we did another donkey slaughter yesterday but this time the donkey was fat and very healthy, causing a whole load of new guilt to be carried around. this time i heard the air escaping from its throat when they axed it. i didn't cry like the last time but i certainly didn't enjoy it any more than the last time. maybe this time i had the company of a bitch and her puppy. she sat right in front of me and her puppy put her head on my lap and leaned against me while the donkey was killed. i think they did me a great favour and eased a bit of the guilt from me. since the poor dogs were skin and bones, i returned their favour by tossing them random pieces of donkey meat to fatten them a little. they were really emaciated and how i wished i could bring them home and give them a good home.
anyway, today we continued cleaning the wading pool, a tedious job we started the day before. we each took a bucket and tossed the water out from the pool while clean water continued to stream in from the pipe. i knew i should have brought my bikinis with me. it was so hot and our backs were hurting from all that bending and tossing. we gave up again and decided to get the bleach the next time so we could get rid of the gross algae that had invaded the pool.

21 jan 2005
cheetah spoors! we thought they were leopard spoors at first but a quick call to the biologist and the research assistant confirmed it was cheetah spoor. woohoo! if only we can see the cheetah. it might have been loitering around but we missed it. it might be a good idea to be chased by a cheetah to work off the kebabs i had at the braii the night before! not that a cheetah would chase humans of course, the timid cats.
it had been pretty cold today as well as the day before but we carried out our mission to rid the wading pool of algae. we had been cleaning and scrubbing after we managed to borrow a pump to pump all the disgusting water out. now i've got blisters on my hands from all that hard work...

22 jan 2005
it's pancake sunday! the biologist came round to our kitchen and we ate sinful amounts of pancake and talked about blokes and sex. it's been fun, all 4 girls talking and bitching. later in the evening, we went down to a water-hole to try to catch a glimpse of a cheetah. while we waited, we only saw a warthog and a wildebeest that would not stop snorting at us. all that snorting gave us away and we were sure we won't be able to see any cheetahs that way and headed to the biologist's cabin to watch tv, have pizza for dinner and copious amounts of rice crispies treats for our dessert. what a great night!

23 jan 2005
it rained this morning so the transect was caled off. instead, we stayed in to file some data into the computer. we found some papers with information of the activities in mokolodi nature reserve and i would love to go for a rhino trek but it's bloody expensive! oh well, so what if i didn't see any rhinos, i'll be coming back to africa for sure, i'll see the rhinos then.

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i didn't get to see any wild cheetahs but when i got to mokolodi nature reserve, i petted the two tame cheetahs they had, duma and letotse. it was the most amazing and surreal moment in my life. having been so close to the 3 cheetahs at camp, being actually able to stroke one was unbelievable. they were purring like domestic cats and looking so sweet you'd want to bring them home.
this experience in botswana will not be the last, for i intend to go back again. maybe the next time i head back it'll be for work, who knows but i can't wait to leave my footprints on the land that few would want to call home and yet for some strange reason, it's the only place i'm extremely attracted to.