End of another Month

Hello faithful readers (if I still have faithful readers and you haven’t decided to stop reading my blog because I haven’t made an entry in a very long time).  We have been in Botswana for nearly two months now, it is kind of crazy to think about.

Last week we had an entire week of rolling power, meaning parts of the town had power for parts of the day and other parts of the town had it for other parts of the day.  In Shakawe, we get our power from Namibia but apparently there was a big storm there and the power lines were knocked out. We survived the week, we were pretty bored at work for a few days because we could not charge our computers but it gave us a good chance to catch up on our reading. As for cooking that was also a little bit of a challenge.  Up until the end of last week, we only had an electric hotplate/mini oven combo to cook on, which obviously did not work when the power was out.  We survived and now we have cooking gas, so that next time the power goes out we can use our gas stove.  

This we have had power for most of the week and we are very thankful for that. This week has been a busy week by Botswana standards. I have been working on an inventory list of all the baskets and that includes pictures, price, pattern and producers. I will see if I can put it on my blog for everyone to see the lovely baskets that we have in the Shop.

On Wednesday, I also got to take a trip with the pottery makers out onto the river to collect clay for their next pottery session. It was a great day.  We took a ride down the river and pulled over and got out to collect the clay. I walked around with the boat driver, who takes people out onto the river for his living, and we saw lots of evidence of animals all around. We saw hippo and elephant footprints and poop.  We also saw the paths that the hippos take through the reeds to the water. I am not going to lie, I was nervous the whole time that a hippos was going to charge out at us but luckily that did not happen. As for actual animals, we saw two crocodile (one regular size and one baby), a couple fishing eagles, a water monitor and many other small creatures.  This was a great day spent outside and I love being near the water.  Unfortunately I did not know I would be spending the whole day outside so I got a little sunburnt but I am okay now.

As for this weekend there is a children‘s play festival on Saturday, a little Halloween party Saturday night and Biodanza and laundry on Sunday. Needless to say it should be a very busy weekend by Shakawe standards.