Maun Grafitti

BBL Girls

Last weekend I helped supervise a large group of Bana Ba Letsatsi girls at Audi Camp.  They go with a counsellor to talk about sexual abuse and violence and how to deal with it in their lives.  Then they have fun in the pool and eat a big lunch.  It's a wonderful program and the girls are so much fun.  

The day we went was cold and overcast with lots of drizzling rain.  That hardly kept us out of the pool and before I could stop the girls they were all naked splashing in the water even though we provide bathing suits for them.  I was quite grateful then for the clouds and rain that kept all the tourists away from the pool area.  I didn't want any mangy European men ogling the girls.  

So urine is now environmentally unfriendly?

Boro 1 Happenings

As I was driving home on my scooter Saturday afternoon, I saw a group of men doing something in the government cattle kraal near my house.  Naturally I stopped to investigate and saw that they were slaughtering two cows.  I thought this was wonderful.  I think, too often, modern, health conscious consumers don't take into consideration how an animal dies.  Just as cows should be raised on small farms and fed a ruminant-friendly diet, so should they be slaughtered on the farm to minimize stress and save on transport costs.

These neighbors of mine had selected one cow and one bull to slaughter.  They cut the carcass on its own skin and that worked quite well to keep the meat clean and sand-free.  Then they loaded the meat onto a very clean tarp in the back of a pick-up truck.  The man who owned the cows and the butchery the meat was going to proposed marriage to me when I told him I was teaching English here in Maun.  He thought I was making big bucks and wanted in on this and apparently wasn't afraid to tell me so.  I asked him what he could offer me in return and he said, "babies," and I told him that just wasn't good enough.

Please don't think these photos are gory.  These two cows lived happy lives in Boro 1.  They weree completely free range and roamd the bush munching on acacia trees, sage brush, tall grass and even the occasional vegetable patch.  Too often Americans are disconnected from our food.  We know what lamb, beef, and poultry look like wrapped in saran wrap at the grocery store but don't want to know how a cow becomes a sirloin steak.

I believe in what my friend Dan calls, "happy meat," and even though these photos may not be pretty, they are just that.

cow testicles (I did not ask to see these.  He just pulled them out.)

two boys helping

to the town butchery!

Off to dinner.

Meno-a-Kwena

            Last weekend I went to Meno-a-Kwena with some girlfriends.  It’s a lovely little haute-hippie camp in the northern reaches of the Kalahari Desert.  The Boteti River flows below the camp where elephant, warthog, kudu, lion, zebra, and a multitude of other wildlife come to drink.  We sat in the sun, cooled off in the pool, chatted, read, and otherwise relaxed in camp. 

            Late in the afternoon three elephants slowly made their way down the embankment to the river.  Once there they ran into the water and spent the next hour playing.  One submerged himself except for the top of his belly and the tip of his trunk.  Then he would roll over onto his other side and repeat over and over again.  Before dinner I took a bucket shower (from a hammered Indian copper pot) and I could still hear all the elephants splashing and playing during their shower.  In the morning hippos replaced the elephants in the river grunting in contentment and nudging each other with their large snouts in friendly kisses. 

Christiane listening to Handel

Four bachelor elephants

Monica reading the Economist

River rock pool