Good Hope

In North America, as it is throughout much of the world, the news coming from the many countries on the continent of Africa, is usually bad. There are civil wars, famine, disease, and other calamities. News around the world is usually bad. That's what makes it news. It is something unusual; something deviating from the norm. News is bad, as a general rule.

But there is good news, and it is usually not reported.

After spending time in Kanye, Botswana, a small group of recently sworn of US Peace Corps volunteers decided to spend an additional week of language training in the village of Good Hope. They were transported from Gaborone, the capital city, south along the Lobatse Highway. Then they turned off the pavement onto a dirt, or sand, track. It wasn't much of a road, but they proceeded west for about twenty kilometers. Good Hope seemed to be a collection of dispersed houses, most made of cinder blocks, but some were the traditional round mud hut with grass thatched roofs. There were a couple small grocery stores, and a primary school. Somewhere in this seemingly random collection of buildings was also a small health clinic.

The Mokgwetse's of Good Hope, Botswana, 1988.

The volunteers were distributed to various families for home stays. The Mokgwetse's welcomed two of the Peace Corps Volunteers into their home. From the Mokgweetse's home it was a short walk to the primary school where the language classes would take place, during a school break when the children were on holiday.

The year was 1988.

In 2013 the two Peace Corps people returned to Good Hope. And Good Hope could be renamed Good News.

Paved roads where everywhere, lined with street lights and utility wires.

Walking through Good Hope with Morris in 2013. Paved roads, electricity, street lights.

Students now do not have to travel to a boarding school in Lobatse to attend classes above the primary level. There was a secondary school, built in the past 5 years, in Good Hope. Classrooms, dorms, gym, library, administration, and staff housing are on the campus.

The entrance to Good Hope's Secondary School.

On the campus of Good Hope's school, with classrooms, library and dormitories.

Further your education is what this statue is implying to the students of Good Hope.

It's hard to imagine a place with no trees. When the Peace Corps Volunteers were there in the 1980's there were very few trees in many of the villages. There were trees outside of the villages, but for the most part people would cut trees around their houses. One of the volunteers was a Forestry Officer whose duties included teaching people the good news about trees--how to take care of them, keep the goats from nibbling them, watering, and the benefits of both the indigenous trees as well as fruit and lumber trees. There were only a couple of tree nurseries in the entire country.

Botswana's Forestry Department has expanded it's reach and influence in the  25+ years between visits.

Changes happen, and sometimes they are very good. Many of the villages the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers visited, including Good Hope and the village they had been stationed at, Letlhakane, had tree nurseries selling a variety of trees, shrubs and even some grasses and forbs.

Bertha, Tapiwa (behind), One, and Morris Modise of Good Hope, 

The good news of Africa usually stays in Africa.  But it is good news nonetheless, and should be proclaimed proudly.

Pula!

The Kindness of Strangers, Part I.

I.

The Zambian Bus Ride

Leaving Botswana after two years of working in the small village of Letlhakane, the couple boarded the northbound train out of the capital city, Gaborone. They were accoumpanyied by a couple other recently appointed Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Tim and Laura, as well as Beva Lee and her daughter Candice.

Celebratory wine consumption was partaken whilst the train slowly traversed the country and entered Zimbabwe. Tim and Laura were zooming east to Harare and Malawi, whilst the rest of the entourage changed trains in Bulawayo and headed north through the rest of western Zimbabwe. A night was spent enjoying the sights of Victoria Falls, known locally as "the smoke that thunders" or Mosi-oa-tunya.

They walked across the bridge that spans the chasm just downstream of the falls and were asked at the customs office in Zambia if they had any food. Several loaves of bread were declared, then they taxied into downtown Livingstone where they inquired about the train going north to Kapiri Mposhi. The train wasn't to leave until the next day, so they found a cheap ronduval and spent the night listening to the band at the hotel.

The train left Livingstone in the afternoon, and most of the trip was in the dark. The year was 1990, and the capitol city of Zambia, Lusaka, was dark as they chugged past a sleeping city about midnight. The socialist policies of President Kenneth Kaunda indicated that there was a lot broken in Zambia.

The train arrived at dawn in Kapiri Mposhi and our friends followed the crowds for the two kilometers between train stations. For some unknown reason the station built by the Chinese that connects Zambia with Tanzania was a couple kilometers from the north-south railroad station.

Once again train tickets were purchased, and the train was scheduled to leave that evening. The ticket agent said men and women were not allowed in the same cabin, so the man and woman got adjacent cabins. The man was suffering from a cold, and decided to simply comply with the rules--it was only going to be an overnight trip before they were to arrive at Kasama, Zambia.

The man found his cabin and staked out one of the top bunks, putting his pack between him and the wall. His spouse and the two fellow traveller's were in the adjacent cabin. Then he fell asleep for ten hours, with just a few blurry eyed views of the cabin in the dark. Over the course of the night, as people exited the cabin, others were getting on, and looking for a place to park their bodies for the evening, both genders wound up in the same cabin.

In the morning he was feeling somewhat better. The train stopped briefly in Kasama and our traveler's disembarked. There was another stroll to the bus rank. Bus ranks in many countries in Africa are mainly large parking lots with buses, and crowds of travelers looking for the right bus, as well as people hawking wares, food, and trinkets.

Zambia was notorious for imprisoning well meaning tourist for very little reason. A year earlier a traveller was thrown in a local jail for simply taking a picture in front of a government building. So after watching the chaos of the bus rank, and having no clue as to which bus to take north to the banks of Lake Tanganyika, our travelers cautiously approached a policeman who seemed to be directing others to nearby buses.

The policeman immediately found the correct bus for the group, and he seemed almost as relieved to be rid of the Americans as the Americans were at not being arrested.

The bus was not crowded as it pulled out of the center of Kasama, Zambia. The three women had seats just behind the driver, while the man was relegated to the last bench seat of the bus. There was nobody standing--everyone has a seat, which seemed very unusual for this part of the world. When the bus reached the edge of the city, it pulled over and ten to fifteen more riders got on. Now it was getting crowded and more typical of most buses in Zambia.

It was a warm day and he day-dreamed while looking out of the windows. Suddenly, a cone of fresh boiled peanuts were handed to him. He looked up to the front of the bus, but the women were not looking back to see if the peanuts had made it to the recipient.

On most buses in this part of the world the bus will stop only long enough to take on and off passengers. There are no lunch stops where the bus stays for more than a few minutes. Instead, at each stop, hawkers, selling just about anything, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, fried foods, corn, will be standing by, making transactions through the open windows.

Some time after the peanuts arrived, and he had eaten every last one of them, a very large vegetable samosa showed up. Again, he looked to the front of the bus, but didn't see any of his friends looking back. But he did notice a man about mid-way on the bus looking at him. The samosa was held up and the man smiled and turned around.

The samosa was a large fried pastry filled with chopped vegetables and rice seasoned with curry. It was flavorful, but after the peanuts he couldn't finish it. He noticed his seat neighbor looking at the unfinished samosa, so he handed it to her. She promptly wrapped it in some paper and put it out of sight in her purse.

Then a chilled bottle of Coca-Cola arrived. He looked up and noticed the man looking back at him. He held up the bottle, the man smiled, and turned back around in his seat. Again, there was no indication that his friends had sent him the bottle of beverage. It must have been the man mid-way in the bus who had been sending him the goodies.

The cola bottle was capped, and as he was looking around for something to pry off the cap, his neighbor took the bottle and pried the cap off with her teeth, then handed the bottle back to him. He thanked her, and enjoyed the thirst quenting beverage, thinking that when he got off the bus he would thank his benefactor.

The haze of heat and travel passed, and after several hours they arrived in Mpulungu, Zambia. It was literally the end of the road, and their next travel segment was to be three days on the M.V. Luemba as it plied the still waters of Lake Tanganyika.

In getting off the bus, he looked for his un-introduced friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. He asked his spouse and traveling companions but they had not sent him any food while on the bus. He looked around in the crowd, but his friend was not to be found. He must have gotten off, unnoticed, on a previous stop.

And so, the man who was so kind to a complete stranger, had passed out of his life, unthanked.

A true sign of friendship is the kindness that is welcome but goes unthanked.

The People of the Bush

Boteti sub-district of the Central District of Botswana was a dry, dusty, out of the way place in 1989. With no paved road, no telephones, no electricity, and a six hour drive to the capitol, Gaborone, it was about as remote of a post as one can imagine. The area was sandy, covered with grass in the west, and short, shrubby types of trees in the east part of the district.

One of many magnificent sunsets in Botswana, 1989.

It was here that an American couple were living, she working for the Ministry of Lands as a Drought Relief Technical Officer, in other words, working in community development, and he was a Forestry Officer for the Ministry of Agriculture. They had lived in Letlhakane for a year, and were planning to stay for another year.

The Forestry Officer decided to take a trip to the western villages of the district to view the successes of the recently held National Tree Planting Day. In addition, he was going to inquire as to the need for more trees as well as check on the progress of three village woodlots. Usually, he travelled with a driver who was assigned to his office. There were three or four drivers: Palagabedi, Onkagatsi, Benjamin and Seepeto, but at this time they were all busy. The Forestry Officer was going to have to go it alone.

For several days he travelled west from the populated villages and diamond mining town to the vast open, dotted with tiny settlements along the dry Boteti riverbed. He wanted to get back home on Thursday, and he was hoping that he could do it before it got dark.

Traveling at night could be a terrifying experience in Botswana. There were the ever present bovines, that would wander across the road, or simply decide to stand in the middle of the road for the duration of the night. Then there was the wildlife--ostriches, impala, kudu, that would think nothing of being in the road, without any reflective gear. There were also other drivers. Several stories were told of somebody's vehicle breaking down on the road, and the driver would turn off the lights, not wanting the battery to die, and walk to the nearest village for assistance. Never would the thought occur to someone to pull off of the road.

The Forestry Officer got a late start from Makalamabedi, and after stopping in Motlopi once again, he realized he was running late. He travelled as fast as the sand track would allow him to drive the Toyota Hi-lux pick-up, and as he approached Rakops, he could see a spectacular African sunset happening. He had several hours to go before he returned home.

At the far end of the village of Rakops was a place people would wait to hitch a ride east. In Botswana at this time, in the "bush," it was common courtesy to give people rides who needed them. Private vehicles were infrequent, and public transportation, buses, taxis, were non-existent. There were thirteen people at the hitching spot.

He glanced in his rear view mirror and saw nobody behind him. No surprise. But he did glimpse the continuing spectacular sunset. Thinking that all of the thirteen people weren't waiting for a ride, that maybe some of them were merely waiting to say goodbye to their friends and relatives, he pulled over and after the appropriate greetings asked, "O ya kae?" Where are you going?

The monna magolo, the old man, said they were going to Orapa, and they all wanted a ride. "A re ye," said the Forestry Officer, we go. The women and children started loading their meager belongings into the bed of the small pick-up, and followed their gear into the open back. The old man, and a young twenty something man got into the cab with the driver. Just to be sure he had heard what he thought he heard, he asked the two in the cab with him where they were going, and they again replied Orapa.

A San youngster, Botswana, 1989.

Orapa is a diamond mining town about thirty kilometers northwest of Letlhakane. It is a closed community, with a fence around the area of ten by twenty kilometers. There are guards at the gates and if one doesn't have a good reason for going to Orapa, the guards will turn you away. This group of hitch hikers did not look like they had any reason to go into the town.

Just after they started picking up speed there was a knock on the back panel of the pick-up. Somebody back there wanted to stop. The old man asked the Forestry Officer to stop, and because there was seldom anyone driving these primitive roads, he stopped in the middle of the road. A women in the back jumped out, ran to a nearby rondoval, the traditional circular mud hut with thatched roof, and was quickly returning with a blanket. The driver glance in his rear view mirror to make sure she was settled in, and then focused on the blazing sunset.

Again they were underway, and shortly there was another knock from the back. The driver was becoming a little frustrated. He wanted to make some good distance while it was still light, but with every stop, the seconds, the minutes, where passing quickly, and he would soon be driving in the dark. Once the vehicle stopped, he watched a woman jump out of the back and run down the road. The driver watched, puzzled by her running along the road, but awed by the continuing sunset. Sunsets in Botswana seemed to be more vibrant, longer lasting, larger, than the sunsets he was use to in the United States. The woman picked up some fabric, a scarf, that must have blown off of her head,

Sunset in the Okavango Delta of northern Botswana.

They were off again, zooming along at 60 kilometers an hour. The two passengers were discussing something in a language the driver didn't understand, but he got the impression they were talking about the speedometer.

A short time later, the old man started fishing around in his oversized, well-worn pants. He pulled out a fist-sized amount of crumpled newspaper and opens it up on his lap. He tears off a corner of paper and then sprinkles some of the dried herbs that had been in the paper onto the smaller piece and rolls it into a cigarette. About this time the driver pushes in the cigarette lighter. The old man was fishing in his pockets for matches when the cigarette lighter pops out and the driver hands it to the old man. After the cigarette is lit, there is quite the discussion about the lighter, and the old man pushes the lighter in several times to witness for himself the miracle of fire on the truck.

By the junction of the road to Toromoja, the sky was darkening. The brilliant sunset was fading to dark.  It was becoming harder to see anything outside the headlight beam, and the truck was slowed to about 40 kilometers. By the time they reached Mopipi, it was pitch black.

There was a knock from the back and the driver stopped in downtown Mopipi, population 200. Several women climbed out of the back of the truck along with a child, leaving seven passengers in the back, along with the two men in the cab with the driver.

At the edge of the village there was another knock. The driver thought, what is going on with these people? Couldn't somebody have walked the half kilometer to here? Some of the women in the back got out and squatted. The two passengers in the cab got out, and standing in front of the pick-up, urinated into the headlight beams. Everyone got back into the vehicle and the old man said, "Tsamaya." Go.

It was going to be another hour, at least, to home in Letlhakane, but the road was straight and flat the entire way. The vegetation consisted entirely of mophane, a shrub in the legume family; definately a monoculture of shrubs. The mophane was densely spaced, and uniformly three to four meters tall. In the dark it looked very homogenous. There would be Orapa to deal with, but none of it's lights were visible when there was another knock from the back.

Argh!

How many stops are they going to make, thought the driver, now thoroughly frustrated. The women and children in the back were getting out, handing their bags out one at a time. The young man and the old man in the cab both slid out and closed the door behind them. Everyone was getting out of the vehicle. Suddenly, the old man was next to the driver's side door, and through the open window clasps his hands, bows slightly, and says, "Danki, rra." Thank you, sir.

In the dark, all of his riders stepped into the bush and quickly disappeared. The Forestry Officer got out of the vehicle and peered into the darkness. He reached into the cab and turned the engine off, then the headlights. It was dark and quiet. His nine passengers had disappeared, quietly into the dark, all nine of them. They knew where they were going--home. He looked up and down the road. It appeared just like the other hundred kilometers before and after the stop. No signs. No lights. Nothing that he recognized would indicate that this was a place to stop to let somebody head home. And there were nine people, women, children and an old man walking in the dark to some shelter somewhere.

As the Peace Corps Volunteer stood there in the dark, he tried to ponder the meaning of life. He looked up to the stars spread out from horizon to zenith and into infinity; he looked into the bush, up and down the darkened road; and thought he lived in an awesome place.

The slow drive into Letlhakane was somewhat of a denouement of the final part of his trip to west Boteti. It was good to see his spouse and catch up with all the news, but something was rattling around in his mind--who were they? What were they doing? Where were they going? Are they doing okay? What became of them? How did they know where to go?

They were questions he continues to find the answers to.

Home is Africa

They call it Africa, We call it home.

Most Americans lump all the countries of Africa into one country:  Africa. The ignorance that most Americans display regarding the fifty plus countries that make up the African continent is appalling.

Years ago I went to a doctor's office. The nurse noticed that I had been in Peace Corps, and asked me in what country I had served. I replied, "Botswana" and she got a little testy, said something such as, "I don't care about that--what country where you in?" I responded, "Africa" and she was okay with that. I'm not sure what she had thought I had first said, but by lumping Botswana into Africa, I had appeased whatever disgusting thing she thought I had said.

Later, the physician came in, and there was a similar conversation. "Where were you?" Again, I said Botswana, and the look on the physician's face was of confusion. He ultimately said, "I assume that's somewhere in Africa?" These comments were from two supposedly educated people, a nurse and a doctor.

There is a big difference between Morocco and Swaziland, for example. But there seems to be no problem for most people in lumping the two into a pseudo-country called Africa.

The capital of Senegal, Dakar, is closer to New York City, then it is to Johannesburg, South Africa. Maybe Senegal should be considered a part of North America, and let South Africa be a part of Africa.

Culturally, a person can cross the border of any country, and be in a different country (amazing), with a different language, different money, different cultural norms. Imagine somebody traveling to Italy, and you say, "Oh, you went to Eurasia?" It's hard to envision somebody lumping Italy with Thailand, or even an adjacent country such as France. Oh, you went to France? No, Italy. They might use the same currency, but that is about where the similarities stop.

It all seems to be part of a cultural bias of Americans. Throughout their educational years, students in America are taught about ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Chances are there is absolutely no mention of the great past civilizations that were occurring south of the Mediterranean.

Some companies have jumped on the African bandwagon. Certainly companies may be in many countries in Africa. It makes sense to be proud of your location. A bank that may have branches in Namibia, Uganda, and Nigeria, would want to use one saying for all the different countries in which they are doing business.

There were no national boundaries during the evolution of humans. Studies and research over the past one hundred years is showing that humanity originated on the continent of Africa. That continent is now divided into a bunch of countries,

Some of the oldest, or earliest, proto-humans, Australopithecus africanus have been found in South Africa. The Cradle of Humankind is located near Johannesburg. When these remains were first reported, anthropologists, mostly from western Eurasia and North America, were reticent to believe that human beginnings were in Africa. There was a cultural, and perhaps, racial bias, against believing that humanity began in some place other than Europe or Asia.

We are all from Africa. It is the place we can all call home. You just don't know it.