Back in Botswana

After a long but smooth trip back we're almost settled in Morwa once again. Planes without delays, all luggage arriving in Joburg together with us, taxi Hassan bringing us to our bakkie, and the car starting immediately - what more can you wish for? We get lost twice driving out of Joburg because of the wrong roadmap, but still manage to shop and reach Morwa in one day.


There we find Bashi, dogs, house and yard in perfect condition. Nadia and Moira are so big for their seven months and a bit! We're only not happy that mother Mossadi is expecting again already - the plan was to get her sterilized before the pack grows too big...


The first day we're busy unpacking, reorganizing our house, bonding with the dogs and hanging out with the neighbours. It feels so good to be back in the warmth and space of Botswana!


The second day we drive into town to get supplies and an internet connection. Then we get very sad news: Maud's father is seriously ill. That of course colours our homecoming, especially over the weekend when things look very bad. So we're simultaneously 'in' the Netherlands and getting back to normal in Morwa.


This really confronts us with living in three worlds, and being in one always means you're not in the others - as the +31, +27 and +267 sms-traffic shows. Over the weekend we spend a lot of time with the neighbours, who really are the best - just like in Leiden!


Sunday morning we decide to do our pancake & ice cream breakfast as promised, with Jeff & Pelo & Zach from across the road, and grandma Joan & granddad John, who're over from the States, LJ & Dineo from the other side of Morwa, and Sandra with her boys Calum, Duncan and Cormac from Gabs.


The breakfast flows into drinks and an afternoon braai across the road. This gets us into shape to attack the mountains of work crying for attention. By Monday the news from the Netherlands is still very serious, but a bit better then over the weekend. Meanwhile the house gets sort of organized, the computers are rigged, the dogs accept us as their caretakers and we start our first office week.


It feels good to see the endless bush again, right up to the far, far away hills, when you look over your screen. And when we sit on our porch in the evening the starry African nights never cease to amaze us.
Botswana numbers
Maud: +26771219954
Bram: +26771219936

Zeeland

This is probably our last 2008 Netherlands blogpost. September 8 we hop on a plane to Joburg, hoping to arrive in Morwa September 9. We plan to fly up north again May 2009.


Last weekend we enjoyed our traditional stay with Janny & Cees in their farmhouse to go to Zeeland Nazomerfestival. As always we saw two great shows and in between mainly relaxed.


So now we're ready for the last hectic week of preparations, packing, and etcetera.


Haircuts, eating delicious fresh Zeeuwse mossels - our specialty is to make endless 'to do' lists...


September 9 we'll briefly use our South African cells:
Maud: +27765604009
Bram: +27768358656
After crossing the Botswana border, the 9th or 10th, we'll be back on our local cells:
Maud: +26771219954
Bram: +26771219936


Check this blog again around September 12!

Busy Busy Busy

Wrapping up in the Netherlands keeps us occupied... Cleaning the house for renting it out, packing, finishing jobs, and of course tons of meeting & greeting. We had another sunny weekend at Maud's mom in the woods with a lot of loitering on the lawn, weeding, dining & wining, and generally having a good time.


Bram hopped over to his family for Sunday lunch, loitering on another lawn, and enjoying life.


At Bram's office there's this custom of cooking for everyone when you leave. Since we didn't succeed in buying a goat and still had to produce African food we sweated over our favourite Ghana recipes for the 35 guests.


The Chef and his flower girl...


Another tradition by now: together with Bram's parents we visit Bavo & Dineke during their summer sailing tour. Again they picked a harbour with a great view and a good restaurant.

True Love & Bitch!

It's from bad to worse. Dunya brought her own bathroom - very posh compared to the boys' humble outfit. Guess what happens - occupying the men's room for hours and hours. And where did this bitch get the idea she can sleep on top of Tau's wife? He'll grudgingly share with Bram, but enough is enough!


When after a day Poes decides grub, booze, bed, bathroom rights are clear, she starts seducing our boys. They really get the works, but hey, after all that death threads guys will be apprehensive. She kind of respects grumpy King Tau, but poor merry Tlo is chased all over the house.


Meanwhile we of course fall in love with the naughty menace. You'll wake up at night cause it's time to practice hunting and your feet or hands are the prey. It's so cute! She tries a bite of everything you put on a plate. It's so adorable! She's into gymnastics big time, especially climbing - curtains are her favourite challenge. It's a pity we don't see the beauty of all the interior decorating she does...
Still we all miss her when she swaps our house (right) for her own (left)!

Poespoespoes Dunya

It's summer-holiday time in the Netherlands. Therefore we have a houseguest for about 3 weeks: her Royal Highness Princess Poespoespoes Dunya. She's a sexy female feline of about 4 months who lives across the road. Our Tlo courts her from second 1. Our Tau at first ignores her cause he's hooked on Maud, but after some hours her grace is too much for him.


Being a real female Dunya (one third the guys' size) reacts to all this courting with loud screams and dead-threats. When Tlo resigns to just sit & stare, she starts to eat the boys' food & drink their booze. That's too much for Tau, here counter-measures are needed - pity Maud stops the Final Fight before it starts!
We knew this would happen. Princess Poes loves the old guys' bladder problems diet food. The boys don't like her Highness' Royal kitten grub that much, but a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.


Dunya of course also occupies their favourite napping spots. Worst is she wants in on the master-bed the boys share with us. Like she's in, they're out. So the first night Maud sleeps downstairs on the fat boy, hoping to attract a cat or two, while Bram guards the master-bed. He enjoys a nice, spacey night, the little bitch usurps the boys' downstairs crib, and de rest of us dream of big, soft, cuddly beds.
Is this exemplary for what happens when you take a woman in? "There goes my everything" right from the start to the very end...

... and we're back

This poor blog got neglected once again because we're freaking busy with earning euros, meet & great family & friends, and organizing our household. So for now we'll just post a few of all the highlights.


During their Netherlands-holiday Diba and her second born Saima from Bangladesh spend an afternoon with us. It's nice Bram finally met Diba, who send us a sareeh and a punjabi for our wedding 4 years ago.


Maud saw Diba some years ago when she was in Holland with her oldest, Samira, but Saima she only saw when she went to Bangladesh with Marjan to admire the newborn about 11 years back. Incredible, that tiny baby now is a little lady!


Last Friday Stella & Frank invited us for a braai at their houseboat in Amsterdam. Yeah, it's small, but if you have a long summer evening, even a tiny braai produces mountains of good food.


Most Dutch cities have a lot of canals running through. With over 16 million people in a country the size of Central Kalahari or Kruger Park it's very handy to use all that water for housing.


A sad occasion this weekend was that we had Bram's uncle Haroen & Maria Isabel, and Karen, Daniela & Joseph over to say goodbye, cause they're moving to the Dutch Antilles. That's nowhere near our migrating route, so it's a goodbye for a very long time...


After the big Last Goodbye at the airport Bram's parents and sister & kids came over to our place for a bit of boating & lunching.


The weather is really funny - after a lot of too cold, too rainy days now it's hot & humid. Perfect weather for loitering near to the cool Rijn river that floats past our garden!

Dog Sitting

This week we are in Vierhouten, at Maud’s mom’s place, to look after the dogs, chickens, fishes, garden, and etcetera while the old people are visiting friends in France.


Reus & Kyro do their best to look depressed, hoping we’ll comfort them with dog-candies. But Reus can’t deny he’s very happy with Bram’s reading glasses – a whole new world opens up for him!


The huge garden distracts Maud from her work; so much weeding & pruning to do…


…starting with the rose garden.


Since the plot is big enough to serve as a camping, Bram’s mother, sister, two nephews and one niece hop over with their tents.


That’s a good reason for Bram to take two days off. As real Dutchies the family bikes wherever they wanna go, while Maud keeps on weeding…


First goal: through the woods to a small lake, cause summer hit the Low Lands (for about three days).


All that swimming, biking, playing with the dogs and jumping on the trampoline requires loads of sport food: pasta, pasta and pasta.

Dinosaur Party

Maud decided to throw a highly exclusive BDay-party with two VIP-guests: Kristien (first encounter August 1973, first day secondary school) and Dirk (first encounter May 1974, Kristien's 13th BDay-party). And of course Bram (first encounter summer 1997) and Tlo & Tau.
Kristien arrives first, so she has to listen to Maud getting the horrors of becoming an elderly person off her chest alone... Discussing the dismay makes it funny rather then depressing, so her First & her Last man really missed out on that one.
Dirk made it a real BDay by serving the traditional Dutch appeltaart with 47 candles - a baie lekker piece of art!

BDay

Baie dankie, kealeboga, muchas gracias, thanks a lot, mange tak, enorm bedankt, agradecimentos muito, tack så mycket for all my birthday e-mails, snail mails, e-cards, phone calls, text messages!!!


You made me forget to be depressed about being a fossil!


Ready to plunge into another fun-filled year...

Paul & Bram

Saturday morning Paul arrives from Scotland, loaded with presents for his daughter Raquel, who's surviving in Amsterdam, and us. Now that his suitcase is almost empty, it's time for heavy duty shopping!


We drift downtown by boat. Living below sea level has some advantages, like the web of waterways in our city. We park the boat close to the shops, plan our spree like a military operation, and attack.


Shop till you drop, when the going gets tough the tough go shopping makes hungry, so we introduce Paul to the only Dutch delicacy he doesn't know already: rookworst. After tasting the Chanel among the smoked sausages, a Hot Hema rookworst, the boys are in heavy need of a wee dram...


Still that suitcase has to be filled again, so we work our way through Leiden's 1 kilometre of shopping fun, on the beat of the many draaiorgels - another typical Dutch treat.


We don't know yet it is the last day of orange all around... That evening the Russians kick Holland oleole out of the European soccer championship. Now Turkey has to beat the Germans for us coming Wednesday!


Poor boys - instead of coping with their babbelas in bed they have to get up early Sunday morning. There's another serious task at hand: sketching.