Thoughts on a VERY HOT Thursday afternoon

I swear some of the sounds that come out of the animals here are pretty amazing. This cool looking, black, white and yellow bird just flew up to the window to my living room,  got the cats’ attention, then sat on the deck chair outside for about 15 seconds just staring at us and saying “wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.”  Really, really fast and with a bird like voice and I swear that is what it sounded like.

Another bird makes the sound of someone whining “why?”  Not like a 2 year old would do it, but more like a wicked witch of the west. Again, really fast and kind of high pitched, but clearly a question.

There is another bird that just whistles a flat, boring whistle. At first I thought it was someone at work who couldn’t whistle and it was really, really annoying. Now it is still really annoying, but at least it is just a bird.

The baby goats in my neighborhood sound like they are blowing one of those party favor horns. Not the ones with the paper that rolls out, (although actually one little kid DID sound like that, but maybe he had a cold) but the other ones with the more annoying sound. On a goat it is very cute, but if 50 of the human kind of kids went at it, well not so cute.

Speaking of 50 human kids, my Girls and I have decided we are putting on a birthday party/ neighborhood party on February 4^th. The idea is, we invite all the neighborhood kids under say age 12 over for a few hours of American and Botswanan games, treats, music and dancing and just see how many of them we can get really hyped up on fun and sugar before we sent them home.

Then we will have a more adult party to celebrate my 50^th, to which I am inviting other PC volunteers, friends from work, my Rotary club here, and people I know in the neighborhood or village. The challenge will be that every Tom, Dick or Kabelo may show up, whether invited or not, and you have to feed people. Then again, I could just say this is an American party so we are playing by American rules. Sure, we feed people at American parties, but not like they do here.  Full plates of food, given to big and small alike. Meats and salads and starches. Eish.  I will have to recruit some Batswana women to help me pull anything respectable off, I am afraid.

February will be like our August (well, like Sacramento’s August, let’s say) so I am thinking we should just fill a bunch of large wash basins with water and sit in them for the majority of the day.  Hopefully, we can turn that into a game that makes sense. And definitely a water balloon fight is a good plan. Nothing more American than that. And maybe no one will be that hungry. Except the mosquitos, this I know from experience.

I accidentally left my screen open on one of my windows a few night ago and awoke to find mosquitos had sucked most of the blood out of my left ear and had started on my check.  They also got my right calf.  These bites itch like the dickens too….I heard during training that mosquitos tend to prefer younger women with some fat on them. I have no idea if this is true or not, but during our training a few months back it is true I didn’t get bit as much as the, uh, younger women with some fat on them. But now I am the only one here and even with my weight loss I am still fatter than most of the people in my neighborhood.

I am supposed to be working right now, but it is too damned hot to think straight. That is probably clear to you by now. After my trip to Mogobane this morning I came back and figured I would work from home and keep an eye on my power going off so I could shove things into my freezer. Apparently it is 40 degrees or something. I stop counting once it is over 30 because I really don’t want to know. We are waiting for rain, and we haven’t had enough of it, this is for sure.

I certainly miss the rain and fog from Humboldt. Obviously, living in Humboldt means you have to at least have some affinity for rain, unless you are a complete moron or being held there against your will.  Here when it rains it comes down fast and furious with thunder and lightning, but doesn’t last for days on end, like it can do at home.  Here after it rains just a little, you have maybe a day of being able to walk around without your feet getting all dusty.  If it rains more, you will discover gullies where your path used to be and big tire tracks that will dry and permanently scar a once reasonably flat dirt road with huge long craters. I am waiting to see if my normal route to work will be impacted by any real rain fall.

I’ve always thought it should rain every night so that we can enjoy its benefits without having to get wet. Whoever I mentioned that to once said, “What about all the people who work at night, or have to be out at night?” Well heck, they can move to Botswana, where it might rain at night or might not, but at least it doesn’t rain very much if and when it does and they could probably avoid most of it by just going inside or pulling over for 30 minutes. You don’t want to be driving when it really starts coming down here. That IS just like home.

Well, it is Thursday and I have already put in 32.5 work hours and I still have Friday and a workshop Saturday morning, so I guess I really don’t have to work right now if I really don’t want to. Just have a lot to do, but whatever.  Saturday the renovation starts on our Otse group’s building, so I need all the rest I can get before dealing with another construction job.  Who would have thought I would leave HSRC after all the capital projects we did to come here and do some of the same thing?  And I realize right now that I haven’t clarified with the builder exactly what kind of security locks and doorknobs we want. Yikes. At least I know these won’t cost $575 each.