my anus is godot

Big game parks. Both owned by a guy named Ratray. We met old Mr. Ratray at Mala Mala, he was wearing red tartan trowsers and a red sweater for dinner. His traveling companion was a blue haired woman wearing a pith helmet to lunch.

I kid you not…. but first…

Fish, the coolest ranger, ever, told me some Botswanan history while we were walking through the lands… I recall this from memory a week later, so I may have to update it when I have real internet access again.

Great Grandfather Khama was one of three paramount chiefs in the area that became the country of Botswana later. There was basically nothing of interest in Botswana, no minerals, oil, nothing to be exploited. At this time, the British were doing everything they could to gobble up as much of southern Africa as possible. They claimed Rhodesia and north Rhodesia (Zimbabwe & Zambia), and most of South Africa. The Dutch had previously claimed South Africa, but the British had been harassing them badly, so they made an exodus past the mountains to the east, to the land that became Transvaal.

The British really had little interest in Botswana, but were going to annex it anyway as a matter of principle. They were building a railroad from Cairo to Cape Town, and through Botswana was the perfect choice. Their usual modus operandi was to claim the land, “hire” the natives to help with the manual labor, and pay them off with alcohol, which was largely unknown previously, quite addictive, and easy to manufacture and transport.

Khama and the two other paramount chiefs did the unthinkable. They wore western clothes, learned western manners, and went to England to petition the Queen. The Queen dumped them on her Lord Chamberlain, who just wanted the problem to go away. Khama negotiated a deal where Botswana became a protectorate of England, largely autonomous, and he deeded a small strip of their land, the Tule block, to England to build the railroad (think canal zone). He also convinced the crown to agree to immediately settle the Tule block with British subjects.

This was a brilliant stroke, because it created a tripwire between the British and the Dutch. If the Boers tried to cross into Botswana, they’d have to fight the British first. The British, for their part, seeing nothing of worth in Botswana, left the rest of the country alone, which is primarily why Botswana is so less fucked up than the rest of the region. There was no “civilizing” of the natives by turning them into servants and/or drunken unskilled laborers.

Fast forward to the independence of Botswana. Khama’s grandson, Svetsee Khama (spelling?), made a similar trek to England. Again, there was nothing to exploit in Botswana, the Crown was more than happy enough to give up responsibility for Botswana. In fact, the deal that they negotiated included a hardship provision for Botswana. Cattle were imported to the country, and the UK contractually agreed to buy a huge load of Botswanan beef every year, with no expiration date.

(Off topic, Svetsee Khama and an English aristocrat fell in love. It was unheard of and totally scandalous that there could be a relationship between a black man, even the leader of a country, and an English woman of high standing. This caused a lot of friction and frustration to the British and a number of times nearly screwed the deal.)

Cattle is now the number two source of income in Botswana. Amazingly enough, just after the deal was inked and Botswana received independence, diamonds were discovered. A LOT of diamonds. Ooops.

Svetsee Khama negotiated a deal with DeBeers. For 20 years, DeBeers would receive 60% of the profits from diamond exploitation, but part of the provision was that they had to train locals to run and manage the operation. At the end of 20 years, the contracts would be re-negotiated, and, of course, now far more in favor of Botswana. DeBeers got a lot of diamonds, Botswana now controls the operation and gets the majority of profit, everyone’s moderately happy.

I love these guys.

Since the credit card machine at Kasane was out of order, we had to pay for a fuel load with cash. We both had brought a lot of US dollars along for just such a case, but between the fuel load and the new passport visa fees into Zambia, we were on the verge of being cash-dollar poor, so I’ve started to become really stingy when it comes to spending US dollars.

We really wanted to ride some African elephants, despite it being one of those cheesy tourist activities. The elephant park in Zambia was full, but just across the border in dreaded Zimbabwe, there was the sister franchise for the local game park. So, off we went this morning at 5am.

So far, I really like Zimbabwe. Perhaps Zambia and I got off on the wrong foot (staying in a tourist hotel in Africa makes me feel like a mark, and then paying US$100 per-person to ride some elephants made me feel even more like a mark). However, when I realized how many different people we were supporting, I started to feel somewhat better about it. We had a Zambia driver and a Zimbabwe driver who both helped us through immigration and customs, drove us 30km to the franchise, then there were 11 different elephants available to ride, photographers, trainers, etc.

Tourism in Zimbabwe is _way_ down. The place we went was clearly set up to handle a few dozen people at a time, and we totaled five. Everyone was very nice, proud, and not subservient like in South Africa. While their economy is totally screwed, they are making due as best as they can. There are still a fair number of white people there acting in specialist roles (videographer, vets, et al) but they seem to have pragmatically accepted that they’re not colonial lords anymore and are there because Zim is their home. I spoke to my elephant guide for an hour or so, trying to avoid politics, but we did discuss the economy and how they make do with a currency that is rapidly inflating. He works 40 days on, then has 10 days off. He has to travel 1000km to go home to visit his family. By train, 2 days each way, at 1 billion ZB$, or by bus (1 day) at 2.5B ZB$ (about 20USD). I asked him how he gets money to his wife in her village before it goes worthless. Obvious answer, shared ATM cards and he calls her. Just when you think people are stuck in the stone age, you get slapped in the face. You can use an ATM in Zimbabwe, but you can’t get magnets.

I suspect if the MDC win the run-off elections, Zimbabwe is going to rapidly recover and could become another African powerhouse next to Kenya and SA. That said, I still love Botswana, who has no pretensions of doing anything other than doing what’s best for its people..

This place is so beautiful in a totally different way than the Kalahari. I can’t believe we’re only 100 miles away. There is water everywhere here, fresh, and clean. You can drink right out of the delta, assuming the hippos and crocs don’t get you.

The only practical way here is to fly in. There are more Cessna 206’s flying into Maun airport than just about anywhere else in the world. They deliver packages, food, and mail to the two dozen camps in the delta area.

While we were on the runway, a truck pulled up and asked us if we were going to Shinde. We said yes and they proceeded to unload about 120lbs of fresh veggies and mail to take out to the camp. Luckily we had a group of four planes, so we all took a share of the veggies and I took the mail. Now I’m an official African Bush mail pilot!

There are game animals and predators everywhere. The place we are going, the Shinde lodge, is a collection of tents. Five star tents, built on teak platforms with lots of running water, hot showers, excellent cooking, and lots of alcohol. The British who colonized Africa must have been major drunks, because there are so many artificial drinking events (every evening has a Sundowner, where you stop, watch the sun going down, and break out the gin and tonics).

Went out on a boat into the delta and got some good photos of birds and hippos, otherwise not much on the first night. Saw two hippos fighting each other in the water. They are insanely fast. No matter how stupid they look on land, you do not want to screw with a hippo in the water.

Spoke to a few of our guides about life in Botswana. They have a lot to be proud of and they put a lot of faith in their government, which seems to be about as benign a government as you can get. The Botswana way is to work through collaboration and community, and people seem to cut each other a lot of slack.

There are private concessions here that manage the delta resources. They’re given 15 year leases on the land, and the bids for the leases is extremely competitive (sealed blind bids). They typically include packages to support the local communities and their infrastructure, have strict conservation pledges, social pledges (bringing Botswanan kids out to the delta for field trips) and pay a fair bit of taxes to the central government which is redistributed into the education system. They realize that Ecotourism is the way to go, and the government appears to be fostering that transition in a free-market way that still benefits the locals.

Botswana is missing something that SA has in abundance, razor wire. In SA. I felt like we were moving from compound to compound through a war zone. There is almost no crime here because a pickpocket or thief, if one is stupid enough to commit a crime, is going to get his ass kicked by everyone around that hears a shout of alarm.

This morning, we woke up, and a hippo was walking by our tent, not 15 feet away. We went out on the deck and watched it. it looked at us, and we all decided it was too early in the morning to kill each other, which was a good thing, because hippos can be insane and violent. Oh, you can’t help but laugh when you see one walking on land. I can’t describe it but it’s totally comical.