This morning while doing dishes after breakfast (egg and cheese omelet with toast, tomato and onion for me, and scrambled eggs and toast for Anita), there seemed to be warm water and some pressure from the hot water tap in the kitchen sink and also in the bathroom sink. I decided to be the brave one to try the shower, while Anita worked at the computer. I had very little pressure from the hand-held shower and by the time I had a good lather of shampoo on my head all I had was air coming from the shower head. Believe me, air does not rinse shampoo out of hair, not even if it is a short as mine is now.
I turned on the cold tap and the shower head began behaving as our pipes do at home when the water has been turn off for a while. Lots of popping and no water, then water and more popping. While I finished my shower with only cold water, I kept hoping that I was 'bleeding' the air out of the lines. I finished, gave Anita the bad news and the possible good news, and we both agreed that it might have not been good had she been the first to try the shower this morning.
Anita worked a couple of hours on the computer while I read, and now it's my turn to talk with all of you again. She went in to shower, and just came out to kiss my head and hug me because she had a shower of totally hot water. Guess I've learned something else from my wonderful husband as he fixes things around the house. Now that we are both clean, I can go back to yesterday and bring you up to date.
Before most of us were up and moving around yesterday morning, I was sitting out in the garden, enjoying the quiet, sunshine and breeze when an amazing sound and event interrupted my reverie. A trash truck pulled to a stop in front of the gate to the compound, three workers jumped off the truck, came in through the gate and collected the trash that was in a 55-gallon drum just to the inside of the gate. The three workers were one man and two women - the women in skirts, stacked short heeled shoes and gloves as we might use to wash dishes.
Ordinary? - nope not to my Botswana experience! This was a garbage truck just like we see at home, and I had never seen a truck like this before, and never seen trash collected. Trash was an interesting experience in 1990. Home trash was burned in 55-gallon drums right on Brian's property. Along those dusty, sandy roads, glitter would sometimes appear in the distance. Sometimes it was a single aluminum can, more often it was a mound of trash.
Brian explained that individuals simply disposed of their trash along the road. If someone else saw that trash, they might throw theirs at the same point. Eventually the mound was created. Several kilometers separated the mounds, so that the whole road did not have lots of trash every where.
Now with all the pull-off areas where the bus stops to pick up passengers, and the private "little white vans" (just like Mma Ramotswe) also pick up passengers, there are trash cans mounted on poles. 
And people apparently have developed the desire to contain their trash. AND, the goats have learned how to tip the cans on their hooks so they can get to the trash for their snack. I saw one doing just that yesterday during our adventure.It took us a while to get ourselves going yesterday. Njale has been such a good travel agent for us that she has grown quite tired, and she is not sleeping well as we approach the day of spreading Brian's ashes, still scheduled for early tomorrow morning. (Refilwe is due home this evening from her school trip and we are hoping Bone will pick her up, bring her to Moshupa and stay the night. Sedi may also come this evening for the night, or will come early tomorrow.) Our extra guest and her children are staying at another home tonight so they will not interfere with our plans for tomorrow morning.
It was after 10 before we left Moshupa and at the turn to Manyana, where there are ancient rock paintings that Anita hopes to see, we drove almost immediately into a small compound with two buildings. This was the factory where a friend of Njale's works for a small corporation making Botswana herbal teas with mostly locally grown plants. We have been drinking one in the evenings as it is a relaxer and stress reliever, also supposed to help a whole lot of other things according to the information leaflet.
The friend was pleased to see our interest and showed us the four types of tea made - three are differing flavors and are suggested for similar herbal remedies. The fourth is made from Kalahari Devil's Claw, a spiky weed that grows in the desert and is used medicinally by the native San tribe. In addition to a long list of uses, this tea has precautions as well. I took photos of the dried form of the weed, its seed, and slices of the died tuber root, which is also used in the preparations.
We saw dried forms of the herb leaves including recognizable mint for one of the flavors. Next was the machine that grinds the dried leaves to powder, and finally a large machine which automatically forms the square tea bags with the powder coming from an overhead hopper. Unexpectedly she offered us samples of all four tea flavors although she did not have boxes to put them in. So she put them in plastic bags with the informational leaflets. The Devil's Claw is in a box.
Njale asked me how I would take these home as the bags as the herbs in them look very much like other stuff that might not be good to bring home. I think I will put them in the box that we intend to mail home. That box will also include the lovely wooden box with Brian's ashes, and other purchases and clothing not to be used after leaving Botswana. We will think about the teas a bit before we actually send them.This lady is also a friend of Njale's who has never been married. Her mother has died, and a sister is to be married. At the women's ceremony that I attended in 1990, Njale was brought to a special animal skin in front of the special women in her life and Brian's - Mom, me, Mrs. DiSale and some aunties and cousins. Njale's mother and a couple of other women, perhaps Njale's aunts spoke to her. With translation, I learned that she was being instructed as to how to be a good Botswana wife - have tea ready for hubby when he returns home, cook good meals, don't talk back, don't ask where he has been or when he will return, and other similar traditions. Later I explained to Njale what while I respected her traditions, I wanted her to know that she was now a Trennepohl and that came with all the rights and privileges associated with our traditions.
Anyway, this lady can not be the instructor to the future bride. Only women who have been married can take this role, and Njale is being asked to assist with the wedding in November or December. It is an honor to be asked, and she will probably do it. They spoke again about this request before we left the compound.
Back on the road to Gaborone, we decided that it was very close to lunch so we stopped at a grocery on the outskirts of the city to pick up picnic lunch material to eat when we found a shady place. We were heading for Mochudi and a museum that had been recommended for us by another of Njale's friend. Mochudi figures importantly in some of the novels in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, so I was pleased to be able to visit this city.
Mochudi is much smaller than Moshupa and the museum is at the top of one of the high hills that surround the village. The road to the museum is quite well kept until you pass a lavish compound almost at the top, then it turns quite steep down the other side of the hill for a short distance to the parking lot of the museum. On the way back from the museum, Njale told us that the compound belonged to the village chief.The museum used to have the local school and is now a small but interesting collection of not only the history of Mochudi, but also, in many ways, a history of Botswana from the time it became a British protectorate until after it gained its independence. Unfortunately, no photos were permitted inside the museum. Anita and I were fascinated by the very old photographs of chiefs, initiation ceremonies for young boys and girls, ceremonies with British dignitaries, pots and other implements used in the late 1800s and early 1990. There were letters and diaries and beautiful tapestries that told the stories of some of the chiefs.
The one letter that was most moving to me was a translation of a letter written to Queen Victoria in 1895 by the current chief of Mochudi. In it he pleaded to remain under the protection of the Queen. Apparently there was some talk of selling the land to a corporation, and the chief did not believe that this would be the best for his people, who were his responsibility. Whether this letter changed the possible history of Bechuanaland (as Botswana was called until its independence) or not, is hard to tell. But it must have played some part because the country remained a British Protectorate until the mid 1960s.
Surrounding the museum and still on the top of the hill were amazing rocks. Much of Botswana is flat, especially in the Kalahari Desert and central areas. This area of Botswana has quite a number of hills of various heights, and this one in Mochudi was the highest I have been in Botswana. As we walked around the building and climbed some of the rocky areas, we looking into the valley that contains Mochudi. The views were spectacular, and I shot many photos from this location. Hills and the rocks that top them play important rolls in some of the traditional legends and stories of the Batswana culture.
The two photos on the left are from Mochudi. The photo on the right above is one of the rocky hills right in Moshupa, and I think it shows the beauty of these rocky areas better than the photos I took in Mochudi.
Instead of coming directly back to Gaborone, Njale took us to another area of Mochudi where we met Bob and Bofile Williams, longtime friends of Brian's.
Bob, Brian, Curt Hansen, and Peter Holly all arrived in Botswana around the same time. All but Peter were in the Peace Corps and all were educators, and all settled in Botswana. I had not met Bob or his wife - they as well as Curt were in the US while we were here in 1990 for the wedding. (Curt lived in Moshupa at the time of the wedding; he now has two homes in Mochudi, one quite close to Bob's. We are to perhaps visit with Curt before we leave Botswana as he is due home from South Africa tomorrow.) Bob lives in Mochudi now and we spent about an hour reminiscing about Brian, softball which all three encouraged and coached, and Botswana in general.Bob's children are in college, one in Canada and one at the University in Gaborone. Bob and his wife will be coming to the US soon for a 4 month visit with family and friends. They will be in the Baltimore region, so I have invited them for a visit if they have time. They also know Gary and Baba Whisler who live up in PA who are also friends from the Peace Corp and Botswana.
The road out of Mochudi from this area was similar to the roads in 1990 including a couple of concrete dips where water will flow during the rainy season. Anita hopes we are back in this area so she can take a photo of the sign that marks these crossings - it is shaped like a bowl with a wavy line inside the bowl. Most of the time the crossings are just dips in the road, as rain in infrequent throughout most of the year.
Back to Gaborone, and a stop at the grocery and pharmacy - Anita and Njale needed the pharmacy, and we had a list of stuff needed to restock the kitchen. This stop make our leaving Gaborone difficult, as we hit rush hour. We were later getting back to Gaborone than we have been since arriving.
The skies were very clear and as I looked out the side window, I realized the sky was filled with stars. I had not seen a sky like this since a trip to the Grand Canyon in 2000. At one point, Njale stopped the car so Anita and I could get out, walk a little way from the car and the lights of cars passing on the road. It had occurred to me that we were in the southern hemisphere and there would be no north star or big dipper. The darkness was so complete and the sky so filled with stars that the Milky Way was visible.
During our trip to Australia, Jim and I joined a nighttime program with a ranger while staying near Ayers Rock. The ranger used 1,000,000 candle-watt lantern to shoot a beam in the sky pointing to southern constellations while he told traditional stories of the constellations. If my memory was correct from 20 years ago, I was able to show Anita the Southern Cross. If my memory was incorrect, it will still remain the Southern Cross for both of us until we are corrected. Since we are hoping for a night-time game drive next week during our safari, we might have a driver who can confirm my memory, or at least correctly identify the constellations.
We arrived home finally, put away the groceries, heated the fish we had purchased at the grocery, and had a late dinner. Njale could hardly stay awake, and our guests were not back yet. Finally Anita and I convinced Njale to go to bed - we would remain up until she returned home with her children. (She had spent the day helping the family prepare for the funeral that had brought her to Moshupa.) She arrived home later than Anita and I had hoped as we were tired as well. Around 11:30, we were able to go lock the front gate and lock and bar the front door. We went to bed and were not too long going to sleep. The end of another satisfying day.
We are still alone, and waiting for Njale to return. Anita has just started some laundry for us, and I am about to finish this entry.
Good reading, my friends.
