Holidays

This is probably our last post for 2007. Wednesday we had our good-bye lunch with Padi & Hamish, cause they'll be in New Zealand till January 20. Thursday there was the farewell dinner with Pelo & Jeff; they'll spend Christmas in Florida. Saturday is dedicated to the big do at Botswana University for Bernhard, who is retiring. Early Sunday morning we'll drive halfway Maputo.


Crossing the Botswana/RSA-border and vice versa is easy. The middle name of a lot of RSA-officials is Corruption, but by now we know the usual scams, and we look local enough (Bram's Tswana and Maud's Afrikaans also helps) to get over unscarred. Word has it the Mozambican side of the border is a challenge, and our Portuguese is very, very little. Word also has it Monday-afternoon, when we'll cross, isn't that bad...
Anyway, we're well ahead of the big holiday-migration, and we'll drive back before everyone else returns, so that should help. The first week of January we hope to post our Moz- & Swazi-adventures.


Our Botswana cell-numbers will be out of the air until December 30 or 31. Part of the time our South African cell-numbers will work, and when we get our hands on a Moz-sim-card, we'll text the number to Bram's siblings.
We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a wonderful start of 2008!

Baby-shower

Last Saturday we attended our first Botswana Baby Shower. In January Kgakgamatso's (the woman who works in Hille's bar) second (& last) born will arrive. Lastborn because, like a lot of Batswana-women nowadays, Kgakgamatso thinks two is a crowd already, considering the cost of school-uniforms, food, shoes, and etc. Women like our neighbour Mma Binkie, who has had at least eight kids, are really getting scarce. Especially because a lot of dads disappear after conception.
The man who fathered Kgakgie's baby fled to Francistown (500 k's up north). By law men are required to pay a monthly allowance for their kids, but there's the usual gap between law and law-enforcement. The mothers to the fathers do tend to help out a bit, so the grandmother to the firstborn was powerfully present at the shower.


The set-up is like any Botswana-party: 'we supply food, music, company, and space, bring your own drinks and enjoy'. Special about the baby-shower are the cuddly invitations and the required gate-pass: 'any baby product'. Also special is 'the questioning' (of the mother), but we missed that part because Maud managed to hurt her back while doing the weekly washing, so we couldn't stay that long.


When the baby is about four months there'll be another party to show the kid to the world. The first three months mom & baby are supposed to be confined to a special hut in the (grand)mother's yard. That's another thing a lot of women don't want anymore. They might invite their mom over to take care of everything the first three months, but they stay at home. Some of the fathers who don't disappear are not that happy about this change of custom. Instead of loads of time to party with the boys they get three months of living together with their mother in law...


This revokes a memory. January 2006 a bunch of the boys, including us, were having beers & whiskeys at Bull & Bush (Maud is always allowed to join the boys). Not that our lot wanted to (yeah, sure), but we had to stand by our friend Motushi. Tushi was waiting for The Phone Call: you've got a healthy daughter/son. The father isn't allowed anywhere near the maternity ward, so you just have to sit in the bar with your friends...


Tushi's son Tom (l) en Edo (r) in our yard

Sweetie

Bram’s trying to bond with this sweetie, who lives in a pilar of our wall.

Graduation Party

The dogs aren't able to move anymore.
Security-wise Yvonne's Graduation Party was a big hassle for them, with all this strangers strolling past our yard on their way to Jeff's plot, and the music and voices all night through. But now that their bellies are almost bursting with their share of the leftovers, they're convinced parties are great.


Saturday-afternoon adults were allowed on the premises. The youngsters were preparing for a wild night by being very quiet. Yvonne's brother Edu, Tom and the other kids succeeded in playing with the toys, instead of fighting over them. The tables almost collapsed under the lunch-goodies, and we oldies had a nice, mellow afternoon.


Around sunset the elderly people were told to get lost, so the real party could start. Jeff tried to hang on, posing as one of the jolly party-boys, but around eight he turned up at our house for comfort (they implied he's an over sixty muna mogola) and ice cream.


Like a good uncle Bram walked over around 5:00 am to check the nieces. The owner of the party was sleeping soundly in a car, some people were still partying, and others tried to clean the yard before Jeff & Pelo would come out of the house.


I wrote this post two weeks ago, just after the party, but it took time to assemble the pictures. Our party-mood is totally gone now because we lost the 'little' dog Abraham jr. last Friday. Having to miss his cheerful company from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep makes life pretty gloomy.

Help!!!

Help!!!
We bartered design work for an extensive kitchen machine. After swapping the artwork for a large box saying 'Bosch profi mixx 46' our next stop was at a supplier located across a not yet explored fruit & veggie wholesale. Maud remembered the owner is an Indian (we met while harassing a bookkeeper, both of us trying to get long overdue cheques). The kitchen machine asks for things to be processed, so she started the hunt for necessities like chickpeas and bulgur there and then.
Now we have the chickpeas, but we lack the basic recipe for humus. Although the first experiment tastes nice enough, Maud is sure she forgot one or two fundamental ingredients. We also lack the recipes for phulauri (just the ingredients is enough, we now how to process from there), barra, baba ganoush (eggplant/boulanger/aubergine spread), falafel, and the Surinam Hindustani snack ghoeghrie (roasted chickpeas & spices). And who knows what to use in mercimek koftesi instead of bulgur? Will rice do? Our South African Lebanese friend says to find bulgur is a matter of luck, you sometimes bump into it, and than you buy the lot. We doubt if we'll get that lucky in Botswana...


Please post recipes & tips as a comment or mail them to us!!! Other recipes that require an kitchen machine and suggestions for preparing the mountain of tomatoes our plants are producing now are also most welcome.

X-mas Break

December 16 we'll drive to Mozambique for an early X-mas holiday. First we'll stay with Paul and his wife Jacinta in their Maputo-house. As usual we have too many plans for our two-week vacation, so we still have to choose between loitering at the Moz-beaches or drive back via Swaziland, or squeeze in both. Either way our Botswana- & South Africa cell numbers probably won't work until we're back in Morwa, just before New Years Eve. We think it'll be possible to send text-messages to Maud's Dutch cell number, but we'll have to test that in Moz.
It'll be Maud's first time in Mozambique, but Bram has been there in 1981, to visit Paul. It will have changed. Than the only way to enter was in an army-guarded truck convoy. Actually having a Jeep, Bram had to be the front car. The commander decided to sit with them and be the minesweeper, while Bram was shitting his pants.
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