Happy New Year!

Posted on January 7th, 2007 by Christelle.
Categories: Africa, Botswana.

I cannot believe it’s 2007 already! I’ve been in Botswana for 3 months now; it’s almost time to move on…

At the beginning of December, I finally went to the Okavango delta (THE Botswana tourist attraction) for 2 days. It was worth; it’s breath taking, so beautiful… very green, water and birds everywhere, elephants, etc… I tried to catch the beauty of it in my picture for you but reality is always better than the pictures!

We had the Christmas party at camp mid-December. All the staff and the village representatives (chief, policeman, nurse, etc) were there. There was some dancing, singing, eating, drinking and 1000’s of zebra’s at the water hole! Amazing… Everyone was happy; it felt great to be part of the “Meno A Kwena” family. I loved it.

I celebrated ‘real’ Christmas in Maun, at a lodge with some friends. We had a good party and as usual I danced all night long… I had muscle-ache in my legs in the morning!!! I was back to camp from the 26th until the 31st; we had quite a busy week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve with about 10 clients every day. It was actually nice to have a busy camp again and buzz around like a little busy bee : )

One night, just after the last client went to bed, I was finishing my wine when we heard a lion roaring… very close, just behind the work camp which is 200 meters from the camp fire where we were sitting!!! I felt like I was shrinking and my chair was growing… so small… This time, I was actually quite scared. We slowly and carefully got into the car and went looking for this lion. We found her (it was a lioness) but she ran away quickly. Jeff, one of the camp guides, found some small spoors from the lion cubs. It must have been the mummy! That was exciting…

The rainy season has finally arrived; it’s been almost 2 months too late… We got 3 big storms this past week and you know what? It’s not fun to live in a tent when it’s raining!!! Everything gets wet, your bed and clothes are always damp, you take a nice hot shower and when you’re finished you get another one! Ah well, that’s the other side of life in the bush : ) Anyhow, now I’m in a nice lodge room in Maun; everything is dry and I don’t have to brave Mother Nature’s elements to get to the bathroom- luxury!

Bizarrely I seem to meet people I know everywhere I go… here is my latest one. I’m driving 4 clients from Maun to the camp and we do the usual chat: where are you from, what do you do, etc… when I said that I lived in Utrecht for 10 years, one of the guys called Chris goes “no way, I lived there for 8 years!”
Me:“Oh really, how funny! Where did you work?”
Chris: “Amersfoort”
Me (At this point I’m looking in the rear mirror to have a good look at him): “Wait a minute! At Sun Microsystems?”
Chris: “Yes!!!”
Me: “Do you know Sylvie van Dam”
Chris: “Oh my god! Yes, I know her!!!”
To cut a story short, my friend Sylvie invited me to have dinner with some of her colleagues one night and I met Chris. He was just about to leave for Botswana. That was about 3 years ago and he’s still there. The world is SO small!!! It was nice to have those 4 in camp and we had some good fun.

Another little story about how some things will never change… I’m driving 5 clients back to Maun of the 31st of December. Everything’s going well; we’re arriving at Motopi (the only town between Maun and the camp) and I noticed a little red lamp flashing on the dashboard… Merde!!!! That’s the petrol lamp; I’m almost out of petrol and there’s still 80 Kms to Maun; there’s no way I can make it! Of course there’s no petrol station before Maun. What?!?!? You need to check the petrol stand before hitting the road?!?!?… I know Jeff is following us in his car so I stop and while waiting for him I activate plan A: go and inquire if anyone in the town can sell me petrol. No-one has petrol so here goes plan A through the window! Plan B is a half working plan: Jeff piles up the clients into his car to drive them to Maun to catch their flights but he doesn’t think I’ve got enough petrol to get back to camp to refuel (we keep fuel at camp) so I’m stuck in Motopi! And here comes plan C: I wait for one of the guys from camp to bring me petrol. I waited about 2 hours; it took some time before David reached someone at camp or he was just teaching me a lesson (!?!?!?). It was very interesting; the entire town came to chat with me or to just have a look at the white girl sitting under the porch of the general store. What is she doing here??!?!?!? Eventually someone arrived with petrol and I could leave. I didn’t have a flat tire, didn’t hit any cows or donkeys on my way and I made it safely to Maun. That was the last Christelle blunder of 2006!

We had a huge party for New Year with the same suspects as for Christmas. We drank, danced and laughed our heads off… until 5 am. 2007 started very well for me.

All my best wishes for 2007!!!!

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