whoops

So... I haven't updated in ages. I'm going to cop out again today and just write about a few things that have been going on in my life, and hopefully later this week I'll get my act together and write something more serious.

Looking back at my trusty Mozilla Sunbird calendar of the past 2 weeks, I've done the following:

- Went to a birthday party for K, on the game farm he manages outside of Ghanzi. A bunch of people from Maun came up for the party, which is nothing short of a miracle - it's like pulling teeth to get Maun people to come to Ghanzi. They revile it as a sleepy cattle post full of inbred Boer rednecks. Likewise, it's difficult to get Ghanzi people to go to Maun - that debauched bordello full of immoral city folk and their crazy ideas! Come on, people. Bridge the gap. K's birthday party did involve both Ghanzi people and Maun people, but for the most part they stuck to opposite ends of the party, going so far as to set up two strictly segregated beer pong tables. Le sigh. We did have a spit-braaied warthog, which was pretty exciting - I'll post pictures once I've gotten them off of my camera.

- Spotted the following Live! Wild Mammals: Brown hyena (spotted on the side of the road between Ghanzi and D'kar - awesome!), Porcupine (always fun to see - they look so busy, shuffling around industriously with all of their quills dragging behind them), Giraffe, Kudu, Impala, Springbok, Jackal, Warthog, Dormouse (ok, this one was dead - killed by my cats), at least 2 species of bat, Mongoose, Squirrel, Waterbuck, Red Hartebeest, Blue Wildebeest, Black Wildebeest, Springhare, Rabbit.

- Eaten the following animals: Cow, Kudu, Chicken, Warthog, Pig, Tuna (canned).

- Handed out copies of the Environmental Impact Assessment to various government offices, all of whom responded to the 200-pg tome by saying, "Ah! But this is too long! I will never read it!" (Not so encouraging...)

- Argued endlessly with the donor about our disbursement request, going so far as to write an irate and stiffly formal six-page letter full of passive-agressive bureaucrat-speak. I dislike writing letters like that, but they do roll off the keyboard so easily - six pages in no time at all, when all you're doing is repeating things like, "in light of our earlier agreement..." "when taking into consideration the financial situation currently experienced by the trust..." "it was the impression of the Trust that..." etc etc etc. I hate doing this, but when dealing with a giant bureaucracy, writing an endless series of letters is often a very effective tactic; if you keep writing letters, they can't give you an outright "no."

- Acquired a boyfriend. Sort of. We'll call him AH.

Okay, cheers for now! Upcoming: pictures of the warthog!