Wednesday, 10 June 1987: Out of Africa

 8:15 PM, between Gaborone and Mahalapye on the overnight train to Bulawayo

This is a sad occasion.  About an hour and a half ago, I said goodbye to 10 friends and colleagues at the Gaborone station as we toasted each other with three bottles of Champagne I had brought along.  They included:

- Masego Mmputakwane, the handsome, good-natured, 30-year-old Motswana who received his M.A. from ITC in the Netherlands last year.  We were both new Environmental Science faculty members this year.  Two nights ago, we had dinner at my favorite Gaborone restaurant, The Taj.  It’s Indian but also serves Chinese and Mauritian food.        

- Berneck Makwiti, the ES Department’s chief cartographer.  He is an ever-polite Malawian who was so helpful providing supplies and equipment I needed for my classes.  A true gentleman with a big smile.  I introduced him to the Botswana Photographic Society a few months ago and told him that he must win the trophy for the best color slide which I won last year. 

- Goitse Kerutwe, was also there to help with the champagne consumption.  He’s a quiet but very pleasant Motswana who studied cartography in England.  Goitse is nicknamed “Peace” and stands about 5’0” tall on his tiptoes. 

- Robson Silitshena arrived at the station in the nick of time to give me a set of engine gaskets and assorted parts for a Zimbabwe relative’s BWM.  The chap will be meeting me tomorrow at the station in Bulawayo.  Hopefully, I won’t have any trouble getting the spare parts through Zimbabwean customs.  Spare parts for cars seem to be worth their weight in gold in Zimbabwe.  As for Robson, another African with a big, friendly smile, I’d judge him to be about 45.  He’s the #2 man in the E.S. Department and will likely take over as the chair when John Cooke retires in a couple years.  I really enjoyed working with Robson – especially during our 5-day student field trip to Selebe-Phikwe back in February. 

- There was the Vanderpost family including my environmental science colleague, Coky (Cornelis), 39; his wife, Micha, who teaches ballet; their daughter, Katia, 15; and son, Gabriel, 10 (maybe).  A very nice Dutch family.  Cornelis came to the department back in January and thankfully relieved me of an advanced statistics course.  Micha gave me a little Botswana carved lady as a going away gift.  Cornelis bought my red Raleigh bicycle for 210 Dutch Guilders…which reminds me, I’m carrying several different currencies.  In addition to the guilders, I have £46 to get me started in London, US$51.75; about Zim$14 for tomorrow, about 18 Botswana Pula to spend on the train, and a couple of souvenir bank notes from Zambia and South Africa.

Waving their goodbyes from L to R (back row):  Berneck Makwiti, Robson Silitshena, Cornelis Vanderpost. Front row: Goitse Kerutwe, Masego Mmputakwane, and Micha, Gabriel and Katia Vanderpost.  The photo is not very good but it’s the only one I have from that night.  I need to learn to do a better job photographing black faces!

 

- Another couple who made it to the station tonight were my best friends, Hugh and Margot, who managed to help me keep smiling during my time in Botswana.  I met Hugh at a photographic society meeting back in October and travelled with him and his son Jonathan to Chobe National Park last month.  Hugh is a computer service representative in Gaborone while Margot teaches science at the best secondary school in the country.  They brought my honorary niece, Candice (age 3), with them tonight, but she was fast asleep in the back of their Toyota van. 

That about takes care of the send-off party except for Nieve and her infant son.  I met Nieve and her husband, Tom, at a going-away party for my colleague, Paul Shaw, and his wife, Sandy, who were on this train last night.  Their flight is probably leaving Harare for London about now.  Paul is another great guy – an Englishman who let me tag along on a couple enjoyable and informative field trips with one of his classes.  I will always be grateful to Paul for arranging for me to meet the department chairman a year ago resulting in my getting the job here.    

Regarding Tom and Neive:  They are Irish and Neive brought me letters tonight to post in London to her parents and brother-in-law.  Neive told me they are letters of introduction for an Irish-American bloke named Mahoney who will be in Dublin in a week.  The brother-in-law is being instructed to take him on a tour of Dublin’s best pubs.   

There are probably at least another dozen friends and colleagues here in Gaborone who didn’t make it to my send-off.  I’ve said goodbye to them over the past week.  While my love life in Botswana sucked, I sure can’t complain about the friends I’ve made here in the past 10 months.  So obviously, I’m sad to leave this place.  Despite the inherent “3^rd World” inefficiencies, Botswana, as well as the people here, have most assuredly grown on me.   I doubt I’ll ever find another boss as good as John Cooke, the department chair.  You should see the letter of recommendation he wrote to the Geography Department at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania regarding the 1-year teaching job I’ve applied for.  Made me sound like a first cousin of Jesus Christ. 

I don’t know what my chances will be for the Pennsylvania job except that it’s only part-time and the pay is lousy so the competition may not be too stiff.  Part-time would be great because I could continue to work on my African stories while making a few bucks. 

I should also mention my remaining colleague, Susan Ringrose, the only woman in our department.  Susan is English but became a Canadian citizen.  Her specialties are geomorphology and soil science, two of my favorite subjects, so we obviously had much to talk about.  I have found her very cordial.    

I paid a little extra to get a private compartment for the night.  Figured I could use a good night’s sleep with no disturbances because of tomorrow’s overnight flight to London.  The nearly full moon is illuminating the bush as my train purrs slowly through the African night – my last African night (sob!)  I’ll continue to console myself with the remains of the last champagne bottle.  Actually, I feel better now having written this letter to my friend, Eunice, back in Denver.  I always seem to feel better after I write.  Besides, it’s helped me bring some sort of closure to my life in Gaborone.  As the train continues north and nears the Tropic of Capricorn, I feel myself heading toward new experiences.  Saying goodbye to friends is really hard but staying in one place to avoid the pain of separation doesn’t work well for me.  That often means getting stuck in a rut, and I seem to be at my best when the scenery keeps changing. 

My next challenge is to see if I can actually make some money from my writings and photos of the events of the past 14 months.  If so, I’d like to think that the scenery will keep changing and changing and changing…all around the world!