Happy Birthday, Mr. President--A Merry Botswana Holiday

Americans aren't the only ones that celebrate Presidents' Day! The difference in Botswana is that they don't move it to a Monday or Friday so you get a three-day weekend. Instead, they just leave it right where July 1st happens to fall--this year, in the middle of the week. This may seem impractical (ok, it kind of is), but it is also very nice to not have to go to work on a Wednesday! Here, President's Day celebrates the birthday of the first president of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama--go read up on him; he's a pretty interesting guy.

Unfortunately, there really isn't too much celebration that occurs on this holiday (in this way, somewhat similar to the American holiday counterpart). So there are no pictures of massive patriotic displays of national pride to supplement this blog post (I'm hoping for that at the soccer game this Sunday--Botswana vs. Iran!).

So what DID I do on the holiday? Well, I started celebrating early, and went to a Tuesday night Michael Jackson tribute at the Bull & Bush. A giant screen set up outside was playing MJ videos, and inside on the dance floor MJ hits were blasting. I chatted with a random collection of friends that had shown up for the evening, then we had to hit the dance floor for at least a few tracks.

Getting home at 2 am wasn't a big deal--sleeping in on a Wednesday is fantastic! My flatmate and I had lunch with some friends (two American girls) at a local Indian restaurant, then we went out to the Mokolodi Game Reserve for an afternoon game drive. The reserve is situated only a few kilometers from the center of Gaborone, but has a wide variety of animals given its proximity to the city--you can even pet a cheetah! We opted, however, for the less-expensive option of a game drive, which was somewhat comical.

The guide driving the safari vehicle of about 20 people rarely noticed the animals unless someone told him to stop (luckily, the elephants were an exception to this rule). Even once he stopped, he wouldn't pause for very long before barreling on again--I guess if you see animals all the time, you aren't that impressed by them anymore? The road was incredibly bumpy, and poor Lauren, who was on the outside of the vehicle, had some near misses with overgrown shrubbery, acacia thorns, and a tree the guide informed us was poisonous ("don't touch it, then rub your eyes," he said...but what if you run us into it?). We still managed to see some elephants, kudu, eland, impalas, warthogs, hornbills (think Zazu in the Lion King), and some other birds, but I think next time I'd opt for the horseback safari for three dollars more. It would be a smoother ride.

We got a cab back to our apartment, and turned in relatively early...that's the sad thing about middle-of-the-week holidays--you can't stay up late two, or even three nights in a row.

And now for the requisite animal pictures:

There aren't too many that weren't blurry--the driver was going too fast :)