Happy Thanksgiving

Happy gobble gobble y'all. Lance and I just got back from the ambassador's house for Thanksgiving dinner and are both quite thankful that we didn't totally embarrass ourselves.

There was polite conversation with bosses. There was a fancy diner served on family china. It was faux pas potential all over the place and we barely escaped with our lives.

I think it went well but, just in case, I'll let you know if our passports get revoked in the morning.

The Adventures of "Stupidkitten" aka the "luckiest cat ever"

Hey all, this is Lance,

I guess it's time for me to contribute to this Blog (and Kristin refused to post this story anyway)

Monday morning we had a very unexpected house guest. Kristin was on her way to a cooking class with a very grandmotherly Muslim lady, who was introducing her to the group, when they almost hit a little brown kitten which was curled up in fear in the middle of the busy road behind our house. They wanted to stop and get the kitten but there was just too much traffic to even consider it.

Fast forward three hours...

I just returned from French class (bien sur) when Kristin gets home. She is excitedly talking about her morning with a whole group of grandmotherly Muslim ladies (talk about an interesting cultural experience!) When she suddenly stops mid sentence and asks, "is that a cat sitting on our wall?" We go outside an sure enough there is a tiny brown kitten caught in the three layered (yes three! Spikes, barbed wire and electrical) security fence on top of our outer wall. The kitten is pathetically suspended with one paw in the air like a string puppet. So I quickly go over and start untangling the kitten. Fortunately the kitten was mostly caught up in the electrical fence, and even more fortunately we had the fence turned off that morning. As soon as I approached the kitten started hissing and squirming in terror. I get it untangled without too much trouble and it immediately jumps out of my hands and runs for into the bushes in our yard.

Ok, What now? Here I am dressed for a day at the Embassy (nice shirt,tie, pants and shoes) and I have a tiny terrified kitten in my yard in Botswana. Where the heck does a little kitten come from in Botswana anyway? The Botswana are not big on pets, other than big guard dogs and they are not pets, but we have seen a few stray cats here and there. Kristin quickly catches me up on the story of the kitten she almost hit in the road directly behind the wall the cat had been stuck on. Obviously it was the same cat and obviously it was having a bad day.

Now, an older cat even a young adolescent cat I would have said "heck its a stray and stray cats know how to survive on their own , but this was not a cat this was a kitten and a kitten so small I was almost surprised it had it's eyes open. Ok, if we leave it alone I might as well run it over with the car or throw it to the dogs next door because it's not going to make it out there.

But, man... we really do not need a cat!

"Ok, lets get it inside and then we can figure it out" if it climbs over the wall it's a dead cat. Ok, so in my embassy clothes I head for the bushes to catch this thing.

A word about Botswana plants, Botswana is in the Kalahari desert so, you guessed it, lots of cactus, and anything not a cactus has huge thorns on it anyway.

As I approach the cat hides in the thickest thorniest spot in the garden... joy. I try to maneuver my way around, behind and between the cacti hoping to flush the cat into the open (getting stuck a few times in the process). Hey it works! Out runs the kitten, but now I'm semi-stuck in the cacti, and Kristin has gone inside (huh?) and the kitten starts to climb the concrete wall (quite impressively in fact).

Just as I am getting loose from the cacti, out comes Kristin. I tell her to grab the kitten before it gets over the wall. She goes after the kitten, and the kitten jumps off the wall and runs back into the cacti. $%#$^!!!... I of course do the rational thing and begin to lecture Kristin on how she should have gone about catching a little kitten. (I was just trying to be helpful...really!) (Stupidkitten 1 - Lance 0)

Ok, back into the cacti, only this time the kitten isn't going to get flushed out quite so easily. The brush (I mean thorns) were just too thick to actually grab the kitten so Kristin hands me the pool net and I use the reverse pole end to coerce the kitten out of its hidy hole. Out goes the kitten and Kristin commences chasing the kitten around the pool area (A bit more methodically as I had instructed her, though why she listened to me I have no idea). Ok, I get out of the thorns and lo and behold Kristin has the kitten cornered in the bar area (yes we have a pool bar in deepest darkest Africa) In goes Lance, and out goes the kitten and back goes the kitten into the cacti. (Stupidkitten 2 -Lance 0 - Kristin 1)

Ok, back Lance goes into the cacti, out comes the kitten, out comes Lance (a little too fast this time, ouch!) around the side of the house goes Kristin and the kitten. Around the side of the house goes Lance and once again Kristin has the kitten cornered (this time in a cubby holed storage area. This is great! (way to listen to me again Kristin!) Its a one foot square two foot deep cubby with only one entrance. How much easier can it get? In goes Lance out comes the kitten and off it goes around the corner in the direction of, yes the cacti.
(Stupidkitten 3 - Lance 0 - Kristin 2)

Alright! The kitten decided to try going around the other side of the house and forgo the cacti, and that is a dead end! In goes the kitten, in goes Lance, out comes Lance... with the kitten! (now that's how you catch a one and a half pound kitten!)
(Stupidkitten 3 - Lance 7 (extra style points) - Kristin 2)

Ok, lets get this squirmy thing into the house. we go into the house. Kristin closes the door. I drop the kitten on the sofa. The kitten hides behind the couch. Kristin reminds me that we need to get the kitten into the guest bathroom.
(Stupidkitten 4- Lance 0 (that fumble at the goal line really hurt) - Kristin 3)

We pull out the couch, and in goes Lance. I successfully grab the kitten (see I'm getting good at this) and hurry from behind the couch to get the wiggling thing into the guest bath. rip!!! Ok. for those who missed earlier posts, the furniture the Army provided us is not the nicest stuff around, (as Kristin likes to say "the FAO furnature is muy feo!") Apparently the couch has this jagged piece of metal that sicks out from the back left corner and now my pants are torn all the way across one leg and the seam ripped down another 4 inches.
(stupidkitten 5-Lance 0 - Kristin 3) (Game, Set and Match!)

I put the kitten into the guest bath and go upstairs to change my pants and go back to work at the Embassy.

Ok now we have an 8 week old one and a half pound kitten who very quickly figured out that this was a much better deal than she had before. She is cute, snuggly, surprisingly healthy according to the vet, and currently purring contentedly on my lap.

We have guests coming in less than two weeks, we will be travelling to Angola and Mozambique in less than three and will pretty much spend the rest of our time in Africa travelling. The vet said that the animal shelter won't take kittens because 50-70% of them are dying from respiratory diseases. The locals apparently don't like cats, and the GS officer at the embassy has been trying to get rid of his litter of kittens for weeks.

We really do not need a cat!

So Kristin is trying as hard as she can to not become attached to it (I gave up the ghost immediately) and we have refused to name it. (it is currently called "stupidkitten" spoken under your breath as one word) So far we haven't found and takers for the kitten and we need to figure out who will take care of it while we are traveling.

We really do not need a cat, but its actually a really really nice cat.

It's all fun and games until...

It has come to my attention that my lovely and talented cousin Lauren received a concussion in a recent soccer game.

We all hope for her precious brain's continued recovery.

And that she will endeavor to be the kicker rather than the kickee from now on.

Or perhaps to just to avoid hitting things with her head in general.

Lauren, dear, if you are brain damaged now to the point that you can't major in Political Science I will understand. There is always Journalism to fall back on.

Not that you should do any more falling.

Seriously. Someone get this girl some pillows.

Your loving and now possibly slightly smarter cousin,
Kristin

the morning after

To quote the Danny Glover character from the Lethal Weapon movies, "I'm getting too old for this sh*t."

The good new: we had a lovely time, Lance looked very handsome and I got to wear the purple dress.

The even better news: it fit... mostly.

Seriously. I'm too old for this.

Okay, okay. Here are some pictures....

Here's Lance looking cute and blurry


















And me looking cute and blurry


















Air Force and Army representing in fine form
And the Marines escorting the most highly guarded cake in all of Botswana.
They brought it back eventually.

All done. All's well. I'm locking myself in the sewing room now for a little catch up.

having a ball

OK so the Marine Ball is tonight.

And for the record I think I have indulged in far less ridiculous self obsession with each passing year/ball/formal/whatever. Honestly, when Lance and I first went to prom I started getting ready months in advance. I could solved international land disputes with all the time and energy I've spent prepping for these things!

But today is the day to bring it so I'm indulging a little.

I am lap swimming, dress hemming, light food eating, hair miracle creating, deity begging and pantyhose finding.

Observations before I get started:

• I may never eat grilled chicken or celery again.
• Next year I'm springing for a tailor.
• Why oh why did I leave most of my ball appropriate support clothing in storage???
• We had people over on Tuesday night. One of the guests brought a cheese tray. The leftovers are still in the fridge. The cheddar... it calls to me.
  
• Strangely enough, I look bigger in my "back up dress" than my "first choice dress." Not fair.
  
• Self tanner smells HORRIBLE. But it works like a champ.
• And, oh for the love of God, let me remember to not shake the hand of the first person in the reception line.
  

OK, gotta get going.

FYI, it's a floor length, royal purple, backless (but not too low) satin bias cut dress with rhinestone accent. And I bought it on clearance for $35 in the Juniors section of Macy's.

Yeah, I said Juniors.

Tomorrow morning I start on world peace.

And a small stack of french toast.

You can go away to college, get married, raise well adjusted pets, have interesting jobs and move to Africa but you never really grow up.

(sigh) It has come to my attention that my mother (my wonderful mother) (my well meaning, beloved, and slightly protective mother) has mentioned to certain people that I mentioned that I wished there were more comments to the blog and stuff.

(sigh) This is her part of her job as a mom.

She does it well.

OK, for all you out there who are mothers, have mothers, or saw a mother once on tv please believe me as I say it is perfectly fine if no one ever comments on this blog at all for ever and ever as long as we all shall live. My psyche is intact. At least it is until I try to make sense of my ramblings from South Africa.

Really.

It's fine.

I love you Mom.

I'm going to get back to editing South Africa now.

At the foot of the Sani Pass

Once again, South Africa is beautiful y’all and we are loving it!
I'm writing from a B&B just at the foot of the Sani Pass and WOW! What’s funny is we weren’t even planning on staying here. It took longer getting out of Durban than we planned so are a few hours behind schedule. We made it to Hillsburough at 3 yesterday, looked at the mountain, looked at the setting sun and decided to crash for the evening.

Taking the advice of the local bookstore owner we found the Seaforth Country Lodge. I am soooooo regretting that second day in Durban now because it would be so awesome to take advantage of some of the hiking around here!!! As it stands we need to get to at least the capital of Lesotho tomorrow night, ideally hustle over to Bloemfontein back in South Africa.

We see amazing sites like on a vacation, eat great food like a vacation, take a few pictures and buy a few souvenirs like a vacation… but we are not on vacation.

So it's time to hit the road which in today’s case will be gravel and at a steep incline. A local asked Lance if he had experience driving a 4x4 up mountains. He didn’t miss a beat and says he had. Later on he tells me he does have a lot of experience with 4x4s. Of course they were government issued Humvees…

Eep.

See you on the other side of the mountain. In the meanwhile here are some snapshots of our time here.



In the meanwhile, someone please remind me to get a tripod...

Done Durban - now we never have to go back.

What to say about Durban?

You know what Durban looks like? It looks, and feels, like this.We spent two nights here at the Royal Hotel in the city center. 4 star hotel and there were stains on the floor and you had to pay for internet. Ugg.

Durban is a coastal town, known for it’s Port, old Sugar Storage Buildings and the vibrant communities that have grown from former doc workers. We took a 3 hour whirlwind tour just after arriving and saw some of the city’s high points (the ports, the mosque, low income high rises and neighborhood redevelopment). We also saw the Indian Market (well meaning tourist trap) and had a grand adventure trying to find store with sari fabric. We did. It looked like the stuff in Gabs but cost 2xs as much. Just goes to prove Gabs is great!

At the end of the tour we spent a little time at the the botanical gardens.zoom in on the one above, Dad, it's called a cannonball tree.

All the while the tour guide is filling us in on local politics (very interesting!) and his experiences working in the tourism industry for the last 20 years. He was yet another person that swore to us that crime isn’t as bad here as everyone says, then two minutes later he warns us not to leave our hotel after dark and proudly explained how the convention center can be locked down for conferences. Then he talked about his most recent mugging and how a friend of his was killed.

Another Durban fun fact: they are in the process changing the names of all the streets. You would think, ok this is cool way to acknolege heros of the anti aparthide era right? There why are there Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro roads? Why also is there a road named after a guy who set off a bomb killing 5 people at a shopping center in that very neighborhod? Seriously now.
To cap our Durban experience the next day, on our way out of town, we saw some street kids having a knife/rock fight. Yes, really. Very Lord of the Flies.

Lance just read over my shoulder and said, “They were trying to kill each other.” This might be true as once of them had a huge kitchen knife and there was a lot of big rock throwing. It looked more to me like one kid was encroaching in on another groups area and they were chasing him out. Of course the chasing went into traffic at a busy intersection. No one looked older than 9 and the smallest kid (6 maybe?) was the one with the knife. OK, sure, kids have turf wars everywhere. But this was in the suburbs in broad daylight! What goes on after dark?

We did have a great view from the hotel though and seeing the tide go in and out was impressive.
We also had some great meals. The first night was at the Ilundi Indian restraint. Samosas now rival cheese as my favorite food. On the second night it was the Royal Grill. It was very posh with a live pianist and chandeliers. Like dinners in New Jersey but without the veal. (Some of you know I'm not kidding!) Lance had the fillet and I had prawns.

At this point I must say thank you to the South African mining companies for artificially devaluing the Rand so they could get more government subsidies and so we can afford all this. Total dinner cost in what might have been the nicest place in town was about $40 US. Not bad.

Along the way we continued to talk with and listen to anyone who would talk with us about life in South Africa and what people think about the changes in the past 10 years, the impact of missionaries, splits within policial parties...

Frankly I'm ready for some good news and so ready to get out of the city.

Roorke's Drift Battlefield

So today Lance got his history on and we explored a battlefield or two with the help of a local guide.

Here they are talking strategy and the proper way to hang a map on a 4x4.Here we are at one of the monuments:

And here are cows:

You can never have enough cows.More pics:

And then we went to Durban.

Swaziland Crafts

I’m starting to get a better sense of the role fiber arts is playing in Southern Africa today. Whereas I expected indigenous fabrics to be the big story, what I’m really surprised by is the way fiber products are being successfully being created for the tourists. I was conflicted about this at first because something woven out of imported wool in a western style didn’t seem sufficiently “Authentic Africa” to me. This was short sighted on my part because I’m now learning about all the communities where women were taught how to weave or sew these little touristy things and are making a living with the profits. The places where these things are sold are pure tourist trap… but it really is for a good cause in this case.

Plus I get to stock up and both Lance listens to anyone who would tell him their story. Maybe tourist traps aren’t so bad in some contexts.

So here are two of the best places we've stopped at. First was Tintsaba at the Peak Fine Craft Center. They work with locally grown sisal to create baskets, place mats/coasters and the most gorgeous sisal jewelry. Here’s their story.Also in the same area is a wool weaving group. It was Sunday so they weren’t around but I did get some pics of the store. In the upper right of the second photo you can see the women who started this whole place a few years back. If you build it, and stock it with pretty things, tourists will come. And it works.

In a neighboring store I picked up a traditional Swazi maiden wrap modeled by the store clerk here. I dunno. I haven't actually seen anyone wearing these things anywhere but the tourist guides. It is still pretty cool fabric though. I did my part to support the local economy and we were back on the road. Next stop this insanity.You have never seen such a tourist trappy tourist trap in your life. Unless of course you have been to South Of The Border in which case ... you have.

I did not buy any fabric here. It just had a different vibe to it and the people selling couldn’t give me any background info. Plus I recognized some of it as basic African themed cotton prints available in Botswana. And the US. And probably China.

But behind all the stalls is a diamond in the rough and another example of fiber arts being used to support local charities. Check out Baobob Batiks. This stuff is the real deal you could smell the wax from outside. Inside two very patient women answered all my questions and had the biggest smile when I said, “Say.. crazy American tourist!” I bought a few batik napkins which I may actually just use as napkins. I know! Not cutting up fabric to sew together to make fabric. Scandal!

We ate lunch at the trippiest place I have ever been in my entire life.
Exhibition 1:

And 2:

Sitting among the trees (and oddly painted bugs) we relaxed and lost track of time a little. Lance looked at his watch, said "Uh we gotta go like now" and we were literally running for the border. Okay, driving is more like it but you see the border we were planning to cross closed at 4:30 that day and the next one north closed at 6:00 but it would have mean driving on dirt roads, through the woods, probably in the dark. YIKES.

So driving as fast as we could down this roadWe just made it to our first choice border in time. Phew! I mean just in time. We had like 5 minutes. The guards didn't seem to mind though. On the Swaziland side they were happily watching a WWE wrestling match on television.

We all had a good time filling out paperwork and talking about how Shawn Michaels is totally awesome. There was no tv or smiles on the South Africa side but the important thing is that we made it in time.

Next the battlefields of Roorke's Drift.

Swaziland is beautiful y'all...

But you will just have to trust me on this because I can't find any of the photos. I'll keep looking. You will just have to be satisfied with my midnight hotel ramblings. : )

Much of the north east of the country is timber territory with perfect rows of trees covering the hills. Did you know there are monkeys that live in the pine trees along the roads of Swaziland? Neither did I. Did you know there are pine trees in Africa? This place constantly surprises me. We checked out the local logging processing plant and did some exploring until it started to get dark.

So over the river and through the woods to the bed and breakfast we go. On the advice of the owner we head out to the dam hoping to find the restaurant open but it was closed to all non-guests for a wedding. We did get a few nice pictures though.


Didn’t see any hippos.

Or crocodiles

But I did get a picture of the rare and fascinating Jaywalking Lance.
Back on the road into "town" and up to a bar/restaurant/dive which actually was mostly a bar. After confirming that they did actually serve food the waitress escorted us to a room in the back I ordered the beef stir fry, Lance the ox tale with rice and we traded mid way through.

Okay, we thought we were getting our FAO on with the last dish. I mean "ox tail" right? We have since discovered it wasn’t all that specific to the region but I say we get points for trying. Tasted pretty good. And very importantly neither one of us got sick. : )

In the hotel was this pretty cool batik behind the bed. Nice huh? The next day we got to see where it was made.

Soweto Township Tour

One of the best things we did while in Johannesburg was to go on a guided tour through Soweto Township. Having just experienced the Apartheid Museum it really gave a historical context to what we were seeing. Our guide was the amazing… a woman about our age who lived in Soweto until recently.

What to say about that tour? Well, as I’m writing this several days (and many towns later) I can say the poverty and housing situations are not limited to the bigger cities in the North East area of the country but they seem to have more of it. I also want to make it clear that I only photographed the novel/interesting stuff. The grocery stores, lower middle class looking neighborhoods (where Archbishop Desmond Tutu still lives omg) I didn't photograph. But there are there and in full use. Soweto was a crappy place to live, now tourism may be turning it around.

So let's see some touristy things....

The row houses you see in this picture are former miners houses from earlier in the 1900s.












Now you see the inspiration for the quilt to the right. : )

Men from neighboring countries would come in on the train and work the mines all over South Africa so you see these houses outside of many former mining towns. They aren’t too different from the houses near our house in Gaborone but, lined up as they are, it’s clear they were meant to be temporary dorms rather than neighborhoods. Since the 90s many of those houses have been turned over to the occupants after it was discovered that the cumulative rent paid is many more times what the land is worth now. So that's good.

And now KIDS!!! We went into the neighborhood you see in the pic above and visited an orphanage. They sang for us and smiled for our pictures
Orphanages and day care facilities are important in townships because honestly suffice to say, it sucks being a kid in Africa and these facilities keep them safe during the day. At night time they stay with people in the community who are paid to take care of them. We gave the women running it a few Rand and were again on our way.

**After re-reading our tour guide’s bio, I think her tours are a major source of funding for the facility. It was cheerful, the kids were runny nosed, inquisitive and adorable. There was at least one sneaky on though. According to one of the other tour members, one of them stole her water bottle out of her bag. Who knows. We were fine. Speaking of bags, I didn’t sneak any kids into my backpack though was mighty tempted. They were super cute.**

From there we drove by the water towers, one now painted to reflect the area's history. Rumor has it there is a company the offers bungee jumping in them now. The tv show, The Amazing Race set up a tightrope walk between them in a recent season. We did neither of these things because, theory or law, we respect gravity.

Next a look at one of one of the more run down neighborhoods.Notice the miner’s houses in the background beyond the field.

We went into this neighborhood and were led around by a 18ish y/o girl who lives there. I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures. I’m still not comfortable taking people’s pictures and was trying not to act the awkward tourist buy snapping photo’s of people’s homes. Maybe in a trip or two. Lance on the other hand...

So the girl took us to her home. Metal sheeting walls and a dirt floor but it was tidy. Her older sister and father were also there and we talked with him about sending the older sister to college and her hopes for the future. A few more Rand to our subcontracted tour guide and we were on the road again.

At this point, I’m realizing that our tour guide is really helping a lot of people back in Soweto. It was she who continually insisted that we not just take photo’s from afar but meet the people and get to know what their lives are like. "This is not a game drive" she would say. Of course the people we are visiting get donations for their time and openness so everyone wins.

Rather tough to visit was the Hector Pieterson Memorial and museum. It was here that our tour guide told us that she was a also student at the rally Hector was killed at and was friends with his sister. Giving these tours started out as sort of a therapy for her. She said in her job she meets people who were on all sides of apartheid's history and enjoys when she can help someone get a little more closure on the issue. She talked about a retired cop who came to her in tears and told here where he had buried the body of a child 20+ years ago so she could tell the family so a proper burial could be arranged. It was sobering to say the least.

So that was Soweto. Since then we have seen similar townships around many of the cities we have seen in South Africa. They seem to be the biggest in the northeast but that could just be due to more new immigrants settling there rather then continuing south. Lance is reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and said when Nelson was young he moved to Johannesburg to make a living. Heck, the name translates to Place of Gold in many African languages. Who could resist?

Viva El Taco!

Yeah, I'll take one black beret burrito, a side of counterculture chips and and large socialism soda please....