Keith Kenney spent eight weeks in Botswana. As part of his responsibilities as a volunteer for BONEPWA (Botswana Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS), Kenney conducted a one-week workshop on improving interpersonal and group communication skills. More than 25 PLA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) learned how to improve their public speaking skills, tell their children and family members of their positive status, and work together in support groups.

Kenney also worked with faculty at the University of Botswana in order to plan a response to a call for proposals by the NIH (National Institute of Health). These NIH grants will support the improvement of social science research in HIV/AIDS in developing countries. USC and UB continue to collaborate on the proposal. Kenney also conducted a one-day workshop for news photographers in Gaborone.

In addition, Kenney was one of 70 people who walked across a salt pan for three day, raising more than $55,000 for charity.

In the Footsteps of Flamingoes
By Keith Kenney

I am walking in a row with four Batswana. We have not said a word since our last rest stop three miles ago. Ahead are other rows of walkers and behind, spread out over a half mile, is a column of walkers. This is our third and final day in the Sua Pan in Botswana. Sua is the Tswana word for salt.

I am looking down at the hardened footprints of flamingoes that had been filtering the shallow water for nutrients four months ago in the rainy season. Wherever I step, the dried mud surface of this shallow lake crunches. Since the five of us are walking at exactly the same pace, we make a steady sound. The consistent sound, consistent view and consistent motion of our arms and legs bring relief. We have been walking for three days and have covered almost 75 miles. We are tired.

When I look up, I see the horizon. The horizon is always there. We can see the uninterrupted horizon in all directions all of the time. There are no trees, or electric poles, or buildings. There is not even a single blade of grass in this area because nothing can survive in the pan. The ground is too salty.

In the summer, which is in January and February in Botswana, the Sua, Nxai and Ntwetwe Pans fill with water. People would have difficulty crossing the pan in summer, not because of the water — it only gets inches deep — but because of the gray clay that holds one’s shoes like quicksand. Flamingoes are light, and they have large three-toed feet that preventing them from sinking too deep. Otherwise, they too would have difficulty removing their feet from the lake bed.

In the winter, in June and July, only imaginary lakes exist in the three pans. We see mirages in the distance, but there is no water, only gray, salty mud. Collectively called Makgadikgadi Pans, they are the largest in the world, covering more than 12,000 square kilometers, an area almost the size of Portugal. Even in the dry season, though, it may be too wet for quads. We need our support team to bring water and snacks on the four-wheel-drive buggies with knobby tires. We drink a liter every hour.

Experts believe the pans were once part of a huge lake, five times the size of today’s pans, covering much of northern Botswana. Less than 10,000 years ago, however, the Chobe and Zambezi rivers were diverted from the lake, and as the lake shrank, the water’s salinity increased. Climatic change and seismic upheavals also helped transform the “super lake” into a sun-baked plain of salt.

When the environment offers nothing, the support team must provide everything. Trucks carrying our camping gear, food and water travel on dirt tracks on the perimeter of the pan. One night, a truck arrived with a generator, satellite dish and large television so we could watch Trinidad & Tobago shock Sweden in a scoreless game of the first round of the World Cup finals.

The support team and walkers are working together to raise money for Y Care Charitable Trust. This is the fourth Makgadikgadi Pans walk, and its most successful one. Dr. Nomsa Mbere, the chairperson, said that approximately P250,000 (about $50,000) was raised from different corporate sponsors and individuals. Eight nonprofit organizations will benefit.

We walk ten hours a day, for three days, and about half of us develop blisters. The two medics who walk with us treat their blistered feet, but the pain remains, and the walkers continue, although their strides shorten, and they sway more, so they arrive at the break points later than others.

We all soak our feet in tubs of warm salt water in the evenings, whether we have blisters or not. As we sit in camp chairs around a fire made from wood hauled in by the support team, the medics do not rest. They move around the circle, rubbing ointment into sore muscles and tight calves. But the medics do more; they slowly, carefully massage each walker’s feet. Everyone likes the medics.

We like the cooks too. In Botswana, it is not offensive to describe someone shaped like our cook as a fat lady, but if you want to err on the safe side, you could say she is traditionally built. She can lower into the fire huge pots of water for making rice, and she can lift out of the fire other huge pots of beef, chicken or goat. Batswana like meat. As boys they were cattle herders; as men they are cattle owners. They need cattle for weddings and funerals. They also have chickens and goats for lesser occasions.

Although the food was fine, we didn’t leave the capital and drive north for six hours in order to eat the same food we enjoy back in Gabarone. We came to experience the emptiness of one of the largest pans in the world.

People who like minimalist art would enjoy large pans. When there are few lines, shapes and colors to observe in a painting, for example, we study carefully the few elements that are present. In the pan, we study the white lines of sunlight in the sky. We study the shapes of clouds and the way the colors of the sky change from a brown-blue near the horizon, to a slight blue above and then a darker, more saturated shade above. The air lacks haze or pollution so we can see for 15 miles. We see the sky without looking up because the straight horizon is always in front of us, at eye level, as well as on both sides and behind. We are walking on the flat surface of a hemisphere and from the ground-up are the varied sights of the sky.

Of course, I notice the sky more in the morning, when I am fresh from a night’s rest, and the color of the light and of the sky are changing minute-by-minute. We eat breakfast at 5 a.m. and begin walking at 6, before the top edge of the sun has appeared on the horizon. When I am working, in Columbia, S.C., I pay attention to the sun rising approximately every ... Well, it doesn’t matter; even when I notice a sunrise, my attention quickly returns to the cars ahead of me on the road or to the coffeemaker inside my house. I do not normally stand around and admire the entire process. In the pan, we saw the blue-gray sky slowly develop a pinch of rouge, and then, suddenly, orange. Then bright yellow below the low clouds and vivid blue above. Then more red everywhere. It is a two-hour show and no waiting in line and no tickets are needed.

Later in the morning, when the excitement subsides, and the sky returns to its normal gradation of blues, our sense of sight rests. In the absence of much to see, our other senses take over. We notice that the crunching sound has changed. It is more like walking on Rice Krispies now because a thin layer of surface mud is crumbling into small pieces under foot. Earlier, it sounded as if we were walking on a thin carpet. Before that, I had heard the sounds of cake dough being beaten by hand. The sounds change because the elevation is changing. Not much; maybe an inch upwards or down every few miles, but we know it is changing because the water content of the mud is making the sound change.

I try to pay less attention to the other three senses. The smell is more on the unpleasant than the pleasant side, but not by much. If a perfume company wanted to sell the smell, it would advertise the aroma as a gentle reminder of a salt marsh with little decay. Our sense of taste is limited to the taste of mineral water hauled from Gabarone except for those few times, much welcomed, when someone offers, and I accept, a much needed Gummi Bear candy. As for the sense of touch, there is so much screaming we can only pay attention to whichever area is loudest. For one walker, it is a blister that covers the entire sole of one foot, which the medic says is 1 percent of his body area. For another, it is a leg cramp. The lucky walkers are worried about sunburned necks and noses or blistered lips. Fortunately, we need not worry about heat or cold since our body temperature is easily adjusted. As the day progresses, we just take things off and put them on the quads until late in the afternoon when it is time to retrieve our extra light jackets and change back to knit hats.

Kubu Island is an exception to the ethereal austerity of the pans. This 20-meter high and one kilometer-long rock outcrop contains more than 100 baobab trees and a rich history. Many of the island’s rocks are white, covered in ancient, fossilized guano from the water birds that used to perch here when it was surrounded by the lake. The remains of crescent-shaped stonewall date from sometime between 1400 and 1600, during the dynasty of the Great Zimbabwe. According to our guide, as well as archaeologists, Kubu Island was once a remote circumcision camp, where boys of the tribe were taken for circumcision and ceremonies leading to adulthood. Ancient people considered the island sacred. They would sing a particular song for rain, break a pot full of water, and then leave offerings on the ground. We honored the sacred traditions with a minute of silence.

For me, the trip offered an ideal mixture of silence and conversation. If you are a white person, like me, visiting southern Africa for only a couple of months, it can take a while to have meaningful conversations with a cross-section of society. The common struggle of crossing the pan, however, quickly binds the group together. I happen to fall into step with someone and we end up talking about the distribution of land in Botswana, or how the problem of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS is subsiding, or how documentary films get made for Botswana TV, or about the year of national service that had been required of teenagers, or of many other less serious, but equally interesting topics. If you want to know the people of Botswana, walking the Makgadikgadi Pans with Y Care would be a great start.

After our seventh, and last rest stop on the final day, we prepare for the last three-mile walk back to our bus. From now on, we walk as a united mass. The Batswana in our group begin to sing, and ex-pats such as myself find some renewed energy as we drag our tired bodies forward. The men take the bass parts; the women sing the alto and soprano roles. As we get closer, everyone who physically can, begins to dance to the singing. The pace quickens with the dance steps.

Finally we arrive, and the people of Sowa Village welcome us with congratulations. School children in traditional costumes dance. Food and drink wait for us inside a large tent. A couple of blessedly short speeches are made, and we are invited inside to eat chicken and rice and to drink beer and cider.

As we enter the tent, pula. The rain POURS down. People shout pu-la, pu-la, pu-la. The improbable has happened. It has rained in June, and rain is always greatly welcomed in dry Botswana. I smile. It was a wonderful trip. We saw an unusual place, successfully met a physical challenge, and helped raise money for non-profits.

Keith Kenney is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at USC. He has taught and studied abroad in China, India and Italy.