Kasane: An Utterly Amazing Week

This past week was just about as perfect as it can get--best spring break ever!! Victoria Falls, the Chobe River and National Park safaris, the weather... It's all amazing. We're camping in tents, but we're at a campground at the Toro Safari Lodge so we're hardly roughing it, for better or for worse.

However, I would like to say thanks, Dad, for my excellent quality tent. There was a torrential downpour about one hour after we arrived and pitched our tents. Botswana, being very flat and dry, quickly becomes very flooded. Our tents were literally submerged under a few inches of water. The puddles evaporated about as soon as the rain stopped, but nevertheless, we were all terrified for our things. NOTHING though, not a single thing in my tent got wet. Nice job REI!

My Patagonia raincoat, however, did absolutely nothing against the drenching water at Victoria Falls. All of us were completely soaked, as if we had actually jumped in instead of just walking around the outside. But Victoria Falls was still the best experience of my life and I am so so so glad I paid for the Zambian visa to go!

Kasane is tiny but filled with white tourists. I actually feel very out of place here because at this point, I tend to forget that I am white. I speak Setswana and know a bit about the culture, so I hate being lumped into the category of "tourist." People here are always surprised when I burst out with a Setswana phrase. It will be nice to be in a village without tourists again...

Speaking of which, I'm a bit nervous for Sherobe. I have no idea what to expect, except for no electricity, toilets, possibly not even pit latrines. We'll be going in the bush and probably sharing a room with our mothers, who will likely be about our age. We leave Kasane tomorrow and meet our families on Sunday. (In between, we're camping at another campsite in Maun, the REAL tourist capital of the country and the gateway to the Okavango Delta.)

Sala sentle, ditsala le balelwapa (friends and family)! Internet is too expensive here to write more.