Pardon me, are you going to use those beans...?

"Hunger is a powerful incentive to introspection."
. Willa Cather, "The Burglar's Christmas," Home Monthly, Dec. 1896

Today was 'mark-recapture' theory day in my Ecology II course. First-year students, and a preparation for our trip to Waterberg where we'll be doing game counts and a mark-recapture exercise with small mammals. 'Mark-recapture' describes the process of capturing, marking, releasing, and recapturing animals to obtain data used to estimate population size. Animals can be marked with tags, paint, bands, etc.

The traditional way to explain the notion of sampling a population with mark-recapture is to use dried beans. Students take a handful of beans (unknown number) and count out 20 beans. The students use a marker to place a 'mark' on the beans. Then the 20 beans are thrown back in to the original handful, mixed up (like animals milling around) and another sample of 20 beans are selected. In this second sample, some proportion of beans will be marked (say, 30%). If 30% of that sample are marked, it infers that 30% of the entire population was marked the first time and you can estimate the population size. For those of you playing along at home, you should try it. The formula is: Total number of beans = (number marked first time*total number sampled second time)/number of second sample that are marked. It actually works best if you take bigger samples than 20--try 40 or 50 each time. Same reason biologists struggle to get large sample sizes--more precise estimates.

Today, the exercise started out a little differently. One of the students, Theofilus, asked me, "Sir, why are you wasting these beans?"

"I'm sacrificing them to teach you a lesson," I told him, winking. Did I mention I really like being called "Sir" by students?

"They taste like nuts," he said, as he munched on one of the dried, white kidney beans.

"I think you are supposed to cook them for a couple hours, Theofilus," I said. "And, be careful, you're causing mortality to your population before we even get started!"

The exercise went very well, as usual. But, when it was over, I didn't get any of the beans back.

Clean underwear and moving fast in the blogosphere

I had two wonderful grandmothers, both of which offered advice which can be used to help live a good life. One of Grandma Griffith's pieces of wisdom: "Always wear clean underwear, because you never know when you're going to be in an accident."

Grandma Powell offered: "If you keep moving fast, no one will notice if you've spilled something on your shirt."

I guess the take-home message from combining these is that being dirty is OK as long as you keep moving fast and stay out of accidents.

This whole blogging thing is new to our family, and it's been a lot of fun to share with people around the world. I tend to really enjoy finding gadgets to add to the blog--all the little things that tell you the temperature in Windhoek or show a map of where people come from to the blog. The latter has been especially fun to watch, and it helps us know who has been here. It is also a little scary.

One of the FEEDJIT gadgets shows what city people come from to the site, and also which web page they were on before they visited the site if they followed a link to get here. Did they follow a link from Facebook, the School of Natural Resources, another blog? If people found the blog via a Google or Yahoo (or other) search engine, it also shows that information, and it shows what they searched for.

It's most common for people to be searching for "Namibia sand dunes" or "Nebraska Sandhills" before they stumble onto our site. The photo we took of Windhoek on our first day in town regularly gets hits from Google Image searches--appearing high in the list of images of Windhoek. We're fairly certain that people mostly go away disappointed when they find us through these searches, as we don't really have information about the Sandhills or Namibia's sand dunes--except that they are both fun places to visit.

From time to time, there are other interesting searches that propel people to our site.

"Aluminum windows windhoek" got someone to the site. I'm sure they were disappointed.

"Apple" was a recent search for someone in Mexico who came to our page. I wonder how deep in the search results that person was before he found our link? Maybe it was the apple cake recipe we posted before we left Lincoln?

"Windhoek dentists" also got someone to our site. I'm really not sure that we've used the word 'dentists' before, but now we have....uh oh! I guess we will now have people find us when they are interested in how to 'clean underwear'. It's all about key words and the luck of the search engine.

I guess the message is that, if you also blog, your blog is out there on the internet for the world to see. And, according to my grandmothers, you have two options. One: you can keep it clean so that everyone in the world will find it acceptable. Or, two: you can just keep moving quickly in case you make a mistake. Those who know me know that I really try hard on the first tip, but most often have to rely on the second to save me.

According to these 'tips for blogging', I'm over my word limit for this post. Happy blogging to fellow bloggers!

Meat hunt

"No, I'm not a good shot, but I shoot often."
Teddy Roosevelt

Meat hunting in Namibia happens during June and July. Trophy hunting can occur virtually throughout the rest of the year, and each season is limited by quotas established for specific farms. But, the general population in Namibia can hunt animals for meat for two months during the winter.

We had a desire to stock the freezer with a bit of 'our own' meat, so I made arrangements with a local farmer to visit his farm and harvest a hartebeest. It was a fun hunt, and successful. Hartebeest are about the same size as white-tailed deer, and we ended up with about 65 pounds of meat. Meat hunting rates are significantly less than trophy hunting rates, and Kelly calculates that our hartebeest meat cost about US$3.50/pound. Still more than venison back home, where a hunting license costs about US$25 and public hunting areas do not charge for access. No such thing in Namibia, so paying a farmer for an animal is the only option.

The farmer went out with Tristan and I to help find the animal, and he led the stalking. When we came back with the hartebeest, the farm workers skinned and quartered it. I've decided this would be nice to have this service back in Nebraska after a tiring day of deer hunting!

Then, Kelly and Tristan and I spent the next morning boning and chopping up the meat into roasts and such. Family togetherness. It was a good experience to have, and it's nice to have a full freezer of local meat.

Because it was a meat hunt, and because we were successful at about dusk, we didn't take the traditional photo. Hartebeests are not a well-known animal and are a bit odd-looking. Tristan thinks they look like they were pieced together by Dr. Frankenstein. The photo here is one of Kelly's photos of hartebeest in Etosha.

Dune driving for daredevils: depicted by duplicating daguerrotype

We need to catch up on our video postings...these videos below are from our trip in June with the Pegg's and Hygnstrom's, our friends from Nebraska. We took a dune tour, south of Walvis Bay with the Mola Mola tour company. Namibia is home to a one-of-a-kind natural phenomenon, where a desert runs into the ocean. The red dunes are large and have been used as the backdrop for many Hollywood movies, including '10,000 BC' recently. Our driver, Francois, made the trip memorable with his adventurous driving abilities. Our friend, Mark, had been on this trip before, but kept mum about the thrill ride we were about to encounter.

First, a video of a 'roaring dune'. Francois stopped at the brink of the dune face, and turned off the engine. He then let the vehicle slide down the face, with the brakes on. In the video you can see sand being pushed in front of the vehicle. Turn up your speakers, and listen for a roar that sounds, as Kelly suggests in the video, like an airplane going overhead. That is the roar of the dune. Why do dunes 'roar'? Well, you can read all about the physics of roaring dunes here, but the basic answer is that the roar comes from the synchronized vibrations of the loose sand as the avalanche occurs. Cool.

The second video is of our thrill ride in our 4x4 'roller coaster' on Slingshot Hill. Hang on and come along for the adventure.

Photos of this trip in June are archived on our Picasa photo site.

Why did the elephant cross the road? To appear on our video...

During our trip with Mom and Dad Powell through the Caprivi and in Botswana, we often had to stop for elephants. Here is a video of a big group of bulls crossing the road in Botswana, south of Kasane.

In the video, Kelly mentions that the tusks are larger than the elephants we'd seen in Etosha. The reason is because Etosha elephants lack certain minerals that make their tusks softer. As the Etosha elephants use their tusks, the tusks wear down faster than the tusks of elephants in Botswana.

The video also shows the potential dangers of driving in Africa. Down the road a piece, we saw an elephant road-kill. See the Picasa album for that photo.

Vic Falls video

Video of Victoria Falls during our visit with Mom and Dad in July. Check out the cool wardrobe required to view the Falls.

Elephant charge video

Here is one of our favorite moments from a game drive in Mahango Game Park up in the Caprivi. Our driver, Chris, has learned to drive very well in reverse gear, which comes in handy when the elephant starts coming towards you. Click on the play button below.

180-day sweet corn

When we arrived in Windhoek in January, it was mid-summer. By late January, we'd decided to plant a small garden. Sweet corn, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkin, and squash. It was a gamble--kind of like deciding to plant a garden in Nebraska during late July.

We reported in May (see blog here) that our garden had grown well. Unfortunately, about that time the sun had changed from directly overhead to quite a bit further north (shading the garden during most of the day) and it started getting cold. Not cold enough to kill the plants (we haven't had a hard frost, yet--but it gets close to freezing most nights)--just cold enough to really SLLLLOOOOOWWWWW it down. I call it the 'slow motion garden'. Our sweet corn was tasseling in May, but we just harvested it today. By my count, that is about 180 days from planting to harvesting. Most folks back home in Iowa planted their sweet corn in May and are now harvesting.

I may leave the corn stalks, to see how long they stay green. Maybe corn is a perennial plant in Namibia?!

Our tomatoes were set on the plants in May, and most are still green. Today, we brought them inside to set in the window--we've done the same with some others, and they ripened in the sunny window.

We had some pollination problems with the sweet corn, but it's still sweet corn. We ended up with about 5 cups of corn to use later--it's in the freezer. The tomatoes really produced well, and the peppers did OK, but they probably didn't deserve all the water we gave them. The squash and pumpkins shriveled up long ago with no fruit. But, our carrots did great--which makes sense because they are a cool-season crop. We'll have little baby-sized carrots to eat for weeks. Carrot/pineapple salad is a staple over here in Namibia, so I guess we are set to enjoy that.

In an odd way, it feels good to be 'in sync' with our friends and family back in the States. Harvesting our garden at about the same time. Except that we're wearing our coats while we do it!

Some really soft boots

Namibia made international news this week, or at least got into a bit of an international incident, when two journalists trespassed during a fur seal cull on the coast. Namibia is one of 5 countries (Canada is the largest harvester) to harvest fur seals. The populations along the coast are large (the photo at right was taken at one of the large colonies--200,000--at Cape Cross earlier this year). An annual cull is conducted to manage the populations.

Although one doesn't need to read far in this blog to find that I support hunting as a management tool, it sounds like the process in Namibia needs to be refined if it is to continue sustainably. The cull is conducted with clubs. The cullers are supposed to stun the animals and then use a knife to kill them, but according to the Namibian newspaper, there is some evidence that the knife rarely gets used.

My colleagues at Polytechnic inform me that the Namibia Environment and Wildlife Society has tried to observe and make recommendations for the cull during the past 10 years, and they have been prevented from doing so. The cull is conducted by a company hired by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources in Namibia. As with any public agency, anywhere in the world, one would suspect that the process will have to adhere to ethical standards, or Namibia risks losing an industry of seal products. It doesn't sound like that much would be required to bring the cull into line with ethical standards, and one wonders why the cullers don't recognize that their own job security depends on staying in line.

Sealskin boots are very common in Namibia, and Tristan and I both own a pair. They are really soft and comfortable. Isn't life complicated?

Trip to Caprivi and Vic Falls

The trip to the Caprivi and Vic Falls was something we'd looked forward to since we got here--and it marks the mid-point of our year in Namibia. Here is the blow-by-blow description of the 3000-km (2000+ mile) trip with Mom and Dad Powell. We'll make this a family participation blog, with descriptions of the various lodges that we stayed in during the trip.

For the more complete (100+...) photo story of the trip, you can go to our Picasa photo album. Thanks to African Adventure for the use of the map at right, which I've modified to show our route and yellow dots where we spent each night.

It was a tough decision to decide which part of Namibia to show Mom and Dad Powell, but we settled on a trip that would take us to one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World: Victoria Falls. We decided to visit the Zambia size of Vic Falls. Along the way, we stopped at Etosha National Park (Namibia), Namibia's Caprivi region (that little strip that stretches east of the rest of the country), and Chobe National Park (Botswana). We skirted the Okavango Delta in Botswana as well, before heading home to Windhoek. It was cold during the entire trip; it's winter in southern Africa, and it got very cold at night. It is hard to believe that tourist season here is during the coldest part of the year; lodges are mostly prepared for it, with extra blankets, but very few are equipped with heaters. Tourists are advised to bring lots of warm clothes--especially for evening and night wear (slippers, flannel PJ's, and warm jackets).

Day 1. We left Windhoek in our rented VW T5 Kombi, which was a great choice for a traveling vehicle. We stopped for lunch at the Etosha Garden Hotel in Outjo (we had stayed there previously with our friends from Nebraska; Kelly recommends the Austrian ice dessert at the Etosha Garden Hotel), and got to Etosha by mid-afternoon. We took a quick drive on the western side of Etosha's "pan" and spent quite a bit of time at the Okaukuejo water hole, which is inside the park. Staying in the park is the only way to view wildlife at night, and we enjoyed seeing a lion, some giraffe, elephants, and several black rhinos come to the waterhole that evening. We stayed in 'bush chalet' cabins at Okaukuejo; the mother of one of Tristan's friends at school was the interior designer for the cabins. Larkin: night-time waterhole viewing is great; my advice is to spend one night in the park and other nights outside to save money; Kelly: it's good to stay in the park at least one night to see the rhinos; kind of like going to Disney--there are benefits to staying in the park, but you pay for it...much less expensive to stay outside the park; Tristan: extra bed on floor for me was comfortable and warm; don't eat the cake at dinner.

Our room at Okaukuejo. Pretty nice digs.

Dad managed to get this black rhino's photo in the dark at the Okaukuejo waterhole.

Day 2: We drove through Etosha, taking photos as we encountered massive numbers of wildlife. Dad was adjusting to his new digital camera, and he got a baptism by fire this day: he went through a set of batteries in the Park! We exited the eastern gate with 14 minutes to spare (the park closes at sunset). We had to move quickly to get from Okaukuejo to the east gate in one day; so much to see. We saw a lion for the second time at the Salvadora water hole, and saw elephants at Rietfountein; We also enjoyed Olifantsbad and Twee Palms (giraffe heaven, evidently).

We spent the evening at Sachsenheim Guest Farm, just outside the east gate of Etosha. We learned that the owner's father had come from Germany to set up the farm and had 'ordered' a bride from Germany who came on a boat and arrived in Walvis Bay where they were married. Larkin: I had looked forward to showing Dad a real Namibian farm, and we enjoyed talking with the owner; Kelly: very clean and huge rooms; the pool looked like it would be fun when it was warm; neat family history of the farm; Tristan: very cold and we needed more blankets; food was very good.

Giraffe crowd the water hole at Twee Palms at Etosha, just before sunset.

Day 3: We headed for the Caprivi Strip, and went through Tsumeb and stopped at the Tsumeb Craft Center--a nice place where local people can be trained and then rent store fronts to sell their wares. The crafts were well-made and one lady was upset because the clouds were interfering with her solar ovens (she sells bread from the ovens and also the ovens). We followed the tar road through Grootfontein and Rundu before arriving at Divundu and the Ndhovu Lodge. As we drove up to Rundu, we started encountering the 80% of Namibia's population that lives in the north. This was a long driving day, about 600 km, and we drove past many farms, huts, and villages on our journey. Near the entrance to Ndhovu, we passed a tent village provided by Red Cross for this year's flood victims.

At Ndhovu, we stayed in large tents, which had a 'en suite' bathroom attached via a passageway from the tent. Hot water was provided by a fire-powered 'donkey' (a cast iron water heater with fire below to heat). The owner was a farmer from near Windhoek who had taken over the lodge about 5 years ago; the bottled water came from his farm. Larkin: one of my favorite places to stay; great location on the river and wonderful people; Kelly: beautiful with very personalized service; got to eat dinner with the owner or one of the guides; excellent food and we could hear hippos all night; they had an outlet in the bathroom (!); visiting when it was warmer would let you avoid having to take an open-air shower when it is cold enough to see your breath hanging in the air; Tristan: very nice, but at night the beds were freezing cold; I got to go fishing.

Tristan fishes on the banks of the Kavango River at Ndhovu Lodge, with elephants on the opposite shore. Days end tally of Tristan's catch: 2 trees and 2 logs. No fish, and thankfully no elephants.

Day 4: We stayed at Ndhovu and went on a game drive to Mahango Game Park, just a couple km's from our lodge. We all thought the game drive was probably the best 3 hours we spent on the trip--many new animals (both birds and mammals) now that we had gotten to a region of Namibia where the rainfall was over 700 mm/year (compare to 70mm per year down south and 300-400mm near Windhoek). Hippos, crocodiles, roan antelope, reed bucks, waddled cranes, and more. An elephant charged us during the game drive. Trees were changing too--we saw many baobob trees in Mahango, which is a place you shouldn't miss if you're traveling this way. Our guide told us the Legend of the Baobob: the tree grew so tall that God became angry with it and ripped it out of the ground and threw it back to earth upside down, so its roots were sticking up into the sky; so this is why it looks so odd. We also went on a sunset boat ride on the Kavango River.

At Ndhovu, we met Amanda, a WorldTeach volunteer from Rundu, who had hitched a ride to the lodge; we had been at the same security briefing with her back in January at the US Embassy in Windhoek! Her experiences (living in a smaller town without a car) had been very different than ours, and we enjoyed sharing stories of teaching and living in different places in Namibia. Amanda's blog is here, if you want to read about the challenges of secondary education in rural Namibia. She is currently raising money to bring her students to Windhoek to visit U. Namibia and Polytechnic--to encourage students to think about continuing in various fields of study. Larkin: Game Park was great and could be driven in 2WD vehicle; Kelly: great to be so close to Mahango park, and we got to see baobob trees; Tristan: hippos and baobobs were cool; wish we would have seen hippos on the boat ride.

Mom and Dad pose with the game drive vehicle and a baobob tree in Mahango Game Park.

Day 5: Only 200 km driving today, to arrive at Namushasha Lodge, near Kongola, on the Kwando River. We drove through the Bwabwata National Park (used to be called Caprivi Game Park). This park is non-existant at the moment. We saw no wildlife and there were no side roads or points of interest to explore--a work in progress and a park that has seen tremendous loss of wildlife during previous border wars, and (we have heard) has been largely ignored by Namibia to this point. It was a nice forested drive (some good examples of prescribed burning along the way), but not an exciting ride, for certain. We enjoyed an evening boat ride on the Kwando and saw hippos and a little croc. Our river guide, Alfred, was local, and he really whipped the boat up the winding channels and showed us how native Namibians used many of the river's plants and animals.

Namushasha is a larger lodge, and we dined with the other 40-50 guests in a large dining hall. Larkin: ; Kelly: luxurious and beautiful views from own balcony overlooking the river, but not as personalized; workers were nice, but we didn't get to know other guests; fun boat trip with a local guide; Tristan: I got my own cabin to myself; the man who took us on the boat drive told us a lot about wildlife and plants and how to use them.

Our guide, Alfred, shows us how the local people make a shade for their heads when they harvest reeds. I wonder how many times he's done this, and if he ever swears he'll never do it again?! Tristan thought it was a great hat. It's made of a water lilly and papyrus.

Day 6: We left Namushasha and stopped at a 'traditional village' near the lodge. It is a partnership between the lodge and the local communal conservancy--kind of a living history exhibit. A guide showed us various exhibits on traditional life, including snares and traps that were used to catch animals. See the Picasa photo site for some examples. We enjoyed some dancers who gave quite a set of performances of different types of music and dances. It was not in any travel books, and we're really glad we stopped there. We traveled through Katima Mulilo, a chaotic place, before exiting Namibia at the Ngoma Bridge to enter Botswana. We had to fill out an interesting form to state that we were (1) not feeling feverish, (2) not feeling sick, (3) not having a headache, and several other ailments associated with the symptoms of H1N1 flu. The border folks let us tourists cut in front of large bus loads of Zimbabweans traveling from Namibia back home, which made them really happy...

The road from the border to Kasane travels right through Chobe National Park, and we saw more elephants and a huge troupe of baboons along this road. We stayed at the Liya Guest House in Kasane, and ate dinner at the Chobe Safari Lodge. Although the Liya Guest House was not the greatest hotel in the world, we finally stayed in a place where non-tourists stayed. Botswana lodge prices are more expensive than Namibia, by far, and our basic rooms at Liya were US$30/person. Other nearby lodges were US$150-300/person/night. Some Namibian police, in town for a conference, stayed at Liya. Most large lodges in Kasane allow the public to eat dinner on their site, which is actually a great way to save money--we stayed for cheap at Liya, but spent most of our evening on the Safari Lodge's deck, enjoying marimba music and a great buffet. Larkin: Liya reminded me of some hotels in Puerto Rico; live marimba music was great; Kelly: lower-end, basic room, but clean; water was hot; yeah for Chinese food at the buffet!; an impressive place to eat dinner--just huge; the biggest buffet I've ever experienced on either side of the Atlantic!; Tristan: small room, but we had a TV; we had 'Hu Hot' food at the dinner buffet which was awesome.

Tristan prepares a get-away strategy, just in case he gets asked to dance. At the traditional village near Namushasha Lodge.

Day 7: One of the more interesting days on the trip, in many ways. We spent the morning navigating the border crossing Zambia at the Kazangula Ferry. You can read more about this fun-filled, expensive, long experience at a previous posting. Just be sure to have US$50/person (must be in US$$) with you for the visa and about US$100 (much of it should be in Kwacha before arriving at the ferry to avoid black market exchange rates; carbon tax had to be paid in Kwacha) for other tolls, taxes, and rip-off's. Upon entering Zambia, we drove 60 km to Livingstone, found our rooms at the Maramba River Lodge, and then went to see Victoria Falls. That was a spectacular sight, and we were happy to see local Zambians enjoying the holiday as well. The most amazing part of the experience was realizing we had only seen about half of the long falls. We highly suggest renting the rain ponchos in the park.

There are ultra-light flights over the falls, helicopter rides, boat trips, bungee jumping, and various other tourist ventures, which all sounded fun. You could definitely spend more than the one day we spent in Zambia; if we would have known how much it cost to enter Zambia, we would have scheduled another day in Livingstone to tour the David Livingstone Museum and other parts of this interesting, old town. We started seeing American tourists here--a departure from the normal German and South African crowd in Namibia. Zambia looked more like the 'Africa' that we pictured when we started planning our year in Namibia. In general, more chaos, more people, long lines, corruption, and less-structured infrastructure. Larkin: no comments: still in a daze over the border crossing; Kelly: cabins were darling, but going at a different time of year would be warmer; restaurant was on a patio overlooking the river where there is a hippo; beautiful setting; Tristan: I liked our cabin, but our shower was very cold (problem with hot water heater in our cabin); they had 'giant chess' outside, and I enjoyed beating my dad.

Fairly certain the insurance doesn't cover us, now...Larkin loads the van onto the ferry.

Maidens and gents of the mist.

A double 'mistbow' at Vic Falls.

Day 8: The longest driving day of the trip--almost 700 km. Back through Livingstone to the ferry. The border experience was much shorter this time, but the ferry we used was much older; as the semi pulled off before we drove on, the ends of the floorboards flipped up at a 45-degree angle under his weight. No diesel in Kasane ("truck will be here in 1 hour"), so we traveled south from Kasane, Botswana through Nata to Maun. Interesting cultivated farm fields near Pandamatenga. The road from Kasane to Nata had 160 km of the worst potholes (really 'craters') we'd ever encountered--you will have to check out the photos on our Picasa site! A trip that should have taken 2.5 hours took us 5.5 hours, as we averaged about 45 km/hour (20+ miles/hour). But, the road from Nata to Maun was fine, which was good, as we drove most of it in the dark.

We saw the last elephant of the trip west of Nata as the sun set, and he was not too happy: throwing grass and mock charging the car. We arrived late to our next lodge: Okavango River Lodge, just outside of Maun. This lodge has actually been renamed ORL Backpackers, which explains most of the folks we saw there. A much younger crowd. Again, we opted for a cheaper place, due to high lodge prices near the Okavango Delta (one lodge we found charged US$1500/person/night...and they were full). Larkin: felt like 4-H camp cabins, I enjoyed watching birds over the flooded marsh by the lapa; good food; Kelly: older cabin, very basic, saggy beds, no mosquito nets, but huge shower with hot water; more electric outlets than any other lodge we stayed in; Tristan: our beds had craters in them; they had a pool table and a cool hammock to swing in.

Potswana.

Day 9: We stayed in Maun and enjoyed a day that started at the tire shop to repair a dinged wheel rim (pothole casuality of the previous day). We all took a 3-hour basket weaving class in the afternoon from Ms. Thitanya Kishonya at Quality Baskets (if you only follow one link, follow this one). Thitanya has a wonderful story of empowering women by teaching skills, and we had a relaxing day under the shade tree in her yard. She teaches the class at her basket store, where baskets range in price from US$7-300.

We noticed that people in Botswana spoke English very well, and were easy to understand. We also noticed the difference in histories between Botswana and Namibia; because Botswana did not participate in apartheid, the blacks and whites are much more relaxed in their relationships--just a different 'feel' to the country, racially. Larkin: I now have a woven coaster for my coffee cup, and it only took me 3 hours to make it...; Kelly: a lovely day with Thitanya, we blew a wad of money in her basket store, but felt good about blowing it there; don't laugh at the piles of baskets when I come home; Tristan: I stabbed myself with the awl during basket weaving.

Kelly shows Tristan how to remove an awl from his finger at the basket weaving class.

Day 10: We traveled from Maun, Botswana to the Namibia border. Driving-wise, this was a pretty dull day; we were skirting the northern edge of the Kalahari Desert, but did not see dunes. We stopped at a San gift shop in Ghanzi, where we met more Americans. We're getting the feeling that Americans are really missing out by not coming to Namibia, which is--on average--much cleaner, safer, more modern in cities, and less expensive than Zambia and Botswana. At the border, an odd feeling--it was great to be back in 'our' country again. Just 20 km from the border was our last stop: Zelda Guest Farm. You can read about our experiences with fellow guest, President Pohamba, by clicking here.

We enjoyed a cheetah and leopard feeding (providing Mom and Dad with the last of the Big Five that they wanted to see). We had a common building with Mom and Dad, with a between-room area where we played cards. Larkin: great birding on the grounds; Kelly: very personal; would recommend this to others; interesting that they do hunting and photo safaris (many places only do one); Tristan: awesome; room was very nice; wish we would have gotten to see more of the President.

A cheetah waits for feeding at Zelda Guest Farm. Cheetah says, "President, Schmesident...just give me my food!"

Day 11: Took a walk at Zelda Guest Farm with San bushmen, which was fun and educational. Three San and a lodge guide/interpreter, Jaco, showed us many native plants and their uses, and the fees for such tours provide money for the San children to go to the local school and to pay for school uniforms. Listening to the 'click' language was entrancing. Then, it was a 2.5 hour trip back to Windhoek. Laundry, school preparations for Larkin, and more sight-seeing and shopping for Mom and Dad. We had 3-4 days to relax before Mom and Dad flew home to Iowa.

Our San guide shows Dad a special root. It turned out they were almost all special in some way...

How to cremate a lemon

Let me start by saying that I am, in no way, blaming my cooking problems on the country of Namibia. Anyone who took organic chemistry with me at Graceland knows that I easily drip, spill, make serious mistakes, and sometimes blow things up. I cook the way Tristan goes through life at the moment--full of energy with little consideration for the possibility of negative events.

In a previous post, we asked people to give us recipes for lemons because our lemon tree had a serious case of overproduction in full progress. Never had a lemon tree before...

So, this week, we harvested many of the lemons and decided it was time to try some recipes. We had a recipe for lemon cake, lemon curd, lemon bars, and a suggestion to make lemon jam.

I started with lemon bars, because we had a faculty party to attend--what could be better than showing up with lemon bars in the middle of winter?! The results: the recipe was very easy, and in anyone else's hands with an oven that cooked in a somewhat predictable fashion, it would have turned out very well. But, as you can see in the photo at right, I produced Cremated Lemon Bars.

We've been struggling with our oven all year--it is a 'fan-assisted' oven, and (of course) has temperatures labeled in C, instead of F. It takes a while to heat up, but once it heats up, it appears to go to somewhere close to 450F. Kind of like trying to cook with a blow-torch.

Having the experience with the lemon bars, I decided against trying the cake. It looked like a lot of work for the eventual probability of burnt cake.

So, I tried lemon jam. Benefit: would not have to come close to the oven. I found a nice, easy recipe for lemon jam (click here for recipe), and boiled the lemon slices added the sugar and bottled it up. Pretty darn easy. Problem: it didn't set. I googled "how to get jam to set" and found this nice site that talks about the acid and pectin content of fruit. Lemons have almost no pectin, and I didn't have any pectin to add. So, the site recommended adding gelatin. I didn't have any plain gelatin, so I added two packets of "raspberry jelly" (southern Africa for 'jello') mix that we had on hand.

In our kitchen, you never know what color things are going to turn out. Yellow lemon bars? No, black. Yellow jam? No, pink. We'll keep experimenting with the lemon recipes, and let you know how the jam (still cooling) tastes--lemon/raspberry?!

It may be worth mentioning that before I was writing this post, I whipped up some quick bread and stuck it in the oven. It was supposed to bake at 350F for 45 minutes. I set the oven on its lowest setting of 100C (which equals 212F--it's boiling point) and left the room. In 15 minutes, I had burnt the bread. The struggle continues.

I move that we adjourn this meeting!

Last February, I took this photo down near Helmeringhausen of a 'sun spider' in the class Solifugae. It's not a real spider, and it's also not a scorpion. But it is an arachnid, and it looks pretty mean. It has those big chelicerae which supposedly can really pinch you pretty good.

Today, I listened to Polytechnic Nature Conservation students in their second year--they were presenting results from their research projects that they conducted during their in-service training last semester.

One student did his in-service on Solifugae diversity in Namibia. Turns out there are about 30 species in the country. There are many common names for these critters, including camel spider, Kalahari Ferrari, sun scorpion, and my favorite..."eyambulokungi".

In Oshivambo, that means "he who breaks up a meeting."

You know you're in Africa when...

Here is the scene from our little Toyota in Windhoek the other day. The flatbed truck is carrying 4 kind-of-flattened cars, stacked on top of each other. No straps, no wires. Just the hydraulic arm that was used to load them--cinching them down as it drove down the road.

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The 'former' passenger and driver doors on the car on top were flapping as it went over bumps. We decided to keep our distance just in case something (the whole thing?) fell off.

One big reason to like Zambia

To counter-balance the previous blog posting of 350 reasons not to like Zambia, let me offer one big reason to like the country.

Zambia has figured out how to offer its natural resources to its citizens at affordable prices.

I blogged previously (see here) about the potential problems that I see in Namibia's model of ecotourism where natural resources (like National Parks and hunt trips) are priced for out-of-country tourists, rather than for in-country users. I still believe that if a country does not allow its citizens to access natural resources, the citizens will stop valuing natural resources--which will affect future legislation and policy.

So, we visited Victoria Falls. We had walked around for about 10 minutes, when I asked Kelly, "Do you notice anything about the people around us?" The answer was--there are native Zambians here.

It was refreshing to see local people exploring a natural heritage site. It was a holiday when we visited (not sure which one), and there were couples, families, and groups of friends enjoying the falls. It didn't look like Europe had just stepped off the bus...it looked like Zambia was there.

The way Zambia prices the Falls is key to this plan. We paid US$10/person to enter the Falls. As the photo shows, Zambians paid less than 2500 Kwachas (less than US$0.50) to enter. Compare that to Namibia's 25% discount for Namibians at National Parks. The Zambians get a 95% discount! So, tourists support the parks, and native people can enjoy them at much lower rates.

It's a model that Namibia needs to adopt!

Over 350 reasons to not like Zambia

On our recent trip with Larkin's parents to Victoria Falls, we went to Zambia. To get to Victoria Falls, you can either select the Zambia side or the Zimbabwe side. Due to the unrest and such in Zimbabwe, we (along with most people these days--tourism is booming in Livingstone) selected Zambia.

I thought I'd share a bit about the boarder crossing into Zambia from Botswana. I highly discourage anyone from going across at the same place we crossed. We crossed at the Kazungula Ferry crossing, near Kasane, Botswana. For people coming across the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, headed for Zambia, there is now a nice bridge outside of Katima Mulilo, Namibia, which makes the crossing somewhat easier and about US$20 cheaper (no ferry fee).

Here is how it worked. We woke up at a decent hour, and got on the road so that we were to the ferry by 8:30 am. There were actually not too many cars in line. Huge number of trucks waiting to cross, but they are in a separate line. We went through the Botswana "departure" terminal quickly, and obtained our "temporary export permit" for the vehicle (free of charge). Botswana knows that Zambia requires this document. It is essentially a permit form that allows you to take a vehicle from Botswana to Zambia on a temporary basis.

Then, the fun began. When we arrived at the banks of the Zambezi River to catch the ferry, and herd of young men waved us into a line. One guy, named David, came up and told me, "Boss, I will be taking care of you." He said we could discuss he fee once we reached the other side of the river. I asked him what his fee was, and we agreed I would pay him 50 Rand, or about US$7. I had been told to ask for help getting on the ferry, as the ferry just comes to the side of the river and off-loads onto the sand. In a different place each time.

Then, another guy comes up and tells us we need reflector stickers for the vehicle. I had seen information about this, but thought our vehicle was correctly outfitted with reflectors. It turned out it was, but he told us it was not. So, for 150 Rand (about US$20), I bought stickers. He told me it would be 50 Rand, and after the 4 stickers were on the car, he told me that was 50 Rand for each sticker. OK, get away, and here is your money.

While we are waiting, other people come up to sell us some Zimbabwean dollars for souvenirs. We bought a 50 trillion dollar note for US$10 just for fun. Other people came up to trade Zambian Kwacha money with us, to prepare us for expenses on the Zambian side. We had Kwacha, and knew the rate was poor, so we declined. They were offering 4000 Kwacha per US dollar, and the rate at the bank to purchase Kwacha was 5000:1.

At one point, we had to back up the vehicle as the ferry changed positions when the sand bank started caving in. It was nice to have David waving other cars back--all the 'agents' were doing a good job keeping the proper order of the line, and it was a fair process.

We got on the ferry, and David explained he would come with us to help pay fees on the other side. OK, sounds fine. The ferry ride was mostly uneventful--just fun loading from a sandy shoreline onto a ferry with an expensive rental vehicle. Good thing we had those new reflector stickers...

We got to the other side and parked the car. David told us he would pay for the ferry and council tax and arrange third party insurance. We had read about all these fees ahead of time, and knew they were legitimate, so we stood in line to get our visas and vehicle permits. In the end, here is what it took to get into Zambia:

Zambian visas: for a one-time entry, people from the US pay US$50/person. So, that was $250 for our group of 5. If you want to go into Zambia, go back out, and come back in, they charge $80/person. Only country I've ever seen that charges to enter. But, this line was fast, and we got our visas fairly quickly.

Vehicle entry permit: I stood in line for 2 hours to get this permit. It consisted of a permit to allow the vehicle into the country. Where Namibia and Botswana just have you sign a book with your registration number, engine number, and chassis number (which is odd in itself, but doable with the information we had from the rental place), Zambia requires a special permit. A guy would take our paper work and passport, and leave the window to go to another building to use the computer to enter the information. He took 2 people's information at a time, and took 25 minutes each time he left. Enough said. That was the horrible line, but this permit was free. Best deal of the day!

Carbon tax: after getting the vehicle permit, I had to go pay carbon tax. The tax is based on the size of your engine. I told the lady I had a 1.9L engine and she told me I owed twice as much as the sign indicated. Guys behind me helped protest, and she quickly agreed. It was 100,000 Kwacha (and I had to pay in Kwacha), which is US$20. Be sure you have Kwacha before coming to the border, or you will pay through the nose to get some Kwacha from guys outside. Funny thing is that all signs around the offices say "No agents should be involved." But, everyone knows the system relies on these 'agents'.

Road toll: US$20. Fast line. Fun guy at the window. Over and done with quickly.

Council tax: the local board that governs the communal area we drove through after leaving the ferry has gotten in on the action, and David used his own Kwacha to pay this (and later charged me using the poor exchange rate). It was another US$20.

Third-party insurance: Zambia requires all vehicles entering the country to have this insurance. Even if you have personal insurance and insurance through your rental agency. This is the real scam, and I'm fairly convinced these 'agents' actually work for the insurance companies, as there are several companies lining the shore of the river near the Customs Office. David bought the insurance, and I have no idea how much insurance he actually bought or what really would have happened if we had an accident. But, we paid 112,000 Kwacha, or a little over US$20 for this insurance.

Ferry toll: David paid this while I stood in the vehicle permit line. It was US$20 (see a trend here?!), with US$2/person for passengers.

When we were done, David and his 'boss' came over to the car and started the hard sell. "Hope you liked my service, boss." I convinced them I knew the exchange rate for Kwacha to US dollar, and they lowered their price for all the fees David had paid. But, suddenly his rate went from about US$7 (as he told us on the other side of the river) to about $70. I ended up paying him about US$30 for his services. He was helpful, but I just dislike the way these guys do business.

So, we entered Zambia with a bad taste in our mouth, some new reflectors, and about $350 less in our pockets. Wonder how long Zambia can keep this up and still keep tourists coming? But, this was Africa at its finest--as we had expected when we came over. Glad it took 6 months to find that side of things...

When we came back the next day, to go back to Botswana, we only had to pay the Council Tax (another $20) and the ferry fee. Another agent came up and offered to pay the ferry fee with his own money, but I sent Dad to pay it.

If a person knows what fees must be paid, the agent is not necessary. But, it is helpful to have some guidance getting on the ferry!

Our brush with greatness in Namibia

We returned home to Windhoek today from an 11-day trip with my parents to Namibia's Caprivi region, Zambia, and Botswana. More to come regarding those adventures, but I thought I would start with a story of our last adventure of the trip.

It was about 4:30 pm, and we were pulling into our last lodge for the trip--Zelda Guest Farm, west of Gobabis, Namibia--about 20 km from the Botswana border. We were very happy to be back in Namibia and on 'our own' soil again.

Upon pulling into the drive to the Zelda Guest Farm, we noticed a police vehicle following us. Then, we found a large bevy of security folks near the lodge. We checked in at the reception desk, only to find out that Namibia's President Hfikepunye Pohamba was to be a guest that same night!

We were hurriedly encouraged to attend a cheetah feeding, which seemed to be timed precisely to coordinate with His Excellency's arrival by helicopter--to keep us away from his entourage. We did spot the President walking to his private dining room at the lodge later that evening. Except for that brief moment, we never saw him again. But, his security folks were crawling over the place all day and night.

We are often reminded of how small a country Namibia is--this was a great example. I'm sure if President Obama decided to go to a lodge, our reservations would have been cancelled and the entire place securely shut down for his visit. Not here. Also, the President's security forces camped in the lodge campground overnight--no high rolling suites for them!


In the morning, I went out on a bird walk, and successfully added 7 new species to my life list in about 15 minutes. The other half hour of the walk, I was attempting to be sly and find ways to take photos of various Presidential moments from various vantages in the bush--sometimes it pays to be a birdwatcher...the photo at right is the security force that was near our room.

Other than getting our dinner about 30 minutes late, our visit was not affected by the President's visit. We were not frisked, interviewed, or viewed suspiciously by the security folks. We managed to find some 'decent' clothes in our bags of almost-all-dirty-because-the-trip-is-almost-over clothes, to make ourselves presentable at dinner. Tristan even washed his glasses and combed the lint off his coat before going to dinner. It was arguably the safest night we've ever spent in the country! It was a great place, and we'll write more later about our interactions with the San people that live on the farm.

I might add that I waited to post this until now, in the interest of Namibia's national security. The President left, according to his aides, at about 4 pm this afternoon, so his whereabouts are once again top secret.