The Bridge

Our second day of respite, we headed to Botswana for a true African Safari at the Chobe Game Preserve.  We, once again, loaded up the van, this time passports in hand.  I've got the front seat! Apparently, we had paperwork to fill out with our passport information, which the Stickney's started, then passed back to the bucking end of the bus, which of course had no chance in hell of getting letters and numbers between lines on a page, so all of the passports were passed up to the front (where I just happen to be sitting) to be recorded and recorded they were in the nick of time.  Talk about pressure!

As we approached the Chobe River, the border of Botswana, we noticed that their was a large traffic jam, 72 eighteen-wheelers by Linda's count.  We drove right by all of them to the front of the line. We all got out of the van, with our filled out paper and passports in hand and walked "around back" to a window to get through customs.  Carol has given us a prepared answers for potential questions, but the customs people do not seem too interested. Back in the van we go!

As we approach the river, it becomes apparent that there is no bridge to go over the river.  As Tom drives through the gate, he gets a little fuss from the guard because our van does not have any markings on it for the House of Moses.  Tom explains that we are not taking the van over, in fact, when he got out of the van he had to go find someone to pay to watch the van while we were gone for the day.   The guy from the Safari company greeted us as we ran the gauntlet of African Craft sellers to get to our private water craft that will take us across.   

The craft sellers are very friendly, they ask your name, where you're from, they share where they are from and explain that they are the actual artist that have created their wares and generally try to engage you in conversation about anything.  One guy approaches Linda and asks her where she comes from, she answers the US and he asks her..."how's Jimmy Carter doing?"  We are still not sure if he thought Jimmy Carter was still president or if something was actually wrong with Jimmy Carter....either way, we got a good laugh out of it.  I tend to think that that was just a great sales pitch because everyone here knows Obama is our president!  

But I digress, because this blog is really about the bridge, or actually the lack of a bridge over the river.  It seems that the hundred 18 wheelers are all waiting for the ferry to get across and the ferry takes one at a time!  One at a time!!!  Most of the truck drivers have to wait for over 2 weeks to get across the river....now THAT's a traffic jam.  Needless to say, there is a little commerce that depends on the trucks being stuck there, food vendors, among other things that might meet the needs of truck drivers stuck in a line for two weeks.  (FYI - Condoms are free in the Immigration Office - due to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, there is quite a public service campaign to remind people to use them).

It is hard for us to believe that any country or anyone could allow this situation to continue without any plans to resolve the problem.  Jannean has actually started a grassroots campaign as she dreams that a Bridge of the River Chobe (you should be whistling by now) can be the start of something big for the 4 countries that meet in the middle of this river - Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. She sees commerce opening up, infrastructure improving, jobs, all lifting the economy and the people here.  Jannean is tenacious in her belief that the bridge will make a difference, if the saying "if there's a will, there's a way" is true, she will have it built.  By the way, she is looking for sponsors (perhaps the Trump Bridge?  Parana pass?  (She is also campaigning hard for a Walmart.....perhaps Sam's Span?)  She will leave no stone unturned.