Botswana--Leaving Baines' Camp

I'm writing from another airplane. We're flying on air Botswana from Maun, Botswana, to Joberg, where we'll spend a night before we head back to the bush. We'll go to South Africa next.

I'm sad to be leaving Baines' Camp. It's a beautiful camp in a beautiful place and we had a wonderful time. I wish we could have stayed a little longer. Things were just beginning to get not-awkward with Martin, our guide. We were telling jokes and making real conversation at our last few meals, instead of sinking into five minute silences between comments about the superb quality of the food. Awkward silences are usually the norm during the first few dinners at places like Baines' Camp. "So, Martin," says one of us, "do you have family here?"

"Yes." says Martin. Then, not wanting to talk too much, he goes back to eating.

"Oh," says the asker. Then, realizing he won't be getting details without some effort and being too polite/wimpy to probe further, he turns his attention to his dinner roll.

"Awkward," says me, in my head, "these rolls aren't even that good."

But last night I felt like Martin and I had something closer to a real conversation. I found out he'd worked previously as an overland guide (overland = camping safari). He told me I ought to come back to Botswana to give overland a try. That would be a trip. (Ha!)

We also talked about school. He asked what I was studying and we talked about the differences in education systems around the world. I told him I'd spent last fall in Cuba, and he told me there were loads of Cuban doctors and teachers in Botswana. We talked for a while about the medical and educational successes Cuba has enjoyed, and he told me the reason he thinks there are so many Cuban doctors in Botswana: there are no Batswana doctors in Botswana, because there are no medical schools in Botswana. That surprised me. Botswana is considered one of the more stable African states (or so I'm told) and I wouldn't have picked it as a place that would send its potential doctors abroad to be educated. Martin said all Batswana medical students leave the country to be trained--a lot of them go to London. "They go to school," he said, "and they never come back." Botswana retains very few of the doctors it sends abroad to be educated (with government scholarships).

According to Martin, living in another country while they're studying medicine opens their eyes to the lifestyles doctors lead in more developed nations. After that, they don't go home. Botswana can't afford to pay doctors salaries comparable to those that doctors in wealthy nations receive. Martin said the government should solve the problem by building a medical school in Botswana. He thinks if fewer people are educated abroad, fewer people will leave the country. What do you think?

We never really got to finish the conversation. Another staff member called Martin over to help with something and that was the end of our talk. No one really wanted coffee or tea, and the cooks had ruined desert (good, I'm getting fat), so we all headed back to our rooms. I slept hard last night and had three cups of tea to help me wake up this morning. We went on our morning game drive after breakfast, as usual.

The most exciting thing we saw this morning was buffalo--a few hundred of them. Once or twice we drove through entire herds of them--Martin assured us they wouldn't charge while with their herds. It was amazing to sit in the vehicle and be surrounded by moving buffalo. As the sun rose we parked on the dirt road with 200 head of buffalo (cows, calves, and some bulls) splashing in the water all around us. The scene was serene and peaceful--the buffalo made the only noises we could hear. It was amazing to be that close to so many of them.

The game drives with Martin were fantastic. The lodge gave us booklets with checklists, so we could mark everything we saw. All in all, we saw the following:

Cat-like carnivourous mammals:
Leopard
Servile
Slender Mongoose
Spotted Hyena (that's right, folks: hyenas are related to cats, not dogs.)

Primates:
Chacma Baboon
Lesser Bushbaby
Vervet Monkey

Rodents:
Porcupine
Springhare
Tree squirrel

Antelope & Relatives:
Cape Buffalo
Common reedbuck
Greater Kudu
Impala
Tsessebe
Blue Wildebeast

Other Mammals:
African Savanna Elephant
Burchell's Zebra
Giraffe
Hippopotamus
Warthog

Birds:
Little Bee-eater
Swallow-tailed bee-eater
Coppery tailed Coucal
Senegal Coucal
African Darter
Red-eyed dove
African fish eagle
Bateleur Eagle
Cattle egret
Slaty egret
Yellow-billed egret
Gray tit-Flycatcher
Spur-winged goose
Gray Go-Away Bird
Little Grebe
Helmeted Guineafowl
Hamerkop
Roufus-Bellied Heron
African Huopoes
Red-billed Hornbill
Southern Ground Hornbill
Southern yellow-billed hornbill
Dickinson's Kestrel
Pied Kingfisher
Striped Kingfisher
Blacksmith Lapwing
Rd-faced Mousebird
Black-headed Oriole
Verreaux's Eagle Owl
Meyer's Parrot
African Green Pigeon
Red-billed Queleas
Lilac-breasted roller
Crimson-breasted Shrike
Magpie
Red-billed spurfowl
Burchell's Starling
Cape glossy starling
Saddle-billed stork
Red-billed Buffalo weaver
White-browed Sparrow Weaver

Reptiles:
Nile Crocodile

We've landed. More later. I still have to write about the (nice) elephants we met!

-Emily

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