No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Botswana is the setting for the internationally best-selling series of books by Alexander McCall Smith called The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  I had read most of them in recent years and enjoyed them immensely--though the author does take some pot shots at Nigerians!
We took along the disks for the HBO made-for-TV series and I've been watching them with the girls.  We can honestly testify that the sights and sounds are VERY true to Botswana.
Here are the opening credits.  (In case it doesn't link, copy this into your browser:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HvIx6H-rs)
You could also get on the list at your local library to borrow the DVDs or find a friend willing to loan them out.  You can ask to borrow ours after May 1!
Here's another link for a longer segment.  I didn't watch it all on YouTube because the file was too big to download here,  but I think it is the same as one of the specials on the CD.

More Wildlife

Koekoes took us for an afternoon drive in the small game park in Gaborone.  Since this reserve is just on the outskirts of the city, they don’t have big cats (lions, cheetahs, etc.) or elephants.  But we did see ostrich, kudu, monkeys, duiker, warthogs, wildebeast, storks, springboks, impala, ferret, ground squirrels, a few zebras and the elusive eland.  The girls are getting good at spotting the wild life in the bush while we are driving.

Chicken Nuggets in Botswana

Ana and Mia both love chicken nuggets.  But here isn’t a McDonalds in the whole country and the KFC is all the way down in Gaborone... what’s a mom to do?  Here’s our recipe for chicken nuggets in our village:

Catch chicken--preferably the one that woke you up this morning.  Koekoes says, “the only good chicken is a cooked chicken!” 

Twist chicken’s neck

Pluck chicken’s feathers using boiling hot water

• Butcher chicken, carefully removing all meat from the bones--including thigh and drumstick meat
• Simmer carcass with desired seasonings to make soup or a yummy curry stew.  Cool and clean carcass, keeping the little pieces of meat.  Give carcass to the dog.  (Yes, I know you are not supposed to give chicken bones to a dog, but don’t tell that to our dog, Preto.  As Koekoes says, “he is a missionary dog--he eats everything and anything we can feed him!”)
• Slice bread or rolls and lay them in a single layer on a tray outside to dry. Preferably, do this earlier in the day.  Remember how hot it is?  and that this is a desert?--it doesn’t take long to dry out the bread.  Cover the bread with a light cloth lest the crows think you are feeding them.
• When bread is dry, create crumbs in the food processor (yes! we have one here!)
• Roll chicken pieces into seasoned flour, then into egg and milk bath, then into the bread crumbs.
• Drop breaded pieces into hot oil and fry on both sides.
• Serve with tomato (tom-AH-toe) sauce and a side of mangos.  
• For a complete dinner, peel potatoes, slice into wedges and deep fry for a serving of “chips.” 

Okay, truth is we actually start at step 4.  When I was growing up in Nigeria, we had to start at step 1, and help the steward catch and pluck the chicken, but times have changed.  We have a small grocery store in Mochudi that sells whole chickens already dead and plucked.  But there are no convenient boneless breast packages like I usually find at Safeway or King Soopers in Denver, so I’m learning to butcher the whole chicken.  It is time-consuming and messy, but the girls love the nuggets, so it is worth the work.

And here it is--late at night and I’m still writing because it is hard to sleep when the chickens have their clocks so messed up.  They are crowing at the top of their lungs and it is NOT morning--it’s not even midnight.  If I could only catch one of them tomorrow...yummy nuggets coming right up!

Quilts!

There is one quilt shop in Botswana.  Kalahari Quilts (click here to see their website) is owned by Jenny Healy and is a small but well stocked shop in Gaborone. The fabric is mostly imported and similar to what I'd find in the states, but there are a few bolts from South African and some from Nigeria.  Luck me--I was in town for their annual quilt show!  and lucky me--the girls and Koekoes agreed to give me half an hour to look at quilts!  Here's what I saw.

  

Village Life

Deciding to spend these quiet weeks in a village in Botswana has rewarded us with unique experiences

Only in Rasesa...

Could we do the laundry on the same day the neighbor decided to torch one of his dead trees. The resulting smoke and smell embedded into our clothes on the line.

Only in Rasesa...

Would the other neighbors call to us over the fence at 10:30 at night to show off the new piglets that were just being born!  

Only in Rasesa...

Would a cricket the size of a Snickers bar jump into our circle in the middle of dinner...

would a toad bathe in the dog’s bowl...
would the tiny blue wax bill birds visit us while we peeled carrots in the back yard.

Only in Rasesa woujld the air be perfumed with stink ants (an acidy, potent scent), one neighbor’s pit latrine (too close to the property line!) and--on a few glorious afternoons, the promise of fresh rain (promise only--nothing actually got wet!) 

Only in Rasesa...

would the sounds of barking dogs, scratching chickens, hungry piglets, crickets, mossies, roosters, and the neighbor’s boom box meld together to create the background track for our evening.

Only in Rasesa...

would we be drinking lemonade from lemons off the trees and eating mangos out of the front yard, 
barbequeing lamb and pork from various friends’ farms, and throwing no food scraps away.  
Remember the pig next door?  We can toss our scraps right over the fence into his pen. 

Only in Rasesa...
Could we eat dinner on the front lawn and see a sunset like this:

What are the Girls up to?

There's not much to do in Rasesa.  So, how do two active girls spend their time?

Reading,

playing games, 

arguing, painting pictures, 

doing dishes, 

helping to make dinner, 

nagging each other, 

playing on their Ninetendos, 

studying on the computer, 

drawing in the dirt, and did I mention....

EJ and Koekoes have the Disney Channel!?  Ana and Miahave kept up with Phineas and Ferb most mornings.  

They've not complained once about being bored.  Of course, those too-frequent times of arguing and picking on each other might just be another way of pronouncing "I'm bored!"

The girls are also studying the names of the countries of Africa.  We found a fun website to teach and test ourselves.  See how many countries you know! Africa Map Quiz

Friday night was Coke, movie and pizza night.  Of course it was homemade, and yes, we paid for it by heating up the whole house with the oven, but it was worth it.

Got My Wheels

Getting around has gotten a lot easier now that I’ve passed Koekoes’ driving test and have the keys to the “bucky”  aka “pickup.”  Yes, it’s a stick shift and YES, I am sitting in the driver’s seat, and NO, I do not drive on the “wrong” side of the road; I drive on the “other” side of the road.  I also drive in kilometers instead of miles (!) and do my best to avoid the assortment of traffic also using the road:

• taxis that travel 20-30 kph instead of the posted 60 because they are trying to pick up fares along the way,
• Toyotas.  It seems 9 out of every 10 vehicles is a Toyota of some kind.
• goats, chickens, donkeys, cattle
• school children who prefer the even surface of the road to the rocky uneven ground.  They are used to the cars, but I am not used to them and am terrified that they will dart out into the road.
• Adult pedestrians in the town.  There is a saying in the language of Setswana: “the car can see me,” which translates into fearless walking all over the main road in the busy sections of town.  Since the car can supposedly see people, the car is supposed to avoid hitting them--no matter where they are walking!  

So, truth be told...driving isn’t very relaxing, but it is nice to be able to go into the office a bit more often to email Bob and get online for the girls math books.  (They don’t think that part is so nice!)