Our blog is becoming less and less active and I feel like this reflects some settling into routine for us. We now have day to day responsibilities and tasks which leave us wondering why we are here and whether or not the Kgetleng River APO will be any better for our having been here or if the actual work of the Peace Corps is just there to support our ambitions to see more and more of the world in the amble leave time Peace Corps gives us.
One month from today we leave for a one-week trip that will take us to the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands, some more world renowned game reserves, white-water rafting in Swaziland, and the very famous Kruger National Park. I would fill in more details but I'm sure the trip will produce nice anecdotes and photographs that will be more entertaining. We will be traveling with one of our fellow volunteers, Anne, and a friend of Liz's from her time at Cambridge who will be our first overseas visitor.
In mid-June, my Mom will come to visit. I am very proud of her for braving World Cup inflated fares, anti-fraud paranoid credit cards and fear-mongering travel nurses all months before she even steps foot on the continent. I am super excited for this trip. Anne will also be joining us for this trip. This should be a truly epic overland adventure.
The first destination is Nata, Botswana. Nearby, is the Makgadikgadi Pan which is the remnant of an inland sea.
We will travel to the Okavango Delta in northwestern Botswana which I first learned about watching Episode 1 of the "Planet Earth" television series. Of all the places that David Attenburough and his BBC produced nature documentaries has shown me on this planet, the Okavango Delta struck me as really an amazing place to go. For those of you unlucky enough to have not seen this great series, the Okavango Delta is an inland delta that floods on a yearly basis after the wet season in Angola creating a boon for wildlife which travels from hundreds of kilometers around to enjoy a season of plenty. We will take a motor boat to an island deep in the delta and from there we can tour on foot or in a traditional dugout canoe called a mokoro. Based in the city of Maun we will also hire a tour in the Chobe National Park, known for some of the highest concentrations of elephants anywhere in the world.
From there we will travel to Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. This was specially requested as something my Mom wanted to see. We had every intention of making this destination a part of our time here and are glad to share it with my Mom.
Our two-week tour will end as we travel south to the Great Zimbabwean Ruins. After that we will rest for at day at Bela-Bela near where we had our Pre-Service Training and from there we will say farewell to Mom at the Jo'burg airport.
Will all this to look forward to, it's hard to be excited about traveling to far flung deep rural villages to sit with a Physical Sciences teacher for 40 minutes on a regular basis, but things are now clearing up in my schedule that I should be able to start doing more support with educators and learners.
After June we won't get much a break at all until the following Christmas when we are thinking we will try and tackle getting to Namibia for the Etosha Game Reserve and the Skeleton Coast.
I've already decided that I need a new camera. The one I have is good and I hope the readers of this blog have enjoyed the pictures Liz and I have produced. I assure you though, that they represent a small fraction of the flora and fauna we've witnessed through binoculars. Even animals that are only 100 ft or so away are sometimes hard to photograph and I find myself lamenting the number of pictures I have where the auto-focus has found the grass by the side of the road and the rhino is a greyish-brownish blob in the background.
Some may think that we are treating our Peace Corps service as an extended vacation. I assure you all that this is not at all true. We do work everyday and struggle with trying to live off our living allowance which is meager. But we try to focus on the positive because we do feel really lucky to be in a place so rich with untamed wildnerness. Traveling is a major part of the Peace Corps and they do what they can to encourage it amongst the volunteers. They want us to return with stories of what Southern Africa is like in a way that Nat. Geo. can't really communicate.
1 comments:
You guys are amazing! If more people had the positive energy that you guys have the world would be a much better place. I totally admire the work you are doing and how your amazing outlook can make me jealous that I'm not in your shoes! I love you guys and miss you.
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