(you can click on pictures for more information)
What can we say about 2021? Did it
exist? Barely—but at the same time its presence was
heavily felt everywhere. Yes, indeed, what a year…
We continued ducking Covid-19 by trying as much
as possible to stay away from crowds and being
indoors. That was 2021 for us. When news about the
death of a relative, friend or acquaintance reached
us, we shed tears and wondered how safe we and our
family were. What a virus and what a scare! We feel so
very lucky to be able to, yet another year, send our
annual message!
The acceleration of vaccination in Botswana
brought tremendous joy, as too many lives had been
lost to Covid before the curve began to taper. Then
came the devastating news about Omicron and decisions
to block flights to and from southern Africa. We
managed to travel, all the same, but at a costly price
and feelings of unease about safety and uncertainty
over what other sneaky variants of Covid may yet hit
the world.
We continued to take the liberty of
“non-lockdown” to partake in weekly get-togethers by
our retiree group: to play minigolf, boules, and take
power walks. We also sneaked from our home to meet
with few friends; the Soup Gang in Sigtuna (to
celebrate our 70+ birthdays), Sixten and Viera,
Eva-Carin and Claes and Leyla and Nicke.
Two Covid shots provided us with the courage to
move beyond doing shopping in the Sigtuna
Municipality, our home area. We went to Stockholm to
spend time with our grandchildren: David and
granddaughters Julia and Asali at Skansen—the world’s
oldest open-air museum, enriched by a variety of
wildlife. The furthest we had travelled was to Ingsta
where we celebrated Midsummer with our friends from
Botswana’s 1970s: Anne Marie & Roger Bergström,
Mats & Merete Boberg, Tor and Agneta Eriksson
Groth, Gerd & Gunnar Settergren and Christina
Skarpe. There was the usual fun we have had during the
celebrations but with no dance around maypole. Covid
demanded respect.
BOTSFA, a meeting point for Batswana and Swedes
for soon forty years, continued to be in a lull until
we hosted a well-attended picnic-walk for members in
our garden in June. This was followed by the
organization of a greatly appreciated informal
get-together, in October, at Grappa in Stockholm—where
Mike Main presented his recently published book,
Palaces of Stone (on ruins in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and
South Africa) to a close to full-house audience.
The vaccination also enabled us to travel with
our grandchildren, Asali and Amani, to Skara
Sommarland, an amusement park in southern Sweden—which
turned out to be packed with families who, like us,
were thirsty for quenching the thirst for letting
children be children. We were lucky, once again, not
to end up under ventilators or worse. We also had the
pleasure of spending time with our granddaughter,
Chedu, who visited us from Pisa, Italy, where she is
studying. It is not so often that we spend time with
only one of our grandchildren. We had time to visit
Drottningholm Royal Castle, pick mushrooms, play
mini-golf and enjoy seafood together. The
nineteen-year old’s visit was pure joy!
Per had a knee surgery in September and is
close to fully recovered. This time the pain seemed
unbearable, compared with three years ago. Is it age?
We are sending these greetings from Botswana, where we have
been since beginning of December. It felt empty to
visit Masunga, Julia's home village, without
the usual warm welcome by her
mother. We will be spending most of the
time in our home in Gaborone but
may consider a trip to a
wildilfe reserve to enjoy nature
and the beauty of an amazingly green
Botswana.
As we mourn relatives and friends who passed on
from Covid-19 or other causes, we hope that 2022 will
bring good tides. The Omicron variant, with devastating
consequences for southern Africa, is a sad reminder of
the challenges we face as humanity.
CONTINUE TO STAY SAFE
Per and Julia
