…not the warmest WELCOME, but HOME indeed.

WARNING : The graphic nature of the picture on the left may upset certain readers.  The author wishes to assure everyone that it is an authentic representation of the condition of her fingers during winter.  No edits, enhancements or manipulations were performed on the picture.  It is the raw real deal!

We arrived home from an eight-day trip to Botswana late yesterday afternoon.  It was immediately evident that there was a sudden, crisp chill in the air.  It would appear that my fellow Free Staters fervently flung open the invitational gates and sounded the welcoming bell to winter.  Winter accepted and entered.  The bell cannot be unrung and my favourite season, Summer, is now just an evanescent whisper…

We have not yet hit the sub-zero temperatures, but last night after unpacking, my pallid numb fingers so vividly reminded me of what is to come…and I am NOT looking forward to it.  However, while prepping all of my heating devices and re-establishing healthy circulation to my fingers under warm running water, I was also reminded of how beautifully I experienced Psalm 8 during our recent trip, despite the very real challenges.

For the first time in the five years we have travelled to Botswana on business, we’ve had the opportunity to also marvel at and appreciate the awesome beauty of our neighbouring country as tourists.  I have witnessed the heavens open up in torrential downpours upon vast open African landscapes alternating in vegetation between bushveld and savanna.  We have travelled on interesting traffic paths, which could well have been classified as roads in the past.  I suspect that what may have likely started as potholes, have progressively expanded into giant craters which crumbled the tar/cement support structures and then swallowed it in, almost whole.  There is no doubt in my mind that the current season of unusually heavy rainfall still significantly contributes to the deterioration of the roads, but it is also reassuring to observe the major efforts in road construction visible almost everywhere.

We were navigated through car dips (yes, like cattle dips, but for cars) and we had to dip ALL of our shoes in dip trays at various check points along the way.  Although these initiatives are implemented by local government as campaigns to combat the spread of the dreaded viral foot-and-mouth disease, it pushed a few of my uncomfortable buttons.  The lack of any detectable chemical odour and the dodgy presentation of the filthy content of the shoe dip trays, had me contemplating the vast array of E.coli and other bacterial strains possibly floating around in those giant Petri dishes.  As a city girl, not even my outdoor shoes are exposed to any farmland hazards, and therefore, my shoes pose only an imaginary risk.  However, I had to appease nervous officials in a gesture whereby I wash off an albeit imaginary disclosed disease while exposing it to a cesspool of undisclosed diseases.  I am still working on my SMILE AND WAVE execution during those times when I am expected to oblige to uncomfortable directives.

Upon planning our roundtrip of almost 3,000 kilometres, we set out to witness the flamingo migration at the Sua salt pans during the past weekend.  During our drive to Nata Lodge, we decided to also include a drive out to Elephant Sands while there.  On Friday night, we signed up for a sunset drive into the bird sanctuary of the Sua/Makgadikgadi salt pans.  Among all of the natural beauty we observed, there was a particular 800-year-old Baobab tree and probably the most exquisite sunset I have ever had the privilege of witnessing (centre pic on the right).  Due to the rain, the salt pans were converted into giant lakes which contributed to the uniqueness of the sunset which I captured on my iPhone.  Although we did not see even a single flamingo, I was filled with awe and wonder and left there in the dark while my mind was making every effort to process it all.  That Baobab tree existed during a time when the Black Death (1347-) exterminated hundreds of millions of people all over the globe!

On Saturday we drove to Elephant Sands, hoping to see some elephants up close and personal.  We sat down to enjoy lunch on a terrace adjacent to a large watering hole.  The accommodation around the watering hole reminded me of a scene from The Crown, where a newlywed princess Elizabeth and prince Phillip stayed in similar accommodation in Botswana. After lunch a few cheeky hornbills cozied up to me and allowed me to snap a few pics of them.  The cheekiest two had bills the colour of what I can only accurately describe as pinkish vomit — that very colour of that which is expelled from the mouth of a two-year-old who has eaten way too much strawberry yogurt and pink zoo cookies.  The pink-vomit-billed hornbills ventured right onto the table and, after posing for a satisfactory number of up close iPhone snapshots, they snatched up some of my leftover chips and flew away.  Although the hornbills certainly provided unexpected entertainment (bottom pic), not a single elephant visited the watering hole and we left there without catching a glimpse of even a single elephant.

Our drive back home took 16 hours over two days and it gave me plenty of time to reminisce.  I did not see the flamingos, I did not see the elephants, but I saw something far more spectacular than I could have ever dreamt of or hoped for.  I looked up to the heavens and out to the horizon and I considered creation.  Words fail to express the glorious rich beauty of a perfectly timed cosmos, set into place by a majestic Creator.  Yet, He is my Lord and my God and He is mindful of me, the one with the random mind (which AI cannot ever imitate) and who gets bent out of shape far more than what I am sometimes willing to admit to.  We crossed the Tlokweng/Kopfontein border post (between Botswana and South Africa) without spotting a flamingo or an elephant.  But, just a few kilometres into South Africa, we spotted an elephant next to the fence of a game farm and we snapped a few pics (bottom pic on the right).  At Soutpan (about 45km before Bloemfontein), we noticed a vast collection of specks on the horizon on the salt pan and, again, we snapped a few pics (top pic on the right).  As it turns out, the specks were indeed flamingos, but we were simply too far away to see clearly and there was no way to close in to them.  We arrived home with pics of an elephant and flamingo specks, a vivid reminder that our Creator is most certainly mindful of us!

Incidentally, Queen Elizabeth II would have been 100 years old today if she didn’t pass away one week into Spring (of the southern hemisphere, of course) of 2022.

Oh yes, and there are only 133 sleepies left to Spring 2026!

“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  —Psalms‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬, ‭3‬-‭4‬, ‭6‬-‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬