We made it to the Borro village, where we would get to meet our makoro polers who would be our guides in the Delta. We packed our bags into the makoros which are similar to canoes. Each makoro could hold to people in addition to the poler, and since I was traveling alone, I rode with our cook Mxolisi. At first I was intimidated by his quiet and serious demeanor, but little did i know, his true personality would come about during these next two amazing days. Our poler's name was Tampo, who lived in the village nearby but worked twice a week taking people to the Delta. The ride was about an hour and a half long as we sat staring at the sky, watching the reeds brush our faces, looking for crocodiles in the water, and talking to Tampo who was maneuvering the makoro, gondola style, taking a long stick and pushing it into the river bed to put us in motion.
After arriving at our secluded destination, we were given a brief talk about how to avoid running into lions and elephants or at least how to remain safe around them. We were also given information about the lou which was basically a whole in the ground where if we had to go, we would do our business, and then take a shovel to cover our mess. The island in the Delta that we were on was called Marrapula and it was beautiful. We set up camp and as people played Uno, I asked one of the polers to show me how to operate the makuro properly.
Warrior sat on the opposite side of the boat,, guiding me with only a few words in english. The words consisted of either, put the stick close to the boat, far from the boat, in the ground, or just stroke. It was a much harder task then it looks to be and as my face turned red from embarrassment of barely being able to make our boat move, Warrior and I tried to make small talk. He asked me about life back at home, and my family. He asked what my favorite movies were and what kind of music I liked. He also continuously asked if I was tired, which I probably should have been if I were poling correctly. I learned that Warrior had just turned 21, and as of 3 months ago has been living with his uncle, his only family member he has left. His favorite band is Greenday and his favorite movie is Wrong Turn. He has 6 tattoos and doesn't haven't a girlfriend in his village because he says all the girls talk to much. After awhile, I couldn't think of anything left to talk about because it was hard to find something in common with someone who lives in a completely different world than I do as well as having a pretty strong language barrier between us. Warrior took over poling and we passed all of my friends trying to get the hang of it as well. We went down pathways covered with reeds completely secluded from reality, and sitting in silence, I felt as if I were in a dream until we hit the dusty shores again and got out.
That evening we had a game walk to see if we could spot any animals. We walked for about 2 hours and saw no animals except for a few birds. It was clear that the area we were walking in had recently been burnt down through brush fires, which decreased the likely hood of us seeing anything other than a spectacular sunset.
After arriving back, Mxolisi made the most wonderful spaghetti I had ever tasted, which isn't surprising because all of the food he has cooked has been incredible. We all played Uno, and taught all of our polers how to play to, luckily its an easy game to catch onto or else the language barrior may have been a struggle. The main languages of our polers was Tswana, the native language to Botswana. I was very inspired to learn a lot more languages after this trip because I realized how important language actually is in developing relationships with people. I sat by the fire and after spending a while trying to guess what the others were saying I became frustrated and went to sit in the makuro which was in the water and look up at the stars. The makuros aren't safe to take out at night because of the hippos, but i was fine sitting in mine which was halfway on the land. The stars were breathtaking in the fantasy land of the delta. Wesley, my trip leader came out and we ended up talking throughout the night by the fire about things such as the education in South Africa, his life growing up, as well as mine. After hearing some strange noises in the brush though we both made our separate ways back to our tents, to find out in the morning that the noises we had heard was from an elephant that was wandering nearby our camp. Oh the adventures of the Delta.
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