It's A New Year, Charlie Brown

Since it’s already the New Year, I thought I’d revive this poor blog by doing a post on the things I’m thankful for this past year.

The top of my thankfulness list each is always my family and my friends that might as well be family.  

But here’s the list of them:

• I’m thankful for my sister, who means the world to me, and her new husband, who means the world to her.  I’m thankful for going to San Diego and seeing them and for spending Christmas with them. 
• For my parents, who support us both in our endeavors and who are making healthier living choices this past year. 
• For my grandmother, the only biological grandparent I have left and her giving heart. 
• For my adopted grandparents, T & D, who are always there with words of wisdom and a funny video. 
• For my adopted siblings, B, M, R, J, and K, who are the truest friends you’ll ever find. 
• For my vet school family, who raise my spirits when they flag, give me encouraging words, and the occasional slap upside the head.  Without them, school would be impossible. 
• For my family in England, who let me stay when I make it over there, drop everything to come see me, and make me wish England wasn’t all the way across the pond.
• For the friends in Arizona that make me a better person, that are there no matter how far away I am.
• For the new friends I met in Botswana, I hope to see you again someday.
• And for the new friends I make each day, even if only for a minute.  For the fascinating people we meet each and every day, the people who make jokes in line and help pass the time, the people who smile, hold doors, or are just simply polite.

For less serious things:

• Jake and Annabelle, my silly little beasties who make me walk them every morning, play tug and play fetch, who make me laugh, smile, and tear out my hair.
• For web comics that make me laugh or teach me something new.
• For Facebook pages that make me laugh, think, and learn.
• For Facebook in general that lets me stay in touch with people thousands of miles away.
• For finding an embryology book that actually makes sense.
• For Charlie Brown, who gave me the post title.
• And for this blog that lets me tell you all about my life.

It’s been a good year, with ups and downs and everything in between.  My sister went and got married.  I up and went to Africa on my own, then met part of one of my favorite families in England, met my own family in England.  I got to attend the AVMA Convention with my mom.  I learned the value of studying with friends and the value of staying in touch with friends.  Each year brings new lessons, new triumphs, new memories, and new friends.  Friends are our sanity and our salvation.

So, my New Year’s Resolution is to stay in better touch with all of my friends.  If you feel like we don’t talk much, give me a shout.  Call me, text me, message me, email me.  I can guarantee I want to hear from you.  

A Blog in Three Parts: Ghanzi Show

July 2, 2012

The Ghanzi Show is an annual fair that fondly reminded of the Cochise County Fair and the Dixon Mayfair.  Farmers bring in their livestock and vendors of the cheap stuff you can only find at those fair stalls were everywhere.  All it lacked was rides.  And instead of the old staples of Indian fry bread and churros were replaced with “pancakes” which were actually crepes with cinnamon and sugar and fat cakes, a deep fried and delicious ball of bread.

And my favorite delicacy of the whole thing, whole fried bream seasoned with either a spicy, chili based flavor or a classic BBQ flavor.  Delicious.  Messy but delicious and for a mere 15 pula, a steal.  Mmm…

Last year the show was apparently freezing cold, this year it was windy as all get out.  We broke two awnings before the show really even started.  At that point we sent Phale back for one of the big tents used at the education center, pinned everything down with big rocks, and prayed.  When we got the tent set up, we could set up all of brochures and pamphlets with a little less paralyzing fear that they’d be gone in a moment.  We also set out all of the lovely CCB swag to tempt passersby with.  And tempt us volunteers with.  I ended up with two shirts, a fleece jacket, and a ball cap.  If the show had gone on any longer I’m sure I’d have come away with more.  As it was, I ended up with plenty.

But it was fun.  The kids especially were fantastic.  We had two skins, one of a leopard and one of a cheetah and we would ask people which was which and how to tell the difference.  Leopards are shorter, stouter, climbs trees and have those rosette shaped spots while cheetah are tall, slim, and fast with small, solid, round spots.  Someone compared them to a pit bull (the leopard) versus a greyhound (the cheetah) I thought that was quite apt.

In addition to bumming around the stand and flagging down the CCB employees who spoke Setswana, I wandered around the show grounds.  There were some absolutely gorgeous animals at the show.  The bull that won the show was simply gorgeous.

And after the show, there was sitting round, drinking beer or cider, and chatting with the farmers.  I enjoyed that bit.  We met some lovely people that way.

Friday we also got to visit one of the farms to collect camera traps.  No cheetahs, though, just loads of leopard photos.

After the Ghanzi show, our time seemed to fly even faster.  My last night in Ghanzi was Wednesday June 27.  We had a braai (BBQ) and spent the night chatting, all of the CCB folks and Caoilfhionn and myself.  And I had the honor of having a T bone the size of my face.  Seriously, massive T bone.  And after hovering over it for over an hour, finally finishing it.

Interlude

Ok, part 3 will be along soon, I promise.  I also have to write up my last few days in Ghanzi and my trip to Moremi (thanks Andrea & Gavin!)  But right now I am once more sitting in the Jo'burg airport, killing time.  I'm getting a bit too good at this, I fear.  But this time I'm just off a 1.5 hour flight, with only like 10 hours to follow.  I'm much more cheerful.  I also have all of my Africa kitsch souvenirs so I'm pretty pleased.

I did learn the hard way that converting pula to pounds is pointless, so I ended up blowing the last of my pula on books which, really, is fine with me.

I haven't even left Africa and already I miss it.  Most of all, I miss the people.  I miss all of my CCB friends, Gavin, Andrea, Jane, Phale, Max, and DT who are some of the best people you'll ever meet and gave me the experience of a lifetime.  Thanks guys & gals!  I even miss the Afrikaans farmers that I got to know.  Because really, if I don't come back next summer (not terribly likely unless someone out there wants to pay my way?) I won't see any of you for a long time.

And I already miss my fellow volunteer Caoilfhionn.  It's amazing how close you can get to someone in a month.

BUT on the flip side, I can't wait to get to London and catch up with some family and find my lovely friend Marie.  It's the summer Jessica and Marie mob London and it will be fantastic.  I can already tell you I won't want to leave London.  But places I love, like Ghanzi and London and even Phoenix, I never want to leave.  I never mind leaving Davis because I've always known Davis was a temporary thing and I'll get my fill over four years.  It would probably take me at least a year to get my fill of Ghanzi and a couple years to get my fill of London, let alone England.

Anyway, just wanted to let y'all know I am alive and well and on my way to the shining lights of London town and that I owe all of my lovely readers at least two blog posts.  Because I have to tell you about the elephants!

A Blog in Three Parts: Gaborone

June 27, 2012

Gaborone or Gabs, as it’s affectionately known as, is Botswana’s capitol city.  It’s a good sized city.  It’s definitely a city, though.  Although the occasional herd of goats crosses the city streets and there are some ridiculous roundabouts, it’s still just a city.  Some cities have a flavor and are delightful.  Gabs is still in that up and coming stage and it’s pretty much like any up and coming small city.  But it does have all the recommendations of a city, including malls.  As Gavin and Andrea put it, “There’re three malls.  We have to move.”

Really, I’m selling it short.  It is a nice city, but for this country girl all cities are kind of the same.

Gabs is a full day by car away, about eight hours if you’re doing well.  You pass through the other sort of landmark cities of Kang and Jwaneng.  Kang is distinguished by its charming truck stop and Jwaneng by the thriving mine that feed it. 

What really made the trip special was staying at the other CCB camp in Mokolodi.  Mokolodi is an incredible game reserve just outside of Gabs.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.  It’s home to CCB, an education center of its own, and a restaurant with food that’s genuinely good.  (They had excellent calamari).

It’s also home to a pair of spotted hyenas that almost tame.  If you sit quietly and don’t look at them, they’ll come right up to the fence and sniff your fingers.  And since they’re captive hyena, they’re absolutely lovely.  They’re well-cared for and it shows.  I can’t wait to post their pictures.

Mokolodi also treated us to sights of the ubiquitous kudu and impala. But more fun from my perspective was seeing the go-away birds, zebra, and at last steenbok.  Steenbok are a favorite cheetah food.  Mokolodi also has monkeys.  Vervets and baboons, which I wasn’t expecting to see while I was here.  Yet there they were, every morning, jumping on tin roofs and swinging through trees.

Best of all though was the reptile exhibit, although it might have been surpassed by the orphan vervet monkey.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The reptile exhibit is home to spitting cobra, rock python, puff adder, a hawk, an owl, a crane, and three vultures.  But best of all, the most delightful snake lady.   She showed us all the birds, talked to us about the snakes, antagonized a cobra so he’d show us his hood (with a snake stick), picked up puff adders (also with a snake stick), and let us hold one of the rock pythons.  Caoilfhionn and I both got to cuddle the rock python juvenile (still about a meter long).  Absolutely awesome.

Mokolodi also has an orphanage for the various animals on the reserve.  At the orphanage were a whistling duck, a pair of birds that I didn’t recognize, a barn owl, and three vervet monkeys.  Two of them were older and had absolutely no interest in people, but one was clearly orphaned quite young and loved people.  His name was Blue.  If you offered him a finger he’d take it and hold on gently.  He was in love with my  watch, my zipper pull, the lace on my sleeves, and Caoilfhionn’s hair.  He was the most darling creature.  I have hundreds of pictures of him because he was just so cute.

Anyway, it was a three day trip all told, although we only spent one full day in Mokolodi.  Another CCB staff drove us back on Wednesday so that we could make the Ghanzi Show.  We had some excitement trying to drive in the dark with cattle, donkeys, goats, kudu, and various other antelope thinking the road might be nice for a nighttime stroll.  But we came back safe and sound.

Next Episode: Ghanzi Show

A Blog in Three Parts: Kacgae

June 25, 2012

This past week has simply flown by.  I don’t know where it’s gone.  But I’ll try and do a recap for you.

Last Sunday was a trip to a small village about two hours away, called Kacgae (as best I can tell it’s pronounced cog-GUY or maybe cockeye).  Anyway, it’s a bit of an uneventful drive away.  It seemed to be mostly San  people, but I could be wrong.

The double cab was still in the shop, so Max and Phale took Caoilfhionn and I in the two single cabs.  I got the pleasure of listening to Radio Botswana 2 and the return of the power ballad.  I also managed to get two hours of reading in the Kite Runner (which was fantastic, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to reading it).

We turned off the two lane highway onto a relatively wide, moderately maintained dirt road.  There were a surprising number of goats wandering about.  The thing about Kacgae, is that kind of sneaks up on you.  One minute you’re driving through the veld, the next there are houses and a school sort of lurking behind some of the larger acacia.

It was a Sunday, which apparently meant that there was a soccer game on and the entire town was there, including the people we were there to talk to.

Now, you might be wondering, why were we there in the first place?  Well, one of CCB’s major goals is reducing human-predator conflict and they’d received a grant to build 10 predator proof corrals (or kraals as they’re called here) in this village.  The village had the task of choosing who would receive the kraals.  They went by a lottery system so the 10 families were from all different backgrounds and levels of wealth.  A few months back, the CCB crew went out and put up the wood and wire fences that form the base of the predator proof pens.

The job of the families was to put up acacia all around the kraals to keep the predators out and the guardian dogs in.  A few of the families did, most didn’t.

When we made it out to the soccer pitch, we sent someone in search of the people we were looking for.  There were two full teams on the pitch, in uniforms with shin guards and everything.  I was a little surprised, since most everyone was in nearly indecent castoffs.  Then I saw them closer and realized that the soccer uniforms were treated with love and respect, but they were still showing some serious wear.  Made me think about just how nice some of my “worn-out” stuff really is.

Anyway, we tracked down our families and Phale debated with them for quite some time (all in Setswana so I didn’t understand a word) while the little kids stared at Caoilfhionn and I, trying to get us to wave and give thumbs up.  Caoilfhionn was trying to be serious, but I obliged them.  They were freaking cute.

After that, we got a group organized and went about hacking down blackthorn, which is a native invasive species.  We took branches as big around as your forearm (even you big guys) and hit them hard against the fence so that the thorns would latch onto the wires and onto the other branches.  There’s a knack to doing it without losing all of your skin the process.  I have not mastered it.  At first Caoilfhionn and I actively helped, then we settled for dragging branches.  At some point, we had enough helpers that Caoilfhionn and I were politely told to stay out of the way and let them do all the work.

At the end of the day, we’d done five kraals.  Max had done a similar number on his own.  It took prodding to get them going but once they were, the villagers were unstoppable.

Next Episode: Gaborone

A "Quiet" Week

June 16, 2012

Boy I’m glad I didn’t promise you all regular updates.  I’d have been made a liar this past week.  Compared to last week, this week has been remarkably quiet.  No more exciting, close calls with mambas and no cheetahs in the middle of the road.  Not that it’s been dull by any means.

This week there was a herder training where local herders came in to learn how to minimize human animal conflicts.  They had some interesting solutions.  Many of them focused on not getting paid enough to protect their animals from predators.  They brought up that it is dangerous to step between a predator and his prey.  Money is very different here, but the herders get paid about minimum wage for Botswana.

They also mentioned the herders need to be skilled in looking at spoor (animals tracks and sign) to determine what kind of predator is around and if it has designs on the herd.  And they need to be skilled in caring for their animals.

Also present were a rancher, a vet, and a traditional San healer.  I’d have loved to have chance to speak with them more, but the day was packed for all of us.

I also got to practice my goat wrangling by helping the CCB team to vaccinate, ear tag, and dip their goats.  I can still give SQ injections, yay me!  In all honesty, though, the little Boer goats are adorable.

Most of the week was spent preparing for the herder training or in spot checking.  Each cheetah’s spots are like a finger print, so you can tell them apart based on that.  Spot checking means looking at all the pictures from the camera traps and deciding if it’s the dominant cheetah in that area or if it’s someone else.  If it’s someone else, have you seen them before?  So, I can identify at least five cheetahs on sight now.

Other than that, we also visited the San craft stores in Ghanzi and D’kar, where they display the magnificent art and crafts of the San people.  They have the most beautiful, colorful art and make crafts out of ostrich egg shell, recycled paper, metal, and other fantastic things.

Caoilfhionn and I also had introduction to cheetah scat testing.  We dissected the scat for any hairs, bone, or vegetation.  Then we isolated 10-12 hairs, shoved them into a Pasteur pipette using thumb forceps, drew up enough beeswax to cover them, then let the wax harden.  After that, we cut cross sections using a scalpel and glued them to a slide.  When they dried, we looked at the cross-section of the hair and tried to match it with the local animals that cheetah eat.  It was interesting.  Reminded me that I love lab and field work, but that I’d really rather be outside.

But other than that, it’s been a pretty “quiet” week. :D

Rugby, Cheetah & Afrikaans, Oh My!

June 10, 2012

Yesterday was a fantastic day.  Truly.  No sarcasm for once.  We started off the day visiting the nearest neighbors, half an hour on sand roads away.  These lovely people let us watch the Ireland vs. New Zealand rugby match and the Wales vs. Australia rugby match.  In and around the games was loads of marvelously delicious food.  From waffles to warthog (yes, Pumba) sausage, everything was absolutely divine and our hostess joked about being a domestic goddess in her retirement.  Man, I hope when I retire I can do the same!

I discovered I may not care much for most sports, but rugby, rugby I enjoy.  It might help to sit with a New Zealander and an Irishwoman, or maybe it was the company in general.  Regardless, it was a ton of fun.

One more rugby match went on yesterday, South Africa vs. England.  Privately, I cheered for England (gotta respect my roots!) but everyone here cheered for South Africa.  They won.  We watched that rugby match at the only pub I’ve ever been to with a ten minute drive down a single lane dirt road and a gate to go through.

But the highlight of the day, far and away, was driving out to pub.  Jane was chatting with us when she slammed on the brakes and yelled, “That’s a fucking cheetah!”

She was right, there were two cheetah cubs standing on the road.  They watched us for a minute before crossing and fading into the veld.  Here I was expecting not to see a cheetah the whole time I was here and there were two of them, completely unexpectedly.  You’ll have to take me at my word when I say they were gorgeous, because I left my camera here at camp.  So no pictures except in my head.

Well, with a sighting like that, the night could only get better.  We watched the last rugby match of the day at the pub and I got to sample gemsbok (sustainably harvested from the game farm that owns the pub).  Also, very tasty.  Ran into some American students there, too, from University of Texas.

After that, Jane, Caoilfhionn and I headed for the Afrikaans Winter Dance.  Now, it is winter here and it’s freaking cold at night.  (And today, the wind is just vicious.)  It was a fairly laid back party, a lot of chatting, a fair bit of alcohol flowing, and a bit of dancing.  The Afrikaans here do this marvelous semi-formal two step called sokkie sokkie.  It looks amazing and the speed at which some of the couples could do this was insane.  I watched and was amazed at how well they did.

Anyway, we stayed for hours and I met some of the loveliest people.  They were very polite and very friendly.  Most of the Afrikaans in Ghanzi are cattle ranchers or manage game farms so CCB works with them on that.  For all that predators cause huge problems for ranchers, they didn’t give us a lick of grief for working to help cheetahs.  Actually, Caoilfhionn and I spent the night assuring them that no, really, we did not need another drink.  Thank you, but really no.  The farmers up here can be quite persuasive when they try, let me tell you.

Everyone wants to see Ireland, so Caoilfhionn was quite a hit, but apparently California and Las Vegas are also equally popular so we both got asked lots and lots of questions.  Caoilfhionn traded Gaelic phrases for Afrikaans phrases.  I can say a few things now.  My favorites: Hallo, Baai, Dankie.  Hello, Bye, and Thanks.  Oh yeah, words I can handle!  But I can also manage “Hoe gaan dit met jou?” which is "how are you".  Honestly, I think I might learn Afrikaans just because I think it’d be fairly easy to pick up.  (Really, I should finally learn Spanish, but…)

Anyway, marvelous day, perfect cheetah sighting, superb company, interesting sports, and so very, very much fun.

*Note: I’m not giving out any of the names beyond the CCB folks just as a sort of cautionary thing.  I don’t intend to say anything inflammatory, but I don’t want any issues coming up because of me.  But I want to reassure you that I did meet real people and I remember their names ;-)