As part of my ongoing effort to help in the advancement of health promotion and wellness in southern Africa, Andre and I scheduled a workshop at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana. Our topic "Wellness from the Western and African Perspective: The Merging Point" was to be presented to university counsellors and faculty to help them better understand how wellness can be applied within the Botswanan way of living. Botswana is vastly different from South Africa, although they share a border and some tribal customs. Originally known as Bechuanaland, Botswana was at one time a protectorate within the British Empire, until gaining independence in 1966. Botswana was one of the poorest countries in the world until diamonds were discovered in 1967, which has propelled Botswana into one of the most stable countries in Africa. It is a wild and remote land, with most of its landscape covered by dry and arid semi-desert typical of the Kalahari in central Botswana. Even so, Botswana sports some of the most magnificent game viewing wilderness areas on the whole African continent. Most notable is the Moremi Reserve within the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. Andre and I had scheduled to present a full-day workshop in Gaborone, which is in the southeast side of Botswana, during the first part of the week. Since we would be in Botswana already, we thought it would be best to move north after the workshop and spend the rest of the week on a 3-day safari deep into the Moremi. What an outstanding decision that turned out to be!

Life in Botswana is easygoing, where everyone wears a smile. Along with this easy going attitude is an easygoing perspective on time, schedules, reservations, and the like. Our first experience with this was with Andre's flight booking made by an agent in Gaborone. He had been booked as "Dr. D. Andre," which resulted in needing to tell the same story just about every time we encountered a flight check in or customs agent. "Why does your passport say Andre de Jager and your ticket says Dr. D. Andre?" We decided to have some fun along the way so we swapped boarding passes with each other every once in awhile, just to see if the seemingly intense security inspectors were really paying attention. When we left PE, the security check guy took my passport and boarding ticket and appeared to be reading the name on my boarding ticket and passport and looking at me. He passed me through and did the same for Andre. So I took my first seat on this adventure as "Dr. D. Andre." This "breach of security" experiment also passed our test when we boarded the Air Botswana plane in Johannesburg (also commonly known as Joburg). No problem. I again got to ride as "Dr. D. Andre." So much for security issues here in southern Africa.

Our workshop was fun and we were able to gain some interesting perspectives from the participants. I was even able to make contact with an individual from Swaziland (another African country), which may result in some possible future work there. Andre and I will probably be back in Botswana for more trainings. They are hungry for health promotion ideas, especially since there is no health education profession in Botswana and their population is being decimated by the AIDS epidemic. I thought South Africa had the worst AIDS problem in the world. I was wrong. Botswana's problem is worse. So much so that they have zero population growth, as the number of AIDS deaths per day equals the number of live births. Even the university has a goal to establish a plan for recruitment to offset the student attrition due to death from AIDS. Unlike South Africa, Botswana is taking proactive measures to combat this problem, including government recognition that AIDS is a problem, support for prevention education in schools, and funding retroantiviral drug treatment for HIV infected people.

One of the nights we were in Gaborone, Andre and I decided we needed to test our skills in acquiring additional funds to support the Moremi trip. Since a casino was attached to our hotel and we had an hour or so to kill, we took our seats and tested our blackjack and poker slot machine skills. 500 Paula later (about 750 Rand or $100), we emerged as victors. So we now had a bundle that would get at least one night's stay in Maun and all of our meals paid. No, we were not engaging in addictive gambling, but rather an intellectual wellness activity.

Our trip to Maun, which is the frontier post to the Moremi, was again met with the "hakuna mathata" way of life. Only one flight per day goes to Maun. We discovered that the day we were to return (Saturday) to Gaborone, a direct flight from Maun to Joburg was also available. Instead of flying from Maun to Gaborone and then from Gaborone to Joburg, we thought it would be easy to just change the ticket to Maun to Joburg. Rather then risk two Air Botswana flights, which means riding twice on a propellered "bus with wings," we would reduce it to one. At PE and Joburg, we were told it would be best to wait until we got to Gaborone to make the change. Simple enough. "Yes, we would like to switch the return flight to go straight to Joburg and not stop in Gaborone." "You want to change the return flight?" "Yes, to go straight to Joburg." "You want to not stop in Gaborone?" "Yes, that is correct." "Where are you flying to today?" "Gaborone to Maun." "Gaborone to Maun?" "Yes, that's correct." "You want to fly to Joburg?" "Yes, but only on the return flight." "You don't want to go back to Gaborone?" "No, just directly to Joburg." "But you are not going to Joburg today." "No, we flew from Joburg to Gaborone earlier this week. Today we are flying to Maun. Saturday we want to go from Maun directly to Joburg," "No Gaborone?" "No. No Gaborone." "Maun to Joburg?" "YES, Maun to Joburg." "This is complicated. I need to get the supervisor to work on this." We follow her out of her office, she locks the door, and then in a short while she goes to the check in counter to help assign seats to people flying on the Gaborone to Maun flight, which is the flight we needed to also board. After a half an hour, Andre checked with her at the counter. "Yes, my supervisor will be here shortly to help you." "When is that?" "When he returns." "When is that?!?" "Soon." 'But we need to be on this flight that leaves in 10 minutes." "Soon." The supervisor arrives and we repeat the same story. "This is difficult and we really don't have time to do this now." "But we did 45 minutes ago when we first came into this office!" "Okay, hmmm, wait, let me answer my cell phone." He then started answering questions from some employee who came into the office. "Okay, the best you can do is go to the airport and see if you can get Maun to Joburg on standby. If not, then take your regular flight from Gaborone to Joburg." Boy, what a novel idea. However, everything our "ticket supervisor" did for us was with a smile so there was no sense in copping a "hey you idiot, give me the computer and let me do the booking myself!" attitude. We made our flight to Maun with barely a minute to spare.

Our safari adventure was to begin by being picked up at the airport by our safari adventure camp. When I booked the safari, I had specifically asked that we be picked up at the airport. "Yes, we will meet you at 13:50 at the airport." We got off the plane and saw all the safari camps picking up their guests. After 15 minutes, the airport, which is barely the size of a McDonald's restaurant with a Playland, was empty except for Andre and I. Okay, so where is our ride? We were at Maun airport and had no clue where to go. After awhile we called the camp. "I'm sorry, but there is no one here who can pick you up." "What? What are we supposed to do?" "I'll try and get a hold of Barbara and she if she can get you when she isn't busy." "Where is she?" "At lunch." "At lunch? It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon!" Just when we were starting to book another company, the owner of the camp picked us up and, sort of apologizing, took us out to their camp. We spent the night at their site and then headed out the next morning for the Moremi. When I said this was wilderness, I wasn't kidding. It took 3 hours to travel the 60 miles to the entrance of the Moremi, and another 3 hours to get to where we set up camp, deep in the Moremi. The "road" was unbelievable The Moremi is a semi desert savannah area, complete with gigantic termite mounds, mud huts, and donkeys and cattle on the road, like what you see on a National Geographic program. The roads, which are the "primary" roads, are actually sand tracks in the sand. There is no way a car could travel these roads. A typical U.S. SUV "4 wheel drive" vehicle would also have trouble. After bumping along for 6 hours and getting covered with dust, it felt good to stop and set up camp. All along the 6-hour drive we encountered numerous wild animals including giraffes, elephants, and antelope of all shapes and sizes. These were on the main public roads, even before we got to the Moremi. There are no fences in Botswana, so animals roam free. The Moremi itself is unspoiled wilderness--no tar roads, no guesthouses, no hotels, no restaurants, no gift shops. Just nature. Miles and miles of nature. It is situated on the edge of the Okavango Delta, the largest land delta in the world. Because of that, the Moremi also has all of the river animals, including crocodiles and hippos. The animals here are not as accustomed to human interaction as we have seen in South Africa. We set up camp on a land peninsula surrounded by marshes from the delta. Our camp, which is considered a "bush camp," consisted of a ground tent for each of us and a fire pit. That's it. Aside from Andre and I, we also had Thabo (ta boo), our guide, and Thendia (ten dee a), our cook. Both are from a village outside Maun and were excellent hosts and guides. We set up camp and I looked over at the large watering hole just 200 meters from us. "See the hippos in the water out there?" "Hippos!" " Yes, hippos. You'll here them grunt during the day, then they will come out and forage on the grass at night." "Where?" "Right over there." He pointed to a space just on the other side of our tents. "Hippos are aggressive and they stampede, don't they?" "Yes, but don't worry. Your tent is not set up in any of their trails. They only travel on the same paths." Unbelievable. The most important instructions our guides gave us were: (1) do not use the latrine between after dinner and before breakfast; and (2) do not come out of your tent at night for any reason, no matter what you hear or see. What? I double-checked this with my Moremi map guide and warning number 19 said: "Do not sleep outside. It is extremely dangerous to sleep outside since hyenas and lions always walk around campsites. Hyenas are known to bite people in the face when sleeping and lions will walk readily into open tents, therefore always close the tents properly at night." Yeeeeaaaah. Okay. That sounds like a pretty safe warning. Lions walking around the camp at night? You see, we were camping in the bush. I mean, really in the bush, complete with elephants, lions, hyenas, hippos, snakes, crocodiles, cheetah, leopards--you name it. No thorn fences or gates here. Just you and your tent. Just stay in your tent and you will be fine. Wait a minute. How does that work? Thabo said because they see your tent as a large animal that smells like you. If you are inside they will not mess with you. Once you are outside then you are simply a scrawny human. Imagine how I felt about that, knowing for sure that I would need to get up at night and relieve myself, especially after a couple of beers before bed (to calm my nerves). "Just be careful."

In late afternoon we went on a game drive and found a pride of lions that were just starting to get aroused for a night of hunting. They communicate with each other through a low growl, which, in the middle of the night, can help that "need to relieve oneself" feeling move along a lot faster. The lions were hunting less then a mile from where we were camped. That's not so bad until I found out they typically travel 30 kilometers a night. Remember, no fences, no thorn barriers. This is wild Africa. We even came across a large bull elephant, obviously agitated by our presence, who tried to intimidate us. I thought for sure he was going to ram us. On our way back to our campsite we happened across a cheetah who was stalking a small herd of impala. Try going to sleep at night knowing a cheetah, the fastest animal on the earth, is hunting less than a half-mile from your tent. Made me long for one of those old 100-pound, 6-sleeper canvas tents we had when I was a kid, complete with 85 aluminium poles and a lake in the middle of the tent whenever it rained. The first night I slept in the Moremi was definitely one of the most fearful nights I've had in years. I found myself waking up to every lion roar, hippo grunt, hyena howl, and who-knows-what-else sound that was coming from the bush. Ever hear a lion roar across a huge savannah? I found myself falling back to sleep each time praying to God to please let me not get eaten while I slept. Who cares about the puff adders, spitting cobras, black mamba, and pythons indigenous to this area. Once again, God gave me another day. The second day of game viewing was even better then the first, for we were able to catch three cheetahs sitting under a tree near a termite mound in the middle of an open grassland area. What a beautiful animal. Makes you want to reach out and pet one, until you see the size of their teeth. We also came upon herds of elephant, giraffe, and hippos. But, the most important sighting we experienced was the most illusive animal in southern Africa: the leopard. Thabo was on a mission to make sure we found a leopard, although he admits he rarely sees them himself. We happened across one who was in the process of stalking an impala herd. I was able to get him on video but did not have the right angle or lighting to get a still shot for the website. Regardless, I feel fortunate to be one of the few visitors to southern Africa who have seen a leopard. The second night's sleep was also filled with tense moments, especially being woken at 4:00 with the sound of the lions moving across the savannah. I breathed a sigh of relief as their voices grew distant and fell back to sleep listening to the hippos graze not more then 50 meters from my head.

Aside from the spectacular beauty, including some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, I kept track of the animals we came across during the 3 days we were in the Moremi, which included: giraffe, elephant, lion, cheetah, leopard, hippo, crocodile, zebra, impala, waterbuck, blue wildebeest, warthog, ostrich, thessebe, baboon, kudu, red lechwe, banded mongoose, tree squirrel, vervet monkey, steenbok, black-backed jackal, and a whole slew of birds such as fish eagle, cuckoo, crane, stork, hornbill, starling, and guinea fowl. This trip was an experience of a lifetime.

Our return trip took us through Joburg where I was able to meet Andre's two oldest children, Anke and Kalie, and their families. Like all the de Jager's, they are wonderful people who were willing to share part of their weekend with us. I was able to bring back Pula and hand crafted goods for everyone here at the flat. I even was able to get a rock for my braai pit. I searched hard and long and after again realizing to be patient as the "rock will find me," it was in front of my face. Every thought of finding a rock brought my eyes to the ground and the vast expanse of sand common in this part of the world. There are many rocks in the Moremi, only most are only the size of a grain of sand. So, I brought back a small bag of sand to mix in the mortar when I build my braai pit.

The rest of the family fared well during my absence and concentrated on school and PE living. There is much to tell about the kids' current school activities. But alas, this entry is long enough as is, so I will save their exploits for next week's update!