2008

Our first Nwagaa o Mosha-visitors, neighbour Mma Binkie and two of her grandsons.
Note the brand-new Germin dress. This type of cloth (in brown, blue or red, with an endless range of motifs) and dress is the traditional Botswana outfit for women. They say Germin derives from German. I'm not sure if that's because of the print or the dress, or both.


We got that piece of cloth for Mma Binkie in Maud's favourite shop, where she gets acute choice-stress because of the huge variety of fabrics, beads, sequence, lace, ribbons, and etcetera. Actually it's the best shop in a wondrous shopping street (for the Dutchies: Voortrekkers Avenue in Vereeniging), packed with mainly Indian retailers, who sell more textile-related stuff than anyone can imagine.

How to?

Here's another call for recipes. Mma Binkie slaughtered a goat to celebrate the New Year, and presented us with what Bram calls a 'geitenbout'. It's a piece of bone with a big chunk of meat attached to it.
We could of course ask anyone in the village how to prepare this, but apart from the liver and the famous seswaa, Bram doesn't like the Batswana-recipes for goat very much. For seswaa you need at least half a goat (without the head and the entrails, those parts are used for other dishes), and a huge pot, and it involves hours of cooking and pounding. Bram does like the Turkish and Indonesian way to do goat, so if you've got a recipe for that, please mail it or place it as a comment. Talking about recipes, we have too many pumpkin-flowers, and don't now how to prepare them.
The goat above by the way was part of the delicious Christmas-meal at Paul & Jacinta's.

Where We Slept

To give an overview of our Christmas-break, we'll revive our series 'Where We Sleep'. Later we'll fill in some details, like 'who's this fabulous Pai Natal'.


WWS 1: Bronkhorstspruit
Locals would drive the 1000 k's to Maputo in a day, but for us that seemed too much. Therefore we spend the first night on the brink of Bronkhorstspruit Dam, 50 k's east of Pretoria. From our campsite at Kaia Manzi Resort we see the place where our friend Heintje used to have a cabin across the water.
Although we are ahead of the real holiday-migration, the camp is already packed (for European campers the picture will seem quite empty, but here this is really crowded). For us it's fascinating to stay in between these Afrikaners - this is a detail to be filled in later...


WWS 2-4: Paul & Jacinta, Maputo
After a smooth drive we reach the Mozambican border (Lebombo - Ressano Garcia). Apprehensive, because you never know with borders, and because we saw heavy, and heavily loaded traffic driving up to Lebombo. It's really amazing how much you can tie upon any type of vehicle, especially considering the bad condition of some cars and busses. What to take to Moz: bicycles (the village-women use them for transport) and jerry cans (to fetch water at the communal pump).
Compared to how it can be we have an easy crossing, only 75 minutes, and we don't have to unpack our car because Maud gets our paper signed beforehand by a friendly official, while Bram drives the car to the checkpoint. (No, she didn't bribe him; once again we had a bribe-free vacation).


Upon arriving in Maputo we discover for the second time that day we got too depended on cell phones. We manage to find the meeting point, but our phones don't work, so we can't tell Paul we're there. Luckily we look very much 'ah, shame', standing next to our small bakkie after two days of travelling. A nice, very Portuguese looking man phones Paul for us, and after some beers at Piri Piri we travel on.
Jacinta & Paul just arrived the day before from Edinburgh, so they're not totally organized yet. This is an excellent excuse to have dinner at Costa do Sol, a famous fish-restaurant that happens to be en route to the Jenkins-roundavel just outside Maputo.


WWS 5-8: Xai-Xai
We want to experience the famous Mozambican beaches, so we booked a campsite at Xai-Xai, 200 k's north from Maputo. Praia do Xai-Xai is a mixture of ruined hotels and brand-new beach-houses that makes one wonder.


The beach and the Indian Ocean are indeed amazing. On top of that the water temperature is such that even we can swim!


The campsite is again packed with Afrikaners, who, as Paul says, travel with 'everything but the kitchen sink'. And the servants, we might add. This campsite has it all: men to build up your tent, do the dishes, get firewood, clean the daily catch (those Afrikaners love fishing), wash your clothes, and etcetera. In the morning the baker walks around with fresh bread, and during the day the women pass by with fresh fruits & veggies.


WWS 9-10
Christmas eve we are back at P&J's. When we arrived in Mozambique it was cold and stormy, but by now we get the humid, blazing hot weather Paul predicted. This is why you have to do game-drives at sunrise and sunset; during the day every living thing tries to move as little as possible. Only when Paul starts playing his guitar we know it's time for sundowners and action.


Some people, like the guests, can afford to loiter under the Marula-tree all day, but others can't escape some action during the day. Next to the Christmas-cooking Jacinta has to look after the garden, and check out the new gardener.


Garden is too small a word for the 100 by 300 meter plot P&J have north of Maputo. The huge Marula was already there when they got the plot about 25 years ago. By now they added a lot of mango's and other trees, so we can eat luscious fruits all day.


29 years after they first met, and still in love.
All in one it's a real X-mas, with good company, beautiful presents and delicious food - but that's also to be filled in later.


WWS 11-12
Boxing day we leave for Swaziland. This border (Namaacha - Lomahasha) is heaven compared to RSA-Moz via Nelspruit - almost no other crossers, and a fully computerized visa-system. A small setback is that we have to pay import-tax on the capulanas (cloth) we bought in Maputo, but Bram manages to talk that one down big time.


Luckily most of the cashews we bought along the road in Moz are stashed under our camping-equipment, and the small box with our daily ration gets in untaxed. By now we have this game: getting a smile from any official (police, customs, soldiers) is 1 point, a laugh is 2 points, and chatting 3 points. If the official initially was unfriendly, you get double points. (This all has to be achieved without bribing.)


Hlane Game Sanctuary, where we booked a campsite, is just over the border. But that goes for everything in Swaziland because it's tooo tiny (it's even smaller than the Netherlands). We picked a place without electricity, hoping that would guarantee rest. (Afrikaners like to bring their microwave, water cooker and so on when camping.) They were indeed surprised when we booked, saying 'it's never full'. And empty it is, a beautiful, spacey campsite, with not too much other guests - and a tame ostrich, that likes it's braai-meat medium. All night we hear the lions roar, which adds to the 'back to nature'-feeling.


The sanctuary itself is also pretty, although some parts suffered heavily under the elephants. That's the usual problem with sanctuaries for elephants: they either die or manage to settle nicely - and breed more enthusiastically than the little space they get can carry.
Driving around we get to suspect the lions are lured to a private part of the reserve, close to the campsite. It's fishy: they stay in approximately the same place all night and every night. Like their prey is delivered on a golden platter at a fixed place, and doesn't have to be chased. (The platter must be golden, as the whole reserve belongs to the king.)
For practice they seem to hunt down the occasional biker. Along the highway that runs through the reserve there're these road-signs: 'Bikers beware of lions and elephants'.


WWS 13
After Swaziland we slowly drift back home. Driving to the border we pass Manzini and Mbabane, and deduce from the billboards the formerly famous Swaziland-casino's go online now. Swazi used to be gamblers-heaven for South Africa. Since the RSA-government legalized gambling, there's no need to travel to the Swazi-casino's anymore.
It's another smooth crossing, although there's a bit of waiting, because Ngwenya-Oshoek is an important border, and the visa-system hasn't been computerized yet. Still we have ample time to drive to Vereeniging to buy - stuff (materials for Maud's endless textile-projects) before we look for a camping spot on the brink of the Vaal.
Some years ago we spend a lovely day along the Vaal with friends, a river that's by now a world heritage site. We always wanted to go back, and we find a nice campsite at Vaal Wes, close to Paris. It's packed again, but although we didn't book, manager Willie van Rensburg (his dad was Dutch, he says) finds us a spot right next to the river.


WWS 14
We're very close to Potchefstroom now, but all our Potch-friends are of course celebrating their holidays somewhere else, so we only go there because it's Bram's turn to shop. It's weird to enter Potch and see Louis' house without staying there!
After Bram's shopping-spree we have to decide what to do. We can easily drive home today, but that would end the holiday. We know where to get the keys to both Louis' and Anel's house, so we have the luxury of 'pick your place' in Potch. We decide to do something unplanned, and drive on to Groot Marico. That's on our way to Morwa, and several Botswana-friends say it's great place for a break.
The Indian shopkeeper, where we buy our firecrackers, points us to yet another lovely campsite, at the brink of the Bosveld Dam in the river Marico. It looks packed, and we didn't book, but everyone is very relaxed about that. 'Just pitch your tent anywhere you like', says the son to owner farmer Jan.


Next afternoon we take the back-road that, according to Jan, reduces the distance to Gabs to 120 k's. No Golden Highway via Zeerust for us anymore, except in rainy weather, because than this dirt road will change into a car-trap.
Back home we find everything in impeccable order, thanks to Bashi. Our vegetables have grown amazingly, and we can pick our first kouseband - yummy!

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.
[friends]

My Men

Who is lazy, who has the backache?

The other Boy

Here's another one for Joost & Cristina: Tom Uyapo. Although nowadays his name is Nyaa or No. He definitely knows what he wants - and what he doesn't want. He wants to race his black bike down the hill, climb in and on everything, walk along edges - in fact, if it's a no-no, he wants it. It is of course impossible to be angry with the cutest boy you've ever seen...

Furniture

Our original plan was to buy whatever we need furniture-wise at Camphill. This carpentry started as a project to train and employ physically handicapped people. The designs are still as nice as they used to be years ago, but after buying our bed we discovered the workmanship has decreased tremendously.
So we checked out the carpentry brigade. Like so many other brigades (a 'learn while working' type of vocational training) there's not much going on anymore.
We decided to look at the big range of Fongkong furniture after all - and saw that would be our one-way ticket to disaster. After only one of Maud's cleaning-sprees this cardboard stuff will fall apart.
Now we have to be true to our reputation as Dutch people and make everything ourselves. We proudly present our first: a combination of couches & guest-beds, with handy drawers underneath. Almost finished, because the finishing touch will be 11 more Indian-style embroidered cushion-covers, and the production of a blue variation.
As Bram says it looks like yacht-furniture, which again is very Dutch, and practical in this small house. The only setback is that we keep explaining to people this is not what we do for a living, design & produce furniture & textiles.

Suffering in the bush

After some braai-less weeks barbies again dominated last weekend.
Saturday Tears & Andre invited their Tanzanian friends and us. As a pre-dinner treat Andre took us around the golf course where they live, in their new cross-country, off the road cart. Meanwhile Tears prepared a great Kalanga okra-dish, a beautiful bream for Maud, and of course pap.
When it comes to braais, things are exactly the same as in the Netherlands: it's a men-thing. So later on Andre had to sweat over the lamb, chicken and, for the non-Muslims, spareribs.


Sunday Pelo & Jeff practiced for the big event next week, Yvonne's graduation party, by throwing a braai. While the girls prepared their salads and pap, we elderly women sipped our drinks and watched the miracle. Men that probably never enter a kitchen except for getting something from the fridge suddenly are chefs when it comes to an outside fire and meat.


Usually they gather around the braai-stand to debate the perfect method. But not when it's Jeff's braai: his superiority when it comes to meat goes without question. So like good little boys they just watched the master in awe.

Village-life

Almost every evening we sit on our stoep, under the pitch-dark, star-filled African sky, plates on our lap, and have dinner while listening to the Wereldomroep-hour. Although Hille's World Services were so much better, sitting outside enjoying the starry African nights is still great.
This morning Bashi brought seeds: the rough butternut from the lands, and something he thinks we call watermelon. He's seen Maud adding spinach and beans to the tomatoes he planted for us, and a growing collection of empty milk-cartons with seed-projects. He helped Bram to build a shade for the spinach-seedlings. Now Maud is all excited because after the successful sprouting of her mom's kouseband she can have a go at the seeds from Bashi's mom.
Bram gave some circular pieces of wood with a hole in the middle to the new neighbour-kids. Yesterday the bigger of the two boys came to proudly show off his van with real wheels. We hope this compensates them for the disappointment their empirical study of the two mekgowa must have been. The first week they studied all our movements in the yard. We water the vegetables, let our washing dry, do some carpentry, empty a plate of food - just the same boring stuff their adults do.


Summer brings a flood of annoying or even creepy gogga's (general name for irritating insects). It also brings the endearing geckos in and around the house, the stunningly coloured lizards sunbathing on the walls, and the beautiful birds all over the yard.


There's a big psychological gap between The City and The Village. City-people keep saying 'Don't come to the office, come to my house around six so we can hang out after doing business', 'Let's start up the Dutch Friday nights at Buddha Bar again', 'Hop over next Saturday, I'll be home' - like Gabs is around the corner (actually it is only 15 k's to the outskirts). But when we say just hop over to our house than, they have this 'Jessis, Morwa, that's the land of far, far away, deep into the bush'-look.
It's funny how distance is more about perception than about actual physical distance! City-people just feel Morwa is remote, no matter how close it is. If they visit, they'll probably drive a 4x4 (except for Andre, he'll come in his speckles white city-Merc because he knows better). They wonder how we survive this isolation, and ask 'but what do you do when you're there?'

Zim's

Here're the kids from our newly found electrician for the car. He's one of the relatively lucky Zimbabweans in Botswana, having skills people need, his family staying with him, and a house (although it's falling apart because it's next to the railway). As Zimbabwe falls apart, more and more people cross the Botswana- and South African borders. Far more than the Botswana- and RSA economy can absorb.
You can imagine the problems that causes: crime, illegal refugee-camps in the bush, houses declared not fit to live in packed with illegals in Joburg. Last year some of those houses burned down (no electricity, so everything is done with paraffin equipment), without any escape for the inhabitants.
At first, years ago, Zimbabweans had good chances in Botswana. Due to their excellent education you still see that many of the good mechanics, chefs, printers, etc are Zimbabwean, like our friend Hardy, the designer & screen printer at Mochudi Museum, and our new car-electrician. But now there're just too many, and many of them don't have skills.
Their desperate situation hurts of course them, but also the Batswana and the South Africans, especially the poor ones. Crime hurts everybody, but the poor people are the ones pushed out of their jobs because an illegal Zim will do the work for a quarter to half of the money. Money that wasn't much to start with; it's the 50 to 200 euro a month jobs that get done for a fraction of the salary now. Often it doesn't pay to exploit illegals like that, because a lot of stuff 'disappears', or you get lousy workmanship and have to redo everything with a traceable local guy.
As I'm writing this, the dogs go crazy. There must be goats or cows to close to the fence, or an unknown visitor. It's mister Tshuma, the elderly Zimbabwean who did most of the stonework around the house. It's really an art, this building of terraces and walls out of natural rock. We already worried about him when he didn't turn up anymore last March, but he's around again, he says, living 'somewhere behind that hill'. Next to being a good stoneworker he knows a lot about fauna (he helped treat the puppies last year) and flora. So we checked out the vegetable pad and the seed projects together, and he came up with a good plan for the poor misplaced Passion Flower. Now I learned it's nice to make a shade out of it, because the snakes avoid contact with Passion Flower.
A lot of Europeans will lean back and say: 'Yeah, but those SADC-leaders, especially Mbeki, always support Mugabe if push comes to shove.' It's okay to be critical, but don't shout too loud if you come from a country that still has an embassy in Harare big enough to service neighbouring countries. Or knowing that the UN doesn't acknowledge the refugee-camp in de north of Botswana has to be properly serviced - for the refugees and to protect the local people from harassment. Or one of the many other ors.

Bua Setswana!

Bashi and the daughter to his aunt in front of Hille's house.

The words for family-members are one of the many things you can't translate directly from Setswana into Western-European languages. So people will use a word or phrase they think comes close. This girl is for sure closely related to Bashi, because her mother (or grandmother, or elder sister, or etc) has the plot next to Bashi's mother, who in turn has the grandmother for a neighbour.
There also is no 'he' and 'she' in Setswana. If I understood right, there is a word for 'child from the same mother of the opposite sex as I am', so the word a woman uses for her brother is the same word a man uses for his sister.
All in one: it's very hard for us to master Setswana! Imagine the confusion in the beginning because there is one word for hearing, smelling and feeling. So Bashi will say he can hear the septic tank when he is walking over the hill towards our house, meaning it's smelly and must be repaired. Luckily the prevailing wind blows the smell away form the house!

Big Boy!

This one is especially for Joost & Cristina, as they met him last year: look how Edu Zachary has grown! He mastered the Bram-word beautifully: 'Brrrrrrrrrrammm', and he's running around like a racing horse. Although sometimes he acts more like caveman, since he stayed with Tom for a week...
We didn't see Tom Umpayo yet, but word is out he's a very sweet boy who only wants to be hugged by everybody (Jeff) and/or a strong-minded guy who wants things to go his way (his dad).