Cowboy Pilots in the Okavanga Delta

January 31st and February 1, 2010

Maun / Okavango Delta, Botswana

From our camp in Maun we began our foray into the Delta, which boasts all kinds of wildlife. We drove to the edge of the delta and then hopped into mokoros, which are canoes guided by polers which were traditionally made from sausage trees and are currently made out of fibreglass (to conserve the sausage trees). My poler, Leba, was a Tswana, and we had a great time chatting in Setswana. The other polers were talking about me, in Setswana. They were saying "That lekgoa (white person) is speaking Setswana. Who taught her how to speak Setswana?" The thing I love about being conversant in another language is that you know what people are saying about you!

We ended up on an island, where our guides built a fire and dug us a toilet with a shovel. The shovel served as the "door" to the toilet. When the shovel stood at the entrance, the toilet was free; when it was gone, it was occupied. Our island boasted a "swimming pool," a swimmable bit of the Delta. We spent the afternoon swimming and then we went on a nature walk with our guides, which turned out to be kind of like a forced march. The guide was a little shy, so instead of telling us about the flora and fauna we saw, he marched us through it, very quickly. We marched along in the stifling late afternoon, avoiding spring hare holes. After two hours, we were relieved to return to the camp. In the evening, we took a final dip in the "swimming pool" and roasted our dinner, potjiekos ("pot food," vegetables and potatoes and meat) in a three legged pot over the fire. For dessert, we toasted marshmallows over the fire.

The next morning, we rose at the crack of dawn for another nature walk in the Delta. This time, it was leisurely and interesting. After a breakfast of scones heated over the fire, we hopped into mokoros and returned to our camp in Maun, in time for our afternoon flight in prop planes over the Delta. As it turned out, I was in a different plane from the other seven members of my group, and we were flying side by side over the Delta. Our pilots, as it turned out, were absolute maniacs and started doing tricks and turns. The other plane swooped down in front of my plane, crazy close, startling my pilot, and then did some twirly-twirls and plummeted down towards the ground. They're going to crash, I thought, with interest. Ten meters above the ground, the pilot pulled the plane upwards. Everyone was spared. Inspired by the other plane, my pilot started in on some tricks, until a passenger, an Australian, threatened to vomit. "I swear, if you do that again, I'm going to spew!" she hollered. I didn't doubt that she meant it. I was very, very happy to be on God's good earth when we landed. This is a shot of the Delta from above.

Overall, I am absolutely loving Botswana! It's wonderful to speak Setswana again, and everyone is so friendly! It's also a country with a very small population (about 2 million people) and the spaces are big and empty. It reminds me of the Northwest Province of South Africa, where I lived as a PCV, and no surprise, the NP is due south a couple of hundred kilometers.

In other news, I've started a Coke-a-day habit and I've become a connoisseur--I'll only drink Coke out of a glass bottles, not aluminum! I'm also on one Savanna Dry a day habit, but I'm starting to get a little tired of it. You can only drink cider every day for so many days until you get a little sick of it.

Books read: Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda by Rosamund Halsey Carr. The story of a white plantation owner's life in Rwanda from pre-independence to the post-genocide.