Jessie Goes….

Getting into my mokoro with Kim, a friend I’ve made on the trip, it was the first time so far this trip that I’ve felt “now this is what I’m here for”.  Seated in a reclining position amongst the bags and gear, at first we sat very still – the mokoro was exceedingly thin – a slight movement right or left resulted in a much more exaggerated movement for the boat.   The driver of the boat (or poler) stood at the aft with a long poll and pushed off the bottom of the Okavango riverbed, sending us on our way.

The Okavango is a river that begins in Angola, works its way through Namibia and then deltas into the Kalahari desert in Botswana.  It is the only inland delta in the world, with the entire river eventually dissappearing into the sand.    The waterway we are on is choked with water liles and reeds, but the path is deep and crystal clear.  Its also freezing cold and in stark contrast to the day which is hot and dry.   The reason the river is so clear and pure, according to the locals, is because a)the billions of reeds have a flitering effect on the water, and b)there is almost no agricultural or other industry on the entire length of the river.  Imagining that all rivers must have been like this only 3 or 4 hundred years ago,  I laid back and watched the delta grasses go by, the gentle rocking motion of the our poled ‘motor’ so soothing that Kim passed out a few minutes in, behind me in the boat.

I wasn’t sleeping, but I was pretty comfy cozy too.  Despite numerous warnings everywhere about getting into African waters I ran my hands languidly through the chilly river as we quietly glided upriver, keeping the heat at bay.

We set up camp as the waterway opened, right on the banks, while the native Botswanans with us built a fire.   We struggled to set up our steel poled tents, and years of camping experience with fiberglass bendy polled tents did not come through for me. 🙂

I am happy to be in Africa this night.  The animal noises (there was an elephant right outside our camp), bugs and bellfrogs set the perfect mood music for our groups convivial wine and campfire roasted steaks.  The cards and long tales finally made their appearance.

Driving into Botswana from Namibia is long long and boring.  The landscape is unvaried and by and large hardscrabble desert.   I listened to an entire book on my ipod during the drive, and I’m going to have 10 of these blog entries written in my notebook before I actually get to post them, as all potential internet connections actually don’t work when called upon.   Today we arrived in Maun at a reasonable hotel which had an INTERNET CAFE!  I was so excited.  However, the cafe closed at 4pm, so of course, all safari groups would never get a chance to use it, as everyone gets in around 5 and leaves around 8!  ah well.    Boy this is Africa.  I might have to resort to posting mail too.

The one interesting thing that did happen today was the foot and mouth plague official safety stops.   The official, who wasn’t in a very good mood and didn’t like our tour leader (no surprise there), made us unpack the entire bus and go through the luggage looking for shoes.    Once all shoes were acquired, we were all required to go and walk through a little puddle of foot and mouth disease solution, which was barely there, but then we were allowed to step just where are disease ridden selves had just walked to get to the puddle.    It didn’t seem effective in the slightest!   But it made the official happy.   An exercise in bureaucratic ridiculousness – which given shoddy controls is more than likely spreading the disease as all shoes with or without the disease are trodding around these pathetic container of solution.  My flipflops looked a little queasy this afternoon as a matter of fact.  No, seriously I am worried about them.

Maun, self titled the ‘adventure capital of Botswana’ is an outpost town near the Okavango Delta.   Tomorrow we are headed out into the Delta in our mokoro canoes…. I’d like to say that if you don’t hear from me its because the hippos got me (or foot and mouth disease)… but more likely its just because I can’t text/email/call out of here.    We are going to be camping out in pitch tents for the next couple of nights, which will hopefully be a good time ‘away from it all.’  And I’m also hoping that varied stories of wildlife joining in by the campfire are greatly exaggerated.

I am in the Middle Eastern part of Namibia, in a one horse town where the horse is long dead.   My hopes for internet dashed immediately, and I still have items to attend to in the personal life.    Lesson learned… get all your crap done before you leave for Africa.     My worldphone (that hot phone sold in the US by CDMA providers) which allows “world” access, doesn’t work at all – neither their sim card or any other international card provided.  GRRRRRR.  Not terrible except for every other non-american phone is working just fine.   We have the worst phone service in the world, I’ll conclude, again.

Anyhow, my impressions thus far are mixed, our guide, a native South African, I’d say about 60 years old, has rubbed the entire group the wrong way, and you now how much a good guide can make or break a trip.    Fortunately, the highlights of Africa should still conquer this.

We are headed generally towards the Kalahari Desert and are staying the night in Gogobis (that dead horse town I mentioned).  The town itself offers nothing, minus a slightly menacing feel, but just outside the town we visit a large ranch, to meet some Kalahari Bushman (San Tribe).

The government at one point used to subsidize the Bushman, similar to Native American lands in the US, but that is now no longer the case.    The San bushman have lived in these environs for about 10,000 years, but are now in the situation where they make deals with large ranches so they can continue their traditional ways undisturbed as much as possible from the outside world as  since 2006 the government refused to allow the Bushmen to hunt (it is considered illegal game killing in Namibia).  The Namibian government is now under global critism for this and other actions which has threatened their existance.

Anyhow, I’m not exactly sure how these agreements work with these large landowners and the Bushmen, but I suspect the deal is “if you let us live here and do our own thing we will talk to tourists every so often and you charge them”…   aside from these tourists visits they are trying their best to maintain their old ways, which are hunter/gatherer in nature.  They live in simple made huts for the coldest nights only, and keep a fire always burning.

Generally they hunt with bows and arrows for native game, with exception of the ostriches, who can see the hunters coming from a mile (literally) away. Since the osterich is a primary staple to the Bushmen (they use the hide for clothing, bones for arrows, feathers for bedding and eat the meat), they have devised this great hunting method.     Ostriches, first of all, can’t digest for themselves and must eat stones and bones to do so.  The Bushmen create a neck noose held down from a bent tree which is baited with a really ‘desirable’ piece of rock.  I kid you not.  It is apparently near to 100% irresistible to them  and once noosed around the neck it tends to really freak out and choke itself to death.  Occasionally it pulls its head off.

Some other cool facts:  They speak in a clicking language varietal which is specific to the Kalahari Bushmen only.  They cannot communicate effectively with other bushmen tribes which could clearly be one of the issues with their currently plight, along with the fact most speak no English, nor join modern society to represent themselves.

Laurens van der Post wrote a famous book The Lost World of the Kalahari, which is a good account of their plight.

I woke up at 2am yesterday morning Capetown time…which will be 1am Windhoek time. Jetttt Laggggg.

So for my first night in South Africa, I was chilling out in my room, my overhead reading light (a disk light on the wall, what you might normally find on a ceiling) is on and I’m reading, watching soccer, doing my thing when I just happen to look back at the wall behind my bed, to discover that in the past hour, not one, not two, but I would estimate something on the order of 10k ants have swarmed the light. It looked like 2 or three anthills of tiny ants swarming over the thing. It was crazy. So I went to the front desk and asked for some bug spray which they promptly gave me, and I sprayed those ants with gusto. They basically blew up or melted on impact sending thousands of ants, in clumps all over the floor, the bed, the night stand. I then went on to spray the walls and windows. I have surely shorted my life by several years.

I left every light in the room on and went to take a shower and when I got back…NO ants.
At 2am, still no ants. I have killed an entire colony of ants.

The flight to Windhoek was super easy, and waiting for the shuttle for 20minutes (africa time), took about an hour and a half where a native women, super tan and reminding me of the Namibian version of Crocodile Dundee, kept me entertained with her stories of growing up in Namibia, her ideas on what would help fix africa, and of course, her opinions of US politics. Finally a few more joined us on the shuttle and we were off.

The landscape around Windhoek is super dry and arid, not quite desert, but not plains either. Its a beautiful sunny day with zero humidity. The mountains are craggy and dusty surrounding us on all sides. Namibia itself has only been a independant nation since 1990 or so, having been both a British Protectorate and a South Africa annex during various parts of the last 100 years. It has high rates of aids, and unfortuately a very wide gap between the poor and the rich. Today however, it’s not noticable, as the city looks very well off indeed.

Later yesterday evening I met with the safari group I will be with for the next week, and we all went to Joe’s Beerhouse, which was very african style upscale bar restaurant. Under the warmth of heatlamps and outdoor fires we ate meat. and more meat. My springbok was super good, and the rest of the gang partook in everything from zebra to crocodile, oryx, and some other ‘bok’ type animals. I think I’ve now eaten enough meat for the next month. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the menu is going to change all that much for the rest of the trip.

Being from Tampa these days, it was a long long long set of flights to make it to Capetown. Tampa to JFK to Dakar, Senegal (another country I can add to the list of places I’ve been where I didn’t leave the airport, so they don’t count), and finally to Capetown. About 24 hours after I started in the air. My actual intended starting point is Windhoek, Namibia, so after a quick evening at the Road House Lodge at the airport here, I’m back on a plane first thing in the morning. Will be back in Capetown in a few weeks to explore.

Landing in Capetown is spectacular btw, we flew directly over the Cape and back again. Its craggy mountainous shapes which run directly into some beautiful oceans. Colorful houses dot the landscape too. But this is all I’m going to see for now.

Tomorrow will start the real adventure and if I have anything adventurous to actually post (and I can find an internet cafe) you’ll be hearing from me! I’m excited. Or I will be once I get some sleep!

As anyone who has read enough of these blogs knows by now… I have trouble writing those last few days of each trip. But, instead of a final story on Birmingham and the trip back, I’ll give you a few factoids postscript style!

Here’s some facts, figures and musing as I find myself back in Tampa today:

Total Miles Traveled: 2047

Average Price of Gas/Gallon April, May 2008(Most Expensive): $3.45 ($3.59)

Average per day cost in gas: $30 bucks

Average Lodging Cost: $75

Most Expensive Lodging Cost after tax: $130 (Birmingham, AL)

Cheapest Lodging Cost: $18 (Lafayette, LA)

Things I wish my rental car had: Cruise Control. 50mpg. GPS.

Moon Pies encountered (eaten): 3 (2.5)

Number of Days with rain: 2

Number of Nights spent in tin shack during tornado warnings: 1

Number of Times car was up to its headlights in flash flood: 1

Number of Days with Temps above 80 degrees F, despite warnings: 1

Best (Worst) Views of the Mississippi River: Vicksburg, MS (River Road, LA)

Number of Times ate Red Beans and Rice: 4

Number of Times ate Oysters: 3

Number of Days where no fried food was included: 1 – there was a flood and tornados, didn’t eat dinner, ate moonpies which to my knowledge are not deepfried.

Alligators spotted: 25+

Great Blue Herons: 5

Snakes: 2

Vampires: 0

Boat breakdowns: 1

Times when Mapquest or Google Maps was way wrong: 4

Times when roadsigns said left, but meant right or straight: 6

Times I crossed the Mississippi (times by accident): 6 (2)

Number of hours of driving Sprint got zero phone service: 8

Voodoo dolls acquired: 2. watch out people, I haven’t assigned em yet!

One other quick note on general knowledge gained: here is a list of words New Orleans residents really really pronounce “unusually”: Chartres Street (said Charters), Burgundy Street (said Bur-GUN-dy), Vieux Carre (said voo ka-RAY), Calliope (said Cal-e-OPE)

And Finally, the basic route: Tampa, FL > Apalachicola, FL > Pensacola, FL > New Orleans, LA > Vacherie, LA > Breaux Bridge, LA > Lafayette, LA > Baton Rouge, LA > Natchez, MS > Vicksburg, MS > Clarksdale, MS > Oxford, MS > Tupelo, MS > Birmingham, AL > Montgomery, AL > Tampa, FL

Growing up in southern Virginia the word for uttering obscene phrases was called “cussing.” This was something I rarely did there, and I’ve always attributed this to having much younger siblings in the household with a penchant for uttering these phrases back to you at the most inappropriate of times, to the mortification of visitors.

Then, I moved to NYC, where cussing had never been heard of, but CURSING is an art form. On the trading floors across New York 4-letter words were as common a part of the vernacular as hello, I need coffee, and buy/sell. Elsewhere in the City they also flew out in casual conversations with rapid fluidity.

Now, even back in NYC, my non-trading floor self really tried to keep that language in check – my deep Virginia roots still cringed every time they heard a woman say something, “unbecoming.” Sexist, perhaps, but southern gentility still made some headway into Virginia. Anyhow, I generally reserved it for driving, where I’ll be d@mn*d, j-ck@ss drivers really got to me, tried to kill me often, and let face it – only a passenger or two was ever the worse for wear, and my potty mouthed self faded back into the recesses after just a few minutes.

The entire point of this being, this is the same girl now driving through Mississippi on an actual schedule, with an actual appointment, with someone important.

And, this is the same Mississippi of just a few days previous, only it had lulled me into amnesia by the amazing friendliness of the people, and two days of reasonable driving, with no turns (left or right) required.

D@mn! Sh*t! F— ( I still don’t like that one)!! WHO DESIGNED THE ROAD SYSTEM HERE??

I won’t get into it (die, Tupelo, die!) but suffice it to say, my nearly 2 months of southern “reconditioning” **(about 85% of the time these days I have stopped wishing dead on people, for instance) crumpled completely under the utterly inefficient stupidity.

Get me to Birmingham (lords name in vain), cause, like every good Southerner and NYer, I NEED A DRINK!

**I should note however, I did buy 2 voodoo dolls in New Orleans, so stay out of my way people, I’m not cured yet!

Totally drenched and fearing for my computers life, once again I streaked across what used to be the lawn to my little piece of sharecropper heaven. It was starting to get windy out too, I noticed and no sooner had I been in the door 30 seconds and the power went out. I stared out the window at the insane rain hitting the panes. If it kept up there would be a foot or more of standing water out there.

The lights came back on after about half an hour, and given the increased crappiness of the weather, I decided it was no food for the night, I would just get by on water and 2 moonpies!

I fooled with the old TV, which did get some channels, and as the wind was now really cranking outside and rattling things, I found the local weather. And thats when it dawned on me. We are in serious tornado country, and this continuous line of thunderstorms we’d been having for the past 5 hours was just the kind of thing that causes those things. The news confirmed my suspicions…there had been touch downs all over THIS county, 3 were already dead across the state line in Arkansas, and the weatherman was firmly insisting that all people watching this broadcast get into a safe room, or be prepared at a moments notice to go to the safest part of the house. I looked around me at the corregated tin roofing, and barnwood that surrounded me. “aw, crap (that isn’t what I said, but this is a G rated website)”. There is NO safe place in a shack. I wandered around and decided the shower in the bathroom would have to be it for me. It wasn’t really funny.

An hour passed by and those instances when the power was on, I watched the weatherman pointing out windsheer (it was currently 65mph right outside the window… my car was looking pitiful out there, and its left front wheelwell was totally under water. I was so glad it was a rental). The ground was fully a lake now, and the corregated tin roofs of the barn I could see out the window was flapping up and down in the wind making a racket and inspiring images of ripping off and coming whirling through the air wizard of oz style sheering my head clean off as I looked into the darkness.

Another hour and it was midnight and I just couldn’t take it anymore. My safe place was going to have to be my bed, because I was exhausted, hungry, and still never did get online :). (wifi was definitely out now). So I closed my eyes, visions of floodwater floating my bed across the room and tornados blowing my walls down were dancing through my head.

I woke up in the morning, still alive, still in bed, and all was quiet. A lot wet outside, but the sky was a perfect sunny blue, as if it was pretending it hadn’t done a thing the night before. Power lines were down but the water was receding. I spoke with Bill, the owner who was thanking his lucky stars that morning. Me too. I got in my very wet car, whose floorboards had been flooded, and headed outta town.

So, back to the Shack Up Inn, this cool place down the highway from Clarksdale.    All was well there, after seeing Andy off, it was barely 4 o’clock, so I ventured down to the main shack to talk to the owner, computer under arm, as the Wifi wasn’t working.  The guy who was sent up to help me with it didn’t know what a WEP key was, (argh mississippi!), and was insisting the cable company was closed for the evening (which could be true…the local police station was only open 8am-4:30).

Fully missing the main shack I wandered up to the biggest barnlike structure (it was all confusing with all these barnwood and corregated tin structures), primarily because it started to pour on me and my poor wifi-less computer with little warning, thunder being thunderous, pelting water bouncing off tin like liquid bbs.  It was a fast run, and I was greeted on the porch of this structure, which I was beginning to believe wasn’t part of the Shackup Inn,  by a bunch of locals who were out to watch the storm, nothing else better to do.   Chatting is a necessity down here and an artform.  People are great storytellers, and my northern sense of reticence when talking to strangers (hence wasting their time and my time) was seriously melting.   It didn’t hurt that I have been in a constant state of “nowhere I really have to be” recently.

They all greeted me politely, offered me a beer (which I decline, dripping wet with the computer and cord still clutched to my chest).   They then started some general conversation with me, “weathers looking wet, where ya from”?, while eyeing up the computer oddly attached to my body.   Finally the youngest of the group, a clean faced 20 year old, I guessed, gestured to the computer and said “so, I’m guessing there is some reason you were taking your computer for a walk in the rain?” His accent was very southern, but clear and deep, the drawled words having a soothing effect.

I smiled sheepishly, and related my story about no Wifi, lack of WEP knowledge, cable company closed, and the fact that I was originally intending to end up at the main shack where I was hoping to hook directly to the modem.   “what is this place anyhow?”      All the men replied at once “why your at ol’ Hoskins Commissary”.   And they started to go on to explain, when the young man broken in…  “well, now that sounds like ol’ Guy jus wanted to git on home… let me call up that Cable company, I know some people, and I heard that Guy had put some encryption on it, I think he’us scared folks at the commissary would be stealing wifi.. but fact is, is only been up 3 days, and you ain’t the first to complain”…  he had his cellphone out of his pocket already dialing as he finished this sentence, “evening, John… got a little probably with the Wifi WEP at the Shackup….”     Before 3 minutes was out he had his friend John promise to just go ahead and disable the WEP key and any other kind of encryption on the account.       Mississippi…the last state in the union not given over to mass paranoia, passwords, and security questions to fix a problem quickly.   No matter that Guy HAD gone on home and the entire system he’d created had been disabled in minutes by a young guy drinking at the commissary next door!      “Miss, sounds like you’ll be up in next few minutes or so.”  Ha, you know what they say about honey vs. vinegar.  It actually works here!

“So” another of the men broke in “you ready to come drink with us now?” he smiled as some harmless older men do when faced with the prospect of the company of younger women.  “well, I’ll tell you what, I still need to get over to that main shack so I can see that its up and working, but then I’ll come right back over.”   With that, they graciously showed me the back door to the commissary (a massive performance space it turns out, with a good little bar on the side), which made the trip about 25 feet only.   It was starting to hail.  Crap.

Bill, one of the partners of the Shackup was in the ‘office’ area of the main shack, chatting with another local when I came screaching in wet and still technologically heavy.   “Hey, I heard you was having some problems with the internet”  he said.  “Your welcome to just use the main computer.”   I was offered another beer, I took another beer, and got to chatting with the him, and the local who was there solely to shoot the breeze.

2 hours later I came out, my head swimming with local lore and legends as well as the a literary conversation which was well above my head (I was reading Duma Key, by Steven King at the time, but I figured I’d probably better not admit it).   Its something else about Mississippi which is mystifying.  Many of them are seriously well read.    Oxford, just about an hour east, was the home and birthplace of William Faulkner, among others, so the literary pedigree stands out along the wide mainstreets, gracious homes, and town squares.    It just feels somewhat odder to have this type of conversation in a big tin shack decorated in old coffee cans.   A Dutch couple rain in out of the rain asking for lodging as I was leaving.  The place even had international appeal.

Now it was more than raining, it was a sheer wall of water outside, and me and my computer dashed across to the backdoor of the commissary and into the kitchen there.   Soon it wouldn’t matter about the wifi because the computer would be dead from too many baths.  I found all the locals bellied up to the bar listening with some interest to an Australian blues lover whom had decided to live in Clarksdale for the next 2 months to write about it.   I joined them for hours, realizing part way through that the commissary wasn’t actually opened, the owners were just “roasting some butts” for a wedding the next day, and nobody seemed to have anywhere to go in the rain… so me and the gang just drank beer and entertained each other as we waited for the rain to abate.

The husband and wife team  (the wife being the Hoskins which was the name of the farm before it because the shack up inn and the commissary), are super nice but actually HATE I mean like Hatfields and McCoys HATE the owners of the Shackup Inn.   Its a long running feud, which by the sound of it, has long ago left reality of what the real problem is, and is now fought completely on principle as each party seems to continue the feud, and truly believes the other side is a)evil and b)past the point of no return.   At some point it sounds like there’s going to be all out war and probably both the Hoskins commissary and the shack up inn will be torn to pieces in the doing.   So, clearly though they abut each other by about 25 feet, there is no feeling of working together.  Its too bad too, because if they did work together I can’t imagine how much more successful they’d be.   The commissary would always have bar guests, and because Ma Hoskins owns all the land around the shackup inn (long story, but she originally sold it to the guys to begin with and they were partners), the Inn could perhaps get more property and put up more shacks.   As it stands now, the Shackup pretends the Commissary doesn’t exist, and it will be over a few dead bodies before the Shackup Inn can acquire 2 inches more space from the Hoskins farm.

Regardless it made for some good speculation as the butt roasting and beer drinking continued.   Finally, around 9pm, we all decided that it wasn’t ever going to stop raining, and dominos wouldn’t deliver.   It looked like a lake out there, and I think the owners had had enough of us on their day off, so I said goodbye to the gang, who was headed out to some coon lodge, juke joint in a field somewhere to listen to blues the way God intended, whereas I was weighing my options and heading back to my shack.

Totally drenched and fearing for my computers life, once again I streaked across what used to be the lawn to my little piece of sharecropper heaven.  It was starting to get windy out too, I noticed and no sooner had I been in the door 30 seconds and the power went out.    I stared out the window at the insane rain and hitting the panes.   If it kept up there would be a foot or more of standing water out there.

A little over an hour north of Vicksburg starts the land of the Delta Blues. Clarksdale, MS is the small town version of Memphis when it comes to this subject, as many a local has made it to legendary status in the medium.

Clarksdale itself hosts the Delta Blues Museum, and Morgan Freeman’s “Ground Zero” where blues can be heard every night, and you can even stay in the hostel above if you don’t mind music seeping everywhere.

Clarksdale is also somewhat of a mixed bag. Impression-wise that is. It is definitely the land where old jalopies go to live out their final days, many of them making it far longer than anyone else in the country could possibly assume. A rusted blue Dodge Dart, with a doorframe that didn’t quite close, missing paint on the trunk and sounded like it was missing a muffler, ran on by me as I drove down the highway, clunky wildly, with two young un’s hands and heads sticking out the window waving at me as they passed. It definitely has some of that ‘stereotypical picture’ most non-Mississippians think of when picturing the deep south. But really, its just that, a stereotype, because even here, there are tons of layers. People are just as smart (and stupid), just as wealthy (and just as poor), and just as complicated, but they have different priorities. Whats important to them is vastly different than anything I’m used to.

My friend Andy, (who renamed himself Paul in college, but I still haven’t adjusted to it), currently lives in Memphis and was gracious enough to meet me for a few beers and a quick tour of the Delta Blues Museum. I would say that unless you have a huge prior knowledge of the blues this place is difficult, as it just looks like a bunch of people whom you’ve never heard of singing songs you’ve never heard of. But still, it was a must do. So we did, then retired to the porch of my shack for the night. I can now say I know very little more about the blues than I started the day out with. Which is not something to be proud of…maybe its just the day and I just don’t feel like trying very hard.

Thats right, tonight I am staying at the Shack Up Inn, a collection of old sharecropper shacks from the days when sharecropping was alive and well. They amount to corregated tin shacks with wood beams, some ‘local’ decor, and a barn which houses several other shack rooms. Befittingly, off in the distance is an abandoned silo, and a few rusted out ford trucks from 1950 are lying around with some old rusted farm equipment all over the grounds. Another good touch is the moonpies, one per pillow on the bed. I think I ate my first moonpie in about 20 years in Apalachicola just a while back, and now there were two more on the horizon! It was going to be a good day!