My name is Lavinia Flaherty and I’m a 2010 International participant of Northern Youth Abroad. My placement is in Maun, Botswana.
Maun is awesome so far. I’m having a lot of fun at work, with my mates and when we travel to places like Ghanzi, Okavango Delta and Moremi Game Reserve. On our first trip, which was to Ghanzi, we went for a bush walk and they danced for us in their own traditional way. It was so cool to see it in person for the first time. I’ve seen it a lot on the television and always wanted to see the San people in person and I did, it was so awesome. When we went for a bush walk, they showed us what they use for medicine and food. I was very amused. I’m happy we went on that trip.
Second trip was to Okavango Delta. On that trip we went on a mokoro to get to the Island where we were going to walk the circle island and see animals. My favorite part was when we were on the mokoro. There was an elder who brought us to the island by pushing along the mokoro. I was very amazed at how the elders were so strong and brave to do that for us. I couldn’t believe how they stood up the whole time without complaining and they were more than happy to do all the work for us. On our way to the island, we saw two hippopotamus’ and I’m 100% sure that I was the most scared person during that time. On the walk, we saw zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, lots of birds and more bugs than anything else. The walk was very tiring and too hot. I felt like I was going to collapse and dry up from the sun. The amount of the water I had wasn’t good enough for me. But the trip was very much worth it.
The last trip we took was to the Moremi Game Reserve. This was my favorite. We stayed there for one night and 2 days. The whole time during the days, we drove around looking for animals for at least 5 to 6 hours. We saw a bunch of the same animals that we saw during the walk at the Delta but for the first time ever in my life, I saw Lions and Cheetahs. It was the coolest thing to see! I couldn’t get my eyes off the Lions. When I was growing up, my favorite movie was Lion King and I’ve always wanted to see the animals. Now I can finally happily say that I did see all the animals. My favorite part of that time was when we watched the Cheetah hunt for the antelopes. But we didn’t see it catch anything because we started driving back to Maun. Our driver was very friendly and always energetic, our cook always made sure we ate and got full. Out of all the trips we went on Moremi was my favorite.
We have only 2 and a half weeks until we get home to Canada now and I want to make the last couple weeks the best time because I don’t think I’ll ever come to Africa again. This trip is probably going to be the best time of my life and I’m so happy that we, as a group, have almost completed this amazing trip. My friends and group leaders have been so helpful to me when I got homesick for my friends and family back home. I couldn’t have moved on from it any other way if it weren’t for them. I love my international group; we’re nicely growing like one big family. We’re all missing the other group who are in Shakawe and were very excited to see them and hear their own stories. My biggest thanks go to Rebecca Bisson and the crew for believing that we all have the ability to do this kind of thing in our life and knowing we all can make it through. NYA is the best thing that happened to me!
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