Category: Botswana

TheGardenLady has written about her good friend Lynne (she’s the one in the photo above with the blue bandanna), who is doing Peace Corp work in Mmathethe, Botswana.  She went on a short visit to the Okavanga Delta and below she writes about her experience and shares some of her photos.

Seven Peace Corps Volunteers traveled 10 hours by an African bus all the way up to Maun where we stayed at the Old Bridge Backpackers for 4 days. Many PCV’s stay there because it is very reasonably priced. From the website it looked nice, but often those photos don’t live up to the expectations. This one did though!

The camp was situated on the river going into the Okavanga Delta. Across the way, there was an “Old Bridge,” lots of beautiful foliage, wildflowers, and the safari like tents were clean and perfect. The food was very good for a place like this, and we sat out every night dining under the bright stars and sounds of the hippo. The food was casual backpackers food, but very well done for the price. Old Bridge will schedule you a day safari, so we were picked up at 6am to travel a little over an hour to Moremi National Park. On the way in we saw giraffe, then after getting through the gate, we had a lovely breakfast at a picnic spot. After breakfast we immediately spotted a rare leopard in this park. He was healthy, strong, shy, magnificent! And then moments later, a rare cheetah leaped out in front of us. My friend got a great photo of this!

Continue reading “A short visit to the Okavanga Delta”

In May TheGardenLady received an email from her good friend Lynne who is doing Peace Corp work in Mmathethe, Botswana.  She wrote,

I’m in Kanye today so I’m taking this opportunity with internet to send you these pics of what I saw on my walk the other night. It’s harvesting time for the maize, and unfortunately, people did not do well because of the lack of rains this year, but I thought this was really cool. These people are spending the next several days carving off every little piece of maize to sell to the other villagers. I tasted it last week at my host mom’s house, but it is not sweet like our corn, in fact, it was so bland that it’s not even worth eating, but when in Africa—do as the Africans!

The reason the corn is not sweet is because it is dry.  When corn is removed from the stalk, it loses its sugar. By the time the corn is dried, even when dried on the stalk, corn loses its sweetness and becomes bland tasting.  If you tasted the corn when it was young and still soft, picked fresh from the corn stalk and boiled immediately,  it would have tasted sweet. Perhaps not as sweet as the corn we in the United States eat these days which are hybrids and amazingly sweet. By harvesting the corn when it dried, it holds up better for a longer time.  Fresh corn like we eat would not store well unless it were canned or frozen.  I imagine that the corn they are husking and removing the kernels from is what, when I was a child, we used to call horse corn. We fed it to the animals- on our farm we fed the stalks to the horses and cows and the kernels to the chickens. We didn’t use it for cooking but I imagine it is the same thing that is ground up to make corn bread here in the states or corn meal mush or muffins.

Continue reading “Corn in Botswana”

My dear friend Lynn Deutsch, who is a Peace Corps member,  has written another post about a garden she discovered in Mmathethe, Botswana.  You can read her previous post about her horticultural experience in Mmathethe, Botswana here.

I thought you may be interested in looking at some of these garden photos. As I was walking way up to my primary school, I noticed this beautiful garden. I went in, and this woman, Margaret, told me she was from South Africa and came here about a year or so ago when her mother died. The woman doesn’t live close to me, so I don’t know her well…just that when her mom died, she took over her house and felt compelled to keep her mom’s garden going and make it even more beautiful. She spends about 3 hours each day, waking at 5am, to get out before the heat of the day comes. She has several kids, and wants to pass on the art of gardening, and the importance of growing your own veggies to stay healthy.

Continue reading “A Beautiful Garden in Mmathethe, Botswana”