Of Vultures, Mental Institutions, and the Open Baptist Church

Seriously, this was our weekend. On the recommendation of Charles, my Fulbrighter colleague (the one that is not also Ted's Professor) we headed for a day trip to Lobatse on Saturday. Along the way we stopped at this village called Otse, to see the Mannyelanong Cliffs, which are home to the very endangered Cape Griffon vultures. According to Lonely Planet, Mannyelanong means "where vultures defecate" in Setswana, but I have not been able to confirm this with any native speaker yet. It is hard to make it out in the picture below, but the side of the cliff is almost completely white. Hence the name...



This place was just one giant cliff with many, many vultures resting, nesting, and flying around. I really don't know why, and I didn't expect it, but this was actually one of the coolest things I have seen in a really long time. They seemed to fly in pairs, and you could see them take off from the cliff, circle around overhead for a while, and then go back and land in the cliffs and be completely hidden immediately. The pictures don't do it justice, really.




Some vulture facts from Ted: These birds are huge, with six foot wing spans when fully grown. The cape griffon vultures are more rare than most other types of vultures. There are between 70-100 nesting pairs at this site, with only a few other sites known in the country or the world (we are not sure which). Their habitat needs include remote, south facing cliffs. The remoteness is important because they are very sensitive to noise. Even quiet noises, like donkey carts going by, can startle the birds, knocking babies and eggs out of the nests to their death.

The picture below is my favorite. At several points the sky was just full of the birds like this, maybe thirty of them or so.

We have also included some pictures of the surrounding terrain and village, just to give you a sense of it.

Note the donkey in the picture below. The instructions said to register at the wildlife office, but we didn't really find any such office, despite the sign. Just a teenager in a house - I think we woke him up - and no actual registering took place.

In the picture of Otse village below, you can make out a couple of the traditional round houses or huts with thatched roofs on the left.



The kids sitting on a giant boulder next to the cliffs. Can you make out the inch-thick layer of dust on them? It has become semi-permanent at this point.

Besides the vultures, we drove on into Lobatse and had lunch at the Cumberland hotel (which to me sounds like it should be in West Virginia instead of Botswana. I couldn't find anything to tell me why it had that name.) There was truly little else to see in the town, but it does boast the country's mental hospital, which I was very curious about. We found it, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it didn't look much different, at least on the outside, from something you might find in the States. It had several small buildings and all the doors opened directly to the outdoors. It seemed to be visiting day, and there were lots of cars coming and going, which I was also pleased to see. I was hesitant to take pictures of the actual place, just out of respect or perhaps in fear of a HIPAA violation, so I am representing it with a hastily taken picture of the roadsign pointing to it (the sign says "Mental Hospital").

Lobatse's other claim to fame is the meat processing plant. Seriously - it even says so in the guide books. Here it is: the Botswana Meat Commission.

Aaahh, the ride home. This is actually quite deceptive, as the sleeping only came after Ted insisted on complete silence because they were picking on each other so much and so loudly...

On Sunday, we were invited by my friend Lesego (who I have known since Bloomington; she was in the States doing her Masters at IU the same time I was doing my Ph.D. there) and her family to attend their church: the Open Baptist Church. We had a lovely time, but it was also full of interesting contradictions. It was a very multicultural place, with a big row of flags outside representing all the nationalities of the congregation - there were over twenty at least. Below each flag was a list of needs and prayer concerns of that country (poverty, corruption, AIDS, war, famine, etc). The sanctuary had one entire wall of glass that overlooked this giant wooden cross set in a waterfall outside- beautiful. The pastor was a white man from South Africa, named Norman. Here is where the contradiction came in for me... Honestly, if it weren't for the South

African accent, this pastor could have been preaching at any small protestant church in the middle of Kansas. The sermon had some pretty conservative messages in it that rubbed me the wrong way, but for some reason it felt very comforting to me - like sitting in church in Concordia Kansas, or Hunter Kansas for that matter. So here we are in the middle of Africa, in a church that clearly strives to be multicultural and multinational, and yet I felt like I was 10 years old again, sitting in church in small town Kansas. Interesting.

The kids loved it and said they want to go back every Sunday. This probably had to do with the donuts the church ladies insisted they eat several of; I don't think they realized the donuts were reserved for first time visitors only...