Conclusions

RENAE:
Well let me just say that I love Africa. A lot. The best part of the trip I would say was meeting the people here my parents knew and talked about so much. They make such an effort to interact with people, putting it before work, sleep, or anything else that we would otherwise put before people. If you go to their house one day, the next day they’ll call you up and go to your house for tea. It’s just so different than the States. The scenery is also amazing. I’ve never ever seen anything so beautiful as the sunset over the Chobe River with hundreds of elephants crossing it. I hope to never lose that picture in my mind, ever. Some of the other highlights of the trip were: seeing the country where I was born, the hyena taking our cooler, camping wherever we felt like in the Bush, all the wildlife at Chobe, Moremi, and Etosha, white water rafting down the craziest river in the world, and trying to stay standing on a sandboard flying down a dune. Living in Botswana is definitely at the top of my list for what I want to do in my life in the future.
Renae

LISA:
It will be quite depressing to leave this place. It was really neat to finally see all of the places and people I’ve heard so much about and seen so many pictures of since as long as I can remember. I think everyone should someday in their lives put themselves into a situation where they are a foreigner in a developing country as the only person of their race in the whole town. Although extremely uncomfortable, it’s interesting for you and everyone around you to be so aware of the color of your skin, because you just don’t think about it at home. Also, seeing the immense amount of our possessions for a 6 week vacation next to the village huts that were used for a lifetime made me stop and think a little about the discrepancy between the way I live and the way much of the world lives. Some of my favorite parts were bush camping, the amazing amounts of wild game, interacting with the culture, meeting Batswana friends, sandboarding, the incredibly different types of scenic beauty from all 4 countries, the African sky at night, and Dad falling out of the white water raft. I was disappointed that we never got to attend a village church, because apparently that is quite an experience. Africa is definitely a continent I will hopefully be revisiting in the future.
Lisa



NICOLE:
So there’s no denying this trip is over. We will all go out for brunch later this morning together one last time before Travis, Erin and I will drop the others off at the Windhoek airport before beginning our journey back to Gaborone.

There is also no denying that this conclusion has to be written….I have come so far I would hate to have to pay for 1/7 of the trip now. I have been writing silly conclusions for the past few days, but nothing passes the critical eye of Dad. So here goes…

I would say one of my favorite things about this trip was the few times we weren’t just rich white tourists, but people who actually have ties to the country. Having contact with the local people and getting a glimpse into the culture by visiting friends of my parents in Gaborone and Maun have been unforgettable. These glimpses have definitely made me rethink my place in this world as the privileged white American I am. I too am jealous of Travis for getting to stay so much longer, but I’m not a big college grad yet so my time may come someday. I hope I have not seen Botswana for the last time.

Other highlights include camping in the bush in the middle of nowhere, watching the stars and the sunsets/sunrises, all the beautiful wildlife Botswana and Namibia have to offer, whitewater rafting the Zambezi, seeing that hyena steal our entire cooler, and of course just generally spending time with the family and Erin before we disperse to all corners of the world again.

It is sad to think that in just a few short hours this trip will be only a memory, but it had to happen someday I suppose. All good things must end. I am excited for the next part of this trip, which, for me consists of working at a day care for AIDS orphans and vulnerable children in Gaborone for three weeks. I a little nervous, heading to a city I don’t know, with a language I don’t know, to live with a woman I don’t know. But I am thankful to have the opportunity to have an experience like this, and glad to postpone my goodbye to Africa for a few more weeks.
Nicole

TRAVIS:
Well, I pretty much agree with everyone else’s conclusions thus far, and I’ll try not to bore you by repeating the same things that you have already read above. But I suppose I will keep with the tradition of listing some of my highlights: meeting some of the people that had only existed for me in stories, seeing the places were we had lived and comparing them with my memories, camping in the middle of nowhere and having campfires every night for a few solid weeks, spending some quality time with my family and Erin before they leave me here for good, whitewater rafting and seeing Dad lunge towards the middle of the raft to save it from capsizing as I fell off the edge, seeing all kinds of beautiful wildlife, the mokoro trip into the swamps….and many, many more of course. As Lisa mentioned, it has been difficult to come to terms with our position as wealthy white tourists here, even in one of Africa’s wealthiest and most stable nations. This was brought home to me in a real way when a lady came up to us while we were sitting in the Land Rover in a South African town, with all of our camping gear packed on the roof and in the back, and asked us where we were moving. No, we’re not moving. This is just all the junk that we need to “survive” for 6 weeks. As a counterpoint to that, I’m extremely excited to head back to Gaborone after this and settle down and actually live here. It will feel good to not be a tourist and to be able to feel more at home here with time. It will be interesting to see how it feels to be a white person living here rather than just passing through (although I suppose 15 months is pretty much “just passing through” also). In any case, the trip has been amazing and I have loved being here and seeing the places that we’ve been. Oh, and I think that I will try to keep a blog running while I’m here for family and friends and all that, so if you want to keep up with me while I’m with Flying Mission check it out. The address is fmtravis.blogspot.com Cool. Until later,
Travis

ERIN:
As seems to be the case with most good things in life, the end of this trip has come entirely too soon. It’s gone quickly…but what a six weeks it’s been. I thought at first that having a blog entry for every day was a little excessive, but I’ve been amazed at the way each one—at least to us (your views as blog readers are allowed to differ)—has been filled with significant happenings. Africa has been a more powerful teacher than years in a classroom could ever be in terms of the issues everyone else has already mentioned—racism, poverty, HIV/AIDS, post-colonialism, everything—and still I haven’t even scratched the surface of everything Botswana and southern Africa are about. Our travels here have forced me to think much more consciously about my place in the world and the incredible privileges I take for granted on an everyday basis. These are thoughts that will not be forgotten anytime soon. One of the highlights of the trip for me has definitely been making connections with people here. Traveling with people who used to live here has made this whole experience so much more meaningful than it would have been otherwise. Even though I’ve learned an awful lot and feel much more comfortable in this part of the world than I did a month ago, I still wish I could get to know the culture by living here instead of just passing through. I really do envy the chance Travis has to do that now, but soon I’ll be doing the same in Cambodia, so I can’t complain. The amazing experience of traveling through Africa aside, the chance to share in this family vacation has been the opportunity of a lifetime. In some ways, being part of another family caused as much culture shock for me as adjusting to a new continent. I have loved getting to know all of the Weavers on a much deeper level than I ever did before, and I give them a lot of credit for being patient with me as I’ve tried to figure out how I fit into this family. I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to most of them tomorrow, and to Travis and Nicole and Botswana in one short week. I can’t claim that this was ever my home like the others, but I share their sentiments that I want to come back. So goodbye, Africa. I hope we will meet again.
Erin

JOLENE:
It’s hard to know how to wrap this up. The kids have said things very well I think. It’s been a significant trip into the past for all of us and something we’ve all looked forward to for many years – basically since we’ve left. Highlights for me were connecting with the people we knew (everyone was so thrilled that we remembered them & made the effort to come see them when we were here) and the places we’ve lived, the gorgeous stars at night, the thousands of animals (especially lions), night sounds and spending time with my family before we disperse again for over a year.

Traveling in a Land Rover brought back many, many memories of the Land Rover we used to have while living in Maun and bumping over those roads in the sand & dust – I had thought I was done with that forever! What amazed me too were all the changes in Gaborone and Maun, and the whole country in general – so many paved roads that didn’t used to be, western type malls where there were just little shops before, Bokaa with electricity and telephones, and a paved road into it. So we couldn’t really show the kids how it used to be exactly. I’m excited for Travis (& Nicole for 3 weeks) to be able to spend more time in Botswana.

It was definitely a worthwhile trip and one we won’t soon forget!!
Jolene


ROGER:
Highlights: Reconnecting with a few of our Batswana friends, seeing the beautiful night sky without ANY ground light interference, sitting by a campfire many a night and getting it stoked back up the next morning for tea and breakfast (we went for a stretch of 18 continuous days - cooking on a campfire every night, and warming up to it each morning).

However for me there is nothing like bush camping and trying to think about how far away the closest human being might be. The night “jungle’ sounds are amazing. Hearing the roar of the lions, the laugh of the hyena, the grunts of the hippos, mixed in with the chorus of all the other night sounds is one of the sweetest sounds on earth. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Disappointments: It was disappointing we were not in a location to experience an African Independent Church service on any of the Sunday mornings. I really wanted the kids to have that experience. It was also a bit non-nostalgic to see Gaborone and Maun being so different. Gabs is now a real city – when we arrived they were so excited to have just installed the first two robots (traffic lights) in the country. Maun is totally different – they don’t have robots yet, but they now have paved roads and two round-a-bouts already. The wheels of development have been spinning and that is good. It went from one of the poorest countries in Africa to one of the wealthiest over the years, but one of the things that have also spun off is crime and violence, which was unknown before. Sadly one no longer feels as safe and carefree as before. Locked gates are everywhere – even in Maun. That was unheard of before. Our old place in Maun even has electric, and along with that electric fences surround the yard. Electric fences are installed around the tops of many walls in Gabs and Maun. What happened to the trust everyone had before? I do miss that, however in the rural villages it is like it always was. Hopefully it will remain that way for a while.

As was stated above – I love Africa – no doubt about it!
Roger

July 22

ROGER:
Today is the day we each go our own ways. All vacations must come to an end I guess, and this one is no different. Nicole, Erin, and Travis will drop Jolene, Renae, Lisa and me at the airport to catch our long flight home – something I am not looking forward to. I do long flights like that often enough, but for some reason sitting in the front office is not nearly as bad as riding in the back.

I guess in a few days this trip will be nothing more than a good memory (and in a short time only a distant memory), but I am thankful I have a job that allowed me to accumulate frequent flyer miles so this could happen. It is good to have had the opportunity to visit the place that has had more of an impact on my life, than any other life experience I’ve had – by a long shot.
Roger

July 21

ROGER:
Today was packing up day. We sorted through all our things – packing the things in bins to return with Jolene, Lisa, Renae and me, and putting the things back in Tau for Travis, Nicole, and Erin to take to Gaborone. After short jaunts to the shops for tape and rope, and shifting things around to make the weights stay within the limits we finally got it all reasonably organized and then headed out to a pizza joint for dinner. After eating we returned and sat around and talked, before finally going to bed a little after 10:00 PM – that may be a record for a late night for us!
Roger

July 20

LISA:
We got up fairly early to watch the sun rise. It was a tad bit disappointing, since it was pretty much it’s normal old bright yellow self by the time it came up over the mountains. But, nevertheless, it was our last African sunrise in the desert. Boo and bullfrogs. We had a very tasty breakfast of sausage and soft-boiled eggs and potatoes and toast and mmm it was good. We packed up for the last time, and started the trek to Windhoek. We got there by early afternoon, and found one of the only places left in the whole city with available space. Dad and Mom got a double and the kids got a dorm with another lady. We needed Mom & Dad’s room for space to pack up all of our junk, since we decided not to try to jam all of our possessions into the dorm with that poor woman. So we unloaded everything from Tau’s filthy body and Dad took him to get him an extreme makeover at the local “Car Bath.” Some of us took a dip in the pool. It was slightly more conducive to swimming than the Okavango River Lodge pool, which was nice, although the sauna we ran into afterwards still felt good. We kind of started packing a little, but soon gave up when we realized how hungry we were. Since we pretty much had no food left besides some ketchup and chicken pot pie, we showered and started driving around looking for places to eat. Tau was a whole new beast, let me tell ya. We found this Chinese place that was really really great with one of those tables where the center spins. We got several dishes and spun them around for all to share. It was delicioso, although it definitely wasn’t the best thing for my screwed up stomach…
Lisa

July 19

NICOLE:
This morning after catching up on some internet at a local café, we packed up and said goodbye to Swakapmund forever, heading toward Windhoek and our final destination. Mom and Dad thought they had remembered that on the way there were some more huge dunes, and we had kept our boards, hoping to catch some more dune sliding fun. We were surely disappointed when the landscape turned out to look more like Utah than dune-laden Namibia. It’s so desolate and bleak—beautiful in its own way I suppose. We arrived in a little town in the middle of the desert named Solitaire in the late afternoon. It’s a big dot on the map, but it sure holds true to its name. It consists of a general store, bar, petrol store, lodge, and campground. I’m pretty sure the tourists greatly outnumbered the locals. There we set up camp, had some time to swim in the pool, lounge around in the sun and do some hiking before supper time. The last few days have been much more relaxing than before, which is a nice change of pace from the rest of the trip, although I usually am one that wants to keep moving. Now that we are on the home stretch and have everything planned out where we’re going to be when, we realize we have time to relax and have to keep reminding ourselves of that. The entire trip, Dad has been wanting to make bush pot-pie. Not to be confused with the regular kind. Bush pot-pie goes something like this: Dad asks Mom how much flour and eggs it takes to make a double recipe of pot-pie dough. Mom recommends 4 cups of flour and 4 eggs. Dad throws 9 cups of flour and 13 eggs in a dishpan, along with some water and whatever milk we happen to have left. Dad then takes two big logs from our stack of firewood and uses an axe to make a smooth, table-top surface on them both. No utensils allowed. We throw some water, potatoes, and chicken in a black pot and put it in the fire. Then Dad and I each use an axe to smoosh the pieces of dough Lisa and Renae give us before throwing them in the black pot. If it falls in the sand you’re not allowed throw it into the fire. Instead, you give it to Dad, who has a special method of blowing (/spitting) on it, thus cleaning it completely. If all the dough squares don’t fit in the pot, you just roll them up into balls, put them in a smaller pot with some boiling water, roll them in cinnamon sugar, and have them for desert. It’s quite a process, really. And quite delicious. We then sat around the campfire complaining about our stomachs, looking at the stars, and, realizing it was our last night of camping in Africa, decided to stay up really late. It didn’t work out-- we were all in bed before 10 once again.
Nicole

July 18

ERIN
Well, this could very well be my last chance to blog. I admit, I get a little tearful just thinking about that. But seriously, we are coming down the home stretch. Only three days now until Roger and Jolene and Lisa and Renae fly home, and Travis and Nicole and I make our journey back to Gaborone. Since we haven’t paid much attention to dates or days of the week, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that we’re nearing the end already. I, for one, am not ready for this to be over. But enough thinking about that.

Today we did not drive anywhere. That in itself is a rather momentous occasion. Since we decided to stay in Swakopmund a second night, we didn’t have to pack anything up this morning. We spent a leisurely morning making some tasty pancakes in the hostel kitchen, and then we piled into Tau for a duneboarding excursion. OK, so we did drive some places…but by now, anything less than five hours in the car is nothing to this crew of hardened travelers.

We stopped on our way to the dunes to buy five duneboards—flat rectangles of wood that you use to slide down the sand dunes. While Roger and Jolene went off on an unsuccessful quest for internet access, the rest of us spent a few hours climbing the dunes and zooming down on our trusty dune boards. The procedure goes something like this: rub wax into the smooth side of the board, lug it up to the top of the dune, lie down on it on your stomach, pull the front edge up with your hands, and take off down the slope. (You must remember, of course, to keep your mouth closed, or suffer the consequence. Eyes, naturally, are a little trickier, as keeping them closed means you’re likely to hit an unexpected footprint and take a faceplant into the sand.) All in all, maybe one percent of our time was spent duneboarding, and the other 99% trudging up the never-ending mountains of sand and painstakingly scraping the ever-present grains out of parts of our bodies that we didn’t even know existed. It was so worth it. In fact, we liked it so much that we went back in the evening for more of the fun and brought the parents along with us. Highlights included watching Roger take his first run down the hill, stacking Travis, Nic, Lisa, and me on top of each other on three boards for a wild ride, and trying to stand up on our boards and sandboard down. We got some sweet video footage of us flying down the slopes and taking some crazy falls. Fortunately, only minor injuries were incurred when we ran high-speed into some unexpected little (and not-so-little) rocks at the bottom of one dune. Even Lisa, who’s still feeling a little under the weather, wouldn’t hear of missing out on the fun and succeeded in being the only one to stand up on her board the entire way down the hill without falling. We watched the sun set over the ocean from the top of a dune, boarded down one last time, and headed back to the hostel, exhausted, for showers, band-aids, real beds, and some hard-earned sleep. Another beautiful day in Africa.
Erin

New Pictures

I have uploaded more pictures onto my webshots page again, but unfortunately they were added onto the end of the first album I made instead of in a new one like I wanted. More pics later.

Travis

July 17

RENAE:
Honestly nothing much happened today. We got up and saw another beautiful sunrise, ate breakfast, and packed up. There are the cutest, adorablest little kids EVER here. I tried to talk to them but they don’t know English and just waved and laughed at me. Well, we left into the most desolate country I’ve ever seen in my life. No water, no trees, and hardly any wildlife besides a few gemsbok here and there. It’s so boring that all anyone does much is sleep in the car, although we did get to the coast and stopped at Cape Cross to see the seal colony there. That I must say was pretty neat, but they were all swimming. All you can see are the tons of seal heads bob under the water when a wave comes, and let me tell you they are the smelliest animals I have ever smelled—even worse than pigs and chickens combined, and, believe me, I have experience with both of them. I also really miss good water. This treated crap doesn’t taste that good. We got to Swakopmund and stayed at a hostel there. The padres went out to eat while the rest of us made our own supper of mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and sautéed veggies. And now it is tomorrow morning and we are on our way to go sand boarding on some humungo dunes and I’m really excited.
Renae

July 16

JOLENE:
We left our campground just outside Etosha gate this morning (the tent was actually set up on grass! and not sand) and headed toward Skeleton Coast. These roads in Namibia aren’t paved, but wide gravel ones which are really quite smooth, but the dust is something else! By the time we stop at night we are feeling very grimy and it’s hard to get a brush through our hair. That’s when a shower feels so very good. And without the air conditioner working it’s of course that much worse.

We were heading to a small town – which looked on the map like it was pretty big so we were thinking we could get our groceries there, use an ATM (we were getting low on cash), etc. Well, after asking when we got to a small store if they took credit cards and they assured us they did, I went through the check out line with a couple days worth of food only to be told at check out that their machine did not work. AND the ATM did not work either so we couldn’t get more cash. I left all my groceries sitting there & we went to another little store (the only other one in town) where their credit card machine did work but they did not have nearly the selection of groceries the first place did. Anyway we won’t starve, but I didn’t get what I wanted to. Basically all the town was were these couple little shops.

We kept on driving and driving & saw a very desolate, brown, dry landscape but also drove through some beautiful mountains and saw some zebra, gemsbok, and signs of elephants, (their poop), but didn’t see actual elephants. We arrived at the gate to Skeleton Coast National Park at about 3:30 and were told it was too late to keep going – the gate closed at 3 – because after 3 you don’t have time to drive out of the park and you can’t spend the night in the park. Anyway, they had a very nice place set up for people like us, and we camped free right there at the gate. They had beautiful new showers (cold) and brought us firewood and everything. That’s probably the earliest we’ve stopped for the night on this trip and it was very nice to do most of the cooking in the daylight for once. Some of us washed out some dirty clothes (you wouldn’t believe the dirty people we’ve become) and took showers.

And we had a little scare with Lisa. We didn’t know it but she wasn’t feeling very well most of the day, and when we stopped she said she was dizzy, had some trouble breathing, had diarrhea and just felt weak. Roger talked to the guy at the gate and the closest place to a doctor would be Swakopmund which is a 4 hour drive away through the park which they would allow us to do, or 6-7 hr drive back the way we had come. There were clinics closer with a nurse, but no doctors. The scary part was the trouble breathing part. I thought maybe with all the dust it was getting too her, but I don’t really know. Anyway after she drank quite a bit (we also figured she might be dehydrated) and laying down she felt better and we decided to stay there.

I think one of the hardest things for me on this trip is the constant dirt and dust and not being clean. We hadn’t brought many clothes with us so we wear the same thing day after day and haven’t had much time to wash them. I’m hoping in Swakopmund to maybe have a washing machine & do a few loads. The last we had a washing machine was in Gaborone.

I don’t think anyone has written about the weather in this blog. The only rain we had was back the day we left Cape Town. We knew Botswana would be sunny skies all the time and it did not disappoint. It’s the dry season and so knew there would be no rain, which is nice for camping, but not for the dust or growing things. Nights get quite chilly but mostly we’ve been warm enough with our sleeping bags. Roger & I get the tent on top of the truck and have our bags zipped together & stay warm, and the kids all have good sleeping bags that are for colder weather, but sometimes they’ve been a bit cold. A couple hours after the sun is up we’re taking off our sweatshirts and it’s a nice warm day. Don’t know temps, but the weather has pretty much been perfect. Some days have been pretty hot, and I tell Travis to remember this is winter, and to be prepared for when summer comes!

After talking around the fire it was another early to bed night.
Jolene

July 15

LISA:
I have been informed that Mom and I have only blogged 4 times, while everyone else has blogged 5 times, besides Dad, who has blogged 8 times. So here I am. I guess I will blog (blog is not included in the Microsoft Word dictionary. Therefore, it should not exist) as I sit here soaking my foot. I had the good fortune to step on a thorn that went ½ inch into my left foot today. It’s really grand.

Anyway, I would say that Namibia is not so very bad, although Travis is generally a whiny character. Tehe. No, actually I was pretty asleep yesterday, but not today. We got up and packed in record time (literally). The hour time difference helped. We got into Etosha pretty early, and then found a waterhole with some zebras and 2 jackals trying to catch birds. They weren’t very successful. The Park was actually very good, as well as much more developed and full of people than Moremi. We saw tons of things. Some of the game highlights of the day were 2 springbuck fighting (which I spotted), 5 jackals surrounding some type of antelope carcass, which was difficult to see exactly what was going on (something I also spotted), 3 lions way out in the distance, and a mating pair of lions that backed up a bit when the stupid and inconsiderate guy in front of us decided to get out for a picture with the thing. Too bad it didn’t chase him. So the grand total for the lion count is 9. I’d say that’s pretty impressive. I am happy with that.

So I liked today a lot. It was probably our last opportunity to see large quantities of impressive game, which is kind of sad. We stopped at a waterhole and saw some elephants splashing themselves, and before we left the park we stopped at one more waterhole. We found our campground just out of the gate, and that is where I remain by the fire.
Lisa

July 15

TRAVIS:
If anybody tries to tell you that driving through Namibia is exciting, immediately unbefriend them. Because they’re a liar. I think I drove over 200 kilometers without moving the steering wheel more than a half a degree or so from center, and that was to pass a slow-moving pickup packed with people. 200 kilometers without a curve or a hill. As much as I rag on Kansas and Nebraska, they got nothin’ on Namibia. And, unfortunately, we didn’t do much else today but drive across this God-forsaken country. Before leaving Shakawe and, with it, Botswana, we went into town to find the post office and to visit the bakery that we’d heard about, where we picked up some delicious rolls and fat cakes. If nobody’s told you before, fat cakes are basically just fried balls of dough that, like everything else that is fried, taste pretty darn good. Then, once again, we crossed a border and entered the final country of our trip, Namibia. And then began the above-mentioned tedium, interrupted only by a grocery stop and a puff adder. The puff adder was definitely the highlight of my day, as I’ve been searching furiously for cool snakes since we got here and hadn’t seen any snakes at all until today. Dad didn’t see the snake until he passed right over it (without hitting it – it went smack between the wheels), so of course we stopped and backed up to see what it was. It turned out to be beautiful puff adder about 4 feet long that had apparently been hit before and was pretty seriously injured. We thought he was done for, but as we watched, the snake slowly inched its way across the other side of the road moving painfully, like a caterpillar instead of in the usual zig-zag motion. We hoped it might make it (well, all of us but mom hoped it would make it), but as we were watching a car blasted up from behind us and passed us, hitting the snake as it went. The snake writhed around and headed for the edge of the road, where it coiled up and, we think, probably died. It was a sad day for me, and I hated to see that beautiful snake die. Of course, the villagers (along with mom) probably appreciated the death of the poisonous thing. Anyway, we ended the day by arriving at the gate to Etosha national park about 30 minutes after dark, and, since the park closes at dark, we spent another night camping in the bush a little way off of the main road near the park. Maybe tomorrow Namibia will redeem itself.
Travis

July 13

RENAE:
Last night we camped for probably the last time in the bush along a sand road with no city noises or people near us. For miles and miles and miles. And actually, now that I think about it, there weren’t any animal noises either. It was slightly eerie, seeing as every other night there were the roaring of lions, barking of baboons, coughing of monkeys (they sound exactly like Gollum), bulling of frogs (?), and whistling of doves to put us to sleep. I really extremely love the bush. I will miss it a bunch. I think I’m gonna cry when I leave. I love this land.

Anyway, as Travis said we went to Tsodilo Hills to see a bunch of old Bushmen paintings on the rocks. There are over 4,500 discovered so far, but we obviously didn’t see them all. They’re pretty amazing, seeing as they were here for thousands of years and just painted on with berries and bone marrow and whatever else they had. So yes it was a very eventful day—we hiked into the hills to view these masterpieces, visited a small Bushmen village nearby, and then headed on our way to Shakawe to meet some of my parent’s old friends. Then we went to a pretty high-class campground along the river here (in Shakawe). Monkeys infest this place as well, but are a good source of entertainment, especially the babies that sometimes don’t make the jumps from tree to tree. I’m pretty sure they throw things at us too, but no one else believes me. We also learned that there is a hippo that likes to come out of the water at night and walk around the campground. I hope he doesn’t sit on our tent and smush us.
Renae