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Botswana and termites . . .

13 Mar

Botswana and termites . . .

Excerpt from a previous posting on Botswana:

In 1985 I traveled to Botswana under the auspices of the United States’ Department of State. At that time I was gainfully employed with the United States Customs Service, and the purpose of my travel was to represent our government and U.S. Customs in a law enforcement conference. The conference took place in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, at a complex that included a Holiday Inn, several restaurants and two Las Vegas-style casinos. Except for South Africa, every country in Africa was represented. That nation was not represented because it was not invited, ostensibly in criticism of its rule of apartheid.

Other postings on Botswana can be found here: Sojourn to Botswana, here: I downed a lion in South Africa and here: Botswana’s urinals. I have thoroughly enjoyed remembering and writing about my experiences in Africa, and I trust that visitors to my blog will enjoy reading about that nation and the trials, tribulations and triumphs I endured and/or enjoyed while enroute to Botswana, returning from Botswana and everything in between.

Be forewarned! As I manage—struggle—to retrieve memories from the dim past—way back in 1985—there will be more postings related to my trip, including more thoughts on Botswana, South Africa, Germany and England.

The unlikely subject of this posting? One of the most fascinating and destructive creatures on earth—termites!

On the outskirts of Gabarone, Botswana’s capital city, numerous termite towers can be seen, amazing structures that can reach heights up to thirty feet. The following information on termites was gleaned from Wikipedia and is probably enough, or more than enough, to satisfy any longing a visitor to this posting may have for such information:

The termite is the acknowledged master architect of the creature world. No other insect or animal approaches the termite in the size and solidity of its building structure. The world’s tallest non-human structures are built by Australian or African termites. If a human being were the size of an average termite, the relative size of a single termite nest is the equivalent of a 180 story building–almost 2000 feet high. It would easily be the tallest building in the world. How is it possible that this tiny creature has the engineering know-how to erect an edifice of this magnitude? Obviously this knowledge is innate to the termite. The process of construction, the materials and correct combination of materials to yield an elegant, structurally efficient and durable structure is simply awe-inspiring.

In tropical savannas the mounds may be very large, with an extreme of 9 metres (30 ft) high in the case of large conical mounds constructed by some Macrotermes species in well-wooded areas in Africa. Two to three metres, however, would be typical for the largest mounds in most savannas. The shape ranges from somewhat amorphous domes or cones usually covered in grass and/or woody shrubs, to sculptured hard earth mounds, or a mixture of the two. Despite the irregular mound shapes, the different species in an area can usually be identified by simply looking at the mounds.

Formlings, now better understood to depict termitaria (termites’ nests) and termites, are a pervasive category of San (Bushman) rock art north of the River Limpopo. This article investigates the associations of termites’ nests in San thought, belief, and ritual, in an attempt to explain formling symbolism and why termites’ nests, and not other subjects, were chosen for depiction. Unequivocal ethnographic testimonies of San spiritual world-view are compounded with iconographic analysis to show nuances of San understanding and perception of the spirit world. In turn, this ethnographic hermeneutic reveals a significant but previously unexplored facet of spirit-world imagery which evokes notions of creative and transformative power. This newly highlighted vignette of San cosmology unlocks aspects of San imagery, such as the interface between the natural and the metaphysical, that have hitherto been less understood.

Note: The River Limpopo separates South Africa from Botswana and Zimbabwe (from Wikipedia at this site: River Limpopo).

Since my duties while in Botswana did not require any close inspection of termite nests, my relationship and contact with such structures was limited to a cautious 360 degree visual inspection from a distance of several yards. That inspection and my Wikipedian research qualified me to share my new found knowledge with visitors to my blog.

So I shared said knowledge.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
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Posted by on March 13, 2010 in foreign travel, Humor, law enforcement, segregation, Travel, Writing

 

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I downed a lion in South Africa . . .

07 Mar

Synopsis—A prequel to this posting:

In 1985 I traveled to Botswana under the auspices of the United States’ Department of State. At that time I was gainfully employed with the United States Customs Service, and the purpose of my travel was to represent our government and U.S. Customs in a law enforcement conference. The conference took place in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, at a complex that included a Holiday Inn, several restaurants and two Las Vegas-style casinos. Except for South Africa, every country in Africa was represented. That nation was not represented because it was not invited, ostensibly in criticism of its rule of apartheid.

This posting is intended to discuss other facets of that many-faceted trip. It is one of a series of discussions covering my travel to Botswana via New York City, England and South Africa, and my return therefrom via South Africa, Germany and New York City, and discussions on everything that occurred in between. For related postings, click on I married my barber, Sojourn to Botswana and Botswana’s urinals. My intentions are to narrate some of the details of my trip in the hope of entertaining visitors to my blogs, and perhaps even, to some small degree, educate visitors with those details. And now, on to the posting!

I downed a lion in South Africa . . .

After landing in Johannesburg, South Africa I spent several hours in the company of two agents of that nation Secret Service unit, an organization similar to our Central Intelligence Agency. I surrendered my U.S. State Department passport to an immigration officer at Johannesburg’s municipal airport. It would be returned to me on my return to Johannesburg from Botswana. I did not ask why my passport was held, nor was any reason given.

I would learn later that it was held to ensure that I came back through Johannesburg, rather than leaving Botswana for a different country. The two agents questioned me on the purpose of the conference and which countries would be represented, and questioned me on my return. I answered all their questions freely to the best of my ability, although my knowledge was rather limited. They seemed satisfied with my answers in the prebriefing as well as the debriefing following my return to Johannesburg after the conference.

We stopped at their office and I was asked to wait while they reported my arrival to their superiors, a report that was made behind closed doors and obviously without my presence. Left to my own devices I toured the hallways of the building, taking in views of the city through the windows and views of offices through open doors. In my wanderings I found restroom doors and drinking water fountains marked Whites only and Coloreds only. I also noted that in the wide hallways of the building, colored maintenance and cleaning people stepped well to one side as I neared, and made no direct eye contact, looking away or down as we met and passed.

Those obvious signs of the apartheid rule that still existed in South Africa—a system that would endure until 1994—turned my thoughts back 24 years, back from 1985 to 1961, to a time when racial segregation—our nation’s apartheid—ruled the South. In 1961 I left my assignment at Craig Air Force Base in Selma, Alabama to begin a two-year tour at Bitburg Air Base in Bitburg, Germany, a small town in Germany’s Eifel mountains (a definite subject for future postings!).

My tour of duty at Craig had been pleasant in every respect, both for me and for my family. That tour had lasted more than five years, and I was extremely reluctant to end it. However, my transfer was not an object for negotiation, not even for discussion, so I grudgingly and unwillingly accepted the new assignment. Bummer!

My newfound friends from South Africa’s Secret Service treated me with a tour of Pretoria, the capital city of the nation. Our tour of the city included a marketplace, monuments and various civic buildings. The most impressive part of the tour was the Voortrekker Monument, a massive granite structure built to honor the Voortrekkers, pioneers that left the Cape Colony in the thousands between 1835 and 1854 to explore and establish settlements. Click here for a digital tour of the monument.

We returned to Johannesburg shortly before my flight was scheduled for departure, and a suggestion was made to have a beer before the flight. I declined because the cuisine at the Holiday Inn had not been kind to my digestive system, particularly to the elimination apparatus of that system. However, under duress inflicted by their urging me to have a beer, I accepted a cold beer, attractively packaged in a can. Oddly, however, neither of my friends ordered a beer, explaining that they could not drink while on duty.

I noticed that they watched me intently while I downed the beer, rather quickly because boarding time was near. When I finished the beer, they both smiled broadly and told me that on my return to the States I could truthfully claim that I downed a lion in Africa. A quick glance at the can’s label confirmed the fact that I had indeed accomplished such an unlikely feat—pictured on the can’s label was a male lion with a huge mane and an open mouth featuring large fangs, obviously a roaring lion.

I made it safely home with the empty Lion beer can, and it became the nucleus for a rather extensive collection of beer cans. Several years later  while converting our garage into a rec room, I bagged the cans into several black plastic trash bags, set them into a corner. The bags occupied that space for  a considerable length of time, right up to the time my wife tossed them out with the other trash. She apologized profusely and claims to this day that it was an accident, absolutely unintentional, but I have some doubts. The cans must have clanged and rattled a bit en route to the trash, a sign that the bags contained something other than routine trash. Oh, well, easy come, easy go, right? Bummer!

I downed a lion in South Africa—I no longer have the evidence to prove it but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!



 
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Posted by on March 7, 2010 in Family, foreign travel, Humor, law enforcement, politics, segregation

 

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Sojourn to Botswana . . .

07 Mar

In a recent posting I mentioned a business trip I made to Botswana, Africa via London, England and in that posting I promised—threatened, really—that I would follow up with more details of that trip. One may view that posting by clicking here: I married my barber. Today’s posting is a start to fulfilling that promise—or that threat, depending on how one reacts to my literary efforts.

Sojourn to Botswana

Long, long ago in the past century—1985—I traveled to Botswana under the auspices of the United States’ Department  of State. The purpose of my travel was to represent our government in a law enforcement conference. Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone hosted the conference—every country in Africa was represented except South Africa. That nation was not represented because it was not invited, ostensibly in criticism of its continuing rule of apartheid.

A special note: All the African delegates to the conference were male and black—no exceptions—and all were, in varying degrees, fluent in English. That was especially beneficial to me, because I lack fluency in only two languages—English and Spanish—neither of which is compatible with any of the myriad native languages spoken by representatives of the various African countries. I managed, fairly well, in conversation with the British officer from Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

And that reminds me of President George W. Bush’s answer to a question posed by a reporter prior to the president’s visit to England to meet the queen. The reporter asked the president what he felt was the biggest challenge for him while in England. The president replied, “I may have a problem with the language.”

And some say that George had no sense of humor—imagine that!

The conference leader in Botswana was a representative from the United Nation’s headquarters. Others present included a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the equivalent  of our Central Intelligence Agency. Although I’m at a loss to recall his name, I can cheerfully report that during our ten-day association, I adopted a bit of his British accent and some of his quirky phrases, one of which was a fascinating phrase used to tell someone to expect a phone call at a certain time. We were invited to a dinner with the United States ambassador and his family in his home, and the agent told me, “I’ll knock you up at six.”

Believe me, that’ll make your ears perk up!

Click here for Botswana, a fascinating study of a fascinating country and its people, here for Britian’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and here for our Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These are only suggestions intended to prepare you for future postings regarding my great adventure in 1985—the clicking is not mandatory, but I believe you’ll find all three sites tremendously interesting and educational, and that’s a good thing!

Excerpts from Botswana’s history:

The Republic of Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called “Batswana” (singular: Motswana), regardless of ethnicity.

Geographically the country is flat and up to 70% is covered by the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast.

Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana  adopted  its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. It has held free and fair democratic elections since independence.

The official languages of Botswana are English and Setswana.

In the northern part of Botswana, women in the villages of Etsha and Gumare are noted for their skill at crafting baskets from Mokola Palm and local dyes.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Botswana was estimated at 24% for adults in 2006. Approximately one in six Batswana has HIV, giving Botswana the second highest infection rate in the world after nearby Swaziland.

I flew from Washington’s National Airport to New York’s JFK, then on to England’s Heathrow Airport for an overnight stay, then non-stop to Johannesburg, South Africa. Immediately on landing I was met by two officers from South Africa’s equivalent of our CIA. They first introduced me to an Immigration officer, and that officer secured my passport and retained it throughout my stay in Africa. It was returned to me just before I boarded a flight bound for Germany.

The two agents entertained me for several hours while I waited for my flight to Botswana. They took me on a tour of their headquarters, and then we took an extensive motor tour of the city with my guides (captors?) pointing out and describing points of interest.

And now I must beg for your forgiveness—I’ll leave you hanging in suspense, waiting for a subsequent posting that will provide more details of that story. A single posting cannot possibly cover all the details of my visit to Africa. Each additional posting will be titled Botswana sojourn continued, or some similar phrase.

Stay tuned for more later, and in the interim it might be helpful—informative and intellectually productive—to spend some of the waiting time on the sites highlighted above.

 
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Posted by on March 7, 2010 in foreign travel, Humor, law enforcement, politics, Uncategorized

 

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I married my barber . . .

05 Mar

The above title seemed appropriate at first, but on serious reflection I realized that the title involved certain conclusions that could possibility be drawn by viewers. I therefore hasten to add that my barber is a lady, a lady that I married in 1952 and one that has hung around and tolerated me for the past 57 years, and our union continues in its 58th year with no abatement of the passions that prompted the marriage (that simply means that we still love one another). I can understand my love for her, but I have never fully understood her love for me.

Que sera, sera—whatever will be, will be!

My wife became my barber in 1983, the year that we left the sanctity and security of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and relocated to the Washington, D.C. area following my unlikely promotion to a higher level in my duties as a law-enforcement officer in our federal Civil Service. I managed to endure those duties for three years before I bailed out and returned to Texas—to Houston, not to the Rio Grande Valley—and six months later to San Antonio for an additional ten years in service and retirement in 1997. Texas is our adoptive father and San Antonio is our adoptive mother—we love both, and we intend to remain in that family throughout this life and the next—see, I told you we love them!

The above two paragraphs comprise the foundation for this posting, one that could accurately be titled, “The time my wife cut my hair and my left ear prior to my travel from Arlington, Virginia to New York, NY and on to London, England and Johannesburg, South Africa and finally to Botswana, the capital city of the sovereign nation of Botswana, Africa.” That trip and its several stops, both outbound and return, are fodder for later posts and will be attended to in time. Just as a teaser, I will tell you that at that time, apartheid still ruled in South Africa—click here for details of that nation’s apartheid rule from 1948 until 1994.

I was running a bit behind for my flight out of National Airport (later renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport), but I was desperately in need of a trim. My barber gave me the trim but inadvertently removed a one-inch strip of skin from the outer portion of my left ear, a wound that bled very little but quickly became an unsightly scab—it ultimately healed with no discernible after effects, but that one-inch strip figured prominently in my trip to exotic foreign countries. It became a topic for conversation, and attracted stares from everyone I faced on the trip, including immigration and customs officers, taxi drivers, airline employees and fellow travelers. While few questioned the wound, their gaze invariably strayed from eye contact to ear contact, a really disconcerting situation. It made the viewer appear uninvolved, and somewhat cross-eyed. At first I felt obligated to explain the wound, so I assembled several canned responses to use when someone asked, “What happened to your ear?” I finally gave that up, and either ignored the question or steered the conversation in a different direction. Bummer!

Oh, I just remembered that my mother labeled eyes that seemed to be looking in different directions as “A and P eyes.” She explained that by saying that one looked toward the Atlantic and the other toward the Pacific. I make no apology for her little joke, nor do I feel compelled to apologize for recounting it here. My mother was a lovely lady with no hint of bias of any fashion toward any race, color,  or creed, nor was she biased toward noticeable physical or mental aberrations. And as the adage goes, the fruit never falls far from the tree—like mother, like son—seriously!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2010 in Family, foreign travel, Humor, marriage, Travel

 

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