Where in the World is me?

- - This country has the second lowest population density in Africa

- - This country is mainly covered in desert

- - This country gives each citizen that asks land and gives women almost double

- - This country’s currency is called the pula which is translated to rain. I’m going to assume that Fat Joe stole is “Imma make it rain” line from Botswana

- - This country is one of the few who has actually been able to capitalize on its massive amounts of resources. Well actually when I say massive amount I mean over 78% comes from diamonds

If you were thinking Botswana, you’re correct. If there is one thing I can say about Botswana is that they love chicken, especially when it’s fried. I’m not trying to be racist here but that country can eat some fried chicken, it was everywhere. As Dave Chapelle says, “I didn’t know I was genetically predisposed to liking chicken”

In general I wouldn’t suggest Botswana to someone on a budget. It has the wonderful salt pans (home to a ton of those cute little meercats) and Okavango Delta (largest inland delta in the world) but being one of Africa’s most stable and interesting countries, it has also developed tourism and really out priced backpackers. So we had an abbreviated stay and took a nice Mokoro trip through the delta but that was about all we couldn’t afford.

Again, we took mass transit almost everywhere and that leads to some interesting conversations. The first person we met was a sweet older, larger taxi driver named Raphael. He took us from our late night bus arrival to the wonderful Mokalodi Backpackers (really a top notch backpackers and the owner Hendrick was a pretty cool guy) and even let us make a pit stop at a local fast food joint that was of course, fried chicken. For the rest of our taxi ride he managed to list off all the fried chicken restaurants in the capital Gaborone. His list reminded me of Bubba listing off the different ways you could cook shrimp in Forrest Gump. “well see we got Chicken Lickin, Nando’s, Gallo’s, Chicken and Cow, KFC, have you heard of that one?” I answered, “Kentucky Fried Chicken? Yeah I think I’ve heard of it. I could bet I’m 6 degrees from the Colonel.” Raphael was great, gave a fair price for a late night decent drive. When we arrived, some kids wanted to set up transportation for the next morning. They failed to reach a price with Gabriel and ended up arguing for 30 minute bringing Gabriel almost to tears. Just a sidenote, if you have $200 backpack and a nice tent and are travelling from a developed country whose currency has significant value, don’t be (pardon my language) an asshole and bargain someone to their knees. It’s good not to get ripped off but don’t be a jerk face.

My next encounter was with Gracie, a nice woman who informed me that the people who live in Botswana are called Motswanans which I didn’t know. She also let know 20 minutes into our conversation that her uncle had his leg eaten off by a lion. This continued into a long conversation about how her village had a problem with a lion that liked to eats parts of humans but not really the whole person. Weird?

The last person I had the joy of meeting through transit was Baulo. Our circumstances were not ideal to begin with. We were the last folks to get on the bus, which means that you sit in the last row. The last row is designed for 4 people. I’m not sure if I have ever seen 4 people sitting in the last row. In this case, it was me, 2 friends, Baulo and 2 of his friends. When you do the math that equals 6 people in 4 peoples space. Usually this isn’t a problem but we all had our backpacks and Baulo, how should I say this, really really liked to eat fried chicken, was quite large himself. We had good old American conversation. He told about how he liked being single and how he likes to hit the clubs and “get chicks” he wanted me to accompany him to “the hottest club in Kasane”. He continued to tell me how much beer he can drink and that his favorite things to do are drink beer, eat fried chicken, drive his car, and watch TV and no he doesn’t like to watch football (soccer) he says, “its for skinny women”. As we said our relatively too emotional goodbyes, I thought hmm I think I could have had that exact same conversation in just about any bar or pub in America. So in recap, Botswana, make it rain, eat fried chicken and talk to the people.

The Okavango reminds me of the Okefenokee

The front of the Mokoro heading through the bug filled reeds