quiet

We are still alive, do not worry. I realize it has been a while since the last post on this blog, but it has been very busy at work this week, and we had a nice weekend away to Pretoria last weekend.

I am still working on a deadline today, but promise to post something before the weekend.

J1

Christmas (J1)

Is it a little early to talk about Christmas???? Well, not really….Our best friends Christiaan and Susan from Friesland just sent us an email that they have booked their flights to come visit us at Christmas. We are soooo excited to have them here, and have so many plans about what to do. They want to see lots of animals and wildlife, and want to visit Vic Falls, we will try to combine that with some camping in the real bush, and Christmas celebrations of course.

And….for anyone who was also thinking about visiting at Christmas, sorry, too late. Snoozers are Losers.

J1

T-Bone (J1)

I know there is probably too much writing, and not enough photos on the blog at the moment. We will try to change this soon, but every time we see something we want to take a picture of, the camera is in some bag in the boot of the car. For example this morning, on our way to work, in the middle of a roundabout on the 'Western Bypass', the most busy road in Gaborone, cattle were grazing while traffic was flying around from all sides like crazy. Something like this would only happen in Africa.

Our weekend was very relaxed, we watched Ireland make a decent performance in the Rugby game against Italy, we still follow the Irish rugby team. It was on big screen in the "Bull and Bush" bar, anyone who will come visit us will be guaranteed a visit there. Did we ever mention they are on the top 50 of best steak restaurants in the world?

The beef is amazing here anyway, I have eaten the best steaks in my life. Botswana is very proud of their beef. For example, McDonalds is only allowed to set up restaurants if they use Botswana beef for their burgers. They do not accept this, and are therefore missing the opportunity to make some decent food. Botswana is one of the few countries in the world without McDonalds.

Even though I am from a farming background, i can not explain why the beef here tastes so good, the texture of the meet is different I think. Most cattle wanders around along roadsides and fields that belong to no-one, and offer very little to eat. Would it be that they grow slower, and therefore it tastes better? Or does it have to do with them sometimes not drinking water for longer periods of time. I would be interested if anyone has a theory on this.

I still did not hear about my possible job offer, so I rang them this morning. He said he had been in South Africa for business most of last week, and I would receive my offer this week, to join them in a month from now or something. I was getting worried, so this is a relieve, as you can imagine.

OK, this is enough writing now, will be sure to post some pictures.

J1

Permits (J1)

We picked them up this morning, and have the actual copy in our possession. And we got a 5 YEAR!!!! permit. Usually they issue 2 or 3 year permits, meaning you have to renew every 3 years, but we got 5 years straight away.

I told Jill on Monday this could be a week with great things happening:
1) permits could be issued
2) our house is being furnished in Ireland, renters moving in next week
3) my job offer should come through

We are still waiting on the last point.

J1

Big, Big, Huge Excitement! (J2 on a roll)

Our residence/work permits for Botswana have arrived!!!!!!

This is more than a giant weight off of our shoulders.

I suppose, in short: yes, it all could have come crashing down on us if they HADN'T given them to us. Everything we've worked for and changed our life for over the past 2 years, could have been whisked out from under us in the blink of an eye...

So now, we don't have that worry anymore.
(But really, who was worried!?)

Now for the benefits that we have with these little "slightly important" pieces of paper:

1. We can finally open up a personal bank account
2. We can take our car across the border, into South Africa... or... anywhere!
3. We can tender for certain jobs with our company, now that the "owners" are also "residents"
4. We can get a landline for a telephone in our house
5. We can get BW drivers' licenses (yes, it IS necessary)
6. We can continue to keep living and working in Botswana!

the list literally goes on and on, but that's all I could think of at the moment because I'm too excited!

Now we just hold our breaths until tomorrow when we can pick them up from the Labour Guy's Office...... when we find out the answer to the question you've all been wondering:

"Just how many years ARE these permits valid for?????"

;-)

stay tuned.

Reaching the outside world (J2)

So I suppose we are a bit cut off from civilization, what with not having TV. I don't miss having TV but I will admit that we recognize how much of a presence our daily "EuroNews" viewing, or "The Daily Show" watching, network TV news, and (of course) MTV kept us up-to-date with the goings on in the world. Even if it only amounted to ANOTHER bombing in the middle east or ANOTHER Britney Spears debacle. We felt substantially attached to Europe, the World, and Pop Culture.

Now we have no TV news to follow, no internet at home for non-work-related surfing purposes, and the Radio BW news is pretty poor. (Not to mention the fact that we dont have a radio in our car yet, and the reception out in our place in Notwane is pretty bad). Obviously I'm physically attached to my CDs and iPod at the hip, as always, which is definitely a good thing, but we began to notice a wee longing for some sort of regular contact with the outside world

We're now onto a pretty sustainable solution - podcasts! Never has my 30th birthday present (iPod from last year) been such an asset. (not including the double-headset apparatus I picked up for both of us to listen with at the same time on airplanes or anywhere, nor my fabulous portable speakers which more than suffice for mobile music-partying!)

1. Now we're 100% up and running on the daily podcast downloads to keep us in touch. It's so easy: you just subscribe to your favorite free podcasts on iTunes, and every morning they update themselves automatically. By the end of the work day you're all loaded up and ready for an evening full of listening pleasure. Some of them are even video casts, so we can watch them on the laptop just like in the old days of TV.
   
   What we're currently subscribed to: (it's almost overkill. Some nights we have up to 2-3 hours of listening pleasure, leaving little time for the "real Botswana stuff")

1. Ian Dempsy Breakfast Show outtakes (this was our morning radio programme we used to listen to in Cork. Full of jokes and movie reviews and all the good funny stuff that keeps us up to date with the "important stuff" in Ireland)
2. NBC Nightly news. Overly-american, lacking in international news, overkill on the "human interest" stories, but basically 30 minutes of sensational tales from the homeland.
3. ABC headline news. A video-cast, so Hannes likes it. A tiny bit more world-headlines than the above, but we've been having problems accessing this one for awhile so I am thinking of unsubscribing. Plus takes a lonnnnnnng time to download at our ADSL speed.
4. NPR Headlines. A great 10-minute, to-the-point summary of world and local news headlines. No frills, no earth-shaking background music or "special reporting features from Baghdad" gimmicks. My personal favourite.
5. MTV News Daily Headlines. Another video cast which is good for entertainment but only about 4 minutes long. This one reminds us that elsewhere on the globe, the music industry goes just that one step further than the R&B and Reggae spectrum. Nice.
6. NPR "All Songs Considered". Fantastic for the music lovers in both of us. New up-and-coming singer/songwriters whom there is NO WAY humanly possible that we'd ever have a chance at hearing, here. The show includes interviews with the artist, chit-chat about their musical inspirations, and great tunes. The last episode featured a youngun from Omaha NE called Connor Oberst. Nice.
7. NPR "Pop Culture". Just as it sounds. Info, discussion, and news about what's going on outside of boring world politics. Stories of interest (to me only) such as: "Is Hip-hop dying or is it moving underground?", and "re-writing the rules of monster/horror movies in hollywood", etc.
8. and finally: "The Official LOST Podcast". Interviews with my favorite show's actors and insight into recent plot twists, etc. With my buddy Alan back in Ireland downloading all recent episodes and sending them to us, we're actually managing to keep up to date with the series via laptop, from down here. It's fantastic and definitely one of our weekly highlights.

Speaking of series, not only are we thankfully getting our "LOST" fix every week from Alan, but for Christmas I bought the following for the Mr.: 2 boxed sets of the series "24". We have managed to ration out the entire Season 1 over the months of January/February, and are now trying to do the same with Season 2. But with a DVD it is just way too easy to just hit that "next episode" button after the cliffhanger at the end of each individual episode. And before you know it, it's Friday night and you've watched 3 shows in a row. DOH!!!

The good news is that there's about 6 seasons of "24" so we can just keep buying more seasons, since we got such a late start. (assuming they sell "24" boxed sets here .. . . . we haven't checked yet)

So yeah, that's how we justify that moving to Botswana does not necessarily cut us off from the rest of the planet. Actually we're keeping up quite well.

Organised

Things are really starting to fall in place. We have finished organising our house, and are ready for visitors now. Who will be first? Even the rondavel looks pretty cute now, quite inviting I would say. Jill and I might stay there for a night next weekend just to see what it is like.

I had my job interview with Scales and Associates last week Thursday. They are a small engineering consultant, their biggest project is a gas drilling project which their director has initiated. A really big project, would be lots of fun to work on. The interview went really well, and they are coming back with an offer this week, it sounds promising. And their office is very close to our office, so I can easily meet Jill for lunch, and drive into town together.

Our business is going very well, we have been awarded with the contract for doing an environmental study for a new cigarette factory in town, and also for the airport new terminal buildings. So plenty to keep Jill busy. And our friend &collegue is finishing this week. We will miss him both as friend and colleague. We have hired a new girl (part time) who will be starting next week as environmental consultant, so Jill won’t get too lonely. I will also try to take some pictures of the office this week for on the blog, but don’t expect anything glamorous.

So everything seems to be coming together, job, house, renters in our Ireland house. The only thing we are still waiting for is our visa, which should be coming this week. After everything is organised we have to start thinking about buying a 4x4 car so we can go into the bush, that’s the fun stuff, I can not wait.

J1

after an interesting weekend (J1)

After a weekend of unpacking many boxes and crates, putting most furniture together, and wondering why we bothered sending and packing some of the rubbish, most is organised in our house. It really starts to feel like a house now. The rondavel and one guestroom are still a mess, but the rest is in order.

Also, Saturday night was the Lunar eclipse, and one of the best places to see this was Southern Africa. We were invited by a Dutch girl (Petra) who works for one of our clients, to join her and a few friends to climb Kgale hill.....

.....on Saturday night, so that we could few the eclipse from the top. Truth is, Jill and I both knew very little about the eclipse, but this seemed like a lot of fun, so we joined them. Started climbing at about 22.30 at night, and reached the top around midnight. The eclipse started at this stage, and full eclipse was at around 01.20. We were up on top of this hill with about 15 people watching this happen, and drink some nice red wine in the meantime. It was very beautiful. We had to wait for some moonlight again before we could decent. Some pictures:

Here is another interesting experience: we have visited 2 different churches on invitation by friends. Last weekend we joined T.and L. to the 'Open Baptist Church (OBC). We attended a very nice service, very musical, all sorts of nationalities, and very friendly people. This weekend we joined a maid of one of our neighbours. Her name is Prisca, we had picked her up a few weeks ago when she was looking for a ride into town. The church was called 'Forward in Faith. It was a very interesting experience, the service lasted about 2 and a half hours (and we were very tired from climbing the mountain) including singing, dancing, preaching, money raising and faith healing. Nothing I have ever seen before.

We have received a rental offer in Ireland for our house, from Apple Computers for 3 Swedish guys who have to come and work in Ireland. It sounds very promising, and the offer is very good, but we do have to furnish the house. Our agency is taking care of this, so hopefully this will work out.

On the job front thins are moving a little as well. I must have sent about 20 applications, but i am now talking to a Belgium pump company about maybe setting up a Southern Africa agency. The downside of this would be that it probably involves a lot of travelling to South Africa, and being away from Jill. I have also been invited by an engineering consultancy to come for an interview, which could be interesting. I am not getting my hopes up, and enjoy working with Jill very much, so I guess I will win whatever happens.

J1

The Bizarre Events of Monday 26 February

Here is sweet little Billy Bob - everyone knows and loves him as our greatest Irish charity case from the streets of Cork. He's been a happy boy here in Botswana so far.

UNTIL MONDAY, that is!!!

Monday we got an urgent message to phone St. Mary, our beloved maid and fixer of all problems.

Little did we know this otherwise sweet lady from Zimbabwe who is typically known to wash clothes and polish floors would be capable of turning into...

DANGEROUS MARY THE COBRA KILLER!!

(pictured here, complete with deadly weapon)

we were, working away and thinking nothing was wrong. We rang her as requested and she hits us with the problem:

A cobra had gotten into the house and spat Billy Bob in the eyes!

Panic hits the JW unit (as we're not used to dealing with cobras and spit and venom in doggy eyes, etc.)

Luckily for us, Mary is a not just any old angelic soul, she's also brilliant. Before we had even phoned her, she had already (a.) killed the snake (b.) flushed Billy's eyes out with water and milk and (c.) called us so we could go to the Vet and get eyedrops that will kill the pain/bring down the swelling.

She even saved the snake for us:

so that we could take a look at it (I was asking a lot of questions on the phone i.e. what color is it, how big is it, trying to be able to describe it to the vet if necessary - to which she just simply kept replying "its a cobra!")

After we rushed home with the eye medication from the vet (who assured us he would survive and most likely not be blind if we attended to him soon), examined the snake for ourselves, and dripped the drops in the eyes of the now-squinty-eyed terrier, Mary made sure to tell us she would burn the snake for us and not to worry.

(Here they believe that if you don't throw a dead snake on the fire, others will come for it)

So here's a photo of our now temporarily sightless boy:

He'll be just fine, just have to bump into things a bit for the next few days as his eyes will most likely remain swollen shut for awhile.

What's funny is that he gets around just fine, I think due to those two massive sattelite dish ears he has that allow him to hear everything in his path.

The end.