A Slower Life - Jolene

Honestly, I haven’t even read our last couple of blogs, done by Roger and maybe Renae too. Without internet it’s a bit difficult to keep up with it. So, if this is a repeat, forgive me.
In many ways, life here has settled down to the point that things seem routine, but in other ways, there is nothing routine about it! At least not routine in the sense that every day is predictable and maybe even the same. Maybe routine in the fact that nothing is routine. Anyway, my days are sometimes mundane, sometimes stretching and exciting, but never boring. (at least not with a good book in hand!). I really do love the slower pace here and therefore the conversations that can take place and the connections to people that can be made. There is so much more inviting people over for dinner that goes on, more sitting around fires, more looking at the stars. More time for personal reflection, reading, journaling.
Easter is a big deal around here, and both Friday & Monday are holidays. Many, many people go from the city to their home villages to celebrate, and it’s a time to go to the ‘lands’, or cattle post. Easter Monday we headed out to the village of Bokaa where we had done our village live-in back in 1985, and where we still have some friends. However, we didn’t have a lot of luck finding folks, as Maurice was at the cattle post, and Maria was at the lands. We did talk to Topelo though, who would have been a two year old when we arrived – we wouldn’t have recognized him, but in talking to him we did remember him, his mother and his sister. His mother was the daughter of the woman we lived with. A dam has been built just outside Bokaa so we took our lunch along and went there to eat it. It was very peaceful there with the water, birds, dragonflies and butterflies. Then we decided to go home a different way, and couldn’t have done it without our trusty Land Rover!
Sometimes after being in a village again, I wonder how that could be somehow transported to where we live, either here or in the states. I know it can’t, but I just love the getting back to basics that happens there. We saw SO many people sitting around in the shade, talking or having tea or whatever it was they were doing, but just sitting and being with people. (I’m sure, being a holiday there was more of that than usual). Maybe I’m just lazy with no ambition, but just the simpleness of it is very calming to me. I do know their lives are not simple and they do work hard – but even that has a satisfying quality to it – having to gather firewood for cooking, water for washing by hand. Maybe I’m romanticizing here (probably am), but I do love going to the village, and remember our time in Maun in the village as the best time of our experience over here. Sitting around a fire and looking at the stars at night have to rate right up there with being in heaven!