Office closed

We are officially closing the office for Christmas and new year in about five minutes. Lots of stuff to look forward too. We hereby wish everyone again a happy Christmas and new year. Next blog post will be in January, which lots of stuff about our first Botswana Christmas.

Johannes and Jill

Nearly Christmas

It is my turn for a post, after Jill has done an excellent job keeping everyone updated. Last weekend was a very busy weekend. On Saturday we got up early to go for a 18km hike through Mokolodi game reserve (starting at 6.30). You don’t often get a chance to walk through a game reserve, and even though we did not see as many animals as we had hoped, we did see warthog, impala, springbok and as it had rained recently we saw lots of tracks.

taking a break and enjoying the view over the FULL dam

'Vulture restaurant'

fresh hippo tracks

the Mokolodi cheetahs

I have to admit Christmas has been sneaking up on me this year, I am not sure if it is because we are so busy, or because of the weather, or because of visitors, but I did not have much of a Christmas feeling, until last weekend. We decided to buy an (artificial) tree, and got all the ornaments and lights out, and our house is looking rather ‘Chrismassy’

Jill decorating our tree

Reggie offering a hand.......

the result!

Our friend Gerrit asked me if I was interested to sail with him in a catamaran race on Sunday morning on the Gabs dam: the “Turkey Regatta”. Another early morning, but there was plenty of wind, and sailing a race like that with no previous experience was quite an adrenaline rush, especially since we managed to capsize the boat even before the start. In total there were three short races, and in the last race we even managed to finish second, and 8th place over all.

After the race there was a Christmas lunch at the yacht club, and Jill and Sophia (Gerrit’s wife) joined us. There were also the overall results of the race, and we even won a small prize, a six pack of beer! I am quite excited about this, and would love to join again in the next race.

The prize ceremony after the race

Gerrit and I accepting our prize

One more (busy) week at work, just signed 2 contracts for new jobs, so plenty of work for the start of 2008. But first we have a nice break to look for, together with Christiaan and Susan. A nice trip planned with stops in Pilanesberg, Gaborone, Makgadigadi Pans, Chobe and Vic Falls. Plenty of pictures to follow.

We would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas, and a good 2008.

Johannes and Jill

Storm season

We're having fantastic thunderstorms, and the dam is so full it's even causing some rivers to flood. Amazing!

As far back as 2000 when we first ever came to Botswana, we have never seen a flowing river in this part of the country. Now they're everywhere!! Even one of our clients who has lived here nearly all his life has said he can't remember ever a time when the rains came so early, and as hard as they are this year.

Tomorrow we are supposed to be doing an 18km hike in the game reserve down the road at the gruesome hour of 6:30 a.m. However, the storms may have wiped out the route so we're on stand-by from the hiking club organizer to find out if it's going ahead or not. Still, no one complains... this is all so much better than the drought of last year!

Last weekend we worked the Art Fair for the SPCA that we volunteer for. We sold tickets, which was easy and required nothing more than to sit and enjoy talking to everyone who came up to the table to buy the tickets. Literally everyone we knew in town came out for the art fair, and so it was a very social outing for us, even though it involved some work. We brought Reggie along and he was quite the star of the show. Which was too bad considering there were several SPCA dogs that they brought out as well, looking for new homes that day! Actually, by the end of the day 3 of the homeless pooches had been re-homed, even though 2 of them are not permanent homes, but rather long-term foster homes with Diplomats who are only here for 2 years but would be willing to foster during their tenure. (Normally, in those situations they end up keeping the pups so it all works out in the end anyway - not many people can give up a family dog after 2 years of living together!)

The excitement is building for the holidays. Most of the companies in town are breaking up around the 14th of December... which is next week... and very hard to believe! I have no idea when we are shutting down, nor do I have any idea about the very vague Christmas Party that we are supposedly having. Hmmmmmm.... who is on the social planning committee??

On the 20th we will go down to Pretoria and do lunch/dinner with Family Polson, then late that night we'll fetch Christiaan and Susan from the airport. From there we have those 2, plus Alan for Christmas, and on Boxing day we head up north until the 2nd. Yes, it's going to be extremely, unbearably, miserably hot. But who cares! Just keep fingers crossed that no large mammals step on our tents during the nights.

Then the next big event on our calendar is February, when Alan M., Audrie, Pádraig, and Rachel come down from Ireland. Followed by the aunt&uncle&cousin posse in March!

It's just all too exciting!

Thanksgiving Blogging

Apparently, it is thanksgiving today.

It really snuck up on me this year more than ever. Primarily because I still haven't really got the whole theory down as to which week the holiday falls on each year. I know it's always a thursday in November, and I know it's always at the end of November. But I was always under the impression it was the *LAST* thursday in November, which would make it next week. Unless, of course the last day of the month is a thursday. Well in that case, my theory would be correct. But not this year. Actually, I've just been instructed by a friend-of-a-friend who happens to be an American living in Johannesburg, that it's always "the 4th Thursday in November". OK, that makes sense then.

At any rate it's hard to feel thanksgivingy when it's over a hundred degrees outside. But nevertheless we'll try and make an effort with our dinner tonight. Nothing planned yet but we'll see what we can do.

Back to Africa...

We were deathly ill last week. Lucky for us, it hit us on the same day and took us both the same amount of time to get over. Only had to take one day off work (it hit on a thursday), and after 3 days of torture and panic-stricken runs back to the toilet every 10 minutes, it was over. But the recovery period lasted a good week. Johannes reckons it was the sickest he'd ever been, with the exception of The Great Food Poisoning Debacle of '03, after our unlucky trip to the Galway Oyster Festival.

Here is a photo of my husband, incapacitated, on the couch:

Poor thing, he was in so much agony. This was about 3 hours before it hit me. I knew it was really bad when even he, the workaholic, wanted to leave the office an hour early that day. Not a good sign.

In other news, we have got vegetables.

I planted them this year.... about a million carrots basically. This is the first time I have personally propagated anything since I was in elementary school and we lived on Timber Trail. Thank goodness carrots are easy and don't require much effort, because it meant that I actually got some edible results!

These two got the award for looking the "most carrot-like". They're actually straight and normal looking.

This one gets 1st prize for looking the most retarded:

I also planted some red onions (we can't find them in the store here), leeks, coriander, chillies, cucumbers, eggplant, and watermelons.

I got one smallish cucumber that tasted like sawdust (?) out of the whole bed - the rest grew to about the size of my thumb and then shrivelled up and died.

The chili plants are only just now starting to poke through, so maybe they'll turn out, maybe not. The red onions are tiny - about the size of a tennis ball. They still taste like red onions however, so I can't complain. The watermelon vines are still growing, and I'm not even really sure where exactly I planted those eggplants, so I've kinda written those off.

Mary, on the other hand, is an amazing gardener.

Here is a photo of her tomatoes. Growing right next to my embarrassingly crooked and way-too-closely-spaced mess of a carrot patch:

Then there is her lovely bed of corn. She transplanted some of my watermelons in between the corn plants for me. Maybe that will give them a chance?

The long, snake-looking apparatus you can see at the back of this photo, is our grey water system. The dirty water from our sinks and baths goes all the way through the house and trickles into our garden through this +/- 30 metre long piece of pipe. We just alternate which bed it drains into, each day. And of course by "we", I mean "Mary".

I dream of someday having a garden from which I can grow everything that one needs to make hundreds of litres of homemade salsa, like my dad's. However, this year was the year I had to go through in order to learn that vegetable gardening in Botswana takes a lot of time and effort and next year I might start by:

a. spacing my crops at reasonable spaces/intervals, rather than throwing a whole packet of seeds into a trench that I dug using my right shoe

b. weeding regularly

c. shade cloth

d. asking around and finding out what succeeds if planted at which time of the year, first.

But nevertheless, I'm happy with my carrots and small red onions. I've never really been much of a carrot eater, but having about 40,000 of them is a good inspiration to start trying new things with them. Next up: carrots in chocolate-peanut butter sauce.

And finally, some photos of the nice, hot weather.

Johannes and Sech

Finally, the pool has been cleaned out and all ready to go for summer. Good thing, too, because summer started months ago!!

Work stuff (J1)

Besides our many trips into the bush, visits by friends, trips to South Africa, and other work avoiding activities, we are actually quite busy with our little business. We do not mention work related things too much, as it is too boring for this blog, but here a quick update of what projects we have kept ourselves busy with over the past months.

On our environmental side we have written environmental management reports for a new airport terminal building, for a new cigarette manufacturing facility and for a proposed office development. We have also written environmental impact assessments for a water treatment plant, an infrastructure development, and we are very busy with a new power line project.
Besides this we are doing environmental construction monitoring for an office development, and have done a household survey for a new village sanitation project, Jill is trying to finish the report for this at the moment.

Environmental Construction Monitoring - Our name is on there somewhere....

On the landscape side we are working on the design of a new health institute, the industrial court, an international school and changes to the president's residence. We have also just been awarded with a big recreational park project (70 hectares), which will have landscape and environmental sides.

There are loads of new projects upcoming, and we have tendered for quite a few new projects. From infrastructure to tourism, office developments etc etc. Just yesterday we had a meeting about a big environmentally controversial new project. On the one hand it would give us full time work for the whole of 2008, but on the other hand we are not sure we want to get publicity being involved in such a project. We will wait and see.

Bored yet? Other news is that our real estate agent from Ireland contacted us today, saying there is a potential buyer for our house. The whole landlord / renter thing is working quite well, but we will see what this buyer has to offer. More than likely some typical Irish developer who is not really serious about the whole thing. In the mean time we are looking at plots and houses over here, not sure how seriously, and how much a bank would be willing to loan us, so don't expect any big purchases soon.

J1

Khutse Pictures (J1)

Some might have seen these pictures already, as I pulled them straight from Steve and Madonna's blog, but here some pictures of our last Khutse trip. Jill told the story already.

Khutse gate

We travelled with a trailer this time, as we had 6 people + luggage. The good old Pajero behaved like a true hero taking all this extra load.

Wild dogs, right on the track


Gemsbok

Camp on our first night, a fire and a big braai of course

What are we looking at????

LION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A nice springbok

This is a very pretty picture, Gemsbok.

J1

All Alone Again...

Well, we got rid of the Australians finally!
(Just kidding!!)

Last week was really fun, particularly due to our aussie visitors. Steve & Madonna came to us fresh off their 3-month Euro-trip, so they were pretty beat and I suspect ready just to pack it all in finally and get HOME (to New South Wales)... but oh no, we did our best to delay them and wear them out further.

First we fetched them in Joburg, where we ate really good food, hung out with our common buddy Alan, and proceeded to blow up the engine in his car. Which really wasn't too much of a bother, as it wasn't fatal and for being "blown up" it seems to be rolling along pretty much perfectly at present... so the guys who fixed it must have been pretty good. From there we went on up to Pilanesburg in the North West Provence, for a bit of camping and game spotting IN THE RAIN. That was queer because I have never camped in the rain in africa in my whole time here, ever. Nonetheless I think they enjoyed it and Steve took some great photos. Maybe some of them will even make an appearance here on this blog, when I get a chance.

Next we spent some time here in Botswana. This included taking them around as well as letting them do their own thing (rhino tracking). The best thing about having these guys around was that they were big on the whole "chilling out" thing and were perfectly happy to sit in the sun and take in the view. Actually, Steve was even happy to help Hannes mix concrete and fix our cable trench. Not bad!

Then we went out to the bush for a couple days before they left. Jéan joined us because he's moving to Scotland this month and we wanted to have one last more African hoo-rah together, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Alan came along too, even though he's an old name around these parts by now. I know he was really excited to spend some time with the visitors. Good thing our rig sits 7 adults, and 6 comfortably. Riding with 6 was no problem at all, actually. We got a trailer for the back, and broke in our roof rack.

The camping experience was pretty much standard for the place that we always go... lots of different antelope species (although this was our first time seeing a herd of Eland - the biggest of them all), not to mention they were in full sprint, racing across the veld. This time we actually got a glimpse of lion (which we usually hear, but not see), and the usual giraffe and such. The biggest highlight for me I think was that we saw at least 6 Wild Dogs, within a mere 30 minutes of driving into the park. Really amazing.

Saturday night after our bellies were full of braai meat and beer, the lions came out and did their scary-roaring thing. All night long, in fact. Only this time one to the north of us (who sounded quite close) seemed to be conversing with his friend who was to the west of us, and proceeded to come closer and closer throughout the night. S&M got the roof tent, while the rest of us 4 stuck it out on the ground in macho-mode.

I will try to put some photos up soon. But for now it's time to go to the gym and then home.

Now we have the next month to plan for our Dutch visitors coming at Xmas.... although most of that planning is already done, so I guess we can just use November to relax and enjoy the back stoop and the puppies!

Quiet again (J1)

I realize we have been ignoring the blog a little, I can list all sorts of excuses about not being in the office much, and having visitors etc, but who really cares?

First we had a long awaited visit from the family Polson, which was loads of fun, we showed them Gaborone, Mokolodi game reserve, and a few nice restaurants. We also enjoyed watching the rugby world cup final with them, which was a blast. We went to our favourite rugby hang out, the Bull and Bush Bar.

What else? Maybe I should just do this with pictures:

For those who do not follow sports: The South Africa Springboks won the rugby world cup, and Ferrari became world champion Formula 1 (against all expectations)

(Interjection from Jill: "WOO HOO!!!")

After that fantastic weekend we travelled up to Lethlakane (central Botswana) for a new project. The town is not very nice, but people were very helpful. I wont post any pictures of overflowing septic tanks here, but that is what we kept ourselves busy with.

Late last week we went to Joburg to pick up our friends from Australia, we spent some time in Joburg and in Pilanesburg game park, and are showing them the nice things about Botswana now.

Unfortunately one of those things was the cable thieves, on Sunday night they paid us a visit again, and took the now buried cable out of the ground. We spent most of yesterday getting it replaced, and even though Steve thought he came on a holiday, he ended up mixing concrete with me in the afternoon. Now with most of the cable embedded in concrete we should hopefully not have the problem again.

Other news from Plot 32A: we seem to have a new resident, a puff adder. He (or she) has been spotted twice in the last few weeks. As soon as we figure out where it has set up residence we will probably call BDF (Botswana Defence Force) to remove it, and set it free in a nature reserve.

J1

Off again.....

Just got back from a site visit up in Letlhakane last night, drove straight to the gym, got some exercise and went home to pack. Now we're at the office for a couple of hours, then it's off to Joburg to pick up our friends Steve & Madonna (aussies we know from Ireland) to hang out with them for the next week and a bit. Looking really forward to having our first Aussie visitors, as so far they've only been Irish and South African. Wonder what they'll think of Botswana and South Africa. I'm sure Steve will have lots of good photos, perhaps some of them will make an appearance.

But not before we hit the South African Wine Expo in Joburg tonight with Jéan and Alan. The fact that Alan doesn't drink wine will make this a highly entertaining experience for him, I'm sure. It will be one of our last hoo-has with Jéan before he so cold-heartedly dumps us for the gloom and rain of Scotland, for the next 2 years. boo hoooooooo!

Cable thieves

I suppose the fun stories and pictures have already been posted. Time for a little less fun? It happens quite often that people get their power cables stolen in South Africa / Botswana. The thieves strip the stolen cables, and sell the copper to the scrapyard. It had been happening around us quite a bit, and the night we came back it was our turn. It was only a matter of time, as the cables were not buried, and thus a very easy target. We had already taken this up with the landlord, but our concern was ignored. Not really too much our problem (rental houses have their advantages….) except for there was a holiday on the Monday and Tuesday, with no electrician being available. The power in the house was still working, but not in Marys place, and not at the borehole pumps. This meant no water, resulting in no showers, no flushing toilets, no laundry (with a piles of sweaty hiking clothes) etc etc. On Wednesday evening we were all connected again, this time with the cable properly buried. I guess this is all part of living in Africa.

Last weekend we volunteered to help with a family fun day (fundraiser) for the SPCA, the local animal shelter. We had the task of selling drink and food tickets, but it was nice to see so many people turn up, and be surrounded by puppies, kittens, donkeys, rabbits, goats and even guiney pigs. I think they made a load of money, which helps paying for veterinary bills for dogs like Sech (he is still with us….)

Besides this we have been enjoying the rugby worldcup. For those from the non-rugby countries: Australia and New Zealand, two of the biggest favourites, were kicked out of the tournament. South Africa did make it through, and is playing Argentina in the semi finals next weekend.

Alan has left us and settled in Johannesburg. He has started his job two weeks ago, and found a nice place to live. His permit has been approved, and everything has worked out perfectly for him. No more sober driver for us though.

Nothing else to report on, except for work, new projects, courses etc etc, but that would make this just too boring.

J1

Happy Botswana Day!

(this last weekend.....)

Several of Botswana's public holidays fall on a weekend, so sometimes they give you both the Monday AND the Tuesday off. This makes for blissful 4-day weekends where you can actually get out and do something and not have to take time off.

We decided to go hiking with Jéan and Alan. There is a nice mountain range exactly halfway between Joburg (them) and Gaborone (us) called the Magaliesburg, with endless possibilities for camping and hiking. We decided upon the Eagle Cove trails and it was great. Only lost the trail once, didn't get eaten by anything, and stumbled upon the coolest canyon ever... from the top AND the bottom.

Some photos:

At the top of the canyon edge:

Looking down into the massive rivine below:

We sat and watched these baboons for a half an hour. They are really entertaining... there were about 20 of them or so.

It was tough climbing and took us a whole day, but we got back to camp at the bottom sometime around sunset and enjoyed some nice sundowners and a feast of meat on the fire.

The next morning we got up, boiled some eggs in some tin cans left over from the night before, and headed off for another day of hiking - this time DOWN into the canyon to the river below.

The boys (A & J) headed back to Joburg on sunday and we (J&J) came back to Gabs exhausted and feeling fit.

Beach and Birthday (J1)

After being totally landlocked for the first time since I moved out of Holland, we (finally) spent some time on the coast again. J2 had organised an early birthday break, and we met up with the P. family in Umhlanga, just north of Durban. The weather was very nice, we did some swimming in the ocean, and of course lots of eating and drinking. Some pictures:

Our resort, as seen from our apartment

Jill on the beach

Dinner with the family P.

A little note on the side: This dinner was right before the France - Ireland game (rugby world cup), which explains my shirt. For those who do not follow rugby: Ireland's game has been terribly poor this whole WC, they did not stand a chance against a poor French team, and have now lost all chances of progressing to the quarter finals. My support did not help. I will be supporting the Springboks (South Africa) from here on for this tournament.

Still happy, an early birthday dinner (an before the rugby)

After our lovely few days in Durban, we stopped over for a night of partying in Joburg with Alan and Jean. We had champagne, a really nice dinner in Moyo and of course loads of drinks.

Drinks in Ratz - Melville

I have been overwhelmed by all the presents, wishes, superpokes, cards etc for my 30th. Thanks everyone. And while I write this I am only halfway through the day. Jill bought me a new (Bosch) hammer drill and a really good pair of binoculars. I can not wait to take them into the bush for a test.

Finally a small negative. The picture below is me paying a speeding ticket to a possibly corrupt traffic cop in Groot Marico. I got caught again....He halved the fine on the spot for paying cash though, welcome to Africa.

J1

Lo and Behold, it's here!

The big news from the dark continent today is that our website is officially up and running!

Please check it out and don't forget to let us know of any glaring mis-spellings or appalling grammar.

Big thanks to our friends Jéan and Alan who helped us make it. Definitely couldn't have done it without you guys. We really appreciate it, and appreciate it even more that you were willing to do it for free. Or rather, do it for wine and muesli (respectively).

The next post will be filled with far more excitement, I promise.

In the meantime we're just busy watching the World Cup rugby, Twenty20 cricket World Cup, and working a little bit.

Otherwise, it's getting hot. Really hot. I think Alan is going to melt.

And finally, we 2 Westras are going down to Kwa-Zulu Natal, to Umhlanga beach (Just outside of Durban, SA) for 3 days with the Polson parents at their timeshare next week (19-22 Sept). Our first sight of coastline and anything that resembles a large body of water (The Indian Ocean) in almost a year. For those of you who don't know, SOMEONE is turning the big 3-0 on Monday the 24th and we thought it would be nice to do something fun that weekend. A day in Joburg with Jéan on the way home, and a stop in Rustenburg for sushi before crossing the border back into Botswana on Sunday. Can't wait.

Spring (J1)

This is probably going to be the most cheesy and boring blog so far. But even though Botswana spring is so very dry, everything is flowering beautifully. I went around our garden this weekend and took the following pictures:

Did we already say it was getting hot again?

A little 'log' we hung, which has been inhabited

A beautiful 'native' in full flower.

And the aloes are just gorgeous.

This is taken from our 'lawn' area.

Nice white flowering tree around the pool.

The creeper on the pergola close to the kitchen.

An even our pruned peach tree is showing the first flowers.

This is a little lemon tree we planted a few weeks ago.

And of course our farming.....some carrots and onions

We finished a major deadline last week, so we are slowly catching up with everything else, such as working out, playing tennis, having long lunches etc. Sorry for this boring post.

J1