Botswana Features

Saturday and Sunday we attended 'the changing of the clothes' of Hille's widow Marrow. A Motswana widow wears black clothes for a year, and a mekgoa widow doesn't, so for Hille they choose half of the Batswana, half of the lekgoa custom: half a year of black.


Saturday, the day for all the important things in life, Marrow does the first part of the changing. Early in the morning she goes to her parents yard to burn the black clothes, shave her head, and kill a goat.


Meanwhile the youngsters prepare a traditional lunch in her own yard. Elderly guests like us just sit, chat, drink the strong, sweet tea and eat the special bread, papata, baked in the big black cooking pots, while waiting for Marrow to return.


The sharing of the belongings finishes the traditional mourning period. Sunday early in the morning, mmapakela (before the sun is hot), the children of the deceased divide his personal possessions, supervised by some elder family-members and neighbours.

Sunday Loitering

Last Sunday we had some people over for 'lunch'. A proper Botswana weekend-lunch doesn't start before 13:00, meaning there'll be food around 15:00, and there should be enough grub to last till sunset. As important as the food is shade, cause sunstroke will destroy your appetite. Bashi & Bram added an impressive shady patch to the house, which serves as a carport when there are no guests.


Luckily Mpho (Gift, 14) was there to prevent Bram from burning down the shade while frying boerwors. It's probably good the rest of the food, Indian vegetarian and Bram's special chicken livers, didn't require a braai... Add a bucket of sangria to wash the grub down, and you have another one of these mellow African weekend-afternoons we love so much.


It's amazing how the language-issue never bothers kids. The new Dutch-Scottish arrivals are mildly surprised some kids speak neither Dutch nor English, but it doesn't seem to hamper their games at all.


Finally something decent to eat: desserts!
After playing all afternoon one really craves for some red & green jelly, coconut & coffee custard, and vanilla & cashew ice cream to regain strength.
We shouldn't have worried about entertaining the kids: our 'Africa-car', with a roof rack and ladder, is all they need. Callum (4): "Jullie hebben de allerdemooiste Afrika-auto." (And our small bakkie is 'de allerdeliefste'.)

Many Morgen

Thursday we visited our neighbour Mma Binkie at her masimo. She has a lot of farmland, considering everything except for the ploughing is done by hand: eight morgen. But this year she only farms on two morgen, because she didn't have cash in time to hire the tractor for more ploughing.
It might also have something to do with the fact that only she, an approximately 60-years old lady, and her even older looking brother are willing to work on the masimo. To put it in Bashi's words: it's a disgrace the kids and elder grandchildren are hanging around town without jobs, and only turn up during the weekends to wriggle money out of the old lady.
When we arrived the two golden oldies were busy weeding, to free the maize, sorghum and sugarcane from the big, wiry grasses. We probably wouldn't last one hour, shovelling by hand in the blazing hot sun! So we realized when Mma Binkie showed us around, and told us to pick as much morogo as we liked.
Morogo means green leaves used as vegetables in general, and right now the bean leaves are in season. We cleaned and prepared them according to Mma Binkie's directions, and they were really nice. They're an important part of a nutritious winter-diet. To make your winter-stock, you cook them shortly, and than spread them out on the roof to dry. Mma Binkie already gave us a bag of those, which we'll try to take to the Netherlands.
Although our conversations are hampered by the fact she speaks mostly Setswana to us, and we speak mainly English and Afrikaans to her, the three of us seem to be able to exchange information. She explained why every day she walks all the way to the masimo before sunrise, and all the way back around sundown, instead of staying in the little house on the lands over the week. Her lands are quite close to the tar road, and the Zimbabweans like to force entry into the house and stay overnight, so it's dangerous.

Bram's small study of Critters

Corn crickets, the pesty little fellows Maud wrote about earlier, cause havoc with our water melon-patch hardly visible in the background. We do not use poison, so it’s a man-to-man and woman-to-woman battle, which you can see we as Goliaths win easily in terms of size. However, they outnumber us big time. Our security cameras spot all movement - we bash one, two, three, but this species are true cannibals, eating their own kind besides all our greens, so they come back bigger and bitter.
We need the men in black with the big guns, as this is mission impossible in our eco day and age. We also know now they favour our chili plants, but leave the parsley, hot horny (on their back-shield) devils they are.


Talking about creepy crawlers, what about miss Scorpio. Gorgeous beady little eyes, and a big mouth to match her stinger. She was found under the 4 x 4 but had no intentions to go for a drive to the bush. Maud wanted a kill again, as a few weeks ago we discovered how bad a bite can be. Our neighbors' daughter called us: their 'hunting dog had been bitten by a snake’, she thought. I drove immediately down to the vet, half an hour still, so I was happy the dog was still breathing, although unable to move. The vet needed only to touch the animal to know that it was a scorpion bite. Their venom makes the whole skin hypersensitive to touch, and even a healthy dog like Mma Supa must stay on a drip in the hospital for three days.

the Art of Camping

If you want to learn how to camp, go camp with Afrikaners.
First of all they know how to pack a car. When they start offloading, we see with awe they really manage to take 'everything but the kitchen sink': babies, the microwave, fishing rods, grannies, the braai stand, dogs, fridge, and etcetera. Okay, our bakkie is considerably smaller than most of theirs, but still - ours looks like a mess after the first coffee break, while theirs look so organized...


Building up an Afrikaner camp is a very smooth operation. Within a wink the kraal is ready and organized, without any dispute. That's when we remember the camping trips of our youth. Entering the campsite was the signal for the first heated discussion: where to put the tent. That solved, the arguing about how to put the tent together would start. When the family was finally settled, the fun could begin: look how new arrivals bravely fight their camping gear.
Once the kraal is finished and the fridge is hooked up, it's time for the third or so beer and a bite. Where we have to make do with a peanut butter sandwich, they have their big bowls with homemade goodies. The bowls have to be emptied, because granny is already peeling the potatoes for the braai salad.


We already knew South Africans love fishing, but we were amazed by the popularity of other water-fun. So many trailers with boats, jet ski's, water ski's - you name it, they have it. After the first bite, it's time to pack the cooler and go to the shore. The only unpopular water-activity seems to be swimming. Maburu like to sit or stand in the water while sipping a beer, though.


In Xai-Xai we did have our share of fellow-swimmers, but they all looked very Mozambican or Portuguese.


Special about Xai-Xai is the continuous 'room-service', orders to be placed in Portuguese, Afrikaans or English. At the campsite and on the beach everything is brought to you: the baker-boy (recognizable by his white cap) walks by with bread; the ladies deliver fruits and veggies; the kids bring fresh coconuts; and boys and young men sell every souvenir you want, or don't want at all.


At the Xai-Xai campsite the service is even more elaborate. Every tent is 'owned' by a man who'll wash, clean, cook, and do whatever else you want.
However packed this campsite is (and all the other sites we stayed at), for us Europeans it's amazingly quiet and tranquil. No loud music, in fact, hardly any music, no shouting nor quarrelling, no stress - these Afrikaners are so relaxed! They did learn from Africa; who cares whether the braai is served at 06:00 hours on the dot or not - the food tastes just as good anytime.

Maputo

Armed with a map of the city-centre and two not-roaming cell phones we drive into greater Maputo. It's - big time big, if you're used to Gabs, and big time confusing. As Paul said, there're virtually no road signs. The atmosphere in the car is tense anyway; it's one of those moments where de hick-ups while travelling seem more important than the fun, and we're both convinced the other is extremely daft.


The traffic is like the city: big and confusing. Both remind us of Accra, the capital of Ghana. While quarrelling we drive straight to the meeting-point: restaurant Piri Piri, right in the centre of downtown Maputo. Thank whomever for our luck and the straightforward, grid-like basic design of the inner city!


Our luck holds on: there's a parking spot right in front of Piri Piri. That takes care of one staying with the car and one loitering in front of the restaurant, without any means of communication. We keep thinking of a brilliant solution to contact Paul, while hoping he'll just turn up without notification. The brilliant solution is of course very simple: just ask those men, enjoying their after-work beers, to phone Paul for us.


Knowing our host's coming in about 10 minutes, we dare to sit down and order a local beer. We don't have meticais yet, and this is definitely the wrong moment to wander around looking for an atm that will take our bankcards, or a money-changer who will convert our rands, so Paul's our walking wallet.
After Paul introduced us to two colleagues and some local snacks, we travel on. The Jenkins-estate is outside the other side of Maputo. On our way we'll drive past Costa do Sol - a restaurant at the Indian Ocean. Our South-African friend Anel told us their seafood is marvellous, so we'll have dinner there.
It's pitch-dark and rainy by now. We have to follow Paul closely. Driving on after our pit stop (the seafood is indeed mouth-watering) we understand why Paul said we would never find their roundavel unguided. Dirt roads, no signs - we lose all sense of direction.


The coming days we learn our way, driving to and around the city with the Jenkins-family. Paul shows us some of the noteworthy buildings, like the train station, designed by Eiffel. After we get ourselves Moz-sim-cards, we do all the tourist-things: shop, have a bite here and there, and visit a museum or two.


The Museum of Modern Art is preparing an exhibition of objects made out of scrap metal. We particularly like the Jesus-figure below, made out of weaponry.


Inside the museum we're not allowed to make pictures, so we can only show one sneak snapshot. Paul makes up for this by giving us a book for Christmas about Makonde carvings (intricate, symbolic wooden statues).


In the garden we can take photos, and visit the workshop.


Most of the resident artists are working on what looks to us as typically African woodcraft. We're puzzled when we see one guy busy coping Buddha's. Tourists probably won't buy those; are the Chinese moving in after all?


We were already surprised by the lack of Chinese shops; the stores Botswana and South Africa are plastered with, where you find a broad range of cheap whatevers. Being poorer Mozambique is maybe one stage behind, and the Chinese started exploring, but are not retailing yet.


A more public art form are the big murals we come across while driving around. Both the style and the subjects remind Maud of the murals in Nicaragua.
Another fascinating sight are the many formal and informal markets, where everything you might need is sold: food, tools, capulanas, furniture, and etcetera.

Masimo

While we're still not finished posting our holiday-stories, life goes on in Morwa. We drive to town to see friends, clients and suppliers, and to shop. We try our hand at gardening, carpentry, needlework, and so on. Maud's ice-cream-experiments are a routine by now, so she added mixing up lemonades.
Meanwhile the life of most of our fellow-Morwans is taken over by the masimo. It finally started to rain again, which means it's time to plough and sow, and kill the zillion corn-crickets. The elderly ladies, who traditionally are managing the lands, have been restless for some time already. The bags of flour, tea, and other necessities have been bought, the seeds are sorted; everything is ready but for the rain. Now that 'pula a jana' (the rain is here), they have to mobilize their unwilling family-members to join them. "These young people - nowadays they only want to go out and sleep in", they complain. Another complication is the tractor: it's only Pula 250 per morgen to plough, but everyone wants the tractor to come now now.


Bashi took us to his family-masimo. His aunt & uncle planted after the first rains, and are living on their lands with one of their grandsons to look after the crops (maize, sorghum, sugarcane, beans, and members of the pumpkin-family). In the old days the grannies and little kids used to live on the masimo the whole growing season. Also in the old days they had a lot of goats and chickens there, but not anymore, because the Zimbabweans will steal them, people say. Word has it they'll nick the harvest also, and sell it behind Gabs' buss-station, but so far we've only seen them as labour on the commercial farms, working for next to nothing.


Bashi's grandmother has been looking forward to this since moths. Tradition or not, her black clothes, to be worn for a year after her husbands death, will have to go when the rains start, she announced early November, as she send B&B to Mochudi to get supplies for her living on the masimo.

Pride

Contrary to the prejudice of our neighbours, we actually manage to grow something in our yard. Sitting in the middle of our watermelon-field Bram is ever so proud of our kouseband. We even got a lot of seeds, so (grand)ma Bashi also started their kouseband-experiment.


There are some quite big watermelons already, but they're invisible since Bashi taught us how to hide them for the monkeys. Until recently we only had vervet monkeys. Now a group of baboons decided to move into the bush behind our house. Actually the vervets are more irritating, because they're fearless little vandals. The big, shy bobbejane just look so much more impressive when they mooch close to our backyard.

Dutch Soul Food

Add first-class company, Bernard's fruit-salad and beer & wine, and your evening is more than fine!

What We Eat

Bram likes to start his day with Morvite - a sorghum-based porridge, enriched with mineral, vitamins and loads of sugar. According to Bashi's grandfather, who like many Batswana worked in the South African mines, this is miner's food. Mine-food will make you very strong, so the big Morvite-bag travels with us everywhere.


Some people prefer the wide variety of fruits that grow in Mozambique. Mango, papaya, baby bananas, pineapple, grapes - who needs anything else? A healthy and yummy breakfast, especially if you wash it down with champagne (note the green glass).
After the first breakfast follows the second, just to taste if the leftovers from yesterdays dinner are as yummy as we remember.


Meanwhile preparations for the next dinner have to start before it gets too hot. Next to the fruits Mozambicans grow nice vegetables also. A lot of the veggies are quite similar to those the Batswana grow; pumpkin-like stuff, all sorts of leaves, tomatoes.


Despite the similarity in the basic ingredients, the resulting dishes are quite different. According to us Mozambicans have definitely more skills in preparing tasty food, so back home we'll start practising. The mixtures of leaves, ground peanuts or coconut, and yet to be discovered ingredients are especially scrumptious.


Food-wise the ocean and the rivers offer something dry Botswana doesn't have: seafood. Beforehand we only knew the famous Mozambican shrimps; you get them as a frozen luxury item in Botswana and South Africa. But there's so much more: big fish, small fish, squid, shellfish - all very appetizing.


All in one: Mozambique was great! Not only food-wise, but altogether; the people, the landscape, de ocean, the general atmosphere - certainly a place to visit again.

X-mas

Christmas is a real family-do, with us as add-ons to Jacinta's relatives. The hot, humid weather Paul promised won from the cold we experienced upon arriving. Everyone assembles under the big Marula-tree; shade is essential now!


The men and ladies of the house have been cooking something up since yesterday. While Jacinta's nephew Chico, who also lives on the Jenkins-estate, was handling the goat, his wife Jacinta (the second) busied herself with chicken and a lot of other dishes. Likewise P&J prepared a truckload of good food.


By the time the last guests have arrived, and all the dishes are served, everyone is really hungry. It's good we have a mountain of food! The cakes Jacinta's sister brought also go down nicely. Amazing: she even has kruidnootjes, a traditional Dutch sweet for Sinterklaas (December 5), bought in South Africa.


The centre of the group is Jacinta's mother Vovo, the matriarch, here with her great-granddaughter Nina.


The finale of the party is The Group Picture. When finally the group is assembled (try keeping the kids interested while waiting for those who have to do their hair or change), everyone tries to look their best at the same time. Meanwhile the photographers keep clicking; this is only one of many portraits...


Sunset comes near, so the guests need to get back home. It's an acquired art to get as many people and luggage as possible in a car. We notice once more Europeans just don't know how to use transport efficiently. Chico's nephew little Jose, our favourite Pai Natal, nicely fits on top of everyone, and off they go.

Capulanas

What to buy in Mozambique? Being into textiles we have to at least have a look at capulanas, the multifunctional pieces of cloth Mozambican women not only wear, but use for a lot of other purposes to. Carry your kid in it, use it as a towel, serviette, suitcase, or fill your treasure-trunk with them; the applications are many.


Another great Christmas-gift is the book about the history, symbolic meanings and daily use of capulanas. This particular design for instance is for the traditional healers and soothsayers.


Having a look leads to buying. Back home Bram proudly hops on the catwalk with his Frelimo-cloth.