Another week, another elephant

So I had the chance to go on another safari with my friend Jessica, so I took off on a Friday. We took an early cab into Botswana and tried to hitch a ride at the border. Ryan swore that as two blond girls we would have no trouble hitching, and sure enough, before we walked out of the Botswana immigration office, an Africaans trucker offered us a ride into Botswana. We got in early and got a spot at a nice resort right outside of Chobe National Park. It's a good deal - you can enjoy the amazing pool and facilities for $10 a night to camp. We decided that we should do an evening game drive, an early morning game drive, and a boat cruise to maximize wildlife-viewing.

Friday we hung out at the pool for a bit and then went on the evening game drive with a couple of Americans and a couple of South Africans. We did get to see tons of elephants (again) - playing with each other in the mud (cute!), a mother milking a child (aww), one rubbing his big ole butt on a tree (hahah), wartogs kneeling to eat their food (pumba is the swahili name for warthog!

they are so funny - becoming one of my favorites), tons of birds, including an endangered kori bustard, zebras, a bunch of giraffes (which I hadn't seen yet!), including one which got stuck on the wrong side of a pack of elephants and had to find his way to the other side, tons of baboons on the road including some babies, and at the end....a cheetah running through the bushes (although it was too dark for a photo).

The craziest part of that game drive, though, was an American dude on our safari jeep. First of all, he had a big old saloon style musache - wax and all. He wasn't very friendly, and then he kept being totally obnoxious - he would randomly start singing, or blabbing on inappropiately about how he wanted to shoot the animals while they were around (I have no problem with hunters but you have to be quiet as to not distirb the wildlife!)...he also bragged about his connections to Rush Limbaugh and his "piss on the Koran party"...more than once. Ugly ugly American.

I decided that this guy was someone I should get to know. "So, what do you do?" I asked. He looked at me for a second. "I'm a gun man. I like to shoot things. I like to shoot animals. I like to shoot people." I tried not to look suprised. Did he want to shoot me? "Yeah I'm wierd. I was in Nam. I loved shooting those gooks out of the plane." Wow.

(Did I mention the buffet? SO MANY KINDS OF CHEESE YUM!)

We were warned not to camp too close to the river because the crocs and the hippos have come up there - apparently one tourist was eaten by a croc while washing his dishes in the river a few years ago at our campsite! Since then they have put up little fences. And luckily for me - I was in a tent with an expert on the matter: my friend Jessica is studying human-wildlife confict in the region.

We woke up at 5 am the next morning for our 6 am game drive...and there was a LOT of noise coming from the bushes next to our campsite, which bordered the National Park. It sounded like a very noisy hippo in the bushes next to a tent of two other Americans, which was next to us. I was a little freaked out by all the noise and how close they were...and then Jessica said, "That's not a hippo - look at those tusks!" In the light, we could see two big white tusks in the bushes, right above the other American's tent!! The elephant moved into the light, in a clearing right next to the bush - just a thin metal fence between our tents and the massive animal. I was ready to get out of there as soon as possible. We were kind of worried about our friends but we didn't want to make too much noise and alarm the elephant. (We tracked them down later and they were ok :)

The morning game drive was also a sucess: buffalos scratching themselves on trees, tons of

baboons, and then the cats: a few lionesses, and three cubs in tow. They marked a tree and walked through all of the safari jeeps, unaffected. Another lioness in the grass, refusing to acklnowledge the jeeps surrounding her. Three hyenas, one knawing on something. Tons of impala, young males locking horns.

Another afternoon at the pool, with a view of the river and elephants in the distance.

Then it was off to our river cruise - lots of hippos, a croc face off, a baby croc, tons of birds, a baby hippo flapping his gums - on a boat with a Norweigan man working on the oil industry in Somolia..crazy!

This week of work was good. We found out that the 800 torches which never showed up in Namibia will arrive on the coast in mid October. But we aren't relying on those and we'll do a sale of the torches in October sometime. Hopefully. I am looking into the other products and microfinance issues as well.

I did have a pretty bad night on Friday. After a huge ordeal to get out of the Fish Farm Compound, we finally got a key and got out. I was trying to open the (electrified) gate for Jessica to drive in, although I had never had to lock or unlock the gate before. I blacked out. I found myself backing away from the fence feeling very stunned and freaked out. I turned around slowly and looked at Jessica. "I think I was electrocuted." She told me to get in the car and told me, "I thought you were joking because I saw your body convulsing and twitching like in a movie." Great. There are no doctors who work on the weekends here (unless its a pretty serious emergency) and the owner of the Fish Farm promised me that they've all been shocked before and it's not a big deal. I guess we'll see...

Big news for next week: I have a meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, which means...I get to see Victoria Falls on Tuesday! Awesome. I am also pretty excited about this meeting. A international development nonprofit based out of Denver has this amazing rural marketing strategy which could be a big help for our solar product distribution. How do you create a market in rural areas?

Fish Farm major photoshoot. Kitchen, my bedrom, front door.

I love this place.

...........Fish Farm PETS! Roscoe, the frog who lived on my lightswitch. HE WENT MISSING THIS MORNING!!! :( In his place is a poop!! Zulu, communal dog. Crazy horses. Lizards in the bathroom.