Up Close and Personal with African Beasts

Today was the day for animals 

Now that we have arrived in Botswana, we jumped right into the safari thing, with a morning tour that left before dark, and an evening tour that finished at sunset.

In the course of the day, we saw a wide range of African animals, hitting all the high points with elephants, zebras, giraffes, water buffaloes, hippos, monkeys, baboons, gazelles, springboks, reeboks, warthogs, innumerable exotic birds, eagles, cranes, and a whole lot more!

Without going into too much explanation, I thought I would let the pictures speak for themselves.  One minor regret is that we had Danae with us for the first part of this trip in Senegal, and she has since returned home - but she would be in heaven here with her camera and professional photography skills in the wilds of Africa. 

Instead I am stuck with my old standby iPhone camera, which takes decent pictures, but is woefully inadequate in an Africa game reserve.  And I don't want to make this day sound ordinary.  However, I have been accused of over-using the word "spectacular" - but that's exactly what the day was ...

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(One hour later) 
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Well .... on second thought ... the internet has crashed here at this remote location in Botswana, so I will have to let the pictures speak for themselves another day.  

One of the challenges in doing this blog at distant locations around the world is that broadband internet is not a fundamental human right - it is a privilege, and we take it for granted until we don't have it available. 

Which is where we find ourselves tonight ... 

Waiting for Our Ship to Come In - an Essay

 

 

Can Anyone Tell Us What's Going On?

The last twenty four hours have been pretty eventful, as we made our way from Livingstone, Zambia, to Chobe, Botswana.  However, it was not exactly a smooth transistion.  Even the best laid plans can be thrown off the tracks, as we found out today.

We set out after a leisurely morning at the Hotel.  We slept in today, since the time change and travel have left us a bit tired.  We’ve been on the go constantly since Sunday in Senegal, and you learn to catch up on sleep when you can.  Anyway, the driver showed up mid-morning.  He was not the same guy we were told would pick us up ... a possible sign of concern.  

After working and “being on the clock” in the villages of Senegal, we have now entered the travel adventure phase of this trip.  We like going to places we’ve never been, so here we are in Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.  There are many spectacular sights to see in this neck of the woods.  

So we set off with this new driver who was going to take us across the border.  Just which border was not entirely clear.  I had understood we were going to Zimbabwe, but no, we were heading one hour’s drive to Botswana.  Africans are able to endure a huge amount of ambiguity.  Their lives are filled with ambiguity. Often, no one seems to know what’s going on, at least it seems that way to us.

Anyway, the vehicle is a nice rig and we drive cross country to our uncertain destination.  The weather is nice, warm and sunny, and it’s a very pleasant drive through the rolling hills of Zambia.  We come to a remote intersection on the road and turn, and by this time it has become clear that the border is a river.  What river, we’re not quite sure, we understand that the Zambezi River meets the Chobe River at the place where we were supposed to cross.

The first thing we notice is a super long line of trucks, waiting to cross the river/border.  We’re talking hundreds of trucks, a line maybe two miles long.  Our driver explains that they have to wait to cross the border/river and sometimes it can take up to two weeks!  What, are you kidding me?  It takes two weeks to get across this river?  No, he says, cars can cross quicker.  

So we get up to the front of the line, and it’s like a frontier border/river crossing.  Hundreds and hundreds of people milling about, countless trucks, border guards with big Automatic Rifles, vendors selling bananas and trinkets, with an atmosphere of general choas and confusion.  We wait for a while ... and realize there is no one there to meet us.  

The idea is that this driver will hand us off to another driver who will take us across the river to Botswana.  We are very unfamiliar with this plan.  We wait and nothing happens.  Our replacement driver tries to find someone or call someone, and gets no response.  He wanders off for long periods of time and we sit there in strange surroundings.  We wait and finally go through customs and enter the large amazing loading zone area on the riverbank - amazing because of the anarchy going on.  

There is still no one to meet us and the driver can take us no farther.  We’re starting to become annoyed at all this “ambiguity”, and frankly, we have no idea what the hell is going on.  People try to help us but have no idea either, and the vendors try to sell us food, and little carved elephants.  “I make you good deal my friend!”

So this goes on for a couple hours.  Why haven’t the guys who are supposed to meet us contacted us?  We can see the other side of the river/border and there are a bunch of trucks over there waiting to cross to our side.  We find out that at this point in Africa, four countries actually converge - Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.  

Finally the original driver we were supposed to have ... shows up.  The new driver and him get into a heated discussion, but we still don’t know much.  How do we move on from here?  Eventually they assure us that the guys from the other side are coming to meet us.  Yeah, right ....

But about twenty minutes later, the small rickety ferry boat (which can only carry basically one truck at a time) shows up and there is our guide "Blessing" - that’s right, his name is Blessing.  I had some thoughts about a name like that after the chaotic day we had so far, but we traipsed on foot with our bags and hopped across the gap onto the boat, (which is probably smaller than the Buena Vista Ferry across the Willamette in Oregon), and we make it to the other side, Botswana.   

As I sit writing this blog post in Kasane, Botswana, on the shores of the Chobe River, I reflect.  Patience has never been a strong point of mine.  You have to be able to adsorb a high degree of amibguity in Africa, and we had our fill today.  Hopefully, things begin to improve tomorrow, and looking back, a day like this can seem amusing.  But not while you’re going through it.  At least I was able to get some decent pictures.

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So we get to our hotel in Botswana and are greeted by signs warning us about Crocodiles. Apparently they are all around and occasionally eat people. I will keep my eye out.

And outside our room, there was a bunch of these critters eating on the lawn. Warthogs are not pretty animals, somebody at dinner told us they are part of the Big Five of ugly animals.

I was trying to get close to get a good picture and this dude charged me! Yikes! I tried to calm him down "easy now, easy fella, just want to get a photo ... smile!"

Zambia! Sunset! Currency Exchange! What?

I'm a sucker for a good sunset photo ... or two ... or three

We arrived in Zambia today.  

Okay ... How did we get here?  And where is Zambia?  We left Dakar Senegal early, early, Monday morning (Sunday night?), and flew to Johannesburg, South Africa.  

We spent last night in "Jo-burg" as they call it, and then left this Tuesday morning to fly to Livingstone, Zambia, the home of Victoria Falls, one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. 

Unfortunately, since we arrived this afternoon, there wasn't time to see it today and we leave for some other areas tomorrow, so we won't see it for a couple days yet.  (trust me, it will be there when we come back!)

But we did go on a sunset cruise on the Zambesi River, as shown on the sunset pictures displayed on this blogpost.  The Zambesi is one of Africa's great rivers, and eventually tumbles over the Falls downstream from where we are.

Zambia is located in South/Central Africa, next to Zimbabwe and Botswana, both of which we will visit in the next few days.  

On the boat trip tonight, we saw Hippos, and Crocodiles, and Baboons, and a bunch of cool African birds - such as an Open Bill Stork - how's that for a trivia question?

Anyway, we watched the sun go down while enjoying a Gin & Tonic on the boat, a very sublime experience. 

Okay, so how do we pay for all this travel?

Well, it doesn't cost as much as you think.   Admittedly, I don't know how much you think it cost, but it is surprisingly affordable. 

In fact, I wanted to explain a key factor in the cost of travel and how it gets paid for.  We pay for most things using American Dollars, which at the current time is at an all-time high.  The dollar has risen against almost all world currencies, so that means travel is on sale!

Let me expand on that.  First of all, despite what several politicos might say, the US economy is in pretty good condition, maybe even very good.  In fact, it is the envy of the rest of the world.  Without getting too technical, that means the value of other currencies goes down in comparison to the dollar. 

So when we order a steak and nice meal in South Africa, it can cost like $3.50 - and I'm not making this up, we had dinner there last night.  Almost everything else is way less expensive too - hotel rooms, taxi rides, bus tickets, clothing, travel excursions, etc. 

Across the board, everything costs less.  Now, I don't want to pretend that you travel the world to save money, but if you want to go to other countries, now is a very good time, financially.   Granted, Fiona and I have enough resources to travel, and we place a high priority on visiting unusual places.  

Let me give a final example:  We have come all the way to Senegal to do the good work of Andando in helping people - and once you're here, you can fly to Zambia for like $300 - why not do it?

All in all, most people might be surprised to find out how far they can go on a little money.    

Moving from One Phase to Another - Notes on the trip so far

We are finishing up our time in Senegal ...

The time here has gone quickly, and we are at the Airport Hotel waiting to fly out in the morning to our next destination.   I wanted to have a look back at some of the events of the last few days. 

Goree Island 

One of the top sights to see in Dakar is a boat trip to Goree Island, just off the coast from the center of the city.  It's a cool place to visit with a lot of history from the early colonial days, when Senegal was ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch, and French.  It is where a lot of slaves were shipped to the New World between 1600 and 1800. 

Visiting this place always has an emotional impact.

The Rose Colored Lake 

We also did a lot of walking on the beach in Dakar, and at one point went to visit Lac Rose (or Pink Lake in French).  There was a nice restaurant there where we had lunch and we then set out to walk back to where we were staying - no small feat, as it was around ten miles.

We walked all the way home on the beach.  It was fun but walking in soft sand for three hours kinda takes its toll.

Wall hanging Senegal style 

As a follow up to the earlier story about our search for a long stick to hang some wall art, this is what it looked like once we got back to our base house in the village of Keur Soce.   It's pretty funky, but it works.  We ran out of time to do a better job of decoration.  Next time we'll take off the feather duster part on the left.

  

Handing out pictures to someone who has never had one ... 

As a professional photographer, Danae was a key part of this trip. She not only took innumerable photos of the people and places, but she also printed them.  She had a small but fairly sophisticated printer than ran on a battery pack, so we could print in the village. 

Below shows some of the people when they were given their pictures. 

These are the well diggers in Sama Toucouleur

 
This local lady is Nene Sy, the midwife at the health post we are building in the village.  Senegalese people typically don't smile when their picture is taken ... 

Danae with pictures of the kids in the Garden.

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Speaking of Gardens, we have just undertaken a major expansion of our Market Garden program in the village area.  These are solar powered pump systems that provide water year round to parched regions.  This allows almost anything to grow in that sunny climate. 

A Market Garden is where the local ladies can grow not only enough hearty and nutritious vegetables to feed their families, but also have enough produce left over to sell.  

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Danae is on her way home, but our next stop is place much further south from here.  Fiona and I will spend ten days in the southern part of Africa. 

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner - one in every pot?

We were quite pleased to see the progress of a new project in Senegal

In the pursuit of helping develop resources for our friends in the Keur Soce area of Senegal, West Africa, we like to bring new things to the table. 

This year we have already started several new building projects.  We are delighted with the growth in many areas.  Specifically, a new Health Post is well underway in Sama Toucouleur, and according to our surveys, this health post will eventually serve a population of up to 4,000 people!

This is along with full slate of projects such as new wells, new major market gardens, school construction, a training center, latrines, sports facilities, and nutrition systems.

Chicken for Everyone ...

One of the outstanding programs on this trip was to see the success of our Chicken and Poultry program.  This was a further step in helping the local citizens improve their financial condition and emerge from poverty.  

We have a staff member, Massamba, who carried out the plan and was able to procure 570 chicks.  We also arranged for proper chicken coops to be built for nine groups of (mostly) ladies who can raise the chickens in their neighborhoods.  This enables them to keep an eye on things, as opposed to having chickens unattended at the gardens.

Imagine our surprise to see how truly successful this project has worked out in a short time (maybe "surprise" is not the right word, but many projects take a lot of time - and adjustments - to come to fruition!). 

The chicken coops are in full operation and there are hundreds of healthy fat chickens being sold to the locals.  This is a big step because previously they had to go out of town to buy chickens to eat.  The nearest place to buy a plump live chicken to eat used to be 30 kilometers away. 

And the ladies are really enthusiastic about this program.  It is opening their eyes to what can be achieved with a little help, hard work, and determination.   And it is very rewarding for us at Andando to see the advance in quality-of-life and living conditions.

Along with selling produce and fruit from the market gardens, these local ladies and families are beginning to see some real income from their efforts.  We hope to see this development process continue.

It wouldn't be a proper blog post without some humor

So we were returning from the remote villages to the big city of Dakar and wanted to bring along a couple of these plump chickens and a large basket of produce from the gardens.  The produce was easy, they have an abundance of fresh vegetables.

But how do we get two plump chickens all the way to Dakar, which is a five or six hour drive through the 100 degree scorching sun?   There was no way we could freeze them on short notice, so we decided to bring them alive.  

This provided a dilemma - how to transport them.  There was a suggestion made that we tie their legs together and strap them to the side of the pick up truck.  HA HA HA!  

Wait, they were not laughing ... Seriously?  Drive along with chickens hanging off the side?  That would be a real hillbilly experience, zooming down the road with feathers flying and chickens flopping.  At first I thought it was a joke!  But they actually talked strategy on how to do this.  

No, the chickens would die for sure in the heat, and they would pound against the truck, and what if we stop for lunch, someone might steal them ... we actually had a conversation about this.  

Common sense prevailed and we found a large cardboard box and poked a bunch of holes in it and brought them all the way to Dakar and they lived through it - only to wind up as dinner tonight! 

It's Almost Too Hot to Think Straight ... That's our excuse

We spent the day in the desert, looking for water (under the ground).

There are several projects underway here in Senegal with Andando, and several more on the way, and we spent the day driving to distant locations, getting things lined out. 

The weather here is brutal right now, with temperatures up to 106 degrees F, and hot direct sun beating down.  So even with air conditioning in the truck, it's sometimes hard to concentrate, all you can think of is finding some shade and cold water!

We went to many sites and I will list them by their Senegalese name:  Sama Toucouleur, Daga Sombou, Ndioufene, Keur Nene Serere, and Taiba Nianguene.   A couple of them are just now functioning and the others are new projects where we have to dig a well.

One of the future well and garden spots in the middle of the desert

The well digging (by hand) is not for the faint of heart.  The guys are lowered by a rope down the well, sometimes 75 feet deep.  It's hot and dirty work, and they can only work for an hour or so, then they have to trade out to a new guy. 

 

This picture above shows one of the well diggers after he has come up from the bottom of the shaft.  He is covered in the wet clay-like dirt at the base.  

Funny story 

So we are doing a little work at the base house here in Keur Soce, just some cleaning and decorating.  One of the new wall hangings requires a long pole to mount it on the wall.  Of course a long straight stick is hard to come by in these parts.

 

So we go to the hardware store to buy a couple things, and ask about the "curtain rod" that we need for the wall.  They have no idea what we're talking about and we have to explain several times what we want.  Bamboo would be ideal, but there isn't any around here.  

We're ready to give up but on our way out, we see a long stick.  It has a funky mop top sort of thing on top, and we ask about it.  They laugh and say it's a kind of a feather duster thing that they use to clean the dust from the ceiling.  We say "this is perfect and, can we buy it?"

They think this is hilarious.  But we say "Hey, no, we are serious, we will buy this and take the feather duster thing off"  and it will be the perfect size for our wall hanging.  They think we are completely nuts.  

We ask - how much?  They are baffled and say it's not really for sale and they bought it from some street vendor who stopped in and pointed out how dirty their ceiling was.  

So we negotiated.  At one point they protested, "How are we going to clean our ceiling?"  And we all looked up and saw the ceiling was pretty dirty and had not been cleaned in a ... (I don't want to be unkind here) ... forever?

They laughed - and agreed!  So we made a deal, and we can't wait to get home tonight and add to the decor of the house!  It's gonna be awesome.

We can always blame it on too much time in the hot sun ...

Kettle Shopping - Greetings go on Forever in Senegal

Saying hello can take a long time in this West African country

When Senegalese greet each other they go through a rather long routine of questions, and below I will recite the exchange when we sent shopping to buy a kettle for boiling water:

 

After looking around, we enter a shop and Boubou our Senegal representative says "I know this guy, he used to live in Dakar!"

Boubou: Hello my friend, how are you?

Friendly Shop Keeper (FSK):  Boubou my friend!  I am fine, how are you?

B: I am fine, how is your family?

FSK:  My family is good, how is your family?

B: My family is very good, how is your goat?

FSK: My goat is good, how is your chicken?

B: I don't have a chicken but if I did, he would be fine.  I had chicken for dinner last night and it was really good. How is your donkey?

FSK: My donkey had babies and they are fine, how is your foot?

B:  My foot? my foot is fine, how is your grandmother?

FSK: She is good, getting older, how is your cell phone?

B: I have a new phone! it is soooo good!  How is your brother?

FSK:  My brother is good, he just got a goat and a chicken ... How is your cousin, second removed on your mother's side ... ?

And this goes on and on and on ... takes forever, all we wanted to do was buy a kettle.  

So finally they finish the greeting.  Boubou looks around the shop and springs the question "Do you any kettles for sale here?"

FSK: No

Boubou: Okay, bye.

We walk out.  

HA HA HA!  The greetings take ten minutes and the shopping takes ten seconds!  It was hilarious, I'm still laughing ...  It was good fun!

Eventually we found the proper kettle we were looking for.  You have to be persistent ... 

The Transformation of a Country ... It's still going on ....

I don't remember that building being there last time ...?

Sometimes when you visit a place many times over the years, you don't really notice the changes.  But coming back to Senegal this time, after twenty years of visits, it was hard not to be impressed by how much different it is now compared to what it used to be.

There are freeways where there were dirt roads.  Everyone has smart phones (or at least cell phones) and their service is better and less expensive than we have in the States.  They have been enjoying the good times of a housing boom for a few years.  They are building a new national airport.  The highway system is as good as any in Africa.  Progress has come to Senegal.

The Village of Keur Soce, Senegal

 
Well, hold on a minute .... have you been to a remote village out in the interior of the country?  Actually, yes, as a matter of fact that's where we are right now.  Things are still pretty rough for most Senegalese.  They could use a little help.  

We have been active here for many years with our Andando Foundation, providing assistance with development projects, which brings us here again to the village of Keur Soce and the surrounding area. 

I will hit on some of the highlights of our trip so far:

 
So we stopped at a "factory" on the five hour drive out to our final destination, to check out the place that makes our fence for the gardens.  You know, like chain link fence, only they make it by hand.  
This picture shows a guy winding the inter-woven wire into a continuous length of chain link.  This will keep the critters out and ring the garden with a perimeter for planting.

This is a well digger, coming up out of a 50 foot hole.  A large part of what we do here involves water.  This country is hot and dry.  But with water and hard work, you can grow food and feed your family and maybe even have enough vegetables to sell and make some income,
This particular well hit water at 50 feet, but the well went dry, so they need to dig it deeper.  Oh, and did I mention they do all of this by hand?  They send a guy down there and he digs as long as he can stand it and then it's someone else's turn. 

Speaking of gardens, The picture above show one of the the gardens in Keur Soce, a very vibrant garden indeed.  In fact we bought some veggies for dinner and breakfast, carrots, guavas, and mint (for tea)

 And lastly, but certainly not leastly (is that a word?) we are in the middle of building a Health Post in the nearby village of Sama Toucouleur, sponsored to a great degree by Hub City Church in Albany, Oregon.  
This is going to make a great difference in the lives of the people in this village. 

We are just getting started.  But we are well aware that this is not Oregon here, it's 100 degrees, hot, dry, and windy.  But really darn interesting. 

Oops, wrong spelling, guess you're not going anywhere ...

It's been a while since we've left the country, but we are back at it.  But we didn't get off to a good start.

Left Tuesday night from Portland to fly to Senegal West Africa, for a couple of weeks work for our Andando Foundation.  This is a non-profit focusing on development projects in remote villages, including wells and water efforts, market gardens, education programs, micro loans, feeding programs, building projects, and last but not least, health posts.

For this particular trip, we are accompanied by our friend and professional photographer Danae.  She has traveled a lot, but this is her first trip to Africa, and she is bringing along some rather sophisticated equipment that will run on batteries out in the boonies.

In fact, Danae was the lucky winner of the first travel mishap (if you want to call it that).  When we got to the airport to check in, we had a bunch of heavy bags and such, and she was first up to get her boarding pass.

Turns out her last name was spelled wrong on the reservation.  Hard to misspell "Jones" it would seem.
Anyway the guy at the counter was not terribly helpful, and said things like "you can't get on the plane" or "they will cancel your ticket and you will have to buy another one" and "guess you're gonna miss the flight".  A little too much drama ... can't you just fix it?

This went on for a while, longer than it should have really, and the ticket agent guy got on the phone forever with no luck.  Not exactly sure who he was calling, but they were not much help.

In the meantime, Fiona and I checked in with another agent and breezed right through.  I spoke to our agent about Danae's dilemma, and she said just go for it with the misspelled name, it's no big deal.  
I asked her to speak to her colleague who was holding things up and she did.  He relented to some extent, but by this time Danae was on the phone trying to sort things out on her end.  Eventually we all agreed she should just hang up and go for it, and she sailed right through security.  

It was all kind of a pain, but Danae kept her cool, and we are now boarding the flight.   All's well that ends well?  Only ... we are just beginning ...





  

It Was One Year Ago Today (well, actually yesterday)

Mt Kilimanjaro, Kenya

In pursuit of a life long dream for both of us, Fiona and I set off on a grand tour at this time last year. The idea was to Just Keep Heading West - in other words, if you head in one direction (West) and keep going until you circle this globe, you will one day return to where you started. 

Cape Town, South Africa

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

That was our goal. 

A trip around the world. 

We left from Portland and before long boarded a plane from Vancouver Canada to our first stop, Beijing China.  We kept going for the next 80 days and completed the trip on April 15 after visiting 22 countries, thirteen of them for the first time.  We have been avid travelers for quite a few years, so in many cases we returned to visit some of our favorite places.   

We had many adventures; some harrowing, amazing, sublime, and occasionally treacherous. In case you missed it, here are a few of the highlights:  (if you click on the link, you can read the blog entry)

Early on, I got arrested in Malaysia, it was not fun - I don't recommend this ...

We will never forget the visit to the Taj Mahal in India - Today is the Day

One of the days in Cairo, Egypt a bomb went off not far away - Then you get shot ...! 

And of course, there was the infamous traffic jam in Portugal - National Traffic Jam solved by tourist

A little known out-of-the-way place is Malta, one of our favorites - Ancient places, cool people

Lake Como, Italy 

And lest one might think that this travel stuff was over, we followed up with a trip to Holland and Scotland, and Toronto, and Myanmar and Thailand and Cambodia.  And throw in a "Harvey Trip" (RV Trip) with the grand kids down to the Redwoods, and an exciting trip to Hawaii.  And don't forget numerous trips to Africa, working on behalf of our Andando Foundation - "We want to escape from Poverty"
It was a record year for travel for us.  We had a blast.  

Krakow, Poland

All this is meant to imply that Fiona and I are going to keep on 'heading west" so to speak, and continue traveling.  We have a rather full slate of trips planned for this year to some exotic (dangerous?) places.  
Rather than lay out the itinerary, I will let this year unfold through this blog, with pictures and stories. 

Thanks for reading and stay in tune ...