Ghanzi Adventures

Our trip to Ghanzi Saturday morning began as an adventure and continued so until our arrival eight hours later. Our very considerate taxi driver took us through the maze of bus ranks at the Gaborone bus station, almost every available space around the buses occupied by venders' stalls and a throng of people, to the Ghanzi bus, an aging but comfortable Volvo. As soon as we were seated, a parade of hawkers entered the bus, determined to sell us candy, drinks, food, wallets, key chains, or whatever, most responding to a shake of our heads, a few much more determined that we must buy their wares. Shortly after the scheduled time, 10:00 a.m., the bus began to move slowly through the maze and out into the streets. We were soon speeding down the highway toward Ghanzi, 700 km northwest, stopping occasionally to pick up passengers in the city. Major stops were at Jwaneng (a diamond town) where women surrounded the bus, selling lunches and drinks, and at a truck stop/ gasoline station in Kang. By this time, our surroundings were flat desert with few signs of population other than animals: donkeys, cows, goats, ostriches beside the road and often on the road. About 5:00 p.m. and 70 km from Ghanzi, the bus slowed to a stop. We soon realized there was engine trouble. The engine was beside the driver. A large "hood" is removed and smoke and the smell of overheating fills the bus. The driver adds a large quantity of oil, and the trip resumes at far less speed than the over 120 km speed limit we had been traveling up to then. The bus limps slowly into Ghanzi, our arrival 45 minutes later than scheduled.

Jim and Jan Lundeen waited for us at the bus stand, and we walked a block to their house. It was great to see them in their new element, browned by the elements of their desert setting. We enjoyed an evening of dinner and conversation, catching up on their life and work in Ghanzi (pronounced HAHN-zee, incidentally), getting to bed fairly early after our long day of travel.

Sunday turned out to be a day of remarkable adventure. At 8:00 a.m., the four of us are picked up by Jahn Wessels, the Reformed Church missionary in the Ghanzi district. He tells us quickly about his morning problems: a neighbor's goat had invaded his yard, eaten all of his garden, and ended up in the back of his pick-up to be transported back to its mother. Thus, when we arrive at his house to collect his wife and two children, the hose is brought out to thoroughly wash away the obvious evidence of the goat passenger so that the back of the pick-up would be suitable for human passengers. Presently, we are off on an 85 km trip--at speeds up to 160 km/hr--to Chobokwani, where the first of two bush church services will take place. Jahn's first act is to ring the church bell for five minutes, while Beppi, his wife, sets up tea and biscuits for her guests. Well fed, we then set out for a walk, stopping at two homes (thatched-roof rondavels) of church families. The people in Chobokwani, and much of the Ghanzi district, are San, a tribe with ancient history in southern Africa, often a history of abuse and displacement by whites and other African tribes. These are the people who make up the church group, probably 50 people, mostly young people and children, who eventually gather in the church shelter, sitting on narrow, backless benches, and the service begins. Compared to the Methodist services in which we participated in Zimbabwe, this service is subdued, but the singing is marvelously harmonic. Jahn preaches the sermon, then gives me an opportunity to speak briefly. Altogether, it is an amazing, first-time experience.

After a snack of bread and tea, we again board the pick-up, this time accompanied by a second pick-up, the boxes of each packed with young people, and we are off to the second service with San that work on a farm belonging to white Christians. This trip is 40 km, except for the first five or six, on rough, sand roads, at 50-60 km/hr, stopping several times to open and close gates, as we drive deep into the desert bush to the cattle farm (ranch, in America) that is our destination. There, Jahn takes us first to a small compound of San houses, and soon people are walking across the sand--here, eaten bare except for the high branches of trees, by the flock of goats that are nearby--to the yard near the farm house. There is no church bell, but soon about 70 people, again mostly young and including the 30 or so young people who have come with us from Chobokwani, have gathered, sitting in a circle on the sand. Again, Jahn Wessels leads a service much like the service we had attended earlier, the singing usually soft and beautifully harmonic, no clapping, no dancing, but quiet and worshipful. The service ends, the people walk away toward their homes, we visit for a while with the couple who own the farm and employ the people with whom we had worshipped. Then, we return to bouncing down the road, back to Chobokwani and a delicious dinner Beppi has prepared for us over an open fire while we were away. That finished, we set out for Ghanzi in the darkness, at much slower speeds so that Jahn can avoid hitting the animals, mostly cows that graze here and there near the road.

Today dawns cloudy, surprising the people who expect relentless sunshine at this time of year. Jim and Jan remark that there have been no clouds since they arrived three months ago. Annette and I go with them to their offices, Annette with Jan, I with Jim, in time for the 7:30 a.m. devotions that open the day in the government offices where they work. We hear singing, preaching, and praying, starting the day for these workers, whose major concern is the HIV/AIDS epidemic that infects about a third of their people. Later today, after a trip with Jahn to another San village, we will attend a prayer meeting at the Community Center, involving many of Jim and Jan's co-workers, with prayers specifically centered about meeting the challenge of HIV/AIDS in the Ghanzi district. Perhaps you will join with us at that time (11:30 a.m. EDT).