Monday:
I went to Mokolodi again on Monday with two other CIEE people to find out more about volunteering. We left at 8.00 am from UB and caught a combi going to the station. From there we crossed a bridge over a rail yard and got on a the Ramotswe bus which drops off by Mokolodi. Once at the edge of the reserve's property it's a little over a mile of a walk up some hills to get to the actual place. Once there we meet with Ian, the new director, and he gave us a stern talking to about volunteering and “not expecting any glamorous work”. So...no snuggling with the cheetahs then, damn. Anyway, he put us to work right away. We followed the HR rep (Dennis) out to dilapidated and temporarily closed Reptile Park and and animal sanctuary. It needs a lot of work! Redesigning, cleaning, sprucing up, all those good things to make it appealing to the public. The thing is, Mokolodi is non-profit and had a really small budget, so it's hard to get all the things which need to be done done. The poor playground doesn't really have anywhere for kids to play!
Anyway, we were set to work with the groundskeeper, a man whose Setswana name translates to English as “payment”. He backed up a truck and we filled it with broken cement chunks, cinder blocks, and the huge pile of rubbish which was accumulating along the fence of the Reptile Park. Now, by rubbish I don't mean wrappers, papers, and bits of plastic. I mean rotten old doors, planks, piping, twisted wires and chunks of metal, buckets, an old sink, and so forth. In this rubble Chris, one of the CIEE guys, found the skeleton of a HUGE spider. It it hadn't been dead it could very well have delivered a venomous bite to Chris. Needless to say, we were very freaked out after that. Especially when Chris started talking about the deadly puff adders, black mambas, and king cobras which are oh-so common in Botswana. Luckily though all we found was a very long porupine quill, which I am now keeping as a trophy.
After dropping all that stuff at the dump (which was full of little monkeys digging through the dumpsters and being a nuisance) we went back to start raking up leaves and making the paths more presentable. It was very hot and dry and we had no water. It was also hungry work. The upside was that there were animals all around us. In the Reptile Park there are puff adders, pythons, tortoises, monitor lizards, and some other various snakes. In the sanctuary there is a huge Martial Eagle, which is the largest species of eagle in Africa. This particular character is a permanent resident in the sanctuary because as a young eagle he attempted to attack a baby baboon and was in turn attacked by an adult baboon. He had a damaged wing and wouldn't survive out in the bush. Besides this guy, there are two vultures, one little owl, a heron, and two monkeys. Mr. Martial Eagle kept me company while I was raking.
When 2.00 rolled around we got a ride in the back of the grounds keeper's truck to the Mokolodi gate and started the mile long trek back. On the way I got stung by a bee and immediately started spazzing so much that one of my friend's had to pull the stinger out of my hand because I couldn't do it myself. We caught a bus at the edge of the property and rode back to the station in Gabs. Another combi ride from there to UB and I got to my room and passed out. Missed an hour of the Setswana language class. Oh well, I think it was justified.
Tuesday:
So far this day has been going so well! My journalism class is so much improved by jolly Prof Rooney, and today I sat around for two hours reading newspapers and chatting with the people nearby. They were really friendly! We talked about Wisconsin and Denzel Washington, with a side of Malcolm X.
After Journalism I had a mishap- and an embarrassing one at that. An electrician came to my room, only I didn't know he was an electrician so naturally when I heard someone fumbling with my door I ignored it as one of Fruits' friends, who are kind of annoying and rude. Anyway, he opened the door with a master lock and fixed my outlets, which were not working for the past week or so. When he left he left my door locked. I had better explain the locking system here: Ever door has a student provided padlock. In addition, there is a mechanism on the inside of the door to open it from the inside without disturbing the padlock. This is the master door lock and only the RA and cleaning ladies have keys to this. So even though I had my padlock keys when I came back from an unsucessful shower trip- wearing only a towel- I could not open the door. I had to gather up my remaining dignity and head upstairs to my friend Brooke's room. She lent me some sweatpants and a sweatshirt to wear while I searched for a cleaning lady. I finally did find one...and she didn't speak English. She did, however, send me to someone who did and I finally got my room unlocked. Few!
I was going to walk to Riverwalk today for groceries, but was really not looking forward to it. It's getting quite hot here and the sun is brutal. I also have an ARC test tomorrow to study for. Luckily my friend Megan tipped me off about a new convenience store which just opened up in the student center, right next to the all important post office. I went in and found almost everything I was going to buy! I bought some apples, decided to come back later, and headed to class. Then I found out class was canceled! I met up with Brooke and we headed back, and then I found P20 on the ground- score. I took that P20 and bought some more groceries. I found the Botswana equivalent of Goldfish crackers, and I also bought some of my new favorite Lays potato chips, which is cheddar and spring onion. Not as good as Flanagans, but much lighter and crispier.
So here I am now, blogging, and listening to Lily Allen. It's been a good day! Oh, and bonus, I sent out some stuff in the mail. Productivity ahoy.
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