My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Christmas, New Year, end of first year in BW, it's a big ol' month in so many ways...

Today I'm coming clean with admissions! WOO HOO!! I mean for what the hell else is this stupid blog to be used better? It's dump time.

1. After a good solid 10 minutes of soul searching, I hereby admit that whilst you can take the girl out of the northern hemisphere, you can't take the n.h. out of the girl. There, I wrote it. I'm re-reading it and asking myself "do I really want to commit to that sentence?" ... and I'm leaving it. There's lots of implications to writing that down - For one, it means that I'm admitting summer Christmases aren't as good (for me) as winter ones, and it looks like I'm not going to have a winter one for a long time. It also makes me feel like I'm succumbing to that status of being one of those expats who lives with one leg in one country and one leg in another ("soutpiel" in Afrikaans, translating basically to "one who's dick hangs in the salt water"). I tried to be all like "oh having a braai for xmas is fantastic! WOO HOO! I'm so glad we're not snowed in and lacking electricity because of the ice storms!!" I've tried to be the trooper. Now, I feel like I'm giving up, for some reason, and I HATE giving up... well, I feel guilty and kinda like a loser for this admission. But, after 3 southern hemisphere countries equalling a good 80% of my life overseas, I'm beginning to realize that when it comes to Christmas, I just can't help it - I want snow, I want cold, I want baked goodies (that I don't have to bake myself) smelling up the house, I want hot cider, I want egg nog, I want scarves and touqes and parkas. And then I want it to go away by January 3rd.

2. Petra got jumped by 5 guys at her house friday morning at 7am before leaving for work. To avoid making a whole ginormous post out of the details, basically they cut her electric fence and crawled onto her plot to break into her house, and ended up encountering her by accident when she went back up to the house because she forgot something. They only beat her in the face a little bit and otherwise didn't hurt her or her maid or her maid's cousin, and they were amateurs who only really wanted small, portable things like her cellphone, all the house keys, and money because they're on foot (they're always on foot!) Anyway P. is a tough cookie and it was just like her to fight back - she ripped the mask off the guy's head who was wearing a mask for some unknown reason, and back-talked them the whole time: "what do you mean where's the rest of my money!? You fools, people have BANK ACCOUNTS these days they don't keep cash in their house!!". They only had axes and knives between the 5 of them and she has NOTHING for them to take and they were just really hungry so they ate everything in her cupboard and chopped open her locked closet to get what cash she did have in the house (and her office laptop) and then took off through the bush just as the gardener came barrelling up the road with the neighbours in tow, to help.

She's fine and just a little shaken and within 1 day had gotten all the locks changed and a temporary loaner cell phone and what not - we came over and slept at her place and offered her Sech and did what we could to ease the nerves but.... here's where the admission comes...

Finally now that it's in our own backyard (her neighbour, our friend from SPCA, had the same pack of marauders on her plot the night before they hit P. Last week, the wife & daughter of the house up the road got jumped whilst opening up their gate at night to drive onto their plot) for the first time both me and the Mr. have had to admit that it can be dangerous here and while we always make sure we don't talk it up and partake of any of these typical whitie-in-Africa conversations about how so-and-so got hijacked and this is how it happened and so-and-so got broken into and this is what "they" did to them and all the rest of it ad nauseum, we do have to admit that we know it's there. Sometimes it makes us uneasy but it comes in waves. For the next week we'll take allllllllll the safety precautions that we're supposed to take each and every day, and then nothing'll happen for awhile and then we'll slip back into complacency. But for now, here, I'm gonna lay it right out there and say yeah, it is a bit scary here sometimes. It doesn't mean I dont love living in Botswana. Awareness and Preparedness. That's all you can do.

3. I'm not reeeeeeeeeally looking forward to our xmas guests (with the exception of Alan of course). There, I've said it. I'm worried that there is potential there for boringness and awkwardness. There's not really much else to it. Whew! That felt good.

4. I'm going to start a distance learning MSc course in Environmental Health and Safety in a few months from a UK university, because I'm bored to frickin tears with writing EIAs, & I DEFINITELY can't do it for the rest of my working life. That's the real reason I'm so easily distracted and have to beat myself in the face just to get 1 day of work done around here.

Well now doesn't that feel better!!!!!!!!

In other news, the night we went over to stay at P's house I brought all my ingredients to make the xmas cider. Still reeling from the fact that this girl has never experienced fragrant xmas cider. We used Savanna for the cider and since none of us had Captain Morgan, I substituted Drambuie and it was actually quite delicious. The next morning I made biscuits and gravy, that delicious artery-clogging american classic that I haven't had in over 4 years now, and it was a hit with she and the Mr. Actually, it was nearly so delicious I just might have to make it again sometime.

My xmas shopping is nearly done - we even got 5 stockings, and the majority of what I need for the xmas dinner menu. Well, everything that won't go off between now and the 25th, that is. The only gift recipients left to buy for are Mary and the Family P. They are HARD, man, HARD!

Photo!