Botswana Bound

Look Ma! NO HAIR!

2008-08-14T15:27:00.003+02:00

We're leaving Botswana in exactly a week, and among tying up loose ends like...oh...shutting off utilities four days early so that they can get the final bill sorted before we vacate the continent (not sure how we're going to live without internet, phone or electricity for 4 days), dealing with the landlord who requires us to paint the house we've lived in for one year and which doesn't need much painting except for a few chips in the paint that were here when we moved in after the last tenant clearly did not paint it either (we are in country where everybody tries to get someone else to solve their problems and pay for them as well)...

among these things to finish up, one of the ones on my agenda was to get my hair cut. I'm heading back to the US, and am going to be doing job interviews again soon, so I had to say goodbye to the dreadlocks that have been with me the past four years and back to the short short short hair. I joked with JC (who's a US Marine) that I now fit the regulations. One upshot is that by baseball cap now fits easily on my head again and the extra extra large one my friend Sahar bought me is now too big. I expect that now that I've set the trend, Manny will be cutting his hair soon in L.A. as well.

For those of you who've never seen me without dreadlocks, here goes. Warning: Do not be frightened! It's just me! And no, my hair isn't in three chunks. I just have a house-shaped head...the hair connects beyond the horizon!

Stray Photos

2008-07-03T18:13:00.006+02:00

Just a few photos for those wondering if we are still truly healthy and alive.

Here's one from our first wedding anniversary, just before we leave the house to go out for a fancy celebratory dinner:

And here's one at the Red Lantern Chinese Restaurant, at Rim's goodbye dinner. Rim (in purple) went back to finish her fourth year of medical school at UCSD. Rebeca (in red) left a short while later, going back to the US to do a summer course at HSPH. Unfortunately for Rebeca, she will be coming back to Botswana in September to complete the circumcision study she is conducting here. Michelle (in blue) is staying through December. It really makes us sad that we will not be around for our friends here in Botswana this coming spring and summer.

Squeaky Wheel Squeaks

2008-07-03T17:55:00.003+02:00

So...I must apologize for dropping off the map there. There are three reasons I have not posted in a long long time.

First, my day job involves sitting at my desk, in front of my computer, in a corner of our living/dining room all day. I start around 8 am with a cup of tea and inbetween all other things I might be doing (making and eating lunch, dinner, running errands), the computer finally goes off around 10 pm. I spend most of the time on my computer researching things on the web, reading articles, analyzing data in big spreadsheets, drafting graphics and writing. A LOT of writing. That's what I do for my job. So the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is kick back, stare at the computer screen and write some more.

Second, nothing exciting has happened in Botswana that was so monumental to report. I stopped carrying my camera around to events and because I wasn't posting, I wasn't taking random photos anymore. I guess my ordinary life didn't seem that interesting to post about. I'm sure I could think of stories to tell, but since our lives here are peppered with frustration a lot, it's difficult to know where to start and I didn't want to rant about life here. Suffice it to say that there's a special bond between us and our friends Rim, Rebeca, Michelle, and Kate that stems from a shared experience.

Third, we've been preoccupied with lots of decisions about our immediate and long term career paths. Shanthi applied for ID fellowships (and matched!). She also applied for a Fogarty grant to do research here in Botswana. She ended up getting the grant but had to decline it for personal reasons. So our lives have been kind of stressful, especially since we're both obsessive planners and strategists. The bottom line of this all is that we're moving back to the United States at the end of August. To us, that's HUGE progress. Though not sure we're ready to go back to the U.S., we have become very sure that we are ready to leave Botswana.

So, sorry for those that were following this blog and were upset that there were no more posts. I suppose I can update with some back stories at some point. I would love to finish the Clove saga, but I'm afraid it will be a whole new can of worms...I'm about to go through it again, but this time in reverse.

Fondue (What Rebeca's Missing, Part 5)

2008-02-11T14:46:00.000+02:00

I spend a lot of time reading the New York Times online. A lot of time. One day, I stumbled across this article, which described how simple and easy it was to make fondue, and remembering a fantastic (though expensive) romantic meal that Shanthi and I shared at the Wine Cellar in Boston, we decided to try our hands at making fondue at home. First, we bought a small but reasonably thick cast-iron pot from Woolworth's (although I don't generally like teflon coating, it really helps with cleaning when you're done eating the sticky melted cheese). We were also able to find gruyere and emmenthaler cheese at Woolworth's!We followed the classic fondue recipe available with the NY Times article (we used a bit more garlic since we love garlic and the garlic here is pretty non-potent), dipping pieces of boiled potatoes, steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots and zucchini) and bits of ciabatta bread into the cheesy goodness and were shocked to find out that we had recreated a meal that was every bit as good as the fondue at the Wine Cellar, but for a tiny fraction of the cost. We can't wait til Beca gets back and we can share a little Switzerland in Botswana with her (and Rim too)!

We used the base of the terracotta rondavel-shaped tea candle holder (given to us as a holiday gift from Rim) to keep the fondue heated while we enjoyed it. And we reheated the leftovers the next day for lunch! Yum!

Mashed Potato Soup (What Rebeca's Missing, Part 4)

2008-02-11T13:03:00.000+02:00

Our good friend, Dr. Rebeca Plank, has been back in Boston for about a month and a half. We miss her dearly, but apparently she is on her way back to Gaborone and so I am pressed to finish posting the "What Rebeca is Missing" series (in 5 parts) before she returns. Of all the posts in this series, this one surely rings the truest, as it is probably Rebeca's overall favorite amongst all the dinners we have prepared and we know that if there's any meal she's missing it's this one.

A little back-story before we get into the tale. Shanthi and I LOVE south Indian cuisine. Many years ago, I happened upon a south indian vegetarian cookbook which I truly believe that every person who loves vegetarian cooking and loves Indian food MUST have on their shelves: Dakshin, by Chandra Padmanabhan. I love this cookbook so much that I own two copies (just in case I lose one or it falls apart or the cookbook goes out of print). The meals we've made from it are outstanding. It has a photograph of every single recipe in the book, so you can look at the pictures and say "I want to make that", and you can compare how the food looks on your plate with how it's supposed to look. The layout is perfect...cannot say enough about this cookbook.

Sadly, we did not bring a copy here to Botswana with us, assuming that we wouldn't have access to south Asian groceries. We were wrong. The Indian food in Gaborone is infinitely better than any I've had in the United States, be it Boston, San Francisco, or on Oak Tree Road in Iselin N.J....what have you. And while we cannot find fresh curry leaves, we can get just about every other south asian ingredient we need here (except, of course, fresh limes). So one day, while perusing one of the two local bookstores that have any books you might want to buy (Exclus!ve Books, in Riverwalk Mall), I found an Indian cookbook that seemed nice (and does indeed have some decent recipes): Fresh Flavours of India, by Das Sreedharan.

In this book is a recipe for a mashed potato-based soup called "Cheera Soup". The recipe didn't seem particularly Indian to me, but we tried it (being fans of all things potato), and it turned out kinda ok but not quite right. However, we liked the concept and realized that the fault was not the concept but the execution. So, I completely revised how one puts this soup together and voila! A new dish was made and Rebeca was very very happy (as were we). This soup is VERY easy to make.

OK, enough talk...let's go through the soup itself...

First, make mashed potatoes however you like. Before mashing the boiled potatoes, peel them and save the peels. I prefer garlic mashed potatoes with thyme and black pepper. Keep the addition of salt to a minimum as other components of the soup will be salty (the broth and, possibly, the onions). Putting the herbs in the mashed potatoes is great cause once in the soup they kind of leech out into the broth as you break apart the clump of mashed potato with your spoon. Ok, getting ahead of ourselves...

Next, put a pot of water on to boil. Drop in bouillon cubes (we use vegetable bouillon) to dissolve (start with just one cube and add more water or more bouillon material to taste. If you added salt to the mashed potatoes, you probably want the broth to be less salty). Make sure that the broth reaches near boiling temperature but that it doesn't boil over. If it boils over, it kind of ruins the flavor of the broth (in my opinion. Also something learned from Tampopo). Next, caramelize some onions. I like to use brown sugar and a splash of soy sauce (or tamari) for this. It makes the onions quite a bit darker than normal clarified and caramelized onions, but also adds a more complex spectrum of flavors. In addition, take the potato skins and fry them. You don't have to deep fry them, but my guess is that it might taste better if you do a rapid deep fry (we don't have a pan for this nor do I like wasting that much oil, so I just fry the potato skins in a skillet).

Slice a fresh tomato or two and wash some fresh spinach (if the leaves are big, cut them into smaller, more manageable pieces). Now that all the components of the soup are ready, it's time to assemble the soup. Remember, the broth must be piping hot...the other components will be cool or room temperature, and when the broth hits them, it will cool down. So it's key to have the broth at near boiling temperature.

First put a small mound of mashed potatoes into a soup bowl. Then surround it with slices of raw tomato.Next pile on the raw spinach. Then carefully ladle the hot broth on top of the spinach. Let the soup sit for about 30 seconds and then garnish the soup with a dollop of carmelized onions and a dollop of fried potato skins.

The tomato slices and spinach should have cooked in the hot broth to a perfect consistency. The mashed potatoes will begin to diffuse into the broth. I suspect that mixing a bit of Asian (Thai) Basil with the spinach will clinch the flavor combination in this soup, but I have not tried this yet. I know that Rebeca has some Asian basil growing at her house, so perhaps we'll try this soon. Italian basil (the type we usually find in groceries in the US) probably will not work...it wilts too fast and doesn't maintain flavor in heat as well as Asian basil does. If you try this soup out, let me know what you think!

Revisiting Pizza (What Rebeca's missing, Part 3)

2008-02-10T15:21:00.000+02:00

You may have read about the potato pizza we are fond of making (and fond of eating). Pizza is pretty easy to make and almost always tastes good. Here are a few other varieties we've come up with:

Olive pizza (shown in the photo at the top of this post). This one was based on a pizza we had at Emma's in Cambridge, MA. Their variety was green olives and cracked black peppercorns. We think we've improved it with the addition of Kalamata olives and freshly ground black pepper rather than using large tooth-splitting peppercorns. Very simple to make and really really good, especially as an appetizer pizza. The photo at the top of this post shows the finished pizza. This one shows the assembled olive pizza before it was baked in the oven. You can see the white/yellow grated cheddar cheese mixture we use on pizza and pasta here in Botswana since the mozzarella here tastes like tofu. Tofu's great...I just don't like it grated and on my pizza.

Spinach and roasted red peppers pizza. This one was a big hit with our audience (Rim). I stepped it up a bit in making the sauce for this one and paid off because this pizza was delicious! [The trick with putting spinach on pizza is that you must first briefly cook the spinach in a splash of water. Otherwise it will dry out and burn on the pizza as it bakes] Avocado Pizza. We had some avocados that needed to be eaten and decided to just give the concept a try. Shanthi expressed her doubts about this one when I explained the idea to her, but I pressed on. In the end, she was right...this one was a bit of a dud.I think that there were a couple of mistakes...one was adding blue cheese. It ended up overpowering the more delicate flavor of the avocados. The other mistake was related: we didn't really accent the flavor of the avocado. I think that if we attempt avocado on pizza again, we might try dollops of guacamole instead. The power went out (as per routine lately) just as this pizza was coming out of the oven, so I had to assemble and photograph it by candle light.

Tapas in Gaborone (What Rebeca's Missing, part 2)

2008-02-10T13:49:00.000+02:00

Shanthi and I enjoy the challenge of trying to replicate some of our favorite meals from our favorite restaurants in the Boston area with the limited ingredients available to us here in Gaborone. One of our favorite restaurants in the Boston area is Taberna de Haro, a Spanish tapas place that errs a bit on the side of overpriced and over-oiled, but serves up some delicious food. In a city where going out for tapas means going to Dali (in Somerville), Tapeo (on Newbury St.) or Solea (Moody St. inWaltham...all three operated by the same owners), or Tasca (on Comm. Ave. - the vegetarian dishes there are blah) it's nice to see a DIFFERENT tapas menu for a change. Taberna de Haro also has an incredible wine list, which introduced me to Riojas, specifically those from the Sierra Cantabria winery (which was our choice for a red wine to be served at our wedding).

Taberna de Haro (on Beacon St. at the St. Mary's T stop on the green "C" line) has some wonderful items on the menu, including their Cabrales con sidra (a pungent breadspread made of cider and Australian blue cheese...I suspect they use "Roaring Forties Blue", an outstanding and uniquely flavored blue cheese from down under), and my absolute favorite, Papas Arrugadas: Canary Island potatoes con mojo picon [a red sauce made from olive oil, red wine vinegar (or balsamic vinegar), garlic, salt, a bit of cayenne pepper and a few tablespoons of paprika]. I've tried to replicate the papas arrugadas on my own many times and have come close, but not quite there. I think that I am missing some secret ingredients...possibly sumac and ground thyme as the flavor that hits the back of the throat is a bit like za'atar. Since I have not been able to get my hands on any sumac (or ground thyme...or za'atar), just the paprika alone makes a decent, if incomplete, offering. Even if they don't use sumac in the papas arrugadas at Taberna de Haro, I think they should. I think that would (or will) clinch it and can't wait to try it some day.

Another dish we enjoy at taberna de haro is the sauteed spinach and garlic. They add sultanas (golden raisins) to the dish, but as neither of us care much for raisins, we leave them out. The key is to chop the garlic into somehwat large chunks and sautee in a bit more oil than seems reasonable.

And who doesn't like sauteed mushrooms and garlic? While I would normally be all about adding fresh thyme to the mushrooms, when you consider the flavor strengths of the other tapas to be served it's probably better to keep the mushrooms rather simple...they pack plenty of flavor as is.

The self-proclaimed best Mexican food in Gabs (or: What Rebeca's missing while she's home in Boston for a month, part 1)

2008-01-28T22:54:00.000+02:00

Mexican food doesn't exist in Gaborone. If you ask a local where you can find Mexican food, they'll point you to a chain restaurant called Spur that serves your typical generic grilled meat and, paradoxically, has a Native American mascot decked out with a full Apache-style headdress. Needless to say, the locals have no idea what Mexican food is.

However, one day our good friend Rebeca informed us that she had found canned refried beans at one of the larger local supermarkets! So, thrilled with this discovery, we have attempted to re-create some semblance of one of our favorite cuisines and to help us along, Shanthi has taken it upon herself (in the theme of acquiring new life skills) to perfect the technique of making flour tortillas from scratch. Sadly, we can't find lime-treated corn meal here and we do not quite know how to turn regular corn meal into lime-corn meal for corn tortillas, so we're restricted to flour tortillas. In any case, here's the spread we made recently for dinner with Rim.
From top left, going clockwise: fresh flour tortillas, sauteed corn and zucchini, mango-cilantro salsa, roasted peppers and onions, refried beans (from a can), sage and garlic roasted potatoes, cheese.

My kingdom for a lime

2008-01-28T22:01:00.000+02:00

Shanthi and I are fortunate that we live in a developing country that is so...developed. Housing is more than adequate, we have reasonably reliable electrical power, running cold and hot water, and even DSL high speed internet, something my parents in Vermont don't even have available to them. We can go to grocery stores and purchase marmite, branston pickle, tasy breads and cheeses, 2% milk, various honey varieties, bulgarian yogurt, sugary iced coffee drinks, ginger beer, shortbread biscuits. fresh apples, oranges, spinach, potatoes, herbs of all types, dried pasta, fresh pasta, ice cream, phyllo dough...blueberries have even made an appearance on local grocery shelves once in a while, as well as what is perhaps for me the loudest flag proclaiming "Here thar be ex-pats": cranberry juice.

But we can't buy limes. Because, like bombay sapphire gin, maple syrup, fresh tofu, fresh curry leaves, tempeh, masaca (lime-treated corn meal used to make tortillas and such) and high quality loose-leaf tea, limes have not made it to groceries in this corner of the planet. We have no idea why that is. We can buy lime cordial. We can buy citrus that looks exactly like a lime, judged by color, size and shape, which turns out to be a green lemon. We can buy sprite, a soft drink famous for its "limon flavor". There's something to be said about the marketing of food products that mimic flavors of foods that are simply non-existant in the place where one is marketing the flavored product. I guess it works...I've never seen a kola nut...have you?

One of the interesting challenges of living abroad is the re-creation of foods from back home with the limited availability of certain ingredients. For Shanthi and I, who absolutely love limes, this has been trying at times. However, we've accommodated...we've gotten used to lemons where we'd prefer limes. We've used generic white cheddar instead of parmesan or mozzarella.

In some ways the limited resources we encounter here in Botswana contribute to the reduction of stress in our everyday lives. Somehow when you have slightly fewer choices, fewer varieties of clay to sculpt with, decisions are simpler and creativity gathers bounds. I wonder if we'll eventually forget what we're missing...

Doritos in Botswana

2008-01-27T21:55:00.000+02:00

One of the interesting and often humorous things about traveling or living abroad (outside the U.S.) is discovering American brands in new disguises. These surprising variations on the ol' tried and true can frequently be found in the snack sections of convenience or grocery stores. For example, I believe I was in Bali when I had a bag of Cheetos that did not taste like Cheetos at all, as most Americans would know them. Cheese flavoring was non-existant and instead they tasted like sugar-coasted corn fritters, which I found to be a rather disgusting but understandable variety on the brand in a culture that basically doesn't eat cheese (except on something they call "pizza"). But it begs the question: why are they still called Cheetos?

Here in Botswana, I've found Kellogg's corn flakes, which are exactly like American Kellogg's corn flakes except the box has the catchy, somewhat patronizing slogan: "If it doesn't say Kellogg's on the box, it's not Kellogg's in the box". Is that right...? Wow... who knew?

Snack foods (like the Cheetos above) are often completely different when they cross borders. For example, exhibit A: Doritos. I have not seen Nacho Cheesier Doritos here yet. Maybe they simply haven't evolved past the archaic Nacho Cheese-flavored chip stage to the ultimate, Cheesier variety. But I did one day see this flavor party of a corn chip: Poppy seed, roasted garlic and Italian cheese flavor flavored Doritos. As I love garlic and Italian cheese (flavor) and do enjoy a poppy-seed bagel or muffin now and then, my curiosity gave way and I tried these out. If you look closely at the photo, you'll note that I bought into the marketing and did try these tortilla style corn chips in a bowl, but that I decided to leave out the chunk of unidentified Italian cheese (flavor?), the clove of garlic and the two scoops of poppy seeds that were "suggested" in the "serving suggestion". I figured they were already in the chips:

How were they? They were...interesting and...unlike any Doritos I would ever expect to be developed and sold, at least in the U.S. I will not buy them again as I'm not convinced that garlic and cheese flavor goes well with corn chip-flavor and poppy seeds, but they definitely looked interesting, with the poppy seeds somewhat impregnated in the corn chips.

Random Mish-Mash of Events

2008-01-21T18:38:00.000+02:00

I am so behind in posting items to the blog that I now have a virtual stack of photos dating from events back in October and November and rather than sit on them further, I decided to just make one post that is of the "more photos, less text" variety. I, of course, do expect that readers of this blog (basically the Kappagodas, Whittiers, Muellers and another Woolsey plus a few intrepid friends) will break into "more photos" and "less text" cheering groups like in the old Miller Lite commercials.

So...here we go. Snapshots from our lives in Gaborone.

We'll start off with a photo of Shanthi and I and our friendly cab driver, Tendai Panga. Tendai is from Zimbabwe and emigrated to Botswana a few years ago after the situation in Zimbabwe became increasingly dire. Tendai is a good friend, is always cheerful and recently I have been teaching him about computers and the internet, setting him up with an email account and such. His first name, Tendai, means "Thank You" in Shona and his last name, Panga, is what they call large knives, like machetes, used to cut down brush. Hmmm...this is a bit of text and I promised less of that in this post, but Tendai deserves a lot more. He and his wife returned to Zimbabwe for the month of January and we can only hope that they are doing well, reunited with their children (who are in school, staying with relatives there still ). Certainly, some amount of cheer has disappeared from our lives in Gaborone with his absence.

This is a photo of some goats along the road to Gabane. You will see livestock along or in the roads pretty much anywhere in Botswana. It's sometimes cute during the day time to see traffic halted by a stray cow, but it is NOT so cute and instead rather dangerous at night.

Some of you may know that one of my favorite hobbies is pottery. I'm not doing any of that here in Botswana, sadly, but we did go visit Pelegano Pottery in Gabane and a potters in Thamaga as well (G's are pronounced like H's in Botswana; Pele-Hano, Ha-bane, H-aborone, Thama-Ha). Here are some photos of the pottery studios, starting with the very traditional and cute rondavel-style houses that comprise the studio's buildings:Looking through the doorway to the pottery on shelves within:Women working to score and paint the pottery:Shanthi finds some shade from a malevolent sun:

The Kiln!!!

I don't have photos of the other pottery studio in Thamaga, but I did get a photo of the strange hill in Thamaga. The terrain in Botswana is generally flat and littered with jagged stones. But some of the hills, notably Kgale Hill in Gaborone, look like just a big jumble of stones piled by giants playing one hell of a game of bocce. The hill in Thamaga:

Onward with the random photos, here's one of a vervet monkey munching on some tree fruits on the roof of a car shelter in our neighborhood:

An ice plant flower:

Me, enjoying the fine interior of a Gaborone cab (not Tendai's, by the way). The roof lining was draped in a somewhat tent-like fashion:

Most cabs here are pretty run down cars and almost all of them have cracked windshields (probably the heat).

And to give you an idea about how OLD some of these photos are, here's one with Shanthi, Edna, a guide and Rebeca as we tour the David Livingstone memorial site where the famous explorer once lived in Botswana:

Edna, myself and Shanthi saying goodbye to Edna ages ago. Yes, we were thrilled by her visit and we are still very sad that she had to leave :(

Music in Botswana

2008-01-05T09:48:00.000+02:00

Since arriving in Botswana, I have looked forward to experiencing some of the local music. I am a musician and have spent many years studying and playing music from different parts of the world and given the substantial music traditions of Zimbabwe and South Africa, I assumed that Botswana would have a great music tradition as well.

When we arrived, we soon found out that the popular music here is American R&B, hip hop and rap. Not a good sign. But if you wake early enough and walk to the hospital you will hear a choir of nurses and hospital staff, their beautiful voices singing morning hymns in Setswana and any walk through the main mall or the BBS mall in Broadhurst will tell you that there is other music...a more indigenous music with happy chord progressions and whistles. I wanted to find that music.

I asked around at some CD stores and got a couple of names: Shumba, who had just released a new album and Maxy, a woman who apparently sang more traditional songs. I peered over the shoulders of my fellow combi riders to read the writing on a cassette as the combi driver popped it into the cassette player with the resulting cheerful music blasting from the booming combi sound system: Matsieng.

One day, our friend JC texted (it costs a lot to actually phone people, so most of our phone “conversations” with friends consist of SMS text messages, which are relatively cheap) us to see if we wanted to go to a traditional music and dance event at Botswana craft. Botswana craft is an arts store that sells all sorts of beautiful crafts, pottery and artworks made by local Batswana. It’s a little bit higher priced than buying directly from the artists, but it’s more or less one stop shopping, conveniently located on your way to the airport. They also have a stage and open outdoor performance area, and thus many music groups have CD release parties there.

Of course, I was going to go. Rim (giving the Japanese tourist salute. She's Korean. Inside joke there...), Michelle, Shanthi, JC (with the long arms, taking the photo) and I all went. Note the fellow in the background drinking chibuku, a local drink made of fermented sorghum, out of a gourd. The line-up included Maxy, Shumba and Matsieng, and a couple other groups whose names I did not catch. Again…one stop shopping. It turned out that the event was put on specifically for foreign diplomatic missions (JC is a marine that was stationed at the US Embassy in Gaborone…he’s now moving on to Cambodia in his next posting) with the aim of expanding exposure to traditional music of Botswana, hopefully leading to the export of the music and culture across the western world.

Sadly, I don’t think this will happen…at least not with the current state of the music performance scene.

The night started out pleasant enough. We sat at tables laid out with two bottles of Amarula (an alcoholic cream drink much like Bailey’s, but with the distinct flavor of the marula fruit, a small yellow tree berry that is native to southern Africa and is a favorite treat of elephants. The marula fruit are harvested by local women and made into this delicious beverage), amarula-logo shot glasses, serviettes (napkins), basically an amarula marketing campaign. But we love amarula, particularly since it supports local women (Rebeca’s fail-proof logic for continuing to imbibe the stuff), so we were thrilled.

The performance started with a backdrop of the typical evening thunderstorm, which was all very scenic until the thunderstorm and accompanying rain hit us. We were standing in line for dinner when the rain came and it put a temporary stop to the proceedings. The roof over the performance seating areas at Botswana craft is made of aesthetic-looking twigs constructed much like a bamboo sushi-rolling mat; fairly quaint but entirely dysfunctional in preventing leaks when the rains come. Thus, we were all forced to huddle under the narrower metal roofs on the fringes of the performance space. The artists, who were in the middle of performing, were gathered under the roof on the stage. Our amarula remained, abandoned, on our table.

Finally the rains stopped, and the performances resumed. We tramped through large ponds and a small river, carefully avoiding the invisible crocodiles, to get closer to the stage and watched the performance. I’m kidding…about the large ponds…there was only one pond and it was only a medium-sized one.

So…the music. Well…there was indeed music. Only thing was…no musicians. The “bands” typically comprised maybe 5-6 men, one of whom was the lead “singer” (the other were dancers and whistle blowers) and two women who danced and “sang” back-up vocals and harmonies. Note the quotation marks. It was virtually all lip-synched. [Above, Shumba]

Yes, the two women and the lead “singer” had microphones, and the lead “singer” was probably doing some of his singing live, but it was backed by a track of him already singing what he was singing into the mike. The women did do some backing vocals sometimes, but they were likewise just doubling two of the harmony lines coming out of the speakers. The actual music? Pre-recorded, all of it. After completing one song, the group would take a short breather and then start another song. The curious thing was that the music would be nearly identical. The same chord progression: 1 4 5 5; i.e., C major triad arpeggiated staring on g. F major triad. G major triad. G major triad arpeggiated starting on d. It wasn’t just the same tune for one group…every group played different key variations on this theme. It was like there was only one song. Ever. And nobody was playing it. They were just dancing and lip-synching to a multi-tracked synthesize-produced recording of the same cheery 3-chord progression. The interesting bits must have been in the lyrics, which were all in Setswana (or Setswana mixed with Basarwa when Maxy sang) and which we, of course, could not understand. JC later informed us that he found out from a Motswana working at the embassy that one of the songs was about a man asking his girlfriend if she was cheating on him because he wanted to cheat on her and would, I guess, feel justified in doing so if she was already cheating on him.

It all made Nickleback seem like innovative song writers.

[Above, Shumba again]

That was the traditional music. I really felt like a candle had gone out in my heart. Finally Maxy got on stage, a large woman who opened with some real singing. She promised to bring some real performance skills to the stage, but ultimately she was little different from the others. She sang on top of her own pre-recorded voice, cutting out at points and adding little nuances here and there. Nothing impressive. At one point, after singing melismas at the conclusion of a song she stated that “this is the real thing…I know people say we are just lip-synching up here, but I did that to show you this is the real thing”. True…she was singing now and then, but usually only doubling her own voice coming from the recording played on the PA system. Her back-up dancers did not bother to carry microphones to mimic the back-up vocals in the recording. It was a big disappointment.

The best part though was that I got to see all these “traditional” music stars of Botswana all at once, in one event at one venue. Thus, I didn’t waste time and money ever searching for the real thing and being disappointed each time, always thinking that maybe the other groups I heard about would have it.

I’ve heard the real thing exists…it’s out in the villages and much like the performance during the Exodus Live Infinite Word Festival, it involves a larger group that sings, chants and dances to their own accompaniment of hand clapping, foot rattling and vocal trills. I look forward to seeing that again…who knows when I’ll get the chance. But sadly, I don’t feel the need to see Shumba, Matsieng or Maxy again. And I don’t think anyone outside of Africa will ever see groups like this performing at your local venues. Without authentic musicians on stage and slightly more complex chord structures, I believe that this traditional popular music of Botswana will stay in Botswana.

The dancing, however, is interesting and quite charming at times. If only there were musicians playing the original acoustic instruments that must have formed the backbone of this music years ago…*sigh*…

I have a few videos from the performances. however they are too large to post on the blog, given that some folks are reading from dial-up connections. If I post them on a video-sharing site, such as YouTube, I'll let you all know.

The Clove Saga, Part 3 (Long...)

2008-01-05T09:10:00.000+02:00

Fiasco in the offing.

Calling Lufthansa was easy. You just dial a number. Or eleven numbers. And it’s not even as hard as dialing cause really we just punch the keys on the cell phone and hit send. It’s quite simple. No waiting for the wheel to click around before we can dial the next digit. Don’t have to dial at all really, though we still talk the walk we took 30 years ago rather than the walk we take now. What wasn’t easy was the $360 phone bill I would soon earn due to sitting on the phone virtually all day speaking to idiotic fools who spoke as if they had The Answer although they, like Philly, didn’t realize that it was the wrong answer, or maybe the question they thought was being asked was not the question The Answer was answering and so what they really needed to do is understand the original question but before they could figure it all out, The Answer up and left for Denver. 42.

What happens in this scenario is that you get driven in circles. It’s like one of those maddening dreams that I have from time to time. The ones where I am solving a mathematical computation and the summation is just not working and I must go through the accounting yet again, correcting errors but in the process creating them anew, and so on and so on.

And

On,

my mind swimming in spirals of illogic and confusion, interrupted by episodic out-takes of other dreams but always returning to the theme of the non-additive summation that drives me insane until I wake in a fog, quite unrested.

Lufthansa reservations could confirm my cat traveling in the cabin from Botson to Frankfurt, and from Jo-burg to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Boston. But that all important Frankfurt to Jo-Burg leg? No confirmation. Why is that? If you work at Lufthansa reservations, feel free to choose one of the following two answers:

a) Because that flight already has capped it’s limit for the number of animals they can check into the hold

b) Because the booking is made through our Frankfurt office and we are waiting for them to confirm it

If the customer asks any follow up questions, repeat the mantra of the bookings that have been made once more: We are able to book your pet on 3 of the 4 legs of your trip [thus indicating success in acquiring the booking rather than a failure to book], the flight from blah blah to blah blah, the flight from blah blah to blah blah and the flight from “look what we’ve conveniently done for you” to “although this is all complete rubbish, isn’t it”. Gloss over the fact that booking the later two legs of the journey is moot if the critical second leg of the 4-part sojourn has not been confirmed. If the customer persists, tell him/her that this is all handled in Germany, and that s/he must call the offices in Germany.

And what happens if s/he does indeed call the offices in Germany, having looked up the phone number on the internet as nobody at US customer relations would give it to me?

So I called Germany. Yes I did. Germany said that the problem was that I wanted to make a booking for cargo in Germany. That means that I would have to call so and so pet transport in somewhere-ville and it would cost about $500 and yada yada. Oh, another thing Germany said…while we had them on the line…and this is very interesting. Those keeping score at home might want to lick their pencils and enter this onto the scoresheet.

There were no animals booked onto the flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg.

None.

Zero.

Unless you’re counting humans, that is…

I believe that’s what they, in the fraternal order of major league baseball umpires, call a line drive caught at third with the bases loaded, turned for a 5-6-3 triple play. You are out, Lufthansa US Reservations! The side is retired on excuse for non-booking number 1! The run does not score. Red Sox win. Papelbon is pumping his fist as he marches toward to plate to greet Tek (who is, indeed, a Monster. True fact. Ask A-Rod). The plump policeman in the bullpen who exchanged fist pounds with Papelbon on his way out to the mound at the top of the ninth is smiling. Give it to us, Joe Castiglione: “Can you believe it?!?!!?!?”

I can. And it led to further enlightenment. Let me first remind you that at this point, we were leaving for Africa in two days. Furthermore, and this is critical to grasp the full meaning of the enlightenment promised to hit you, the reader, in just a few moments, it is important to know that our itinerary was to leave Boston on a Thursday, arriving in Germany on a Friday, and then depart Germany that Friday’s evening, arriving in South Africa, and subsequently Botswana, on a Saturday.

So I called German veterinary transport business X. I had a very informative conversation with a fellow whose name I have forgotten. He told me something very important because he asked a seemingly unimportant question. He asked me for my itinerary. I told him my itinerary. And the next words out of his mouth were:

“No. This is impossible.”

Fully perplexed, I asked the man to explain. So here’s the thing:

You see, South Africa only allows importation of animals into their country if they

a) have proper documentation

b) have been transported as cargo and are listed on the ship’s manifest

When the animal arrives, the documentation and such must be inspected by a qualified veterinarian on the ground and, you see, since I was arriving on a Saturday, there would not be a vet available at the airport as the vets do not work on the weekends. Thus, Lufthansa could not confirm the booking because the guys who do the bookings (the fellow I was speaking with) know about all this and simply will not book animals to arrive outside of a weekday (and, presumably, outside of working hours on a weekday) because if they do, that animal will essentially return on the very same plane as it makes its way back to Germany. So therefore, I had to either fly the very next day, so that I arrived on Friday, or I had to change my flight plans to arrive on Monday. But there simply was no other way around it, if I planned on bringing the cat with me.

Furthermore, the man told me that they have a great pet care facility in Frankfurt, where they feed the animals, let them out of their crates, take them for walks, etc. I can just see Clove going for a walk.

I then called back Lufthansa U.S. Reservations, tried to confirm pet travel for the Frankfurt to Jo-burg flight on Monday. It would not confirm. Things were going nowhere. In a mood of despair and desperation, I phoned the offices of Lufthansa in New York City, and left a message asking the people there to call me back. Like I said…a move of sheer desperation

Miraculously I got a phone call later that afternoon. It was a kind, logical pleasant German man phoning from Lufthansa offices in NYC. More enlightenment ensued.

What I found out is that there’s “putting the animal in the cargo hold” and then there’s “Putting the Animal in the Cargo Hold” and they are two completely different things, handled by completely different people. When South Africa says that in order for an animal to enter S.A., they must travel in the cargo hold and be on the ship’s manifest (this later bit being amongst the very fine print), they mean just that. But in order to get on the ship’s manifest, the item MUST be checked in as cargo, and thus all arrangements for transport are handled by Lufthansa CARGO. Reservations will be happy to check an animal into the cargo hold, but while they are being transported in the cargo hold, in this case, they would not be listed on the manifest. Two different things. Two different ways to go about arranging them. So the issue was that reservations could not book the second leg because

a) they can’t book cargo

b) that cargo cannot arrive on a weekend, and thus even if it could be booked, it would not be allowed to proceed on the dates given in my itinerary

wish they had just given me those two answers to begin with.

So I called up our poor travel agent and informed them that yet again, I was going to need to change my flight. I moved my departure to Saturday so that I would arrive in Jo-burg the following Monday morning. I had to book the hotel stay in Frankfurt again. It would have cost us more unnecessary funds to again change Shanthi’s flight plan and indeed made the whole switch for her from Emirates to Lufthansa moot.

I also called Lufthansa cargo. Turns out that they can book the cat as cargo the whole way. The whole way?

Well, no.

Or…

Shall we enter even greater depths of the fiasco? O! Let’s!

A brief answer to a common question

2007-12-04T15:20:00.000+02:00

Lots of friends and family have asked me what it's like in Botswana, how things are different from life in the US, how we've managed, etc. There's a lot to say in response to those questions and some friends and family have certainly heard an earful. I decided that I would, rather economically, post a reply that I wrote to those questions in an email to my friend, Alice (one of the directors at Decision Resources, the company that employs me), which should give people a short answer to some of those questions. There's a lot more in the details ;)

Botswana is…interesting. I have learned a ton just coming here. Not necessarily all good things, but very good life lessons. For one, I've learned how much I took for granted living in the U.S. (more about this in a future post). It’s been difficult setting up the home here, just with the different pace of getting things done in a developing country. Botswana’s way ahead of the curve in terms of development too, so we have the ability to do things here that one may not have in a developing nation with fewer resources than those we have in Botswana. For example we have DSL. Granted, it took them 6 weeks to get it up and running, and that was a complete bureaucratic nightmare, but hey, at least they have DSL available and it runs almost as fast as it does in the US. The culture here is way different in so many ways that it’s hard to even start to describe it. But we’ve run up against cultural differences in everyday situations. On top of that there are the old world and more specifically, old British-colonized world issues that we never confront in the US. There are the attitudes of British ex-pats, South Africans, fleeing Zimbabweans (both white and black), the influence of Chinese and Indian merchants and businessmen, and the attitudes of the local Batswana toward all these groups and the groups’ attitudes toward the Batswana. While it’s not nearly as crazed and crime-ridden as South Africa, the whole context of race and ethnicity here in Botswana is simply very different from the US, especially culturally mixed urban areas of the US. The word for foreigners here is “Lekoa” which literally means “vomit of the sea”, clearly derived from a description of the arrival of foreigners and colonizers on ships from far away lands. Even though I’m African-American, I’m Lekoa to people here.

The toughest thing to deal with are the double standards the Batswana have. We come across double standards constantly and it has become one of the most frustrating aspects of our experience here. For example, it’s rude to speak loudly, and the locals will get offended if you speak in a medium to loud tone of voice to them, yet they seem to take/give no offense when they speak to each other loudly and see nothing wrong with speaking to you loudly either. They do not like direct requests. For example, you cannot simply ask someone to tell you how much a stamp costs. You must first say “hello”, “how are you?”, “how is business?”, finish the small talk, then say “I need to post a letter and I was wondering if you could tell me how much it costs to buy a stamp”. Usually the answer will be “I don’t know” Then you just have to stand their and wait silently, or say “hmmm…”. Eventually, they will cave in and tell you the answer to your question. It’s frustrating.

My favorite quintessential example of a conversation with a Motswana so far was when Shanthi went to the dry cleaners to pick up a pair of pants they had cleaned for her. She had lost her receipt/slip for it, and the dialog went something like this:

Shanthi: Dumela, mma! (Hello, ma’am)

Clerk: Dumela, mma

Shanthi: Le kae? (how are you? Though literally it means “where are you”)

Clerk: ke teng (I’m fine, though literally it means “I am here/there”)

Shanthi: I am here to pick up a pair of pants that I dropped off to be dry cleaned…

Clerk: hmmmm…

Shanthi: But I have lost the slip for it. I was wondering if I can still pick them up.

Clerk: hmmm.

Shanthi: -silent-

Clerk: You have lost the slip.

Shanthi: ee, mma (yes, ma’am)

Clerk: hmmm…

Shanthi: -silent-

Clerk: Why have you lost the slip?

Shanthi: (a bit baffled)

Clerk: -silent-

Shanthi: I don’t know why I have lost the slip. But I cannot find it…

And so on. The thing about this dialog was that I knew, before the clerk said it, I KNEW that she was going to ask WHY Shanthi had lost the slip. It was like anticipating a punch line and it typifies a conversation with many Batswana. Asking why someone has lost something gets nowhere because it’s a rhetorical question. Why does anybody unintentionally lose something? Who knows why? But it was so typical of the clerk to ask why and patiently wait for Shanthi to say she did not know why before the clerk could proceed with the business of carrying on to find the pants without the missing slip. Shanthi did collect the pants that day, about five minutes later.

Exodus Live Infinite Word Festival

2007-11-30T11:29:00.000+02:00

While Edna was visiting, we went to a poetry slam, which took place at the Maitisong theatre at the Maru a Pula school, which is about 2 blocks (long blocks) from our house. We had attended a poetry slam there at the end of our first week in Botswana and loved it, so we had the date of the next one booked in our calendars. The Exodus Live Infinite Word Festival includes some excellent poets and performers, all of them from Botswana (except for one African American who now lives here and some guest artists), and it's both entertaining and a great insight into local culture, politics and viewpoints. The poetry show also includes musical performances, comedy, and sometimes short theatre productions. Here are some photos of some of the artists who performed at the show.

This photo includes three of our favorite poets in the Exodus group. (L to R) Abimbole Cole (the African American woman, and a truly excellent poet), Joshua Machao, and Mandisa Mabuthoe. Here, (L to R) Kefhentse Kefhentse (who is charming jazz and skat vocalist), Mandisa Mabuthoe and Tebogo Gaetsewe bring the house down with a rousing song. They are all great singers and Tebogo should be recording solo albums, she's that good. I wish I knew what song they were singing and that I had recorded a video of this performance because it was one of the highlights of the night. It was fantastic! Poet Mandisa Mabuthoe at Exodus Live. Poet Moletlanyi Tshipa is a crowd favorite, at Exodus Live. He's a physicist who writes poetry about rather mundane things,but his ability to rhyme words with a jilted meter that arrives at the rhyme unexpectedly, along with his charmingly accented English make him my favorite poet in the ensemble. The first time we saw him perform, we had seen/heard poem after poem about life's hardships, boy meets girl, girl meets boy, sexual and domestic abuse, lovers dying of AIDS, the general strife (that's an inside joke for Rebeca)...and then this guy comes on stage to raucous applause, his dreads wrapped in a tam, starts with the line "Some may laugh while others scorn...because I like to eat my corn" and then launched into a poem about vegetables. During this Exodus Live performance, half of his poem was in Setswana, so we were unable to enjoy it as much. However, it's great to hear poems in Setswana because...well...why should Batswana write poems that speak to other Batswana in English? Poet Lesego Nswahu Nchunga at Exodus Live. Before the intermission, a group came on stage to perform some traditional singing and dancing. It was like a breath of fresh air to hear and see this as American-style R&B and Hip-Hop music seems to be all anybody here wants to listen to. The singing was absolutely beautiful and the dancing was entertaining as well! One of the best poems of the night (sadly I don't have a photo of the poet or know his name. He did preface the poem by apologizing to the audience for the cursing he was about to do) was a social and political diatribe in the format of (I am paraphrasing here from memory): "F*ck the Nobel Prize winning geneticist with his racist statements (a reference to Dr. Watson, who despite winning a Nobel for the discovery of DNA, has single-handedly proven that winning a Nobel Prize does not mean you are free of bigotry) and F*ck CNN for reporting it. F*ck the BBC and their Anglo-centric biased view of the struggles in the world, always acting like they know what's best for Africa. F*ck the UB student (University of Botswana) with their piercings and their apathy. F*ck the Indian businessman who complains that you don't work enough while they sit on their ass and watch you work , withholding your pay til the end of the month and if you ask for a raise, they won't give it to you because business is bad, as they say, though their accountant would state otherwise".

It was the first time I'd heard both outward and inwardly reflective criticism of the society here ("the general strife", as Rebeca would say) and it was a great insight to a lot of things here for us. We loved it and so did the audience!

The headliner of the show was a poet from Zimbabwe, named Sam Farai "Comrade Fatso" Monro. He was EXCELLENT! By far the best poet of the evening, but also the only professional poet who has performed across the globe, on the BBC, KPFA (Pacifica Radio) and other international media outlets. He writes about the social and political situation ongoing in Zimbabwe, which as you probably know is a social tragedy and a political nightmare.

The audience did not respond to him as well as to the other performers. I don't know why because he is clearly very talented. Perhaps it's because he's from Zimbabwe and people here are generally prejudiced against Zimbabweans (much like people in the US are prejudiced against Latin American immigrants). Maybe it was because he was white and there's something about white Africans speaking about struggle and hardship that wasn't convincing to the audience. I don't know, but I definitely sensed that the audience was not so into Comrade Fatso, even though our little group all agreed that he was by far the best performer of the night. He came with a Zimbabwean musician, Josh, who played Bass and who was phenomenal, playing with a style and speed like Victor Wooten. The audience was mesmerized by his playing, as was the back-up band on the stage, who were literally gaping and collapsing with disbelief as Josh played a solo. I have a video of some of his bass playing, but it's too big to post on the blog :(

After their performance, a rapper from S.Africa came on stage and basically started doing his thing, which was essentially lip-synching his own songs to a back-up recording. It was pretty lame, given that there were live DJs and live music and poetry performances all evening. In any case, it was 1 am, the show had started at 8 pm, Edna has just arrived from France within the past 24 hours and we were too tired to appreciate this type of performance so we went home. Overall, it was a good show, though we did not understand over half of it because we don't speak Setswana (yet...we're trying little by little ) or Kalanga. Still, we will be there for the next Exodus Live Poetry night, cant' miss it!

A Tiny Visitor

2007-11-23T12:16:00.000+02:00

One evening, we received a tiny visitor in our home. We're not sure how the little fellow got into the house (though there are many ways to do so for small ones like him), but eventually the little one became attracted to the computer, and spent a good deal of time exploring the LCD screen. It even responded to movement of the mouse! At first, it was rather frightened by the moving arrow on the screen, but after a while it started to chase it. Eventually, we became worried that the little guy would be harmed by the heat of the computer, so we scooped him up in a glass and deposited him safely in a potted plant outside. I hope he hasn't suffered much from his experience with the humans and their magical light boxes.

Clear Skies over Gaborone

2007-11-23T09:57:00.000+02:00

One of the new experiences I've had living in Botswana is a rejuvenation of my personal relationship with the sky. As a child growing up in Vermont, I loved the sky. I loved clouds, the deep blue skies of summer, sunrises, sunsets, the stars at night. I had a small telescope and spent many cold nights on the roof of our house peering at Andromeda (M31), the Orion nebula (M42), or the Pleiades (M45).

During my life in Boston, my relationship with the sky became more detached. The sky was just there. You could not see long distances, the horizon was littered with concrete, glass, bricks, branches and leaves. Weather changed rapidly, so a glance at the sky would not suffice to predict how the sky would behave an hour hence. It had few stars that were bright enough to pierce the ever orange glow of sodium street lights. But most importantly, the sky belonged to others. It was cluttered with sky scrapers, entangled in telephone lines, flooded with searchlights, invaded by raucous helicopters, bisected by airplanes and littered with diesel, smog and contrails. The second one established an existential link to the sky, it would be shattered by the flashing lights of a jetliner or the obtrusive actions of a news helicopter.

In Botswana, the sky is huge and it belongs to everybody. There are few planes flying over Gaborone. I never see contrails. About once every two weeks or so, I may hear an airplane in the sky, or a helicopter. But generally, unless you are in the Jo-burg/Gaborone flight path, the noise generated by mankind in Gaborone comes from the ground, not the air. Even the hills of my home state of Vermont echo with the sounds of jet planes depositing contrails at 35,000 feet, carrying a fuselage of passengers from large cities on their way to other large cities, for the most part ignorant of the disturbance recognized by those far below.

Remember how eerie it was for so many of us, in those few days following Sept. 11, 2001, to not hear the racket of noise coming from the sky, to not see the silver bellies of jets, their icy contrails following like billowing streamers? That is my experience virtually every day in Botswana and I love it. I love the silence of the skies, which are pretty much the same here as they have been for millions of years; Stars, planets, moons, asteroids, and galaxies produce the only lights in the sky and birds, bats and insects are the only things that traverse it. Without the clutter and pollution of the sky, I am again enjoying nuances in the shades of lighting and the sunsets that I took for granted or ignored for years.

Thanksgiving in Botswana

2007-11-22T23:15:00.001+02:00

Though this is probably obvious to all, thanksgiving is not a holiday celebrated all over the world. One of the places it's not celebrated is Botswana. I am sure that the people here do give thanks, often multiple times a day for their lives, their families, friends, loved ones, the bounty of food, clean water, clean air, possessions that they have, etc.. They just don't make a national holiday out of it. That being said, I am an American and a New Englander, and thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. This is not the first time I've been out of the country for thanksgiving and it's not the first time that I have witnessed this holiday passing while not being in the presence of my family. But because of the circumstances, this thanksgiving has been one to remember for a long long time.

Part of what makes it a memorable thanksgiving is that it simply doesn't feel like thanksgiving to me. Today it was 83 degrees (F) and the only reason it was that cool was because it was cloudy for much of the day and we had two major thunderstorms roll through, one of which dropped ball bearing-sized hailstones that melted away within a fraction of a second in the heat and puddles of rain-water. The day was not all pelting water and hailstones; Shanthi came home from work, around 6 in the evening, walking beneath a rainbow. The rainbow made me smile and reminded me to be thankful of the beauty around us every day. I am thankful for all the good things I have in my life...families that support me and love me, Shanthi, my wonderful and loyal friends and acquaintances, my health, my talents and what wit I have about me, my cat Clove, who makes our exile here in Botswana feel like home more than anything else.

Lately the temperature has reached 95-100+ EVERY DAY. It's been humid, which is apparently quite odd for such a long period of time. But then again...who knows how long. The change in seasons has been so gradual that I find myself wondering what happened to October, and Edna's visit, two weeks ago this weekend seems like ages ago. Time goes by and you don't even know it. One day I feel I'll wake up and find that I'm 42 and I'll say to myself "What...just...happened?"

So it's thanksgiving. Shanthi and I are vegetarians. Hmmm. Our friends in the Baylor program here (Baylor College of Medicine has a program here in pediatrics, much like Penn's program in adult medicine) were hosting a thanksgiving dinner and invited us. Or maybe we just shouldered our way into getting an invitation. Either way, we were going. We decided to bake Spanikopita (one of my pot-luck go-to's) because...well, they don't have chestnuts in Botswana (well...none that I could find), and my first choice, a chestnut-loaf that my mother traditionally bakes for thanksgiving (all vegetarians when I was growing up) was thus a non-starter.

So I bought up all the frozen and fresh spinach available at the Riverwalk Mall on thanksgiving day (one good thing about it not being a holiday: shops are open). 2 bags frozen, 3 bags fresh. Bought two tubs of feta, a pack of portobello mushrooms. Phyllo dough from Woolworth's. We had garlic, onions, herbs and butter at home. Good to go. While the pies were baking (had to put them in the oven sequentially as there wasn't enough space for both pies at once), I called my parents on skype and spoke with my mother for long time, which was great. Skype is both a godsend and an instrument of depression. On the one hand, it's wonderful to be able to talk to our families and friends. On the other hand, it makes me miss being with them all the more...sigh...

I digress...So...here's one of the two pies I made: Here are some Stuffed Gem Squash that Rebeca made: So we then went over to the Baylor housing complex. It was great fun. There were about 20 people there, all great people to hang out with. We shared food and drink and humor. Here's the table before people stood or sat around it: Here are the people standing around the table: Michelle and Rebeca had a laugh while Parth helped Shanthi (and Jeff, who's somewhat out-of-focus in the background) re-set the table centerpiece that Jeff had accidentally knocked over: Jeff and Jennifer brought in their new, super-cute puppy who was especially fond of running to and fro while vigorously wagging his tail, much to everybody's delight: The puppy seemed to take a liking to Sam (turkey = great bribe for puppy love): On a sad note, I called my sister when we got home from the dinner, but she was not at home. I still have not had the chance to speak with her since we arrived in Botswana :( The 10 hour time difference between Gaborone and Seattle makes this more difficult. Hopefully I will get a chance to catch up with her soon.

Hole in the Sky

2007-11-15T00:02:00.000+02:00

After arriving in Botswana, we had a month of sunny weather, during which time I saw exactly zero clouds in the sky. After the first month was up, we awoke to a gray day, with a ceiling of ominous clouds overhead. I was delighted. It even rained a little, for about 3 minutes! Towards the end of the day, I finally spotted a break in the clouds, though it was fleeting. I snapped a photo and wrote this poem. As most of my poetry goes, it' s not in any proper poetic meter.

Hole in the Sky

Through this hole in the sky
lives the Everyday Sun
The Sun that bakes the Earth
that draws the life that water brings
from the dirt and the skins
of plants and animals
The omnipotent oven that roasts
all that dare to roam in the mid-day
forcing them to live at the mercy of the whims
of the winds
or the placement of a shadow

Through this hole in the sky
the Everyday Sun beams
It does not enjoy wasting it power
on obstinate clouds
interlopers that they are
upon a forbidden domain
The Everyday Sun grows petulant
and angry
with the hanging platform of gray
that defies its righteousness
that withstands its beatings
for a single day

Through this hole in the sky
the Everyday Sun creates an opening
in which to force its Halligan-like rays
and reclaim its dominance

And the clouds
who have given us this day of respite
who have stood eye to eye with Apollo
Lorenzo
and blinded him with their veils
These sheltering clouds
wandering wayward across the desert
hundreds of miles of sand beneath then
hundreds of miles of sand behind them
hundreds of miles of sand before them
have fought a good fight

But they cannot last against the might of the Everyday Sun

The hills of Zimbabwe are too far distant
and the Everyday Sun has time yet
to obliterate its amorphous, vapid opposition
and shine on the desert
this day
as it does
every day

The Clove Saga, Part 2 (Long!)

2007-11-14T23:41:00.000+02:00

The next step in the plan was to figure out how to get Clove into Botswana. First, I considered taking a boat. Of course because Botswana is a land-locked nation, this would require some over-land travel, but the thought of taking a cruise ship or what-have-you across the Atlantic just seemed so grand it was hard to pass up the opportunity. So I did some investigation into transport to Cape Town. I kept imagining the wide open sea, the strength-giving ocean winds entering my cozy, gently rocking cabin where I would read books, muse upon matters and live a life of Riley for a week or two until the sheer cliffs of Table Mountain breached the horizon far a’port. How could such a trip be any better?….*sigh*

I’ll tell you how: If I first flew with Clove to Brasil, set up camp for a spell with my dear friends Ludmila and Ze in Sao Paulo, had cold beers with them while playing multiple rounds of hearts and listening to good local Brasilian music, and THEN hopped on the steamer heading from Sao Paulo across the waist of the Atlantic to Cape Town; I simply cannot imagine a trip sweeter than that. Oh except for one thing…crotchety Clove would be my bunk mate. None-the-less, I plowed on with such fanciful plans but when I put the plan into action and actually searched for ocean liners plying the depths of the South Atlantic, there were none. No passenger lines doing the old Sao Paulo- Cape Town circuit. So there fell my dreams in a whirlpool of untapped commercial potentials.

Back to the drawing board otherwise known as airline timetables. Ugh. On our first journey to southern Africa, Shanthi and I booked our tickets through the friendly Upul’s Travel service, based in CA, who specializes in travel to Sri Lanka, though that was not quite our final destination…though one of these days, inevitably, it shall be. They plunked us into the comfy seats on Emirates, who entertained us with some 200 moives, games and TV show episodes (including 5 or so of “The Office”) and some delicious Indian-style vegetarian meals as we floated across to Dubai and then down to Jo-burg. So, despite the inevitable luggage loss, we booked again on Emirates, salivating with thoughts of the comfort of the upcoming transit despite the fact that the trip route had us flying a bit past the continent of Africa, only to track back later.

However, in making such travel arrangements, I was shown to be an innocent, a novice in the world of pet transport…or so I was soon to find out…only to later to find that it really didn’t matter what I did, in the end, as the whole affair would eventually be marked down in the journal of my life under the heading “Fiascoes”.

First, there was the matter of gaining permission to bring one female, spayed cat into Botswana. But to get to Botswana, you must travel through South Africa. And therein lies the crux of the problem. You see, in order to bring a pet into South Africa, they must have all the appropriate papers, which includes a veterinary permit issued by the South African Department of Agriculture. In addition, the animal must also be listed on the ship’s manifold and thus can only enter the country through the cargo hold of the airplane. While that sounds simple enough, what it means is that Clove will have to be checked in as Cargo in Dubai. Oh and it turns out that to enter the U.A.E., the cat must also travel as cargo and have the proper permits.

I promptly contacted the South African Embassy in the United States and asked them what to do. I did the same with the Botswana embassy and the embassy to the U.A.E. S.A. and Botswana both informed me that I needed to contact their offices in Pretoria and Gaborone, respectively, and have them send the proper documentation to me in the States. They could not simply fax the forms because these forms needed to be officially stamped government documents. The U.A.E., failed to respond to any of my queries after three attempts by phone and one by email. Huh.

I then called Emirates airlines to make arrangements with them to transport Clove. They told me that they have a company in the States that subcontracts all this business and to get in touch with them. So I called AirAnimals to find out the scoop. Basically what they told me is this:

1) Clove has to go into Dubai and out of Dubai as cargo

2) Transferring Clove from the Delta shuttle (from Boston to JFK), where she’ll be in the cabin, to Emirates Cargo would involve me leaving the security area (a given anyway since the flights are in different terminals), finding transport over to the cargo terminals, checking the cat in, going back to the terminal with Emirates and going through security, check-in , etc. How long was my layover? Oh 3 hours? Well, at JFK this process can take the BETTER PART OF A DAY.

3) Just imagine how much time this would take on the ground in Dubai. Imagine you having to go through U.A.E. customs to get over to the cargo area, negotiate with those folks, go back through customs. Fughettabaddit, it will take you a day and a half. You have a 3 hour lay over in Dubai? Oh…um…it won’t be possible.

4) Fly a European carrier like Lufthansa or KLM. The transfer in Europe will be SO MUCH EASIER. Plus, you can bring the cat in the cabin for the first leg.

So, I had pictures in my mind of dealing with grounds-workers in Dubai who were more interested in their cigarette break than getting my cat switched on flights. And I compared that to the renowned efficiency of the Germans and my mind was made up. Lufthansa, here we come. So I switched our flights to Lufthansa. What I failed to take into account in this whole process was the looming juggernaut of American incompetence, a disease whose symptoms can be described as arrogance, indifference and false omnipotence.

Moving onward and upward on the necessary pet permits, please allow me to summarize:

1) It ended up costing me $142 to ship a single sheet of paper from Botswana to the United States, via DHL. You know that the poor Motswana working in the DHL office in Gaborone was not paid $142. Try $1. As if! Of course, DHL would not allow the fellow to pick up the permit until I gave them a name of someone in the office at the Ministry of Agriculture to pick it up from, despite the fact that, according to the actual Minister of Agriculture (who I spoke with over the phone at 2 am some morning on the east coast), DHL does this all the time and they know where the office is and where the “outbox” in the office is.

2) South Africa required a fee of some $100 Rand (about $16) which had to be wire transferred. The wire transfer cost $35, over twice the amount that I was transferring.

3) Forms for Germany could be printed off PDF files downloaded from their web site (yay for efficiency!).

4) Once I had received all the forms, I had to get an identifying microchip placed in Clove and renew her rabies vaccination. Cost of some $200 plus or minus.

5) The USDA, who needs to certify all the permit forms, at first balked at certifying more than one. Their argument is that once the cat leaves the US, she is no longer under their jurisdiction. Therefore, my 12-hour layover in Germany would mean that despite Clove’s birth and entire 9 years of life in the US, because she’s staying in Germany for 12 hours, she is now a German cat and the German verterinary authorities should be the ones to stamp their certified approval that the cat is in good health and suitable for entry into South Africa. Likewise with the South African authorities with the cat on its way to Botswana. I basically called them on the complete idiocy of this, sent them all three forms and a check to individually cover the costs of all three. The trick was that the South African permit had to be stamped NO MORE THAN 10 days before the date that the cat was to enter S.A. So…I had to FEDEX the forms to the USDA and have them FEDEX’d back to me as I was leaving for CA on my last day of work (August 15^th), returning on the 20^th and leaving for Gabs on the 23^rd. They did it without complaints (see, I knew they were bluffing), and it cost me $46 less than I had paid. So I now have to file to get a refund, thanks to their mis-quotation of the price.

So, permits were in hand, officially stamped and ready to go.

The next step was calling Lufthansa to get the pet travel on the flight set up and request a vegetarian meal. I was about to enter the downward spiral that led to this whole saga being firmly entered in the journal of my life, as I have mentioned earlier, under so unfortunate a heading, shared with few other tales that I can readily glimpse while thumbing through the ToC.

Edna comes to visit!

2007-11-13T23:19:00.000+02:00

One of my best friends, Edna, came by to visit us for the weekend. Edna lives in Boston but was traveling through South Africa for just over a week. She had some time to kill as her boyfriend Lars was not arriving in S.A. for a couple of days, so she flew up to Gaborone and became our first visitor. Edna and I go WAY back. She is a second sister to me. First off, she was born the day before I was. We met while in college and were flatmates for about 11 years spanning the end of college, pretty much all of graduate school, and up until the end of 2006. Edna is so well known and well loved in my family that my parents and my sister are always kept current with how Edna is doing. So it was rather fitting for me that our first visitor from abroad would be Edna. Of course, Eddie was very happy to see Clove once again, having lived with Clove for 8.5 years. We're not sure if Clove was able to recognize Edna, but Ed made sure Clove knew that she was happy to see her.

Potato Pizza

2007-11-13T23:03:00.000+02:00

Shanthi is a big fan of both pizza and potatoes. If you too are a fan of both pizza and potatoes, you are in for the ultimate treat at Cambridge 1, the fabulous pizza restaurant in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. On the menu is a potato pizza. Of course they probably have a better name for it, but essentially it is a flatbread, super thin crust pizza topped with fire-roasted potato slices, chopped rosemary, parmesan cheese, healthy dollops of garlic, rosemary and sage-infused mashed potatoes and topped, once out of the oven, with strands of fresh scallions. It's a potato and pizza lovers dream! We decided to recreate this pizza here in Botswana from scratch and despite not having a brick, wood-fired pizza oven, or parmesan cheese, I think we've done pretty well, re-creating a pizza that has drawn rave reviews from all who have tasted it.

Where we live

2007-11-13T22:50:00.000+02:00

Shanthi and I live in what is a pretty western-looking apartment complex, fairly luxurious by local standards, in a relatively posh neighborhood in Gaborone. We are a few blocks from the American, Indian, and Kenyan ambassadors' houses and the property abuts the Northside Primary School. Our housing complex has a pool and well maintained gardens with some lovely trees, plants and flowers. Some of the trees host weaver birds who build these elaborate nests that often dangle from branches, attached with a cleverly woven grass twine. Apparently the males of the species are tasked with the construction while the females play the role of inspectors. If the nest is not quite up to snuff, the female bird simply cuts it loose, and the male is then forced to try again.

Who We Are

2007-11-10T00:28:00.000+02:00

For those wondering what we look like, this should cover it. I don't tend to take photos of myself, unless I am sending some in to the Boston Globe for a "Red-Sox Player Look-Alike" photo submission...So here I am: Go Red Sox! Força Barça! Here is the love of my life, my beautiful and loving wife, Shanthi: Here's a photo that includes some of the main characters that will appear in this blog in the future...from left to right: Shanthi, Rebeca, Sam, myself, Rim, and...Rebeca's friend Steve who was visiting (and thus exits blog left at this point): And here's another shot of what will be recurring characters, I'm sure, with Derek, Rim, Shanthi and JC. Note how JC has to ease down like a giraffe to fit in the photo. He's 6'4" or so tall. He's also wearing a Burton Snowboarding T-shirt. We live in a desert: Oh, and lest we forget...Clove:

Establishing Home Base

2007-11-10T00:09:00.001+02:00

Shanthi and I arrived at our new home: an empty apartment with white-pink-grayish tiles. It has a kitchen with faux-granite countertops and cupboards,a pantry with adequate shelving and a stove w/ oven (this was a huge plus as it meant we did not have to buy one). The apartment has one and a half bathrooms, two bedrooms and a large living room with a sliding glass door that opens out to a small patio. There is also a back door that leads to a small outdoor area enclosed with high cement walls -- the perfect spot for a grill, if we ever get one. Instead, the washing machine lives out there. Yes, outside...somewhat of a problem when it rains...

Our first order of business was to establish power and water, sign the lease, and then go out and buy appliances and furniture. Shanthi, who arrived two days earlier than I (foreshadowing for future installments of The Clove Saga), had already taken care of all but appliance shopping by the time I arrived and had also managed to get us both mobile phones.

Over the course of the first week, we purchased and took delivery of:

A refrigerator/freezer, a washing machine, a double bed and mattress, a desk, a nightstand, a dining table, four chairs, plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, pots, frying pans, cooking utensils, knives, a tea kettle, a toaster, an iron, dish rack, bathroom mat, cleaning supplies, groceries, duvet and duvet cover, etc. We started with an empty house and ended up, at the end of the week, with something we could more or less call a home.

Next we had to get curtains for the windows. Because the windows and glass doors were all unconventional in size, we ended up buying fabric and having these made. The tailor did a pretty terrible job sewing the curtains and all but one of them were too short for the windows. We hung them anyway. At that point, we were too tired to go through the process again. As you can see, one set of curtains was so short that we had to hang them from a curtain rod that was itself hung from the proper curtain rod!

The Clove Saga, Part 1 (Long)

2007-11-09T22:30:00.000+02:00

My cat, Clove, is a large, cranky but lovable hair shedding machine that has known me since before she could even open her eyes. I held her as a tiny kitten and a few weeks later, welcomed her to my home. She is mostly white, with beige and charcoal grey patches, generally loves to receive cuddles around her face, but not so much on her body, has a penchant for “making biscuits” on my tummy as I drift off to sleep, and likes to sleep with her head resting in my hand.

While the plans for moving to Botswana had been put into place at least 6 months before the move was to take place, I had never quite solidified plans regarding Clove. You might think that before choosing various objects to bring across the latitude of the Atlantic and down the longitudinal length of the continent of Africa, to the small dusty, desert city that is the capital of Botswana, that my first priority in planning would be to figure out what to do with a 16 pound, somewhat testy, 9-year old cat.

I had decided that if I was going to sign on to the Botswana Adventure™, Clove was going to come as well. See, as much as I profess that Clove is totally attached to me and is virtually inconsolably unhappy in my absence, and have numerous witnesses that I can call upon to vouch to that effect, I must admit that I am quite attached to her in the way that most pet owners are attached to their pets. Thus, it had always occurred to me that I would bring Clove to Botswana with me, and despite the leading questions of my friend Christine, who was much more appropriately concerned about the logistics and timing of the thing than I, I never really gave much thought as to how this was to come about.

By about a month and a half before T=0, I had resigned to the idea that it was probably best to leave Clove behind in the States. I had secretly hoped that my roommate Anu would somehow volunteer to take on Clove. Clove is a somewhat cranky cat, and for some reason, unknown to neither me nor Anu, had quite taken to Anu. Actually, we do know the reason: food. Anu diligently fed Clove on the many occasions when I was gone for the night/weekend/week, and even on many occasions where I simply overslept. At 16 pounds, you can imagine that one thing Clove loves dearly is food, and it follows that she would be particularly amorous to the owner of the hand that feeds her. When Anu failed to spontaneously volunteer a 10-month stint at Clove-sitting, I was forced to come out and ask her, but being such a huge favor to ask of your friends, I attempted to do so in an indirect way. I emailed her. And cc’ed my former roommate Edna to spread the risk of the investment. In the email, I asked whether she (or my former roommate Edna) knew “anybody” who would be interested in taking care of the rotund, cranky beast for 10-11 months. The answer was made clear and I was then forced to resort to the fall back plan of passing Clove off on my parents.

My parents live in Vermont in a beautiful small house that has been shaped and re-shaped by my dad, with the help of his many friends who are in the business of shaping houses, over the years. It is surrounded with immaculate gardens, all plotted and tended by my parents, each with different themes and settings. There is a lovely sloping garden of primroses and hostas, a quaint stone path meandering through to provide the everyday garden stroller an intimate view of the varied flowering plants at their feet, under the shade of some trees of adequate but not intimidating height. In this same glade lie a few planted trees, and, importantly, what is referred to as “My Tree”. “My Tree” is actually a misnomer. It is a young oak tree, just over 10 years old that I gave to my father as a birthday gift. I grew the sapling from an acorn that I collected in 1996 while lunching under a particularly shady oak near Andover, MA. Each time I come home, I pay a visit to the tree to see how it is getting along, and my father is always happy to give me news of the tree’s wellbeing and talk about how deeply red its leaves turn in the fall. Last winter, the tree was gravely harmed by a snowfall that laidened the tree with snow so wet and heavy that it bent the young tree’s trunk to breaking, and my father was forced to prune the upper half of the tree to minimize the risk of infection and rot. The tree has recovered, somewhat, but perhaps it will never return to the tall, graceful, slender rising oak that it had once promised. Now it is more likely that it will display the architecture of a two-headed tree, which in the end may be nice as those are often the most fun to climb.

This garden is hemmed by a hedge of cedar to the south, and a stand of evergreens to the west, which is best to avoid if you tend to be the careless type as the evergreens mark the territory one could call the “outdoor litter box” for all household pets.

Veering round the cedar barrier, you come into the spiral garden. This plot was designed with paths that twist inward in such a way that the everyday stroller will always see new plants and flowers as they cast their gaze upon the garden beds along their walk. It’s quite beautiful in the summertime with the bee balm and delphiniums in flower. To the east of the spiral garden, and cut into the side of the hill is the small garden of heather, perched atop a curving stone wall. Circling back toward the house, the vegetable garden lies off the east, the Christmas tree stands tall and singular above the primrose garden, and you’ll pass the remnants of the first flower garden at my parents house, now simply a bed with a lilac bush or two. Behind the house lies another garden and on the west side of the house, another lawn with lilac, rose bushes and apple trees.

It is to this idyllic setting that I was to deposit Clove as a last resort. I say as a last resort because there were some caveats to this option. First, as the astute may have inferred, reading between the lines, my parents already had other pets. A cheerful Belgian Shepherd named Hanna and a cool-as-a-cucumber cat named Alex. Hanna and Alex are great friends, despite Hanna’s proclivity for a bit of cat-chasing, all in good fun of course. While Clove has lived with another cat in the past (Edna’s cat Pandora), she has rarely interacted with a dog and I was somewhat worried about how she would take to the situation. In addition, my parents’ pets are outdoors animals. Sure, they let them inside the house off and on throughout the day, but come bed time, it’s “out!” and the furry animals are sent packing before the fur-less ones trudge up to sleep. In the winter, on particularly cold nights, the furry ones are sometimes allowed some respite in the warmth of the house, but otherwise they huddle together in Hanna’s doghouse, keeping close to conserve warmth. Clove, being an indoor cat for her 9 years, would likely have some trouble adjusting to this, a life outdoors, but I had no doubt that she would love it in the end.

There was only one problem. My parents balked at the idea of keeping an indoor cat and I cannot blame them for balking. It is their house. The pets they keep live on their terms. Why should I expect any exceptions? I assumed that if they were to take care of Clove would live inside for a while until she adjusted, then gradually be shown the door. My parents have lost familiarity with such things as litter boxes, massive amounts of cat hair in the house, cats scratching on furniture, etc. Their cats have always done their business outside, whether it be littering, shedding, or scratching on objects. So upon discussion with me parents, it was made clear that the Vermont option was truly a last resort.

So I went looking for options. I emailed Christine, who is rather connected in the cat world. She is a wonderful person who has a deep love for all animals and is well connected in the pet-sitting scene in the Boston area. She recommended that I speak with another woman, who posted my email to a mailing list of cat-foster care folks, etc. The thing about email, which most people know, is that it never dies. It’s quite easy to pass the thing on, without a second thought, to your friends or acquaintances, and there’s an undefined length of time, the critical email event horizon, during which recipients will read the email and decide that it is worthwhile sending the email on others on their contact list, or even drafting a direct reply to the email. After a certain point in time, the email becomes dated. It is read but the reader realizes that the information is dated and they cut short a reply or a forward and simply delete the email, breaking the chain. Or it sits in an inbox, unread until someday that inbox is archived or cleaned out. Or it gets deleted without being opened. My hypothesis is that the relationship between the time-stamp of an email sent out to a large list of recipients and the readers[slash]passers-on per unit time post-initial send follows a distinct distribution, and my guess is poisson. Somebody could write a dissertation on this. Probably somebody already has.

So my email to Christine’s friend got sent around the horn and suddenly I was receiving emails from random people that I’ve never met, commiserating with my situation. Most of them were of the variety of “I wish I could help you out, but unfortunately ____. I will ask around for you, and pass your email on to my friend(s).” Others were interested in taking Clove, as they had small children that might like to have a cat about the house. My good friend Jason was interested as his son Louis has apparently become fond of pets, and he thought that maybe it would be good for Louis. I adore Louis. He’s an adventurous toddler, brimming with character, determination and spunk. He has a great sense of curiosity about him, and he is not shy to take on new things. But given that Clove occasionally hisses and swats a paw at me, I had to admit to Jason that Clove probably wasn’t the appropriate cat for Louis. I similarly turned down all other solicitors that proposed to take on Clove as a companion for their children.

I did receive one rather odd email; one person emailed to say that my parents were essentially insensitive jerks for not readily accepting Clove and good luck with finding a place for her. I was baffled. I didn’t know this person from Adam, and yet they felt qualified to criticize my parents. I deleted the email promptly.

I decided to email the administrator for Shanthi’s job in Botswana and ask her what the prospects are for domestic house cats in Botswana. Her reply set the whole thing in motion. She said that they had everything the young (well, 9 year old), healthy (well, 16 pounds) cat needed to survive in Botswana. Hills/Iams/Purina cat chow, litter, vets, everything. I also emailed a vet on the ground there. Apparently, the vet school associated with UPenn also sends vets to Botswana, so we’d have access to experienced vets while in Botswana. So I thought about it and made a decision.

I would bring Clove to Botswana. It was early July. I had a month and a half to make this happen.

The Story

2007-11-09T22:02:00.000+02:00

I have asked myself, “How did I get here?” Not once, not twice…multiple times. At least 3 times a week. The 5 second version is simple. My wife took a job as a hospitalist at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana and I came along for the adventure. But nothing is that simple, is it? Truth be told, I came here on an airplane, arriving at the dusty Gaborone airport on a late August afternoon, exhausted from a journey that took two days in flinging me across three continents an ocean and a sea. And I arrived frazzled as I had lost my cat. Yes, my cat. A 16 pound cat, in fact. One might think it impossible to lose touch with such a behemoth of fur and whiskers, but considering that nearly everybody arriving in Gaborone arrives sans one or more of their accompaniments, finding that my cat had gone missing was not surprising…just severely distressing. Who brings a cat from the U.S. all the way to Botswana? Ah…who indeed?