Maun. A Sunday off - let's be tourists

The boss is leaving tomorrow, and finally I will have the whole small tent for myself. I used to share with her. I don’t know if this really matters in terms of comfort and no claustrophobia. I doubt. But still, if I am tired and I don’t want to set up the tent I can sleep in the car – like I did a few times - without having to explain things.


So we are back to Maun, again with mobile network, taking one day off. I know somebody tried to call, but sorry, we were really far from everything the last days.

I wish I could be in Manaus, instead of Maun, now. the Brazilian Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon, the Manaus of “the parrot theorem”, the book, or the Manaus of “Fitzcarraldo”, the movie, of impossible dreams coming true.

But still, Maun is a city, but not a city in the way we imagine a city. A few buildings, a supermarket, and small compounds, maybe with less adobe and more cement. All flat. A few white tourists. Since now, we've been the only white around. botswana choose a strategy of less tourism, more expensive. Pochi turisti ma che paghino.

I was saying, we were far the last few days. We have been West until Dobe, the famous settlement widely studied in the 60’s, as one real bushman place inhabited by original bushmen hunting and gathering. Now is barely desert, the people left their houses because of drought, and the only family we met showed us the hard conditions in which they live. The problem is that the government prohibited them to hunt. So they hunt anyway, to survive, with traditional bow and arrow or sometimes with gun, as silent as possible. They come back and they eat silently. They spread some water on the children while they sleep and they say “it’s raining!”. If the following day the police comes and asks the children “when was the last time you had meat?” the children will answer “when it was raining!”. And again, it never rains there.

On our way to Dobe we got lost a little bit and found the border with Namibia. Can you imagine how a border looks like? I could not. But if you consider how straight it is on the map, then how that fence was straight until the end of the horizon, then you would assume that that was the border. I confini. Una linea diritta tracciata tra campi aridi.

On these villages is easy to find Herero people. You would recognize the women because of their characteristic elegant dresses, with huge skirts. I try to avoid the story that we come from a research institute in Germany because of the little issue about the genocide carried one century ago by Germans in Namibia. That’s why they escaped in Botswana. Again, I am just Italian.

So, today a break in the park, tomorrow the boss leaves, then I will be the leader of this expedition. Yeah.

We still have a looot of villages to see. Due to issues with the old car and driver, and new issues about driving permit from Zambia to Botswana.

I can see that my English is just horrible. I lack words or I don’t know how to write them. Who cares.

Love and kisses,
k