So, what is Botswana like?

Describing a new country taxes the skills of the best of writers, let alone a hack like myself, but here is a brief initial attempt.

After an all-night flight from London to Johannesburg, we walked the interminable distance across the Joburg terminal, smiling at the willowy 7 foot tall carved African figures, intensely colored beads, and Nelson Mandela figurines in the gift shops, and got in line for our transfer to Gaborone. The Asians are really flexing their financial muscles in Africa - probably two thirds of the people in the international transfer area were Chinese businesspeople, going to development projects all over sub-Saharan Africa.

We haven't figured out precisely what is at work, but having an African as a family member seems to be an enormous advantage while traveling here - we were, as often happens in our African travels, singled out by an airport official and escorted to the front of a very long line to clear customs and immigration.

Airborne and flying northwest from Joburg on a South African Airways Airbus, the land was atypically green. They've had good rain here the last couple of months, and the trees and brush make a verdant contrast with the predominant brown soil. It was mostly flat savanna on our 40 minute flight, with some rocky hills some 1200-1500 feet in height appearing as we were about halfway done with our descent into Gabs.

The city sprawls over a larger area than its 300,000 or so residents might suggest, with gleaming silver buildings downtown showcasing the country's relative prosperity due to its enviable position as the #1 diamond producer in the world. Temperatures were in the low 80's as we stepped off the plane into bright sunshine, with humidity mercifully lower than we remember from our days in Guinea and Mozambique. It is the beginning of autumn here, transitioning from hot and "rainy" (as rainy as you can call a place that gets something like 6-8" annually) to cooler and drier.

We had our entire lives packed into eight "action packers" - plastic boxes that push the boundaries of airline luggage allowances - and as expected only one of them showed up. We filed our missing luggage claim, prayed that they hadn't been torn into by ground handlers in South Africa, cleared immigration without a hitch, and emerged in the terminal to the warmest of Flying Mission welcomes. A full ten people showed up to greet us, from the CEO on down, and we were taken to a very ample guest house about 15 minutes away, stocked by our good hosts with food, bedding, and even toys for the kids.

Caleb slept 13 1/2 hours that night, and the rest of us weren't far short of that.

In our next entry, our first trip to the grocery store, and perhaps some pics of our stay in London.

One final note: We apologize that our posts thus far have been so meager. Internet connectivity has been a real challenge, and so far the connections we have found have been a bit dicey. I keep pushing the "send/receive" button for email, and to find half an hour later that all I have is an error message. We won't have internet at home for a month or two. And we've been encouraged to hold off on public photography. African officials are sensitive to it, and people have run afoul of the authorities for snapping away before the get the lay of the land. We'll do our best to get some images posted here shortly.