals in Tanzania were poached, their ivory tusks sold illegally overseas.
How do we know this? Well, if you're reading this on a PC or using any Microsoft product, you can consider yourself a small part of the Great Elephant Census, a multi-year effort to measure wild African elephant herds. It's funded by Bill Gates' one-time partner Paul Allen, who has funded 90 researchers to fly 285,000 over 18 African countries for the sole purpose of counting elephants.

You can read about this enormous conservation undertaking in this National Geographic article.

Great African Elephant Census

In the photo above, a soldier guards piles of tusks. These were stacked up in Kenya and later burned at a ceremony attended by many African Presidents. It was a demonstration of the commitment by these nations to stop poaching and protect the elephant herd. The idea was to show the world that they would not allow sale of the ivory, seeing this as a deterrent to further poaching. Botswana's president did not attend the ivory burning.

The politics of conservation can get pretty complicated. I'll try to delve into it and let you know what I find in future posts. Meanwhile I'm just imagining what it will be like to be driving our pickup and stopping to let a 10,000 pound mammal cross the road. They have the right of way.

Our first week in Botswana will be spent in Sefhophe, the village where Dia is working.
The second week we'll be riding off road and camping among the wildlife, in areas of the country with far more animals than people. I'll get to be the driver of a 4x4 Toyota truck exploring the edges of the Okavango Delta and the remote salt flats (called "Pans") in the Kalahari. By then I should be accustomed to driving on the left side of the road, though on many days there won't be much of a road.
The term wildlife does not begin to describe the variety of creatures found in Botswana. The country has in recent decades made preserving the native species of lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes, hippos and rhinos a high priority. There are many national parks, a no nonsense "shoot to kill" policy against poachers, and a budding infrastructure for ecotourists like us who will get to camp on the ground up close to lions and other fierce creatures.
Dia has told us that she and her Peace Corps friends have gone out to reserves and heard hippos so close to their camp they could hear them breathing. She also says that most Batswana would never think of doing anything so daring, which seems to me a sensible way to carry oneself in the presence of such massive carnivores.
As we plan our trip, I find it amusing to watch Ellen demonstrating such enthusiasm for sleeping out on the Pans with lions just yards away, when it has proved difficult to get her to consider camping in the Adirondacks where a noisy raccoon is the most likely predator we might encounter.
She has been assured by others who have done this and blogged about it that the lions will not bother our tent. Apparently lions perceive tents as large stones and do not bother them. Presumably the lions are aware of this. The other possibility is that those who slept in tents not mistaken for stones did not live to blog about it. We'll see.

The West Wing

This post is about a time warp, about the incredible pace of change in communications technology, and about the love between a mother and her daughter.

So why does it contain an image of Martin Sheen?

It's a slow Sunday in Sefphofe, and Dia is looking for something to do with her down time. She's fed the puppy that she takes care of. So she sent her Mom a message on What'sApp suggesting that they watch an episode of the West Wing together. This happens every once in a while, when we think she might be getting a little bored or homesick.

Dia has downloaded the entire series on her laptop, which, among other things, makes me hope that NBC does not have copyright lawyers in Botswana or who are paid to scour obscure blogs written by Peace Corps parents.

Mostly it makes me amazed that Dia and Ellen are watching the same TV show simultaneously and texting one another about it as they do. Almost as if they were sitting next to one another on the couch.

Decades ago, the first time I moved overseas, I spoke to my family on Christmas. The phone call took days to arrange and cost more than two hundred dollars. It was the only phone call, the only communication we had besides letters. It's a new world. I'll get used to it eventually.

Diamonds - Whose Best Friend are They?

Last fall you might remember a story about an extremely large diamond - the size of a tennis ball, being found in southern Africa. Turns out it came from a mine in Botswana run by the Canadian mining company Lucara. It was quickly shipped from Botswana to Canada where dealers expected it to sell for something like 60 million dollars.

Botswana produces more diamonds by value than any other country in the world - 3.63 billion dollars in 2013. It's one of the reasons that Botswana is among the wealthiest countries in Africa.

Lucky for the people of Botswana, no one knew they had any diamonds before they gained their independence in 1965. Had the British known what riches lay beneath the dry soil, they just might have found reason to hang around a bit longer.

We hear a lot about Blood Diamonds, and you might even have seen a Leonardo DiCaprio film on the subject. Botswana has no blood diamonds. Four foreign diamond companies mine the shiny rocks, and the trade appears to be above board for the most part. Diamonds are the country's biggest source of wealth right now, but they are thinking it's time to diversify - the mines might last another decade, two at the most. Tourism seems to be the most likely candidate to replace the gem trade as the cornerstone of the economy.

While government policy has intended to spread the diamond wealth around, a recent World Bank report describes Botswana as the country with the third highest rate of income inequality in the world. (Bernie Sanders take heed.)

Move Over, Wallis Simpson - Meet Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams

You probably have heard the story of how King Edward VII abdicated the British throne in 1936 to marry the woman he loved, a Philadelphia women named Wallis Simpson. But you've probably never heard the story of Seretse Khama, Botswana's founding President, and the British woman who became his wife, Ruth Williams. Until Dia announced that she was heading off to Botswana I had never heard of Sir Seretse Khama either, but here's what I've learned about him since.

Seretse Khama, like Nelson Mandela, was born royal, the son of a tribal chieftain in what was then Bechuanaland. His father died and he became chief of the Bamangwato people in 1925. He spent most of his younger years studying in South Africa and later London, where he met Ruth. When the two married, tribal leaders joined with South Africa and British leaders to have Khama stripped of his leadership role and sent into exile. South Africa's apartheid leaders couldn't live with the example of an interracial couple occupying the seat of government just to the north, and the Brits - well they needed the South Africans as allies, so they joined in the racist effort.

The people of Botswana didn't take well to this, and the Khama couple came home in the mid 50's. Seretse waited five years before he founded the political movement that eventually led to Botswana's independence in 1965, when he became the new nation's first President.

It seems like one of those moments when the right person showed up at the right historical moment. And then they found the diamonds. Seretse Khama and the discovery of diamonds account for much of modern Botswana's history. More on that next time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3421963/New-film-tell-explosive-tale-late-Botswanan-president.html

Soon there will be a feature length film about the great love story that dramatically impacted how Botswana developed as an independent country. And it's a story most of us have never heard.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is an amazing invention.

Dia and her Mom text almost every day using this little app on their phones.

We can't really speak with her by phone or Skype when she is in Sefphofe, where the signal is very limited.

But when she goes to the capital, Gabarone, the connection is pretty solid. Last week she was there for a training and we had a three hour conversation via Skype. (She looked great and was very happy to be in a place with running water for hot showers). She now joins the locals in referring to the capital city by its nickname - "Gabs".

Interesting fact about Botswana is that it was one of the rare countries, in fact the only one that I know of, to have the seat of its government located outside the country. Until 1965, the country we now call Botswana was the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, with its capital in Mahikeng, in the North West province of South Africa. This may come in handy one day when watching Jeopardy.

Upon independence, Botswana, a new country needing a capital of its own, chose to build one pretty much from scratch. They settled upon the place that was to become Gabarone, in part because there was a source of fresh water and in part because that area was not strongly identified with any particular tribal or ethnic group.

Most of the city's major streets and buildings were constructed within three years.Today it is a city of nearly a quarter million people, and is growing fast.

It's got malls, universities, night clubs, banks, a stock exchange. It is a modern city by any standard, or so we hear. On July 19 we will arrive on a flight from Johannesburg, landing at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, named for the first President of independent Botswana. More on him later - he seems like an interesting and in some ways visionary leader.

Relentless Sunshine

It's almost always sunny in Botswana

And it just got a little sunnier.

This is not a digression from our discussion of Dia's work, but a further explanation of what we do not know.

Botswana is a warm place, where it only rains a bit, and mostly in the few months of southern Africa's winter. (The word for rain - pula - is the same as the word for money).

Click here for the forecast - no rain in sight.
Before Dia went to Botswana, I gave her a nickname. Technically it is not a nickname, since it is many times longer than her name, but sometimes you have an extraordinary circumstance which requires bending the rules, which for me is not easy when it comes to words. I call Dia the "relentless sunshine".

We all know people who we consider optimists. Dia is one of those people, but that term does not begin to touch it. I would say that Dia is constitutionally incapable of seeing the negative in a situation. It's a powerful and striking form of blindness. In the most difficult of situations, she will be the one to point out the up side. It's not like she's afraid to take on the hard stuff; she just doesn't want to talk about it. Doesn't want to give it any space in her brain.

Two concrete results from this sunny disposition. One, that huge smile you see in most of her pictures. Two, she is not eager to tell us much about her work at the clinic in Sefphofe. It's hard stuff, we assume.

When we talk or text with her, we hear about the people she works with. We hear about weddings and other celebrations. We hear about the donkeys in the road as she walks to work and the puppies in her yard when she comes home. But what happens in the clinic, at least as far as we know, stays at the clinic.

That's why we'll have to go see for ourselves.

Botswana's Stunning Achievement Against AIDS

If you look at the poster behind her, you'll see the main reason that Dia is in Botswana. She studied Public Health Education at SUNY Brockport and her area of interest has always been women's reproductive health. 

Botswana's is a large country with a tiny population - barely 2.2 million people. The major threat to public health is HIV.

Between 20 and 25% of the adult population are HIV positive.

There are 67,000 orphans due to AIDS, and more than 5,000 people die from the disease every year.

Botswana has the means to educate and treat the people, and has taken many steps to manage this epidemic. In 2002 Botswana became the first country in Africa to make anti-retroviral drugs available to those already infected. Their maternal-child transmission rate has dropped from 40% to 4%. Click on the link above to listen to an NPR story about what they've been able to do.

At the request of Botswana's government, all 162 Peace Corps volunteers in the country are working on HIV - related issues. Dia works at a small clinic in Sefphofe. What does she do there?

Very good question.

And away she goes...

First question everyone wants to know about Botswana.  Where is it?

North of South Africa.

East of Namibia

South of Zambia

West of Zimbabwe

For our purposes, all we need to know is that it is a short flight from Johannesburg, South Africa. We fly direct from New York to Johannesburg on July 18, then take a short flight to Gabarone, Botswana's capital. That still leaves us four hours by road (in our case, in a rented white four-wheel drive Toyota truck) from Sefphofe, where Dia lives.

Masego

Last October we learned that our daughter, Dia Marie, had been given a new name by the people of Sefhophe, the village in Botswana where she has been serving now for six months as a Peace Corps volunteer.

The name? Masego.

The meaning?  Gift.

Realizing that on the other side of the planet there was a village that had the vision to see what a gift our child really is, we decided that the only thing to do was to go to Botswana and meet these prescient people.

So that's what Ellen and I will be doing in July. July 18 to be precise - 100 days from today.

If you'd like to share in this journey, to learn about Botswana, Dia's work there in southern Africa, come back and see this blog from time to time. We'll be there before you know it.