Bee Catching 101

So I am hanging out at my house Sunday, washing sheets and some pretty filthy curtains before I head to Camphill to find my landlord’s son, Lenswe to bring a few items from the previous volunteers to my house, when he shows up with my stuff, along with my landlord’s cousin. The two of them are ready to tackle fixing the canopy on the porch.

Little did they know that a beehive had taken up residence on the canopy itself. No problem. They would simply take it down, put it in a box or something and take it over to the cousin’s house a few hundred meters away.  So far, we have no exact plan about how to do this, but I offer boxes, garbage bags and duct tape to the mix and they start in. Meanwhile, Lenswe is talking to the neighbors about the beehive. A story begins to unfold which may have huge ramifications on the relationship between my landlord and the neighbors.  Of course, I am only getting bits and pieces of the story between bits and pieces of the mechanics of moving the bee hive, so it makes it both very interesting and entertaining.

The story is that a bee hive used to live in a big old barrel at my house, but the barrel wasn’t around anymore. I am to learn later that this bee hive has been at my house for 25 plus years. Okay, probably not the same bees or the same queen, but a colony of bees and their ancestors have taken care of my landlord’s beautiful garden for these past 25 years, and provided honey to boot. 

Well, lookie here, the barrel was at the neighbor’s house because when my house sat empty for about a year, they had appropriated the beehive and the honey that came with it.  They had just harvested the honey and thus the bees had been set free, and looking for a new home they naturally came back to where they wanted to be the whole time. Being unable to carry the big metal barrel, they had begun their new hive on the canopy. 

I remember now my neighbor had told me earlier that week about some bee hive “that side” and how he was having someone come and take care of it.  I had no idea at the time that he was actually going to try to steal back my landlord’s beehive after it “got away” or that “that side” meant just outside my living room window, hanging on my broken down canopy.

Over the course of the next hour Lenswe and his second cousin devised the methodology for getting the bee hive taken care of and back to its rightful home.  Once they figured out where the barrel was, they went and got it.  But this only happened after he had knocked the hive and the bees down and into a garbage bag which they told me to hold closed, just like this. Very carefully. It was important not to kill any bees, he said, and also not to get stung. Apparently a neighbor’s dog had recently died because of too many bee stings. Eish!  So there I stood, very quietly, left holding the bag. 

There was a small opening at the top so bees could come in and out, as anyone knows they need to do to feel safe and happy that their queen is safe.  So in and out they flew, within inches of my face, and crawling on my hand, which I could not, should not, would not move. I used the opportunity to practice some new meditation methods, though none I had read about up to this point had talked about counting bees on my hand, or focusing on the sound of the beehive laying in a garbage bag at my feet.  I am new to both meditating and bee bag holding, so I started focusing on not hyperventilating, which I guess is a reasonable meditation.

Lucikly, I have no real fear of bees.  I don’t search them out but they don’t bother me. I love them in the garden and know how critical they are to the whole ecosystem. In fact, having a bee hive in our yard is why we have such beautiful flowers and orange trees.  This is all true, but when a bee is tickling your palm and you aren’t sure if it will decide to sting you suddenly, forcing you to drop the bag and all hell to break loose, well, you start to wonder a bit. And they are taking a long time to get that barrel.  Couldn’t they have gotten the barrel before they took down the bee hive and put it in a bag?

Once the barrel is back, it needs the lid to be bent back so more time elapses. I have handed over bee bag holding responsibilities to Lenswe so I can film and the cousin can prepare the barrel.  Lenswe’s  hand is totally covered with bees by the time the barrel is ready and they carefully dump the bees into the barrel, place the bag over most, but not all of the opening and duct tape the crap out of it. They are enthralled by my duct tape, which is now almost gone (note to self, request more from home).

The plan is to take the barrel to the cousin’s house, but not now now. Instead we drove to Camphill so they can pick up some stuff to weld the metal for the canopy, and we drive by the cousin’s house, which is devoid of all plant life. I suggest they leave the barrel and the bees at their natural home – my garden – where they are used to doing their work, and he can come and show me how he harvests honey. They thought that was a better plan than carrying a huge barrel full of bees down the hill.

At Camphill, we told my landlord the story.  I don’t know much Setswana, but in the proper context I was able to understand that her neighbors basically stole her bee hive and the barrel once no one was living in the house and she was quite incensed.  She was still talking about it the next day.

Meanwhile, the bees are home, doing what bees do, but far enough away from the house as to not pose a hazard if I finally do decide to let my cats out of the house. The neighbors have been put on notice not to mess with “our” bees and at some point, the landlord’s cousin will be back to show me how he harvests honey.  Life will go back to normal for the bees. Maybe they will tell their offspring about the time they were moved off their land, only to be rescued by a strange group with garbage bags and duct tape and brought home again.

I walked home later and had a bee that just wouldn’t leave me alone for awhile. I am not sure if it had gotten attached to my clothing during the bag holding and had just continued to hang out with me, lost and bereft, if it was from a different hive sniffing me out, or just a random occurrence.  How far do bees travel from their hives? Can they smell other bees from other hives on humans? Whatever.  I just know I got me some bees.

The more things change...

I have to be careful how I say this, because Tsatsi is watching every word closely and Sisi is pretending not to be paying attention, but she is sitting right next to her baby.

Hmm…okay…I may be stuck with two cats.  And when I mean stuck, I mean, uh, quite happy, really, despite having clearly stipulated in all my Peace Corps paperwork and interviews that I would only be willing to join their illustrious organization if I did not have to have cats. I needed a cat break since it was so emotionally hard to leave all my babies behind, I didn’t want to go through that again here after two years. I didn’t want the expense, the worry, cat boxes. It was a deal breaker. They assured me that they would not require me to have a cat, and certainly they would be sanctioned if they required me to have as many as two. I explained that two or more had always been a problem for me, due to lack of lap accommodations

Okay, so as you know, I signed the dotted line and off I came to Botswana. How I ended up with Sisi is chronicled elsewhere on this blog. So where did Tsatsi come from?  Well, she spent a few weeks with a dear friend PCV who realized after these weeks that it was too risky with her asthma. She had had a cat before so it hadn’t been such an absurd notion. But as time went on she realized it wouldn’t work.

So she made the 4 hour trek with her counterpart here to bring Tsatsi home again. My plan was to find someone here who wanted the little darling, because my contract only allows for one, and I found a colleague at work who would be willing. So me and my PCV pal are going to split the cost of having Tsatsi spayed and then off she would go to her new home.

Last night after Tsatsi’s ride left her and things calmed down, she went looking for her mother, who had taken up her default hiding position under my bed whenever there is company. She sat at the foot of the bed and waited. I sat in the living room and angsted over whether or not they would kill each other.  I heard some hissing and nice guttural vocalizations, but wasn’t sure who was doing what. After a while, Sisi came out, a little while later, they were chasing each other around the house. Tentatively, but they were definitely reconnecting and it became clear after awhile that the “words” they had exchanged earlier went something like this

“Mom, is that you under there?”

“Eh, yeah, is that you punk?”

“Mommmm. Don’t call me that please, I am almost 6 months old now”

“Whatever.  Where the heck have you been?”

“Me??? Why did you let them take me away from you?”

“I am a cat. I thought you were just going out for awhile. Then I feel asleep. You know how it goes. Anyway…I am glad you are back.”

So they didn’t sleep with me that night, preferring to cuddle on the couch, although Sisi still thinks she is supposed to wake me at 6:30,  even on weekends. The two of them played happily as I did laundry. (At least these kids won’t give me more laundry to do.)

Tsatsi sits on my lap as I type this, Sisi licking Tsatsi sweetly on her head before going to find a blanket to hide under. Crap. I think I now have two cats.  The more they stay the same.

Crazed Dog Attack

So one of my co-trainees was attacked by her neighbor’s dog during our training in Kanye. She got a nasty bite on the leg but is doing okay by now.  She had been at the neighbor’s house before and even met the dog, but on this particular day, it was with another dog so for some reason decided to attack. That old stupid pack mentality I suppose. Flash forward to my walk home from work Friday.

I am passing by a co-worker’s house. It is a beautiful sunny day, but windy and a bit cold. People are out and about, happy it is Friday afternoon and giving friendly “dumelas” to eachother. I am wearing my down jacket, hat and scarf. Pretty much had been wearing them all day, because our office is so cold (aka, full of windows, cement walls and floors and devoid of heating unless you plug in a space heater, which I don’t have – yet). Anyway, in front of my co-workers house are his three typical Batswanan (hmm, that’s for people - Setswanan?) dogs, literally smiling at me. I have been to the house a couple of times so they know me, and are pretty friendly creatures anyway. So I say, “hi Max” to the adolescent son of the mother dog. He trots over and jumps up on me. No manners. Then mom comes over, along with puppy Mathatha (not his name, but what I will now call him – trouble) and THEY start jumping on me.  Then the two small bischon freeses (or whatever those dirty brown, normally white straggly things are) join in, having easily snuck under the closed gate at the house. And I suddenly have 5 friendly dogs jumping on me. They won’t stop, they are getting me filthy (oh I am SO glad these pants were not freshly washed or I would have been really, really pissed) and I am starting to get a bit concerned that I will never get away from them and that even if I do they will follow me  home.

Then it happens. Mathatha grabs my arm and rips my down jacket in the forearm, making a hole about 1 ½ inches long. He gets another nick in on the other forearm. Or maybe that was his older brother Max. The down starts flying and the lovely moment is over. OVER.  I had been kinda telling them to leave me alone in English the whole time, but now very loud NYAAs starting coming out of my mouth, and the kicking started.  When they figured out I didn’t want to play anymore, they walked away and I stuffed down into my coat and held it in for the rest of the walk. Dumb mutts. Dumb me. Should had just said nyaa and thrown in a few kicks to start with. But that ain’t my way.  And these were friendly dogs.

That night, I cut cute little hearts out of duct tape (well, as best you can make cute little hearts out of duct tape) and placed them lovingly on my jacket. As I did so, I remembered the story my co-worker told me the weekend before of how he awoke in the middle of the night having heard some strange noises. He went outside and saw 4 or 5 guys walking by his house carrying a load of obviously stolen goods from a local grocery; bags and bags of things, mostly food. Well my neighbor and his 5 dogs (did I mention that one of the small dirty brown-white ones has only one eye, so her depth perception must have been zilch) took off running after the guys, dogs barking ferociously, my co-worker yelling and waving a stick or something. The guys saw the dogs and dropped the goods.  By the next morning, the police had figured out who all the culprits were and the dogs and my co-worker had saved the local grocer from a loss of thousands of Pulas.

I also sat down to watch a video called Waltz with Bashir. It was in hebrew, i think, with no subtitles and animated. It started out with a bunch of wild dogs running through the streets of a sitting terrorizing everyone until the stopped outside some guys window and barked up at him.  Nope. Not tonight I am afraid.  Too life like this here animation.

The day after this little mishap, I am walking down the hill and see this scrawny little dog carrying something in its mouth.  As I get closer, it becomes clear that he has the lower leg and hoof (if that’s what it is called) of what appears to be a goat. Well, was a goat. Not sure how the rest of the thing had been divved up, but these dogs are no joke.  I am going over to my co-worker’s later today to loan his wife a book and give her some money for the cat bowl with the  anti-ant moat she bought for me.  I will probably wear my jacket, but forewarned is forearmed. Ehh, I hope.

Kristen and GOD I LOOK LIKE MY MOM

Ameila & Susan - 2 of my favs!

Lucia watching Twilight - again!

Host mom Lenah & me at swearing in