Scout Camp
Botswana, July 1984
Lusaka was expensive and I soon hit the road again, heading via the Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe (you guessed it, the notes are lost) into Botswana. Hitchiking wasn’t easy here as most vehicles were full to bursting point. I stood in the sweltering heat and watched cars and pick-ups rush past, the drivers signalling that they were full or were local.
Eventually, a white landrover shuddered to a stop. It was filled to the rafters but somehow room was made for my backpack and myself. I wedged onto a seat between two youngsters in uniform — the landrover was part of a convoy of American and South African boyscouts on safari. There was much laughter and circling of bottles of beer. The scout-leader, Mike, spoke immaculate German. He asked whether I was hungry and ordered one of the boys to find my lunch: crisps and coke from the back.
“Elephants!” another scout cried suddenly. The ‘elephants’ turned out to be a herd of cattle and Mike talked sarcastically into his mike “Sighted a herd of dwarf elephants. Horn bearers,” then handed the thing to me: “Go say hello to Howard, our boss.”
“Hello, Howard” I said somewhat startled, not thinking to introduce myself, so he must have taken me for the village idiot. I met him soon after at a stop-over, he was an imposing bearded guy who smiled benevolently at me.
I was relieved when Mike said they would drop me in Francistown; I felt more than a little stupid and girly even though I had travelled solo across half of Africa. But a flat tyre meant that we had to spend the night in the bush, still a long way from Francistown. At least I had my own tent, I thought, if no blankets or a sleeping bag.
The boys started to make a nuissance of themselves. At least five of them offered to help put up my tent. I gave them a rope each to peg, wondering if they had nothing better to do and as soon as they had finished, another couple of boys dragged across a giant red blanket to wrap myself in. I was grateful as I had started to feel somewhat under the weather. I might have caught another flu. Noting that I looked a little worn out, Howard gave me a cup of hot lemon with honey.
“Thanks,” I said.
He winked: “For you, I’ll kill the bull!”
I felt thoroughly mothered, if by a gaggle of boys and a few men — I didn’t mind taking things easy for a change.
The scouts dropped me in Palapye, a few 100 km behind Francistown and gave me several packs of biscuits before waving good-bye. Mike gave me about 10 dollars woth of Pula, claiming it was no use to him across the border, and his address in Capetown. Then they drove off into the dust.
I did not have long to wait. Before catching a lift with a white man from Gabarone, called Dennis. We stopped at a service station where he showed me an iron tube mounted in a block of concrete. I read the inscription. In December, the sun would reach its southernmost point here and the rays would shine straight into the tube.
I stayed the night at the house he shared with his friends in Gabarone. My cold was getting worse, it really was the flu. The housemates fed me and bought some fresh fruit specially for me.
Next morning there was nobody around. I had overslept and everybody had gone to work. After a while, a housemaid arrived and told me I would have to go as Dennis’ wife was due to return so I quickly took my leave.
I felt really weak. I could only walk slowly and it didn’t help when a guy I asked for the road to the border town of Ramatlabama pointed me in the wrong direction. I was lucky when a local busdriver stopped and offered to drop me at the right road. I had no change on me and at the end of the twenty minute trip handed over Mike’s 10 Pula note, the only local currency I carried. The conductor did not have any change either and handed me all he had, just over 6 Pula although the fare was 20 thebe. I protested and the driver told him to hand me back my money.
I was a fool not to take the change. A woman by the side of the hot and dusty road sold green juicy apples and I could not buy any because she didn’t have any change either. She could sell me fifty apples but not one or two. I carried that note across the whole of the country and ended up changing it into Rand.
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Denni