Botswana Bound: Random Mish-Mash of Events

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: