Dumela!

That is how you say hello, in Setswana--one of the few words I know so far! I can also say lion, cow, donkey, horse, goat and hyena, but those words together don't make much of a sentence...good thing I have a translator now! I have just gotten back from a field trip where I was conducting interviews in a second village, called Khumaga. Its farther away from Meno a Kwena (the camp where I'm normally based), so my translator (a local guy named Poloko who is very nice and speaks very good english and likes to make fun of my mispronounciations of setswana and my ability to get lost in even a very small village) and I camped out at a campsite near a lodge called Leroo La Tau, which means "Paw of the Lion." And I quickly learned why--the lions started roaring just as I got into my tent and didn't stop all night! Let me tell you, it is not easy thing to fall asleep to the sound of lions roaming around your campsite...
But besides some trouble sleeping, the rest of the trip went well. Poloko and I spent three days interviewing about 40 households, working from about 8 in the morning till around 6 in the evening. it was exhausting work! but very interesting, hearing different families give their opinions on the fence, descriptions of their lives as subsistence farmers, and their thoughts on wildlife. definitely somewhat disheartening at times, to hear villagers over and over again speak so antagonistically about the wildlife (basically they see lions and elephants and other wild animals as pests that destroy their livestock), but it also gave me a much better understanding of where they are coming from, and why they feel the way they do.
I also just got to see what daily life is like in the village too, which was a very unique experience. Basically time moves much more sloooowly than back home, and no one is in much of a hurry to do anything. You cant rush people, and its useless to try. This was often very frustrating, but I was glad I had Poloko around to try and explain some of these cultural differences to me. Like when we approached one group of people who all started jabbering away all at once and I couldnt even get a sentence out without lots of yelling and gesticulating going on! Turns out their glasses (that looked full of juice to me) had been full of "khadi", a type of alcohol made from the marula tree (same stuff that makes amarulla!) that people drink in large quantities which needless to say makes them very drunk. so wonder they couldnt remember how many cows they had. :-)
I also discovered that the tiny tuck shops in the villages have the most AMAZING bread rolls, that when someone dies everyone in the village must attend the funeral or get called out at the "kgotla" town meeting (there was a big funeral the last day we were there) and that there is only one phone in all of khumaga and its currently broken. all new things.
So now I'm back in Maun, restocking on supplies and getting some rest before going back out again to do more interviewing in the villages further down the Boteti river, before I come back to Maun for Christmas--less than 3 weeks away! Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season back home!