Ok quick recap. I haven’t blogged for about a week and a bit, and a lot more has happened than all my weeks here I think. So here we go. I’ll try to compress it in small bits. Last week we had the profs and staff of the Desire project with us to help us, (or rather the other way around). All of us went and picked up cow dung to measure the weight, to get a ‘feel’ of how much an average kraal would produce.
This is now the second week already that I have spent in this place. It is quite an interesting place as you can see from the pictures I’ve uploaded. Very salty, dry, windy, at times cold and desolate. People are friendly most of the time and I’ve made some friends. Next week I will be doing something else than household surveys, which is a relief. It is quite boring to go to 140 households and ask the same questions over and over again.
Last Monday I arrived in Mopipi after a 7 hour journey. This is the village I am doing my research in. The house I am staying in is really nice. Mercy, my assistant is renting a room there. The in situ room left a little corner for me. There is a bathroom with running (drinking) water. Even hot water! Mercy has a tv and a fridge (yes, there is electricity). So we have a bit more luxury to retreat to after doing the household surveys.
After being here 3 weeks (today is the start of my fourth week in the South), I thought it’d be good to give another update. This week marks the start of my real ‘field’ research. The previous two weeks of staying in Gaborone were weeks of article reading and enhancing (read: writing anew) my proposal. Actually I was planning to leave for Mopipi on Monday. However, there are always unexpected changes in this world.
Thursday last I arrived in Gaborone, Botswana after a 7 hour busride through an extraordinary landscape, with shrubs, small trees and yellowish grass as far as the eye can see. A bouquet of dryland vegetation and rock formations passed us by. Beauty is something that is embedded into our wonderful planet earth. Gaborone or Gabz is quite a new city. Don’t expect old architecture like you see in Windhoek or Cape Town.
Last Saturday I arrived in South Africa. The first thing I did after going through customs is renting a car. As lekker as it is to have my own mode of transportation, I struggled a bit with driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. The first few drives were a bit shaky. After a while I got the hang of it. The first day I went to Kempton Park to visit a friend of mine.
In the preparations for my trip, I find that slowly but gradually the stress, of the things needed to be done, starts to pile upon me. As for now I am trying to give my self a crash course in Setswana, the official language of the Batswana. But as with all things in life this is way harder than anticipated. Way harder. If I would like to say cup of coffee, it is not that difficult: kopi kofi (sounds a lot like the dutch).
I am actually going. And not long from now. This blog will keep you updated on my happy adventures in Southern Africa over the coming months.