Letlhafula Cultural Festival

Once a year in May BotswanaCraft puts on a cultural fair called Letlhafula. By the time we heard about it and went to BotswanaCraft the tickets were sold out. When the clerk heard that we would not be in Botswana next year she said that sometimes people did not pick up their tickets and that she would call if that happened. We were lucky enough that the Friday afternoon before she called to tell us she had two tickets, so we were able to attend on Saturday, 26 May. We felt pretty lucky.

Thato Makame and Bonny Bonang Batshabile

The day of the fair we had a wedding to attend in the morning. Sister Rands played the organ for the wedding and gave the talk. The wedding was scheduled for 9:00 am. The bride arrived at 10:30 am and the wedding started at 10:40 am when the bride's mother finally arrived. After the ceremony the the bride and groom led the wedding party in a traditional African procession where they sing and dance. It was a lot of fun to watch. It was a nice wedding and everyone was happy. The couple will be sealed in the temple on Tuesday.

Immediately after the wedding we went to the Leflhafula Cultural Festival. It started at 9:00 am and went until 5:00 pm. We arrived just in time for the meal about noon. The meal was traditional Botswana food. It was cooked in about fifteen huge cast iron pots in a row over wood fires. We were amazed that they could cook things as thick as some of them were in big pots without it burning. At the first of the food line they pored warm water over your hands to rinse them. Though utinsels were provided many people chose to eat the traditional way with their fingers.

For appetizers there were roasted peanuts, raw peanuts in the shell, and a couple of hard berry-like seeds that we could not figure out how to eat. They were too hard to chew. There were three varieties of maize meal that had the consistency of mashed potatoes, three dishes of beans, cow intestines, bean leaves made from dried and boiled bean leaves, spinach (chard), two shredded beef dishes (one of which had tripe in it), braised beef, ox knee (cow leg joints), cow intestines, mopane worms, chicken feet, pumpkin, baked sweet potatoes, chicken wings and legs. A boiled corn dish served in a cup and watermelon were served after the meal. There were three traditional drinks - marula juice, mmilo juice (pronounced meelo), and ginger punch. We particularly liked the juice drinks. We also like ginger punch but theirs was stronger than we like.

We tried everything but the chicken feet and ox knee. We were glad we were not raised on this type of food but we enjoyed trying the dishes at least once. When we went through the lines we tried to ask for smaller portions but had difficulty communicating this so we had large plates of food.  Many of the dishes tasted very salty to us but many of the attendees added more salt.

The entertainment was traditional music and dancing. Most of the accompaniment was drums, shakers, a string instrument that was held over the shoulder and strummed or plucked while a stick was moved to change the pitch, and a thumb piano. A blind woman played traditional music on an electonic keyboard. A very popular musician played the guitar while holding it horizontally. Some of the older women danced to his music. A group of men played what looked like a thin metal tube but they could vary the pitch or each person had a different pitch and they blew at the appropriate time. How they made the tune we could not figure out. They danced in a circle while they played. There were a number of dance groups in traditional dance costumes.

The master of ceremonies entertained the audience with jokes and riddles but we could not understand them because they were all in Setswana. They gave away T-shirts for prizes to those who could answer the riddles. They also had a contest for the best traditionally dressed woman. The audience decided the winner and they quickly eliminated a woman in modern dress.

The whole event was very well done. We had a wonderful time and were glad we were able to attend.

Zone Conference

Each quarter a missionary zone conference is held in Gaborone. President and Sister Omer and the assistants to the president come from Johannesburg for the conference.  About fifty missionaries attend. The most recent one was held in May. The theme was "Fishers of Men". We enjoy attending these as they are spiritually uplifting and motivating.

It is also fun to get together with the other missionaries. The missionaries come in from the villages and even drive the five hours from Francistown for the conference so that all the missionaries in Botswana are together. The senior couples get together for dinner on the night before the conference. Often President and Sister Omer join us. This time they were hung up at the border and weren't able to make it. We went to a Chinese restaurant this time.

The lunch during the conference is prepared by the senior couples. Each of the couples is given an assignment for food. This time we had potato salad, fruit salad, tuna pasta salad, Greek chicken salad, rolls, punch, and banana and carrot cakes. Our assignment was the Greek chicken salad. Usually we have one of the Francistown couples stay a couple of nights with us when they come for the conference.

President Omer, Sister Riser, Elder Moss, Sister Moss, Sister Taylor

In the South Africa Johannesburg Mission there are eight young sisters serving - four in Francistown and four in Gaborone. All of them are in Botswana because it is not safe enough in South Africa. We are glad that we can have sisters serving in Botswana. Soon three sisters will be going home and there will only be five serving and the sisters will be taken out of Francistown.

Sister Blum, Sister Omer (President's wife), Sister Nalusiba, Sister Vermeulen,
 Sister Clendon, Sister Banda, Sister Callister, Sister Lovell, Sister Hadlock

Ladies With Things on Their Heads

Often we see African women carrying big things on their heads. They are amazingly adept at balancing large bulky objects on their heads while they walk. They rarely seem to have to adjust them to keep them balanced. We have never seen a man carrying anything on his head. 

We have had a hard time getting pictures of these women because we were almost always driving in a car when we saw them and were past them before we could take a picture. One evening we saw two huge bags of empty soda cans bouncing above our back wall. We grabbed our camera, raced out the front gate, and around the block to try and get a picture. After we hurried three blocks to get a picture of the two bags of cans balanced one on top of the other on her head and were just about ready to to take the picture, she stepped off the road, tipped her head, and dumped them in a field. A perfect photo missed! One day a whole group of women streamed by while we were getting gas so we took advantage of the situation and got some typical pictures.

The senior sisters serving in Gaborone decided to decorate their hats for the safari to Kruger Park. Here is the missionaries' version of things on their heads.

Sisters Kimball, Rands, Taylor, and Moss

Stoplight Dance and Blue Cup

The Young Single Adult Ward had a stoplight dance. They were to wear green if they were available to date; red if they were taken, and yellow or amber if they were "complicated". We thought it was a clever approach for the dance.

It was scheduled to start at six o'clock but most people didn't come until about eight o'clock. It was a dinner dance but they did not serve the meal until ten o'clock. They served steak, bratwurst, a vegetable dish of baked beans, onions, green peppers, and carrots that was served with pap (a traditional food like mashed potatoes made from white ground corn). It was very tasty.

They requested that we teach a line dance so we taught them a version of "Cotton Eyed Joe". They caught on quickly and had a great time. Just about everyone was out doing the line dance and once was not enough.

They had a speed dating activity where the men and women sat on chairs in rows facing each other and had one minute getting to know the person opposite them before they rotated to the next person. They also had an activity where they wrote a compliment about the person next to them and then they passed the note to the next five people who added more compliments about the first person.

Though it was a dance there was not much dancing after the line dance. They did one traditional African dance where everyone is in a circle and one person at a time dances in the middle of the circle.

One of the church buildings in Gaborone does not have a drinking fountain and if you want a drink you get it from the kitchen using a blue cup which everyone shares. Interestingly, the second building in Gaborone does have a drinking fountain but almost everyone uses the drinking fountain to fill a similar blue cup instead of using the fountain directly.

Kruger Park Couples Retreat

Elder and Sister Nichols arranged a mission couples retreat for 27 April 2012 in Kruger Park. Only eight couples accepted the invitation, four of them from Botswana - the Kimballs, Mosses, Taylors, and Rands.

Impala

Wildebeest

We caravanned in two cars from Gaborone to Kruger Park on Thursday, 26 April. We started at five o'clcok in the morning and eleven and half hours later arrived at our guest lodge in Komatipoort, South Africa. All the couples arrived at the guest lodge within fifteen minutes of each other even though we came from widely different locations.

Leopard

Leopard

That evening the Nichols had arranged a braai (barbecue) on the guest lodge patio. They served potato salad, pasta salad, bean salad, rolls, lamb, chicken kebabs, and chocolate cake. We used the guest lodge grills to cook the meat. It was great to get better aquainted with the other couples over dinner and hear about their varied missionary experiences. The areas in the mission vary so greatly that couples have experiences are very different but at the same time quite similar.

Kudu

Giraffe

We got up very early Friday morning so that we could be in line to get into the park at five o'clock. It was a holiday weekend so we were a bit concerned about getting into the park before they cut off entrance. While we waited for the park to open at six o'clock we had a tailgater breakfast. Our car was the third car in line and the other missionary cars were right after us. By the time the park opened the line of cars was quite long. We were very glad we were early so that we could get into the park at sunrise as this is one of the best times of the day to see animals.

Lion

Lion

Once inside the park each car of couples went their own way. We stopped first thing and bought a map with animal identification pictures in it. We would have been quite lost without the map for directions and would not have known what animals we were looking at especially the ones we ended up calling DLAs (deer-like animals).

Fighting Hippopotanus

Sunning Hippopotamus

We feel we had great luck seeing animals in the park. It is really quite the luck of the draw as to what you see. You may see something spectacular and two minutes later the animals have passed on and the next car would miss it entirely. We saw a lot of animals and most of them at a very close range. Some like the leopard were very close to the car. The leopard walked around the front and side of the car and we took its picture from less than two meters away. Most of the time we were driving roads without other cars in sight. We made a couple of loops and only covered the same sections of roads for less than twenty kilometers.

Waterbucks

African Elephant

We were surprised at how quickly the terrain and vegetation changes in the park. One side of the road can look very different from the other and in a few minutes of driving everything can look quite changed. The variety of the scenery was an added bonus to all of the animals.

Chacma Baboon

Warthog

We were lucky to see four out of the "Big Five" African animals - African elephant, leopard, rhinocerus, and lion. We missed seeing buffalo even though all of the other missionaries saw buffalo but they did not see any of the cats. We saw one leopard, one lion, two cheetahs very fleetingly, two Chacma baboons, two Vervet monkeys, five crocodile, ten warthogs, twelve white rhinoceros, twelve kudus, twelve to fifteen wildebeests, twenty-five to thirty zebra, about fifty giraffes, forty to fifty waterbucks, seveny-five to one hundred hippopotamus, and hundreds of impalas.

DLA (Deer-Like Animals)

White Rhinoceros and Baby

We left the park when it closed at six o'clock as did all the other missionaries. There is a big fine for leaving the park after six o'clock so we didn't want to be late. All the missionaries and a Peace Corpe worker who is a member of the church went out to dinner at at Portuguese restaurant in Komatipoort right after leaving the park. Saturday we spent the day driving back to Botswana.

Alders, Diana, Kimballs, Nichols, Hymases, Taylors, Mihus, Rands, and Mosses

Gasefete-Mogopodi Wedding

Two of our young single adults got married on Thursday and then went to Johannesburg on Friday to be sealed in the temple. All couples have to have a civil marriage in Botswana before they can be sealed in the temple in South Africa. The ward had scheduled a temple trip for that day so about thirty people were able to attend the sealing. It was wonderful to see them get married and everyone was very happy for them.

According to Botswana law the wedding cannot be performed after sunset. Traditionally, brides are one to two hours late to their wedding. The bride, Gabalape Mogopodi, was only half an hour late. Elder Rands spoke at the wedding. Bishop Matswagothata performed the ceremony.

We have been teaching the groom, Onalenna Paul Gasefete, keyboard lessons for the last few months. Both the bride and groom have been attending our weekly Preparing for Celestial Marriage Institute of Religion class. We had them to dinner at our house this past month and had coconut cake for dessert. They asked us if we would make two coconut cakes for their reception. We made two coconut cakes and one chocolate cake. They were definitely not fancy wedding cakes. When we asked the woman in charge of the food where she wanted the cakes, she had us put them on the head table with the bride and groom.

After the ceremony there were comments by the bride, groom, best man, best lady, and relatives. There was also a very tasty meal. It was traditional Botwsana food - beef with mixed vegetables, chicken, rice with vegetables, baked beans, pumpkin, beets, potato salad, and macaroni salad. We waited for the cake to be served but it never was. Even the single adults who were serving were anxiously waiting for the cake. First one cake was taken away and we thought it was going to be cut. Then a second cake disappeared. The bride finally cut herself a piece of the remaining cake with her fork and then some people went up and she cut pieces of cake and plopped it in their hands to eat. We don't know what happened to the other two cakes.

Labola, bride price, is an African tradition of an arranged payment between the groom and the bride's parents for their daughter. It is based on the price of cattle and can be thousands of pula. It causes many couples outside the church to never marry or wait many years to marry. It delays many marriages of church members. The church very much discourages this practice. Onalenna said that he negotiated to have the labola delayed and will be making payments on it for many years.

Baptisms

Our granddaughter, Katie, was baptized 14 April in Issaquah, Washington. Lisa flew up to represent us at the baptism. This is our first grandchild to be baptized and we missed being able to attend the baptism. Katie broke her arm almost two weeks before her baptism so she had to wrap her cast in a towel and plastic bag closed with white duck tape. The Lamberts, her other grandparents, were at the baptism.

We had a busy day Sunday. We picked up Elder and Sister Webb at their hotel at 9:15 am and took them to watch general conference with us at the Broadhurst building from ten o'clock until noon. The Webbs came from Johannesburg to Gaborone to present a Perpetual Education Fund fireside. After the morning session of conference, we attended the baptism of Isa Alidi and Tshepiso Alidi, the father and sister of one of our young single adults - Kabo Alidi. Another of the young single adults, Celeste Sibanda, has been living with the family for many years. Kabo joined the church fourteen years ago when she was twelve and has wanted her family to join her in the church. She returned from a mission to England about eight months ago. Her mother, Elizabeth, was baptized six months ago. Now the whole family are members of the church. The baptismal service was very spiritual. Their home teacher from nine years ago was one of the speakers and Celeste was the other speaker. Kabo sang a beautiful song.

We hurried home after the baptism to quickly eat a lunch of salads and rolls and then went to the Gaborone West building to view the last session of general conference. We then drove back to the Broadhurst building for the Perpetual Education Fund fireside. We had cake and ice cream at our house and then took the Webbs to their hotel.