Dancing Lessons from God

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Weekend in Vic Falls and Chobe

At 3:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday, the Gaborone bus rank is both crowded and lazy. Tables of varying stabilties are covered with single-unit candies, bananas, Simba chips, and cell phone airtime - the usual - and manned by young to middle aged ladies with infrequent customers. The few benches are filled and the rest of the curbs host ladies, men, and some children, standing around waiting for buses. It's hot enough that most people don't move too much, except for the guys selling food on foot, going to the windows or leaping inside buses and crowding the aisles, convinced that although the last ten sellers of who-knows-how-old "Hungry Lion" takeaways (chick-eh-chips! chick-eh-chips!) have been turned away, they will find customers. Luckily for us, the bus to Francistown leaves roughly every half-an-hour, so my aisle-way shoulder only has to be buffeted so many times before the bus pulls out, the guys run to the front, and the guys start pleading with the bus driver to let them out before we get too far away.

The bus to Francistown is 5 or 5-and-a-half hours. We are going to see Chobe National Park, and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We are excited. The three of us stay overnight with a friend's family in Francistown, then catch the 6am combi from Francistown. We are packed in like sardines into the back seat (beginners mistake - it means they shove two large men in next to us, in space enough for only 5, so you have to pick which shoulder is more important to have leaning on the seat. You only get one.) The combi ride is ridiculously long, not because it's a far distance but because the semi-trucks, en route to Zambia, have torn the road to shreds, and we have to drive on the shoulder to avoid the potholes. 7 hours of 1.5x1ft of space later, we arrive in Kasane. It's mid-afternoon. The sun is golden, and there are elephants munching by the road outside of town. We get to out lodge and look out the window, across the flooded lawn onto the Chobe River. Beautiful. Huge. You can see where Namibia used to be, before they got all this floodwater from upstream Angola that has doubled the river's usual width.

Next day we're up early and in the van. We hit the Zimbabwe border - we pay them in dollars. We enter, and almost immediately see herds of elephants by the roads. Our route is through a national park. When we get to Victoria Falls town, people are walking in the streets, but all the shops are closed. Infrastructure clearly built for tourists - restaurants, posh art galleries, and the like - all stand neat and new and quietly locked. There are few other tourists.

At Victoria Falls Park they entreat us to rent huge, body-length rain ponchos. I wear my little packable REI raincoat instead, and me quick-dry safari shorts. We head into the park. We start at the sides of the falls, where you can see the immense amounts of water churning into the falls, only feet from you. It's breathtaking. It's like watching the ocean pouring over a small rock - the roar, but mostly, the sense of the rock being almost unnoticable to the water. We walk around to the front, and are quickly enveloped in a hurricane. Mind you, we are not near the waterfall- easily a kilometer or so off - but the spray is so strong in some places that I find I cannot breathe - there's too much water flying in my nose and mouth. We get a few pictures early on, but soon enough we're beyond drenched and flee back to the sunny area behind the rainforest.

The next day, back in Botswana, we're up at 6am for our game drive. The vehicle is open air, and it's merciful we are given blankets because in the dark it's still quite cold. We drive into Chobe and around, seeing buffalos, some antelopes, and the hills. I forget this drink but Madeline describes it as such: "it was 6am and very cold. The buffalo was dirty and had flies on it. And we saw that elephant that was like 'wehhhh!' (*accompanying ear flapping motions and a trunk sniffing motion*) and looked like it was trying to eat a peanut under the car." After a long nap, our boat cruise leaves at 3 in the afternoon. We walk to the edge of the lodge's lawn and jump aboard a medium motorboat with a sun-cover, holding the three of us and three Germans. The sun is beautiful and the temperature perfect; the water stretched out amazingly far, disappearing into marshes that were islands on the Namibian side. We soon start seeing hippoes, herds of elephants bathing and rolling in the mud, antelopes sipping and eyeing us, and a little tribe of monkeys. The boat lets us sit up close to them and listen, taking pictures while we lazily float and enjoy our drinks. It's absolutely heavenly.

The next day, 5:30am, we stand in the dark at the parking lot/combi rank, starting our 14 hour journey home.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

You Can Do Better

Tonight I am sitting on my bed, watching the wall for a while. It’s starting to get late, nearly one, and most of my neighbors are sleeping and silent by this early hour of morning. Across the courtyard I can hear a large group of guys, chattering and intermittently breaking into whooping and chanting. At home, this is the kind of noise that might accompany some frat boy downing an unusually large portion of beer in a single go – tonight though I am nervous, because I am worried that they are beating up a friend of mine, who has misbehaved and earned himself a number of enemies. The enemies said that tonight would be the night. The rest of the exchange students that know him have gone to bed, leaving him to his own devices, but I can’t get the imagined image of him out of my head, walking slowly across the courtyard to see what’s up, tall, chin upheld, his face as always glowing like a little boy surprised by delight.

Shortly after our arrival in this country, we were ushered into the barricaded rooms that are the American Embassy. In an average conference room, with nondescript jokings and many helpful tips, it was mentioned to us that for as long as we remain in this country, we are the faces and breath of America. We are more than ambassadors, dipping our toes in and out of a foreign pool with decorated parties and handshakes – we are America incarnate.

Most of us brushed this off; at any rate it has not guided our behavior. We have pitter-patted about, making our own decisions. After all, we are not America. We are not responsible for the things that presidents do.

This afternoon I was kneeling for several hours on the tile next to the bathtub, my arms propped on the edge, filling and refilling it with water and kneading and grinding the clothes around in the suds. It was thunderstorming outside and the street was a river; the speed bumps were rapids. Each time I rung a shirt I had to stand up slowly, unwinding and smoothing it as I patter-pattered across the empty common room, and arrange it to hang on the thick metal poles that cross the windows. I had calices developing below my fingers and the good, hardworking feeling that pioneer-work in movies always exudes. Sometimes below the water I would find a resistant dirt strain and beat it out. Sometimes I would pause and lean on the tub, watching bubbles popping and listening to people shuffling around the building. That is being in Botswana.

I have a hard time with people who say they hate America, hate being American. I feel towards the US like I do towards some of my friends who, momentarily dingy with the unkind things they’ve said or irresponsible things they’ve done, I nevertheless believe to be of good stock. They go through phases of mal-action, but these are transient.

And what about Botswana? Today, a range of cases – an attentive waiter at dinner, a hostess who wouldn’t help us. A man who loves visiting Portland, a man who never calls back. A helpful waiter at drinks, a jolly taxi driver who tried to beguile and jostle us out of our fair price. Men noisy in the courtyard. Girls peacefully around me sleeping in every room. A friend earlier, stopping by because he was worried about a potential fight, frightened; leaving, defiant, dismissive. Never back down, never surrender. I can agree with the sentiment, but at the same time, I feel we are responsible for not adding more suffering to the world when we can. It’s a mixed bag. I can’t say that Botswana enraptured me automatically; in honesty I probably wouldn’t choose to be friends with it if we didn’t already have mutual companions. With this obligated friendship, then, I feel tender but peeved towards Botswana. Even being slightly incompatible, I want to get along. But it’s a little difficult. Despite being friendly, I've often suspected that she doesn’t ultimately care about me. But give it a little time: she may sometimes be in the wrong, but she's starting to do the small things - saving me a seat, asking after my family.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Pictures of Friends from Emilie's Bday Party

Emilie and Kelly (L to R)

Emilie and Sam aka "Some Cash"

"Scud," Emilie, and Jon

KT, our next door neighbor, and Emilie

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Where is "SA & Safari Photos 1"?

Well I'll tell you where "SA & Safari Photos 1" is: it is at the end. I don't know why it's down there - I did it the right way to be in order, it just ignored me. You should go in numerical order through the photo groups, if you want to follow the chronological trail.