May 30-31: Who’s On the Case?

First, some business to take care of. Nancy brought to my attention that when I reply to your submitted blog comments you are not getting a notification. Consequently, most of you probably don’t realize that I replied to almost every comment entered, but you would have to go back to the post that you commented on and expand on the comments to see the comments and my replies. This sucks, because most of you probably don’t want to have to go back to the post to see if I replied and what I said. You probably all thought I was just blowing you off, which is NOT the case. I absolutely love getting the comments and replying! I am going to look into a solution for getting a notification when I reply but I am not optimistic. Sorry, I guess my website is just not that sophisticated – or perhaps it is me that is not!

Now for important stuff. For those of you that are following my travels and travails closely, you know that I am in Maun, Botswana, pursing the “Case of the Frontend Alignment Gone Awry”. With 3 alignment shops in Cape Town and now 2 more shops (including a big Toyota Dealer that works a lot on Land Cruisers) in Maun behind me, the mystery of the frontend alignment continues, and to make matters worse, a “jingle” or “rattle” in the back wheel somewhere has been troubling me in the background since the beginning of the journey. Now, I have exhausted all reasonable efforts to resolve this case, right? Well, just about when I was ready to give up, I remembered that I was in Botswana, and you know who is here, don’t you? The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency! So, I sought out the No. 1 Lady Detective, Precious Ramotswe, and put her on the case. In case you don’t believe me, here is a photo of her hot on the case pondering what or who could be sabotaging the Green Dragon:

And, of course, it didn’t take Precious long to solve part of the mystery, as this photo shows:

I am certain with a few more hours, or at most another day, Precious will have solved the case, as she is, after all, the No. 1 detective in Botswana.

OK, for those of you that don’t know what the hell I am talking about, The No. 1 Ladies Dective Agency is a really popular mystery series (22 novels and turned into a TV series) written by Alexander McCall Smith between 1998 and 2022, and Precious is the main character. The lady in the photo is, of course, not Precious, but rather Ona, who is the business manager/admin person for the speciality shop I was in and she reminded me of Precious from the series – really, the spitting image. By the way, Ona knew the book series and loved that she was going to represent Precious in my blog.

The front end alignment is unresolved and will remain as such at least for the duration of this trip, because 20-30 experts have all looked it, poked and stabbed at it, tried this and that, and all failed to find anything wrong that could be causing the problem. But all, to a one, said the vehicle was otherwise in great shape and the perfect vehicle for my journey – so that’s good, right? We did find and fix the “rattle”, which turned out to be a bracket that had fallen off leaving two bolt to rattle around against the suspension. And guess who found the problem, not the mechanics and “experts”, but little old me. Chaulk one up for my team!

Since this is a get to know the locals post, sort of, that some have asked for, I want to tell you about another local that I met and talked to for quite some time. He is a 63 year old man from Maun, married with 5 childen ranging in age from 30 something to 16, and he has a 40 acre farm outside Maun in which he grows potatoes and maize on 20 cleared acres. All of his kids except the youngest one are grown and don’t live at home anymore. NONE of the kids want to be farmers or even help on the farm, so he does ALL the work himself – and he really isn’t the strongest or fittest looking individual to be honest. He desparately wants to expand his farming operation but lacks the labor and financial resources to do so. The country has more or less closed off imports of most produce in an effort to encourage the Batswana people to produce what they need in country. They claim to have funds available to help farmers get going but they require 50% matching funds. This man cannot come up with that kind of money, and even if he did, he might not be able to find any younger person willing to work on the farm. He says that he is the typical case of the rest of the Batswana. Consequently, the produce is not being produced and the import ban or extreme tariffs are in still in place and there are now major shortages of produce. In one example, he said that the local KFC (that’s the really popular fast food joint in Botswana) couldn’t even serve “chips” with their main dishes because of the lack of potatoes (which are grown locally). He says it is a dire situation and he worries for the future. Anyways, I thought you might enjoy this story. I’m only sorry that I forgot to get his photograph.

To finish this post I a want to let you know that I am living the life of luxury tonight. I’m staying at the Old Bridge Backpackers Lodge and Campsite. I am still camping, and have that to myself, but I am writing this post while eating a PIZZA and watching a hippo pool below me that has a hug crocodile on the bank and a big hippo swimming around, snorting, grunting and doing all the crazy things hippos do in pools. Unfortunately, my camera battery died (again) and thus I can’t show pictures of the pool and critters, but I can show you a litle slice of my pool-side accommodations:

I’m off to bed. Cheers all!