BOTSWANA!!!!!!!!

Yes, I'm in Gaborone this week, checking stuff out, meeting with people, making sure that we're on track for our merger from this end, and covering for my counterpart who's out of town.

Some of you may not realize how big a deal it is for me to be in Botswana but let me reassure you, it is a big deal! Not so much professionally although this is my first TDY in my current position and with the merger associated with it, it's a nice bit of responsibility. And not financially although the TDY money is always nice. And, sure, since the Peace Corps I've wanted to travel around Africa and see as much of it as I can, but that's not it either.

I've wanted to come to Botswana since October of 1991 when I was in what I laughingly call "College". It was just after the infamous naked fire jumping incident and the story needed to be told. Of course the version that was to go down into legend was the version told by Tommy D. In Tommy D's version everybody was sitting around the campfire knitting, singing and reading the bible until James "Botswana" B. showed up with two kegs and a case of tequila and said, "Hey, you got a fire? How bout we take off our cloths and jump over it?"

From this my nickname for a short time was "Botswana" and I enjoyed a little bad boy notoriety which I have striven over the years (as much as I strive at anything) to maintain a bit of. Although I may have jumped the shark that night out in the woods with nothing between me and the October sky but some spilled liquor and a fine layer of soot.