A tough week

This was the first week where I really felt like crap all week. A disheartening meeting with Lesley, the continued lack of running water in town, and general feelings of homesickness combined for a tough couple of days.

It didn’t start out that way – I had two fantastic nights and days at Camp last weekend in which I managed to see all five species of large carnivore: lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog and hyena (pictures to be posted soon on SmugMug). The last on the list is the rarest of sightings, but while Briana and I were bashing around looking for a cheetah and her sub-adult cub we stumbled across one who quickly loped away into the mopane. The cheetah and her cub were great, very calm while sitting in the shade of a copse of trees on top of a hill. Very cheetah-like. My earlier cheetah sighting was brief and from a distance, so this one was much more satisfying. The rest of the day Saturday was spent searching unsuccessfully for a pair of un-collared male lions and then in the evening spending some time with Chalak, a male leopard whose territory includes Camp.

Sunday was fantastic – lions had been hanging out near Camp all night so early in the morning Briana and I went to go find them. What we ended up finding was Krystal (one of the regular study lionesses) with 2 other lionesses who aren’t spotted very frequently and two sub-adult cubs. This was a fantastic sighting – we were very close to them and they were completely relaxed which gave me the opportunity to take some new ID photos of the lionesses and cubs. ID photos are a critical tool for maintaining accurate records of the social behavior of the animals – without knowing who is who, you can’t make any statements about what each individual is doing. It was very satisfying to contribute to BPCT’s ecological field work in a tangible way.

In the afternoon we got a radio call that Chalak was seen mating with an un-collared female some distance from Camp, so Briana and I sped out to the GPS coordinates and found the pair sleeping in the shade of an enormous tree. They were mostly finished with the romance, but it was really neat to see them together since leopards are solitary predators. And I was again able to get great ID shots of the un-collared female.

On Sunday evening Olf and I left Camp later than I wanted (which lead to a very stressful drive home in the dying daylight) and on our way stumbled across a pack of 5 wild dogs sitting casually by the side of the main road! I quickly snatched my camera and snapped as many photos as I could – none of the dogs were collared, but I felt sure that BPCT would be able to identify them. Turns out I was right and Tico & Neil were able to ID them fairly quickly, illuminating a very interesting & rare case where a pack of dogs had split up before the breeding pair had dissolved.

So I arrived home on Sunday night, dirty from Camp and stressed from the driving but exhilarated from the dog sighting and the weekend in general, to find that the water wasn’t running in my apartment. This year’s historic flooding has caused a lot of issues for the northwestern part of Botswana, foremost the lack of running water in Maun. Three weeks ago, flooding washed away two bridges that connect Maun to the western part of Botswana and with the bridges went the pipes that carry potable water into town. Neither the bridges nor the pipes have yet been fixed, and so the town water supply has literally dried up. Imagine the irony – water, water everywhere and nary a drop to drink. Literally! Local officials have even called for Maun to be declared a disaster area. This wasn’t a problem when I was staying at Lesley & Tico’s because they have a borehole on their property – a well – ensuring that they always have running water. But my apartment is hooked up to the town water supply. Imagine – no water means no hand washing, no teeth brushing, no ability to even use the loo! And it’s the same at the office.

Two things are very interesting about this situation: one, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Although my neighbors say that the water is running again at our apartments, there is no timetable for the return of the town water supply. And two, people in Maun don’t seem all that perturbed by the lack of running water. If this were the U.S., there would’ve been an uproar. But people here are making do as best they can and waiting, I suppose patiently, for the pipes to be fixed.

I decided not to worry about the water – after all, it’s out of my control – and went to bed. The next morning I went to the office to meet up with Lesley, who has returned from the McNutt’s holiday. I thought that, given the circumstances, Olf, Stopper and I had done a pretty good job working on the kraal. Apparently Lesley disagreed. My feeling is that she had a specific vision in mind of all the things that would have been accomplished by the time she got back, but because the kraal building has taken so much time some of the things she wanted hadn’t been done. And to a certain extent, I agree. I had hoped to take a formal Setswana training course. I had planned to write part of a literature review on human-carnivore conflict. But these things fell to the way-side in favor of working in Shorobe. It was difficult to hear her criticisms of our work in her absence. We reviewed a draft work plan for myself for my Fulbright and she tasked me with writing a work plan for both Olf & Stopper.

In truth, I was pretty shaken by our conversation. I knew that there were things she would expect that hadn’t been done. But I imagined she would be understanding about the difficulties we’ve faced in building the kraal, and was surprised when she brushed off my explanations of such things. I spent Monday finalizing the report I’ve been writing and thinking about the work plans I would need to write, and by Monday afternoon decided that I needed to get out of the office for a little while. With no desk in my apartment at which I could work, and more importantly no running water, I made a few phones calls and found a room available at one of the lodges in town for the next four nights.

And that’s where I’ve been ever since. I worked all day Tuesday on the report and the work plans, sitting at a picnic table under the shade of some large, old mopane trees on a patio that looks out over the Thamalakane river – just the kind of respite I needed. On Wednesday I went to Shorobe to work with Stopper and Olf for the day. The kraal is nearing completion and the sooner the better, I say.

Yesterday I had a follow-up meeting with Lesley to review the work plans and talk through the report I wrote. This meeting was much better; I felt we were on a more even playing field because I knew what her concerns would be, and I kept my calm when I might have otherwise been flustered. At the end of the meeting, Lesley even told me I had done a good job, which was an unexpected bit of praise. Then I ran some errands, to include figuring out the problem with my debit card and picking up a hand-made bag that I ordered at the end of August.

Did you know that MasterCard is like the red-headed stepchild of bank cards in Botswana? In my mind I can hear a TV announcer saying “Visa – it’s everywhere you want to be. Especially in Botswana.” Most ATMs don’t accept MasterCard, and unfortunately for me that’s what my debit card is. In my attempt to solve the issue I literally tried ATMs at every bank in Maun EXCEPT the one that takes MasterCard. Go figure. I’m quite pleased, though, that it was a simple fix and am now happily carrying around Pula again.

When I attended the craft fair/farmer’s market at the end of August I met an 87-year-old Zimbabwean woman who hand-makes shoulder bags and aprons out of cute fabric. She didn’t have a bag in the guinea fowl pattern that I wanted but promised to make one specially for me. Her daughter called last week to say that I could pick it up, but since I was out of cash I couldn’t actually go get it. Once I had withdrawn cash I hurried over to their lighting store to pick it up, and I have to say I absolutely love it. It’s the perfect size for carrying groceries or just books and papers back and forth to the office and I’m so glad that I got it.

As for the homesickness, I think all of the above issues have contributed. Things like tap water and debit cards function properly in the U.S. without question. In my job at CI I had a much clearer understanding of the expectations for my job performance, and was capable of meeting those expectations through my own power. My ability to succeed at work didn’t depend on circumstances outside my control, as they do here. And most importantly, I had a clearly-defined and reliable social circle, something I currently lack here.

Because of the nature of my work, I don’t really fit in 100% anywhere. I visit Camp and help out, but I’m not a Camp staff member and Lesley has decreed that I can only spend 1 night there out of every 2 weeks, just to attend bi-weekly staff meetings. So the people I’m supposed to spend as little time as possible with the people I am closest to (Briana, Krys and Neil). I am supposed to work (and live in Shorobe) but most people there don’t speak English and I don’t speak Setswana, so I am often left out of conversations and many of the jokes and comments that I make don’t translate well. And in our meeting on Monday Lesley said she didn’t want me in the office that much; understandable because my work is supposed to be in Shorobe, but difficult to accept given that the office is one of my few sources of social interaction in town. It may just be Tico (who is notoriously not talkative) and 50-something-year-old American Peter Dow, the Director of Education, but at least there were a few people with whom I could interact. Peter is actually very friendly and enjoys chatting about non-work stuff throughout the day. In Lesley’s vision, I would do my office work from home, and therefore never need to come in to the office except for meetings.

The truth is, though, that I just can’t operate like that. I was able to negotiate with Lesley for one day a week working in the office, which will help. But I need to figure out a way to make friends, to find other people to spend time with. That’s the only thing that will help alleviate the loneliness that I feel right now. I know this is just a phase. I know this is temporary, and hopefully I will meet some more people soon. But for now, it’s just been a tough week.