Retreat

My office went on a retreat at the end of March. About 100 people went down to Rustenberg, South Africa on Thursday (we left the office at 0630, the sun had just come up). We had two buses of people. The worst part was waiting in line at the borders. We finally got to the lodge at 11:30. Our rooms weren't ready yet, so we got our color-coded polo shirts, sat around for a while, then ate lunch. The food was pretty good, especially considering it was a buffet. After lunch, we changed into our shirts and did our team-building activities. We had a tug of war, did the trust fall (yes, I did the trust fall, and I managed to keep my arms crossed over my chest; someone on another team didn't and a co-worker had to go to the ER and get stitches), passed a glass of water down the line using only our bare feet, did a few other team activities, then we beat some drums (my second favorite activity), and the best part was what my team did last, rode ATV's around a field! The entire afternoon was a blast! The winning team got to eat dinner with the director in an old converted train car. From what I heard, those of us that "lost" had the better food. They had a buffet again, but they also had made to order stir-fry. It was great!
The next morning they had a breakfast buffet, or cereal, pastries, fruit, and made to order omelets. We spent most of the day listening to presentations by the section heads. We had dinner next to the pool. They set up big, round tables for us and 2 smaller buffet lines. They had a chocolate mousse for dessert (among other things) that was simply awesome! Later that night we had a talent show. It didn't finish until after midnight. I (along with most of the other people) took the early bus the next morning. It was crowded, but I wanted to get home.
One bad thing about the place were the maintenance issues with my room. It was a nice size. You walked in through a sliding glass door, into a tiled sitting area (good thing it was tiled!). The bathroom was on the left, then there was another door in front of you leading into the bedroom. The bedroom had a vanity, small fridge, king size bed, wardrobe, and small dining table with two chairs. When I first went in, the lights in the bathroom, over the vanity, and over the dining table wouldn't come on, and I couldn't lock the sliding glass door. It was extremely annoying, to say the least!
There was a metal box on the wall with an electronic key in it. They had the same thing in the hotel in Lusaka, Zambia. That hotel used electronic keys to open the room doors, so you could only have the electricity on (ALL electricity, including the little fridge) when you were in the room. Back to Rustenberg, I tried playing with the card, but the lights still wouldn't come on. I gave up, as I had to go to the team-building activities. I struggled with the key to lock the sliding glass door. My boss was in the next room. She tried to lock it when she saw me. No luck. I stopped someone from the resort walking by, he didn't have any luck either. I finally had to leave it unlocked while one of the employees waited for a maintenance person to fix the lock. It was working after I got back to my room around dinner time.
The other issue with the room was the shower/tub. The first time I took a shower the tiled entry way was almost completely flooded! I didn't realize it until I finished my shower. There was about an 8" shelf on the end of the tub where the shower head was located. One end of the shower curtain was secured to the wall underneath the shower head. This didn't prevent water from seeping out between the shower curtain and the shelf and flowing across the tiled floor. I think the water went all the way to the opposite wall, but I didn't move the couch to find out. It was a good thing I had extra towels in my room. I think it took me longer to clean up the water than it did to take the shower! I took a bath the next night, so I didn't have to clean up all that water.
Other than my room issues, it really was a great few days! I had a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed meeting and talking to many co-workers from Francistown and our other offices in Gaborone.

Injured rhino

Charging rhino!

Rhino weekend, Part 2

Our second day at Khama was more eventful than the first one. (Think the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!") After we found the cache, we went driving around. I took a LOT of pictures. A few are really good. Eventually we found some rhinos. Man, did we find them. It must have been Mike's rhino call ("Here, rhino, rhino, rhino!") The first two we saw through a bunch of bushes well off the road (road is being generous, it was just a sand path through the bushes and trees). The third one got too close for comfort. We went around a corner, and BAM! There she was about 20 feet in front of us. We stopped the car and started taking pictures of her. When she turned to the side I could see she was injured (two pictures of her to follow). She had a huge gaping gash going 3/4 of the way up her side. I could see blood and what I thought was fat. She came towards us the first time and we took more pictures. Then she stood there for a minute. Then she turned back towards the bushes. When she had her front two legs off the road, she turned around and started trotting back towards us. The rhino did this a couple more times, while we just sat there. She seemed to turn back towards us when the other woman in our car zoomed in or out with her camera. The second time she stopped about 8 feet in front of us! That got my heart going! We stopped taking pictures after the second time she charged us. Eventually she went off into the bush. Once she got about 10 feet past the road, Mike zoomed out of there! A few minutes later we turned another corner and about 30 feet in front of us were three rhinos even bigger than the last one. Two were in the road and the other was right next to it. They ignored us, luckily. We just sat there as they ate their way into the bush. Those were the last rhinos we saw in the park. Believe me, none of us were too upset by that fact.

Once we left the road where we saw the rhinos, Mike found a perfect place to bury our cache. After we did that, we drove around for a while longer. No other sights got my heart pumping like the injured rhino, though. When we got back our squaredeval there was a good fire going underneath the water barrel for showers. I actually had to keep turning off the water during my shower, as it was too hot! There was one "ablutions" building (two toilets and two showers) for the three squaredevals at our camp. Of course, there was no electricity, so I went to bed about 7:30.

The next morning, we told the person at the front desk about the injured rhino while we were checking out. She told us the rhino was a mother, and that one of the other rhinos caused her injury. One of the guides was standing outside the office and he told us we should have backed out of there as soon as she started coming towards us. I had thought about backing up when she charged us, but rejected the idea, because our car makes a loud, annoying noise when we back up. (It doesn't now, though, because Mike found and disconnected that speaker. Now if we could just figure out where the beeping when you go over 105 kph is coming from :)

Overall, it was a great weekend. It was the first time I got out of Gabs and got to see some of Botswana.