Thankful Saturday, Calmer week edition

 This week has definitely been better than last week, although that was a bit of a low bar lol.

Lots to be thankful for!

1. I got to camp with my Girl Scouts after all! I was scheduled to camp with them Friday and Saturday nights, but mom in the ER meant that another parent went in my place for the weekend. As it turned out though, I was able to go Saturday night and had a lot of fun! The funniest part was our troop moving our tents into the Glen Shelters because it was going to rain.

2. Luna is walking almost normally now. We're still sorting out her digestive system (maybe too many meds?) but she seems in less pain and is excited to walk again.

3. I just read the book 'The War That Saved My Life' by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and it was so good. Historical Fiction set in England in WWII, YA. 5 star read.

4. I had a day of rest and small adventures. I slept in, made muffins for breakfast, checked out a new bookstore in Kentlands, went birding for an hour at the lake, and bumped into 2 friends there. I also went looking for owls in a different spot and discovered a new to me trail that I want to fully hike at a later date.

5. A Pileated Woodpecker basically posed for me while I was birding and I got some beautiful shots of a beautiful bird.

6. Two of my cousins have moved to Arizona! Their new place looks so nice and I can't wait to visit them.

7. Mom is doing better. Saw her Saturday morning and Wednesday for lunch and she seems like herself and can walk relatively normally (with her walker). 

Pictures of guys camp

Preparing for the camp...

Pitching tents for the day students to sleep in.

Playing games...

Group rock paper scissors

Making collages

The food has arrived.

Bonfire

Most of my group!

Learning about hygiene and leadership.

Red team!

Mustard United!

Getting certificates at the end of camp.

Leadership in action.

Collapsing after the fact.

Guys GLOW Camp

After running my first camp in Botswana last August, I knew I wanted to do as many as I could during my service. I loved camp as a kid and an adult, and it’s a unique experience for both kids and adults in this country, because it’s still kind of a new idea.

GLOW stands for girls and guys leading our world. Typically camps focus heavily on girls, because female empowerment is lacking here, to put it concisely. But honestly… you can empower girls and women all you want, but if you don’t include boys and men, not much is going to change.  You have to empower women to work towards gender equality, but you also have to work with men to support and respect women. I have lots of thoughts on this, and that’ll probably be a separate post.

Last Wednesday I made my way out of my village, fought with a grant website in Letlhakeng for several hours, and crashed a fellow volunteer’s place in Moleps for the night. I caught the 6am bus to Maun, arriving a little after 4. Another volunteer got on my bus about 2 hours into the trip, so I had company and conversation to make the trip go faster. We got a taxi to Trevor and Lindsey’s house on Lindsey’s NGO compound and hung out for a little while as other volunteers showed up. We met the rest at a sports bar for dinner. I’m not sure when I’ve been that hungry in recent memory, but I definitely ate 2 dinners.  And I wasn’t the only one that did. Guess munching on the bus wasn’t enough for us? Anyway. We all stayed at Trevor and Lindsey’s, colonizing their floor and creating some funny conversations about sleeping arrangements. Things overheard:

“Apologies if I wind up spooning you in the middle of the night.”
“Can we really fit 2 people on that?”
“Can I move the coffee table into the pantry? I know that’s random, but it’ll give us more floor space.”
“Sure. People can sleep in the pantry too if they want. People have slept there before. Actually, people have had sex in our pantry.”
You know you’re a PCV when…

Friday morning we migrated to Trevor’s NGO where the camp was to be held. Some volunteers cleaned a bathroom that hadn’t been used in YEARS (I don’t know what happened there, but you should never have to use a spade to clean a bathroom, let’s leave it at that), others pitched about fifteen tents, we put together 60 hygiene kits for the guys, and various other setting up stuff. One neat thing we did was plan games the whole group could do, including eleven hearing impaired students. All of the students attending went to the boarding senior secondary school and were between the ages of 16 and 21, and these hearing impaired students came from there and the rehabilitation center  (Lindsey’s NGO) which works with all sorts of disabilities.

The students were supposed to meet at the school at 4:30 to walk over, but things got messed up and they got to the camp around 6 instead. The boarding students had to be walked to and from the boarding school each morning and evening, while the day students camped at Trevor’s NGO in all of those tents we pitched.  The food was catered by the ministry of education/alcohol levy, and while it was good, it was often late and they ran out several times. The norm, basically… you plan as much as you can, and random things will still go wrong. This wasn’t catastrophic by any means, so Becky, the other PCV in charge, and Trevor, basically shrugged and made things work. We also only had 2 bathrooms, and despite labeling them, constantly had boys in the girls bathroom, so we just sort of had to knock and shield our eyes every time we went in, just in case.*

The first night we watched a STEPS film called One Life, One Love and had a discussion about the themes of the film, a big one being multiple concurrent partners.  We made group names and posters, and played a lot of get to know you games. I was in the yellow group, and we decided to be team United. Except that got combined with mustard, which was the color of our shirts, (Becky nicknamed us Colonel Mustard previously, the other groups being Mrs. White, Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. Peacock), and we became Mustard United. By far one of the best group names I’ve ever had, I think second only to the A.D.D. Puffy Muffins, but that’s a story from college for another time.

Saturday was full of different sessions, including safe sex, gender based violence, sex and communication, alcohol abuse, and safe male circumcision. The first session had some awkwardness with the facilitator, but the rest were great, and all led by Batswana, which was fantastic. There was also some free time for sports and we all made collages. I definitely played a game of volleyball with no net, on pavement, until we literally could not see the ball because it was so dark. We’re kinda lucky we didn’t knock over the food table in the process.

Later that night we made a bonfire and the guys had what us women called “boy fire” for a while, where the male PCVs talked with the students for an hour or so. Us women were a little jealous we couldn’t hang out by the fire, but we were hearing snippets of a really good conversation, and knew this was probably the most important part of the camp, where the guys could just talk openly about things that don’t get talked about enough. For instance, one topic that the guys mentioned to us later was knowing the difference between lust and love. I think back on all of the awesome experiences I’ve had at campfires, some really defining moments in my life, especially as a teenager, and I’m so glad the guys led that fire time. I got to walk back to the boarding school with students both nights, and had some really great conversations with students as we walked. Everything from where I was from in America, to what they wanted to do after they finished school, to differences in different faith denominations. These guys are bright, and inquisitive, and so fun to talk to. I miss that in my village where the language barrier gets in way of my bonding with my students.

Sunday we let the students have a football match while we cleared out of the way for a local church to have their services in the NGO building. We also had to chase kids from the church away from our food, and I almost had a heart attack when a five year old tried to dart under a car as it was backing up to chase a ball. I grabbed the kid as the car stopped, but EEEISH. We did some extra babysitting. Our students had sessions on hygiene and leadership under a big tent outside, and ended with an official ceremony where the students got certificates. There was much picture taking and hugs as camp ended after we ate lunch.  Once the students left, we cleaned up, took down all of the tents, and celebrated a successful camp. Later that evening we had a big Braai (barbeque) at Trevor and Lindsey’s.  I was the only volunteer from my intake group this weekend; almost all of the others were Bots 14s. A really fun group, who have invented a game of catch called One hand no body (which I swear is going to evolve to people getting beaned in the face) and had everyone trying to light a match with the box on your elbow. Good times were had. I got to hang out with a lot of people I didn't know well before that I hope I get to hang out with a lot in the future!

Monday I got the 6am bus again, which dropped me in Moleps a little after 3. I didn’t make it all the way back home, but spent the night at Aileen’s since I couldn’t get a hitch all the way to my village. Today I finally made it home, exhausted, but with the high that only comes from hanging out with friends and camp. :)

*The boys in the girls bathroom were students, not PCVs. Thought I should clarify that ;)

Vacation Part 3: Maun

Maun is beautiful.  We flew in from Gabs, since I didn’t want to make my mom suffer TOO many all-day bus/combi rides. We went to the Old Bridge Backpackers, dropped a few things off into their safe, and headed out on a 3-day 2 night camping trip in the Okavango Delta. I’ll have to photobomb the actual backpackers another time, but it’s a pretty cool place.

 Liliac breasted roller. One of the prettiest birds I've ever seen.

Mom and I eating lunch on an island lunch break.

So, our boat had some mechanical issues and another came to replace it. We are apparently high maintenance. And by that I mean our guide wanted a boat he could steer properly.

Storks! They are a lot bigger than I thought they would be.

Zebra bums.

Our campsite.

Mom, content next to a termite mound.

Elephant, complete with waterline!

A presunrise boat ride to look for hippos.

Oh hai.

Water lilies!

We got to ride in makoros, traditional dug out canoes.

Then we got to go basket shopping in a local village in the delta!

More phants.

Our classy bathroom at camp.

Wildebeast!

We ate like kings at camp. A tablecloth? We are fancy.

Giraffe!!!! Not the best picture of one from the whole trip, but the first I've ever seen in the wild.

One of the cool things about game walks, as opposed to game drives, is seeing footprints, scat, bones, and other easily missed things used to track animals. Elephant footprint!

Carol, our guide, and mom on a big termite mound.

Gorgeous sunsets always.

We were sad to leave the delta, but then we went onto Kasane, home of (almost) ALL of the animals.

Grand Canyon, Part 7

Day 6 started a little earlier than normal as we were trying to get on the river by 7- I think we only missed it by like 10-15 minutes. This is a good picture of a duffel line, how we loaded and unloaded the boats each day.
An hour or so later (moving fast we were) we stopped at Matkatimiba to hike the canyon. Karma 4 took the upper route and I went the lower climbing route, our lols (little old ladys, they called themselves that!) decided to stay behind. I was proud of myself for getting through the lower route without needing any assistance except a final pull at the end (which Mark gave to everyone. Last time 6 years ago I had Christian pulling me up in a spot and Bruce shoving me from behind at the same time. Apparently although I’m heavier, I’m a little better at climbing).


At the top we walked around a little and then made a butt dam. This requires sitting cheek to cheek with hands stuffed between you, damming up the water behind us (small stream) for about 10-15 minutes. It was kind of hilarious. I commented to the guides that they weren’t joining us in the dam, and they were like, uh, we’re supervising. We all stood up at once and the water went Whoosh! And it was cool.
A few minutes later we headed back along the upper route.

Around 10:30am we got to Havasu and actually got to park at the mouth instead of in the rapid, so we didn’t have to disembark with our life jackets on.
We grabbed our sandwiches and hiked to the pools, maybe a ½ mile? (So says the guides. We learned to believe everything they said unless it involved hiking.) It took about a half an hour.
We plunked our stuff down at the pools and ate lunch, and then swam, napped, and frolicked. We had a good long time there, so after I ate I went through this passageway to farther up the canyon and talked with Art a little bit and took some pictures.

I found the rock we jumped off of last time and almost pulled a Randy trying to figure out how deep it was underneath, if I could still jump. Being that one of the boatmen knew what I was talking about and didn’t say not to, I figured it was ok, and eventually jumped- the current at Havasu is very strong. Another lizard! (There were LOTS)
We eventually went back to the pools where our group was and took some pictures and waded around.
The guides passed out in their favorite place up on a ledge as always.

We made our way back and then rafted for several hours, a good 25 miles with not much white water, through the Muav gorge. We saw a lot of sheep!
One of the reasons that the last day is so long, almost a fourth of the trip’s miles, is that there are almost no campsites in the gorge, so once you are in it, you have to keep going. Karma 4 and I were nodding off on the side boards sometimes, it was so warm and with the hum of the motor, it just makes you want to nap.

We hit lava falls mid-afternoon. It was a better ride than I remembered, and I got a few pictures of the other raft going through as well.
We got to ride the sidetubes backwards on the last rapid which is always fun :)

We camped below mile 185 rapid, very close to the helopad we were going to in the morning. The beach was very wide and shallow, you could walk out halfway into the river and the water wasn't even up to my knees. Before dinner, which was porkchops, the boatmen took the sidetubes off the rafts so they would go faster in the morning.
I watched Scott do it with the help of Frank Philpot and Brett, and so I kept offering to help Mark, who was trying to do it by himself (while Park cooked almost everything I think). He kept saying it was easier to do it by himself, but he did let me deflate the tubes, and then Mike helped him roll them while mom and Jan and I stood on them- this was a precarious situation with both of them leaning on me and me afraid we were all going to fall in the river and get hurt. But it worked out and Mark gave all of us beers for helping.

After dinner we gathered our chairs in a circle and got some instructions about the next day.
Our awesome guides, Parke, Scott, and Mark.

Then we had a talent show/sharing time. Lots of people shared how much they loved the canyon and the trip, Matthew sang a song, and Ross told his poem, the Philpotts both mentioned how much they missed Randy, and Jeffrey did some backvflips. Then another group camped about 1/2 mile from us came over (we had dropped ice to them in the morning) and did 2 funny skits/songs for us to say thanks for the ice- the guys were in hula skirts and wigs, it was really funny. The best part was the guides did a skit for us called Little Big Man, involving Parke pounding about 7 beers and getting splashed with 'rapids' (buckets of water from Scott and Brett) and cracking eggs on his head, with Mark as his arms. Parke said he just jumped in the river when he was done, and that the worst part was that the last beer was actually a root beer, which was gross to chug.

I hung out with Monica, Elizabeth, Brett, and a few others for a little while on the beach, not wanting the night to end. I eventually moved my sleeping bag to about three feet from the water's edge and stared at the stars for a while before drifting off. Around 3am I realized the water was closer (it went down as the sun went down, due to less water being let out of glen canyon dam, and then back up overnight) to my sleeping bag and had to move so I wouldn't be wet in the morning.

Morning came at about 4- we packed everything up, had a continental breakfast, and loaded the rafts to the helopad. It was less than a mile downstream. We were the first group there, before 7am. The guides watered down the helopad so we wouldn't get sand blasted, and then we waited for choppers. They took our weight and weighed the bags and assigned up helicopters, and our whole group was out in an hour-ish.
We flew to the Bar-T ranch and had about 2 hours to kill before our little plane would fly us back to Vegas. Showers! Flush Toilets! Clean Clothes! Air Conditioning! As much as I didn't want to leave the canyon, it was nice having these things back. After a hard goodbye to most of our group who flew back to Marble Canyon Lodge, Mom and I and the Karmas and Jan flew to Vegas, and then eventually back home at like 8am the next day.

The Grand Canyon is my favorite place in the entire world.

Here is my 2010 River Family.