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