Maun

Hello All,

Well all the photos, videos and Gennifre's poem made me tear up several times! What a beautiful thing to see. I spoke with Mariel yesterday and today! What a miracle! She says they are having a great time in Maun after their trip to the Okavanga Delta. She was most impressed with the zebras they saw yesterday morning on the way back from the delta. She says the Merecats are much smaller than they look on TV and really friendly. She has decided that Baboons are really dirty nasty creatures at times! Mariel says they had a wonderful night out on the salt flat at Planet Baobab sleeping on pads and that they did a wonderful ritual together where they all held hands at night in a circle then they all turned around and faced out then broke the circle and walked as far as they had to into the darkness to not be able to see another person. At that point she says it was miraculously quiet and wonderful with a beautiful sky filled with stars. She also says the the sun looks different there. It is not like the sun from America. It is a huge disc and you can look almost straight at it when it sets and rises. She has taken many pictures of the sunrise and sunset. Also, she says Baobab trees are incredible and that she took photos of all the girls in a tree that is over 4,000 years old.

Mariel says she has lots of homework and is learning that her capacity for organization is more than what she thought and that classes are fun and going well. She espeically loves her languages of Africa class. She says all the girls are healthy right now and that they will be going to Namibia tomorrow. They have a new truck driver, PaPa. He will be with them the rest of the trip. She says the food is outrageous in that the have plenty and for all of you who have vegetarians on the trip like she is, there are vegetarian selections at every meal. So that's the Maun report from Mariel! Take care all, Kim