Internet at home

For the first time since seminary in South Carolina (summer of 1996), we have internet access in our own home! Not as fast as the US but what a blessing to be able to get and send email from here, without having to drive to the library or into town. Sigh.

Hopefully, this will affect my blog-posting in a positive way. My postings have been few and far between of late.

Also, for those who may not know, we just got back from vacationing with my brother, Josh. He came on June 30, left on July 11. We're trying to get back into the swing of things now.

Hoping to write a vacation blog-post in the near future, with some very cool photos, once I get those photos uploaded to Facebook.

Water, water everywhere

Last night, we had a recurring issue come to an end… we hope. We've been without water for the better part of the last 2 months. By "without", I don't just mean none at all; I also include the water pressure being so low that we turn on the tap in the tub, put a bucket under it, wait all day long for it to fill. Then, we filter that for drinking and hopefully wash some dishes and ourselves too. Washing laundry? Right out - not enough pressure to run the machine. Let's just say logistics have been an issue for a bit. It was nice to take a vacation and sleep places other than home just so we could bathe properly. You get the idea.

We've been back and forth with water affairs and the landlady, trying to figure out the problem. As we talked to others in the neighborhood, it became evident that this was a region-wide issue: half of Maun was having the same water issues. Early on this week, we talked to someone who knew the issue: the floods. Oh, the irony. Yes, someone forgot to raise the pumps in the delta so, when the floods came, they were submerged and the diesel engine cut out. That's why we've been having water issues. It's taken this long to get them fixed.

Ah well. I'm doing laundry like a madwoman today, on the off chance that the fix is temporary. It's just hard to predict these days. After that, I think I'll wash my hair. Thank God for a country where a married woman is expected to wear a scarf fully covering her hair. These last 2 months would have had more awkward days in public for me without that detail.

images from the Maun Festival 2009

Rob happily watches the marimba band, Bana ba Metsi


Subiya dancers


therapy: Eshinee handles a live mole snake… constrictor, not venomous


Eshinee and Bonty at the Shiyeyi Language Project booth


The Chinese Maun community does the dragon thing in the parade

Life in all its permutations

The past few weeks have been a bit tumultuous. We've diversified our initial course of Setswana study, basically developing our own course (with the help of a few Setswana speaking friends and an old Peace Corps manual from the sixties). When we're finished, we'll have something that could be used by fellow LBTers coming, if they find they have need of it. In the midst of all this, there was a death in the church family, the niece of some friends of ours, and the resulting funeral preparations and ceremony was the better part of a week. I still haven't written a report on the Wayeyi festival for the blog but I'm not sure how soon that'll even be feasible; our Setswana official learning period will be ending in July and we really want to have a solid basis before I move on to Shiyeyi.

So, it's my birthday next week. In its honor, we're making a personal trip to Gaborone, a 3 day vacation-like thing. True, it's also to get a much needed oil change done on the company car, meet with Maria at ELCB, pick up an immigration document for the Rudowskes, maybe meet with Lydia (if she's available), pick up our mail in Francistown on the way back. But, for me, it's about my birthday. I mean, I haven't gone to a movie in months. We haven't even got a TV yet. I'm a little visual entertainment deprived. Also, I'm getting my hair hennaed again. I do have some henna on hand but it sure is nice to have someone else do it for me. With the dry heat up here, anything I can do to keep my hair manageable and reasonably attractive is a help.

In other news, we're performing at Poetavango on Saturday (tomorrow). Poetavango is a spoken word poetry event that happens every month here in Maun. Most performers are local but we went a few months ago with Bonty and we're asked to do something, so we did. Rob sang “The Dog”, I recited an old poem I write back in high school. The next month the we went, we sang “In the Resurrection” (these are songs Rob has written, by the way). We were well received and they asked us to keep coming. So, we are. This month, it's all Eshinee songs: “Time to Kill”, “Little Birds” and “Revenge is Sweet”. These are 3 short songs; Rob's are usually much longer than typical songs, that's why he only does one. Since it is actually a poetry venue, not an open mike, we've decided to keep our contributions to stuff we've actually written ourselves, the stuff that would be solid poetry if we took away the music.

More video and some photos

I intend to write more on the events of the past 2 weeks sometime this week. In the meantime, here's more footage from our Facebook site. Worth thousands of words, eh?


More elephants!


Rob plays lead guitar at music camp


at the writers' workshop


flooding at the chalets where we usually stay at the Swamp Stop in Sepopa


at the writers' workshop


guinea fowl at the Swamp Stop


flooding at the Swamp Stop


Tugwe, an ing'anga from Namibia, with our car


the flooding of the road leading to the Swamp Stop


at the Wayeyi Festival in Gumare


singers at the workshop


Rob records newly translated hymns