Tidbits & Trivia Thursday - Gaborone, Botswana

In an attempt to 'keep up' with my cool Blogger buddies that have a weekly posting theme - I thought I'd share some of the interesting, weird, fascinating, quirky, unusual, just plain strange things that make you say "huh?" about life in Gabs.

I'll start with our selection of chips from the local grocery stores. NOTE: These 'chips' are not to be confused with the 'chips' (AKA 'fries') you might order at a restaurant here. Another note - something I learned from my South African friend - there are 2 versions of fries here: the long, skinny ones (like McD's) are called 'fries'; the thicker ones are called 'chips'. (Most restaurants here serve 'chips'.)

On to the potato chips! Plain potato chips are sometimes difficult to find in stores. Really! Folks here have some unique taste buds. Take a look at these chip flavors. WARNING! This might cause a craving for junk food - of which, I cannot be held liable.

My fav - Caribbean Onion & Balsamic Vinegar

#2 choice: Mozzarella & Basil


#3 choice: Sea Salt & Crushed Black Pepper

Honorable Mention: Thai Sweet Chilli
Not bad - just isn't in my Top #3

The pototo chip flavor you will not find? Barbecue.

Wanna know the kicker about the bags of chips here? They are sold in 2 sizes. Small and smaller. The 'regular' size bag is 125g (everything here is metric - remember?). That equates to about 4 oz. at a cost of P7.25 which equates to approximately $1.00. The smaller bag is the size my mom used to pack in my lunch box for school.

I think I'll be shipping some of the COBV chips to myself before we leave here for good.

Christmas in Botswana

This was our first Christmas, as a family, away from the United States. We'd been thinking about it for some time - and knew it would be 'different'. I mean, think about it.....Christmas in AFRICA!!! Where we're in a different time zone, different hemisphere, different season - different everything - from what I've always been accustomed to for Christmas.

When we arrived back in Gabs from our 5 week visit to NC, I proceeded to decorate our home with the items we had brought with us: tabletop tree (made by my mom, many years ago), nativity advent calendar, nativity set for the mantle, stockings and snowflake stocking holders.... It may have LOOKED like Christmas, but with the temps hovering around 100°F+ everyday, it didn't FEEL like Christmas.

To me, Christmas is supposed to be colder - not 120°F. You dress up in sweaters or turtlenecks - not shorts and flip-flops. You wear coats when you go outside - not sunscreen (unless you're going snow skiing!). You drink hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm up your insides. You do lots of baking to warm up the inside of your home. You play Christmas carols while you bake. You wonder if it will snow on Christmas Day. You drive around the neighborhoods and 'oooh' and 'aaah' at all the beautiful lights. None of those ‘things’ of what I’d always had were present.

THEN, my precious Savior, whose birth is the reason I celebrate CHRISTmas – oh so gently spoke to my soul. He reminded me - Christmas isn’t about the outward appearances, the weather or lights. Christmas isn’t about what the world tells me Christmas should be. Christmas IS about my soul’s celebration of God come down to Earth – in the form of a precious baby – to be born for my soul, to be crucified in my place – to conquer Death for me – and to be Resurrected because of His victory over Death. Jesus – Immanuel – God With Us – was born to die – so that I could live.

Oh, yes, Christmas was different for me outwardly this year – but my soul still rejoices in the birth of my Savior. That never changes, no matter where I am. Hallelujah!

Thank you, Precious Father, for the Gift of Your Son. The true meaning of CHRISTmas.

Look Out - Here She Comes!!!!

OK - I have to admit it - our girls have been somewhat 'deprived' in their young lives.......they've never seen the Star Wars movies! Well, actually, they watched just part of "Star Wars" sometime within the last year and decided it was "too boyish". Since then, we've rented "Phantom Menace" from Netflix - and they really liked it. B liked it so much she built her own 'pod racer' while in the pool. Just love her imagination! The girls didn't think the Sith was all that scary either..."it's just a bunch of makeup", they said. My, my, my how they grow up.

Dolls with Dolls

Our eldest daughter received this beautiful handmade African doll from a friend here. Most amazing is this doll is made of recyclable materials (glass bottle for the base; wire; scraps of fabric; beads; matchbox for the purse; painted sticks). The lady who made this doll is indeed talented. If you look closely, you'll notice a 'baby' on the back of the doll. The custom is for mothers to carry their young children this way - bundled up on their back so mommy can have her hands free.














A closeup of the doll. The lips are made from a shell, painted red. How clever!






















This is our other daughter with her handmade African doll. We purchased this doll when we visited Thamaga Pottery, back in September. This doll is made almost completely of fabric, except for the braided hair. B named her doll "Amogelang", after our housekeeper, which means "to receive".

The Greatest Place on Earth

The reason I haven't blogged since forever is because I was on another continent! We went to the most wonderful place on earth - to be with family and precious friends. Doesn't get any better than that!

Yes, I had access to the Internet....at lightening fast speed (compared to Gabs)....but I was having too much fun with family and friends...and eating out!!!!!

When we planned this trip - we also made our list of 'places we must eat'. (Sidenote: Gabs does not have ANY of the fast-food places we enjoy from the States. You don't realize how much you take McD's for granted until it is no longer an option.) At the top of my list was Chick-fil-A. At the top of the girls' list was a Happy Meal from McD's. Their choice won out for our first dinner in the US (but only because there isn't a Chick-fil-A nearby....my parents need to change that.)

R as she proudly poses with her Happy Meal box. The simple things in life.

B with her Happy Meal - and the MOST important part....THE PRIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our first weekend home, the girls attended our church's annual Fall Festival. Here they are with their best buds. Here we have a Cowgirl, Cheerleader, Glenda the Good Witch and a Monkey! Yes, we will embarrass our children years from now with these pics!

While home we were able to see many of our precious friends, go shopping!!!!!!!!!!! and spend time with family.

Taken just before the Thanksgiving feast began....complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, field peas, collards and biscuits.
For dessert: sweet potato pie, pecan pie AND key lime pie.

Our Thanksgiving Day tradition is to spend the day at my parent's house with family, enjoy a meal together, laugh A LOT, and decorate the house for Christmas. Here's the tree, which my mom and children decorated during the week. So, on Thanksgiving Day we hung wreaths on the outside of the house on the windows. Sorry - don't have a pic of that!

The Christmas Tree
Last year my mom had decorated her tree in just gold and red. It was beautiful. But, I LOVE the sentiment of the mismatched ornaments that each have a story to tell. I am so sentimental. I decorate our family's tree each year with the ornaments the girls have made at church through the years. They are a treasure to me.
For this year, mom decorated the tree with all those beautiful, one-of-a-kind mismatched ornaments. Beautiful.

Fall is my most favorite time of year. The vibrant colors just warm my heart. We don't have fall in Gabs. We have just 2 seasons: winter and summer. One is really hot, and the other not-so-hot and sometimes even cold. No such thing as fall colors in Gabs. This beautifully colored tree in my parent's front yard was like a gift to me from my Lord. Thank you, Lord.

More pics.......

These are the BFF girls. (Best Friends Forever) We are thankful to have their precious family in our lives.

And to go even further back in time on this blog post....to document the passing of my 40-something birthday....I had TWO surprise parties (in Gabs, before we left for the US).

Here is the beautiful cake made by a dear friend. My husband surprised me with this cake at a function I was attending. I didn't have a clue about the surprise. Well done!

'Happy Birthday' being sung to me by 30 or so friends. A great time!

My 1st surprise birthday party of the day. We had spent the afternoon with friends - the girls all played in the pool - while my friends from South Africa and Germany surprised me with a cake! The Lord has blessed me so much to have such precious friends here. I am truly thankful for and blessed by their friendship.

Botswana Birds - African Hoopoe

The birds we continue to see -- in our own backyard! amaze me! What a treat! (I'm becoming a bird-watcher.) This guy (or girl - not sure how to tell the difference between the male and female yet) is an African Hoopoe. Here's what my Beginner's Guide to Birds of Botswana says about this beautiful creature: "Fairly common throughout the country, the African Hoopoe is a well-known, russet-colored bird with a large black-tipped crest, and black and white wings and tail. It spends most of its time on the ground probing for insects with its sharp, down-curved bill.


When disturbed it lifts its head and raises its crest like a fan (like he did in the first picture!). Its call of hoop-hoop repeated several times, has given it its name." (Sadly, we haven't heard a sound from this species of bird.)

We have been blessed to see this bird - or this species of bird, in our backyard every day for the past 4 days. When the girls spot him they come running to me so I can get my camera.

Meet "Melman"

We have a new 'friend' in our house. His name is "Melman". With girls, it seems we name every stuffed animal - including wood carved animals, too. ("Melman" is the name of the giraffe in the Madagascar moves. Those movies are some of our family favs. B does a very good impersonation of "King Julian". R's favs are the penguins.)

We've been wanting one of these tall giraffes since we first saw them here in Gabs. The only place we've seen the tall ones (above 4 feet tall) and at a reasonable price, is Bull and Bush - a restaurant/bar. The wood carvings, metal sculptures, etc. are brought down regularly from Zimbabwe (where they are made by hand) and sold outside the Bull and Bush. "Melman" is our first purchase from these wonderfully friendly Zimbabweans. We hope to get a nice sized (large) hippo from them sometime before we head back to NC. And maybe a Cape Buffalo...zebra....elephant....

"Melman" will look nice in our foyer back at home in NC. That will be our Africa wall. Oh the stories we will have to tell!

Love Letter

As a mom with children that are growing up way too fast - I treasure each and every "I love you Mommy" note from them. This masterpiece was created by our youngest. (Sidenote: When I pulled out the camera she KNEW the pic would end up on the blog. She wasn't too happy about that. "Mom! It's private!" I told her my friends in blog-land would really like it - so she smiled and posed for me.)

And what pr0mpted this love letter to Mommy, you may ask? Spelling! I am using Spelling Power© this year with this girl. So far, we both like it better than what we had been using. B's favorite part is the 'spelling review time' from the Spelling Power Activity Task Cards©. Today she used the label maker to type out and print the spelling words she had missed (hockey, bottom, hospital).....we made up a funny sentence with those words "The hockey player fell on his bottom and had to go to the hospital." We thought it was funny. Anyway, she went beyond those three spelling words and created this love letter for me. It's a keeper!



Here's the closeup.

Silly Supper

Years ago we started the tradition of having 'breakfast' for dinner on Sunday nights. We would
have waffles or pancakes or eggs, bacon and grits (yes, grits...love 'em!), or omelets.... you get the idea. A friend of mine called this 'Silly Supper' and that phrase has stuck ever since. Little side note here - growing up the 3 meals were called 'breakfast, dinner and supper'. Wonder who came up with calling 'lunch' 'dinner'?? When I moved away to 'the big city' I started calling the three meal times 'breakfast, lunch and dinner'. Except for when we have 'Silly Supper'. ☺

About a month ago our oldest pulled out her "Kids in the Kitchen" cookbook by The Pampered Chef©. Ever since then - she has taken over the Sunday night Silly Suppers!!!! So far she's made "Hot Griddle Cakes", "French Toast Dippers" and "Deliciously Golden Applesauce". For lunch one day she made the "Super Sub". When this girl cooks - she does everything....yes, even the cooking. She loves it! Her sister jumps in on the action and WILLINGLY and with JOY washes the dishes afterwards. My 'little' girls are growing up.

Here are a few pics of the chef at work - using all the handy-dandy Pampered Chef© tools!

Picture above - wearing my "Botswana" apron, which for her is a dress.

Here's the chef - reading over the recipe BEFORE starting to cook. She's like her mom - a planner. She has her ingredients and tools gathered, ready to start.

The apple cut in wedges....I really, really like this kitchen tool.


Now for chopping the apples.......


Do a little mixing...
Time to cook!

And you know what picture I DIDN'T take???? The finished product! Ooops. I can tell you that the "Hot Griddle Cakes" she made were absolutely delicious. In fact, we had a version of them tonight for Silly Supper.

Chobe River and Victoria Falls

Our family, including my husband's mother (who came to visit from the US for 3 weeks), traveled to northern Botswana last week. We explored the Chobe River and also Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side) for a few days. We had a blast!!! So much to see and experience. God's creation is amazing. I was amazed at the difference from the southern part of the country, where we live, to the northern part of the country. Guess having animals roaming around - especially elephants - and LOTS of them vs. donkeys, cows and goats - AND a huge body of water (the Chobe River) is what makes the difference. hee hee

FYI - for those who know me personally, I have a ton of pictures out on my Facebook account. Go there and see more pics of our trip. For those not on Facebook (but those who know me), just email me - or comment on this post - and I'll send a link so you can see all the pictures.

The main thing I've loaded here are some of our favorite videos of the trip. I've also loaded some of my favorite pictures of the trip (which are duplicated of FB).

To give you an overview of our itinerary:

• Tuesday morning - flew from Gabs up to Kasane
  
• Tuesday afternoon - 1st land safari at Chobe National Reserve (a HUGE reserve)
• Wednesday morning- 2nd land safari at Chobe National Reserve (left at 6:00 am sharp!)
• Wednesday afternoon - 3rd safari - but this one was on water. Really neat! Saw hippos and crocodiles up close!
• Thursday morning - traveled over to Zimbabwe to tour the Falls
• Thursday afternoon - elephant back safari (on a private reserve)
• Friday morning - tour of the Falls Craft Village (learned about the culture and lifestyles of several African tribes)
• Friday afternoon - flew back to Gabs

It would have been great to have had one more day at Victoria Falls. So much there to do and see as well. You need at least a couple of days there to even start to take in the majesty of the Falls.

Enjoy the video and pics.

The 1st African sunrise we saw on our trip - Wednesday morning. Just awesome.

The Chobe River:

Video of an elephant that was not too happy with this tree. Don't know what he didn't like - maybe the leaves weren't fresh enough?!





A rare photo - a giraffe bending down to eat. This giraffe carefully looked around for any predators before bending down to eat. A giraffe is obviously very vulnerable in this position. The only other animals around were elephants, birds and a Cape Buffalo or 2. No lions.




Hyena - another rare sighting. These are nocturnal animals. We spotted him (no pun intended!) during our morning drive.


Beautiful bird - this photo doesn't begin to capture the vibrant colors. This is called a Lilac Breasted Roller - or LBR for short!


During our morning stop to stretch legs and enjoy coffee or tea. (A game drive usually lasts 3 hours.) BTW - there are no facilites/port-a-pottys out in the wild! You know what that means! Hold it - or find a bush to hide (your behind) behind!


Me and my soulmate!


The fam!



A hippo showing off for us!

Though you can't see anything in this video - didn't think to turn the camera to night mode - just listen to the song of the African dancers. They delighted us during our 1st dinner at Chobe.





These gentlemen are playing marimbas. They greeted us with their music as we returned to the Lodge from our boat cruise safari. Wish I had bought their CD.





The girls (not US!) put this on their door one morning. They were giggling quite a bit! Thankful they get along so well and fill our surroundings with laughter.



Victoria Falls - we're just 2 peas in a pod.

The silly ones - about to dive in! NOT!



Daddy about to throw in our youngest.



The family (minus me, taking the pic). Behind them is the cloud of mist rising from the falls. We got wet from that mist, too! Very refreshing on a 95+ degree day.



A sample of the Falls. Victoria Falls is called "the smoke that thunders". Powerful and so majestic.





Portion of the Falls known as Devil's Cataract.



The Main Falls


Rainbow Falls. There isn't always a rainbow to be seen. We were extra blessed that day for the Lord to have placed a rainbow there for us - to be reminded "all God's promises are true".



Now this WASN'T a nice creature to behold. Unless you like snakes. Yes, my friend, this is a cobra. We had just started the tour (hadn't seen any of the Falls pictured above yet). Our guide saw the cobra 1st - because the snake had raised up and flared out. Our guide jumped back (AND he was only a foot or so away - the snake was on the edge of the trail where we were walking) which signaled me to look down as well. B and I had been walking along side the guide. We then backed away. I kept my eye on the snake - hoping it wouldn't chase after us. (It didn't - thank you Lord.) A nearby Park Ranger came and took care of the snake. (He threw a stick at the snake - which caused the snake to go back in to the woods.) My mom told me she had been praying for us every day during our trip. God indeed protected us.



In this video clip, we are standing on the Zimbabwe side of the Falls, and videoing the Zambia side. We were told by our guide that people pay about $50 for the day to go swimming in the 'pools' at the top of the Falls.




On to our next segment of the trip - riding the elephants. Before riding the elephants, we had the wonderful opportunity to meet them. We all touched and petted the elephants. Here we are seen with Jumbo. He lived up to his name. I think he was the largest of all the elephants. Though he isn't the one we ended up riding. I was amazed at the wire-like hair on the elephants. And, they have really, really long eyelashes. We were spoiling Jumbo.




S and R with their guide on Janet.



B and me with our guide (Richard - from Bulawayo) on Jake.


Feeding the elephants after the ride. A neat time to reward the elephants for the fun.








A pic of the girls in a hut that would be used by the Bush Men tribe as a temporary shelter. The girls are holding some items they would have used: bow, arrow, hollowed out ostrich egg -used to carry water.




I'll end with this cute picture - the girls under their mosquito net. (Malaria can be contracted in northern Botswana - where we were. We all started our anti-Malaria meds before the trip. The girls continue their daily med for 4 weeks after the trip. S and I don't have to take ours as long - only 1 week after the trip.)


Another fabulous safari! Can't wait for the next one!