By Sam Gerdts, Saint John’s University
On September 17th I walked into the Minneapolis airport to start an adventure, not fully knowing what to expect. And now I leave knowing that this trip has been an experience of a lifetime and there is no other way to describe it other than simply amazing.
Something that one of our instructors Samara loves to make is a compilation video of traveling and experiences we’ve done throughout the semester. Throughout the semester we took small clips of us dancing and being goofy is a bunch of different areas. Samara then took these and strung them together with a song that is famous in Botswana. This video brought back so many memories throughout the entire semester showing the goofiness, fun, adventure and excitement we all had.
On our final days in Maun we spent a lot of time prepping for our presentations. After our last days in the bush it was a true end to a college semester spending several hours throughout the day working on our final research papers. It’s funny how stereotypical you can get being a college student during these times when you get through the day with greasy food and caffeine. There were a few crucial differences though. Such as the sounds of the African Fish Eagles in the background, the cows crossing the river by our camp, and the burning orange, unforgettable sunsets.
On December 11th we finally made our way over to ORI (Okavango Research Institute) to give our presentations. It was quite an experience to talk about our research to important people within the Delta, including the Chief of Sankuyo, which is where our local Botswana instructor Sixteen is from. After all of our practice we all did very well and sparked a lot of interest in the people who attended.
After that we all bought our final gifts and souvenirs during this time and had our final dinner at Bonty’s, a well known cultural storyteller in the area who holds traditional events for tourists. After spending some time playing games and talking we all sat down on a stage and watched some traditional dances performed by a local dance group. There was one point when I was brought into their dance and one of the girls literally had to tell me to spin because I couldn’t dance as well as they did. Talk about an embarrassing moment, but in all honesty it was really fun and actually very cool to see.
As excited as I am to go back home, I’m sad that I have to leave Botswana. Not only do I leave a country that is home to some of the most amazing wildlife in the world, I leave the people that I shared this amazing experience with. It has been a great pleasure to get to know all of my fellow students on this trip. I couldn’t imagine being on this trip with any other group. I also have to say goodbye to my instructors Samara, Kaggie, and Sixteen. These three have taught me so much about what it is like to conduct work in the field, as well as so many things academically through our classes. Not only that, they taught us all a lot of small skills that will be helpful in the future, and for that I am very thankful.
Since Sixteen has lived in Botswana his entire life, he decided to teach us a little bit of his local Setswana language, which was very helpful in communicating and interacting with locals. They always loved it when we were able say a couple of phrases in Setswana. One of my favorite phrases that I learned was “Botshelo bo monate mo Botswana,” which translates to “Life is good in Botswana.” And I could not agree more.
