We started the morning off at 6:30 with a hot, cooked breakfast since we wouldn’t be back until after lunch. We left at 7am to drive to Mothabaneng village. Bill stayed at camp to rest and enjoy himself. The drive was a lovely morning game drive as we saw lilac-breasted rollers, Kori bustards, zebras, a raptor, giraffe, zebra, ostrich. As we left the reserve, we had to leave the truck and walk through a disinfecting pan, and the truck had to drive through a disinfecting pond. The “main” road that we traveled on was wide but still gravel.
We arrived at the village and went to a stock farm to see them milking cows. There were pens with goats and lambs. One of the workers picked up some lambs and kids for us to hold. They were noisy little things! We also saw lots of palms growing that the women of the village use to weave beautiful baskets. Sort of community area.
On our way back to the village, our driver Dan Sasebola, stopped for a few minutes to see his wife, grandson, and daughter. The wife gave him some food, and he gave her some money. He works for 4 weeks and then goes home for 5 days.
In the village we stopped to see some of the women weaving baskets and were able to purchase some of their craft. At 10:30 we arrived at the Mothabaneng school and were met by the vice principal Dorothy Mphoeng who told us a little about the school. The kids go to school here until high school when they have to leave to go to boarding school. The school is just now being wired for electricity, and they hope to have it completed at the end of the school year. There are 510 children and 17 teachers here. The kids swarmed our vehicles and loved getting their photo taken. They then rushed up to us to see their photos. They were so cute! The older kids then gave a performance of singing and dancing for us. Mpho Manthe from main camp accompanied us on this trip.
We drove out in the country to see some bush paintings on some rock walls. These were interesting, but they are not yet protected. We arrived at a large shaded tree next to a dry river bed about 11:45 for our picnic lunch. Another truck had proceeded us to the spot and set up chairs and laid out the picnic. We had 2 hard boiled eggs, 2 beef meatballs, a slice of salami, some cheese, a chicken leg, cookies, and a roll. It was a really pleasant place to stop.
Poor Dr. Branch dropped his camera off the vehicle not once but twice, and it was rendered inoperable for the rest of the trip. I know he was disappointed at that turn of events.
On the way out of town, I asked to stop to take a photo of the local cemetery. It looked just like the cemetery in the HBO series “The 1st Ladies Detective Agency” with the green canopies over the graves. We made it back to main camp at 2pm.
We rested until 4:30 when we went out on the afternoon game drive. We got some good views of a kori bustard, lots of impala as usual, an African hawk eagle. We stopped at a large baobob tree for Bill to get out and get a close look at this neat tree. We saw giraffe, stopped for sundowners, and another beautiful African sunset.
At 7:30 we all met in the bar for pre-dinner drinks. I have been ordering Amarula on ice. This is a drink that is similar to Bailey’s Irish Crème but made from the fruit of the marula tree. We had dinner in the boma with a campfire. We had oxtail stew, roast pork, pap, potatoes, spinach, salad, and Lindsay’s birthday cake. The staff performed after dinner. Aaron Bale, our tracker, performed with the group along with his wife.
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