Motswana M’s: My Growth

During many sleepless nights of 2020, I feared I would never return to The Dog Box. After several uncertain months and countless calls with doctors/travel agents/clients/colleagues/friends/embassies, I managed to return in August 2020 with a fresh residency visa through April 2021. Those seven months marked the dramatically-postponed, actual beginning of my life chapter transition. 

I had spent eight months away from my home due to the pandemic, punctuated by an epic mid-pandemic travel journey, even by my standards: 21+ hours of flying and 9+ hours of driving over 4 days in order to get to the Zambia-Botswana border, then 14 days of quarantining at the border, then an 11+ hour overnight bus to Gaborone. 

The emotional release upon reuniting with my home was profoundly unique. It was that same unclenching sensation in my chest, but more intense, and entangled with both gratitude and grief, knowing this would be the final time I would return to this home.  I did not realize how deep my roots dug into the tswana soil until I started to extricate my life from there… and honestly, I feel like parts of me were torn in the process- a reflection of the depth of connection with my people, projects, programs, pets, and plants.

Every dog walk, bike ride, climbing session, ultimate frisbee game, garden potter, and conversation with a dear friend/colleague/neighbor accentuated that wild unclenching sensation in my chest and swirling emotions of gratitude/grief.

Over those seven most meaningful months, I realized that what I missed the most from The Dog Box all began with “M”:

Mulberries

A massive, bulbous mulberry tree sandwiched by dog houses arches over my front driveway, reaching for the house. ~10 months of the year, it provides wonderfully welcoming cooling shade, and for ~2 months it provides abundant/delicious antioxidant-rich mulberries… and purple stains on everyone/everything. Every season we’d store berries bags in the freezer and make jam to eat throughout the year. The leaves are also edible, so I would mix them into my stir fry meals as additional leafy greens… Some of us ate the leaves raw.

Mangoes

After the Mulberry tree, the most fruitful presences in the Dog Box Garden are the guava trees, lemon trees, jamun tree, and the mango tree. I loved climbing the trees year-round as a yoga, climbing, and coppicing practice, but especially when they were fruiting, as the ripe fruits and new pollinators’ hives presented uniquely challenging and rewarding routes and postures. I have yet to eat a more delicious mango than a freshly picked ripe golden-sunset-colored mango from The Dog Box… and doubt I ever will. My BC professorial mentor, colleague, and dear friend is also an artist who grew up around mango trees and created fantastic works of art partially-inspired by descriptions/photos of my mangos. One of them is hanging in my new home in Santa Fe.

Moringa

Moringa is a fascinating plant… It is native to arid climates but also thrives in the tropics (I propagated dozens of moringas at the permaculture community in the Costa Rican jungle). Moringa has a uniquely spongy wood, and its leaves are some of the most nutrient-dense on our planet. One of my favorite daily routines was monitoring the growth of my moringa tree and gathering leaves to throw in my tea and/or stir fry. This routine also featured my other favorite antioxidant-rich perennial leafy green, the curry leaf tree.

Mophane

My “Dog Box Diet'' featured fruits and leafy greens from the garden, and was rounded out with protein from my chickens’ eggs and “phane worms”. Mophane caterpillars are super protein-dense, and seasonally abundant in the mophane woodlands of Botswana. I would regularly ride my bike to the street market and pay ~$5 for a large bag of dried mophane that would be my primary protein for months. My most common home-cooked dinner featured some combination of veggies from my garden stir fried with my chickens’ eggs and mophane worms.

Mma Modise Lunch Plate

The best street food in Gaborone is served by Mma Modise out of the back of her pickup truck under the shade of the tallest morula trees in Extension 2. I would eat seswaa and greens Tuesdays and Fridays, oxtail and cabbage on Thursdays, and tswana chicken with butternut and beetroot the rest of the week. Mma Modi meals pair brilliantly with a cold Stoney ginger beer. I made an arrangement with Mma Modi to buy her leftover bones for my dogs and cat as well… so many middays, the whole Dog Box fam enjoyed Mma Modi’s traditional cooking, then we’d collectively nap. When I first became a regular (known under the morula trees by my setswana name, “Kagiso,” meaning “Peace”) a lunch plate cost P15, and when I departed a plate cost P30…. Eish, inflation.

Moments & Memories 

Meaningful moments & memories matter most…  and I was privileged with countless cherished experiences shared with my Dog Box pets, plants, people, Ext. 2 Neighbors, AirBnb Guests, BUP HI Fam, Kalahari Mountain Club, and Gabs Ultimate communities. Over a decade’s worth of living, learning, growing, and playing together- no combinations of words, photos, or videos can express the depth of my feelings of love and gratitude for these communities.

Sorting through photos and videos for this blog post was a heartwarming/swelling/aching process, and took many teary, incomplete attempts. For example, I attempted several times to retrieve photos of a Mma Modise lunch plate, but those efforts always spiraled into emotionally revisiting videos of the Dog Box dogs, walks/rides with my boys and neighbors, and pottering around my garden.