Burning Pan

As a part of an Easter weekend/One year anniversary celebration of our first year in Botswana, a fellow Bots 8 Peace Corps volunteer Jillian invited our group to her village for a barbeque on the salt pans near her home. Of the original 60 volunteers, we have fluctuated up and down: some choosing to go home; and gaining some transfers from other countries. Out of those 60 volunteers, almost 40 of us attended the gathering. The theme was Burning Pan. If any of you are familiar with the Burning Man music festival in the Nevada desert, we borrowed the idea. At the music fest, a statue of a man is burned. So Jillian had some of her local friends build a man out of wood so that we could have a Burning Man of our own on the salt pans.
Holidays in Botswana are very hectic. Lots of people using public transport, lots of people fighting for hitch hiking rides. We knew travel from our village to Sowa (about 880 km away) would be a headache, especially traveling through Botswana’s two busiest cities (Gaborone, Francistown). A fellow Peace Corps volunteer arranged for a khombi (think minibus) to take 10 of us from the bus rank in Gabs right to Jillian’s house. We were thankful but half expecting a ragged piece of junk to come pulling up. Imagine our surprise when a swank-looking, sparkling khombi pulls up to pick us up. We were traveling in style. We had just enough room for 10 of us and our luggage. We stopped for lunch. We stopped for groceries. We stopped for beer. I’m sure the driver had had enough of us by the time we got to Sowa.
When we arrived, there were so many new faces, so much catching up to do. After setting up our tent next to a dozen or so others, we chatted non stop for hours. I was so verbally exhausted but having so much fun. The gathering turned house party after enough cocktails were taken; lots of dancing and making fools of ourselves. I was surprised how long our older volunteers stuck it out. That night we slept outside in our new tent. In the middle of the night it started raining and we learned that our new tent was in fact NOT water proof. I held back tears as puddles formed around me.
Thankfully it was warm and sunny the next day. Lucas accompanied some men to the nearby Country Club to do some golfing. I hung our wet clothes, sleeping bags, and tent out to dry. The beginning half of the day was slow as we waited for more volunteers to arrive. After about 4 hours, I texted Lucas to see how golf was going. He replied that they were on hole 6 of 9; he was so over golf. It turns out the course was overgrown and in bad shape.
Needless to say by the time the trucks arrived to carry wood, the Burning Man, and our tents to the salt pans, a handful of us had cabin fever. Five of us: me, Lucas, fellow volunteers Mich, Ryan, and John, hopped along to help unload and get things started for the bon fire. The Sua salt pan is on the edge of the Madgkadigkadi Salt Pans which is the largest salt pan in the world. A shelter was built for the workers at the nearby salt mine to go and entertain. The shelter is a double story building with a great view of the pan.
As it turned out, the drivers had to get petrol in another village and ended up taking several hours before bringing the rest of our group to the pans. Thankfully Ryan brought some golf balls and a driver. Lucas, Ryan, John, and I went about hitting golf balls into the salt pan. After all the balls were finished, we would walk out onto the pans until we found them all. The pan is best described as mass nothingness. There’s no where for the balls to hide, so we knew we’d find them all.
As we started getting kindle together to set up the bon fire, the truck with the remaining 30 some volunteers piled in back arrived. Jillian provided steaks, sausage, pasta salad, and potato salad. She hauled her braii (name for a grill) to the pan so that we could grill the meat. Because the shelter is available for everyone, many other people arrived as well: some locals celebrating the holiday, a group of motorcyclists from South Africa. As we were getting the braii going, a gentleman walked up with giant tortoise and tried to cook it on our braii! We explained that not only was he not allowed to use our braii, it was pretty inhumane to cook an animal when it was still alive.
After dinner we set fire to the Burning Man. A few speeches were made. Followed by a stampede of people running naked across the pans. Apparently it was very free and liberating. I watched as shirts and underwear were blown away. A storm quickly followed. There is little protection against rain, lightning, and wind on the pan. It was pandemonium as people went chasing after their tents. We tried to seek protection in the shelter. But because there are no walls, sand and salt came flying at us. Thankfully the storm was over quickly and things settled back down. We surveyed the damage: a tent was found in a tree and many tent polls were broken. Some other things were never found.
The next morning, many people got up to watch the sunrise. If you focused on the horizon, you could see a strip of pink: flamingos. Flamingos will typically gather when water piles on the salt pans; they will come and drink the salt water. A group of volunteers walked out to get a closer look. They got close enough to watch as the flamingos took flight. It was a beautiful sight.
Thankfully Jillian had made arrangements for us to be picked up early so that those who needed to catch a ride back to their villages could. Me and Lucas joined 5 other volunteers and headed north to Malawi…..