Baie dankie vir al die e-pos!!(thanks for all the replies - in Afrikaans)
(this is long so I hope you're sitting down with a drink)
Dear diary,
Although I am familiar with - and people have warned me about - the concept of African time, we are still suprisingly active down here. I am confident this will not last however as my time down here progresses and eventually it is my hope that sending one e-mail a month will feel like plenty to me.
For the time being however you will have to cope with more regular reports. :)
Tuesday morning has been eagerly awaited since I arrived on Sunday, because Laetitia (the daughter of the game farm owner who does most of the guiding and teaching) would return after having spent several days in Nelspruit, a town several hours south. She is quite the legend among all the students who have visited Campfire Safaris over the years, mainly because of her kindness - which she certainly inherited from her parents - and laid-back attitude. She has now become a fully qualified fieldguide, which she started studying for after I left in 2005, and her knowledge of the bush, ecology and conservation is much more extensive than 2 years ago. Anyway...our little reunion on Tuesday morning was great, she hasn't changed and she told me I had not either. Which makes it feel even more as if I had never left. ;) (obviously we've both changed, but just go with it ok?)
After quickly catching up she gave us a lecture on Integration Policies - meaning how displaced villages and/or tribes have been getting their ancestral lands back in South Africa, often this includes land in use for conservation purposes (such as the Kruger NP). Pretty hot topic at the moment and something I luckily know a little bit about from researching it last year. I won't get into the whole debate now, but what stands out is how little (read: nothing) government regulations there are after the land has been given back to a displaced village. Picture this: you're in one of the national parks, you're doing the tour either in a jeep or on foot, and suddenly a flipping herd of cattle walks past led by a teenage boy...not a strange sight in rural Africa, but in a national park? As there are no fences between the new tribal land and the rest of the park (no regulations), the big predators are having a field day with all this easy meat (teenage boy included) making them into potential man-eaters; not to mention the havoc the ever increasing number of elephants will do to a village that stands between them and a fresh patch of trees...
I've gone into the discussion haven't I? Oh well, you rarely read about this in the West (terrorism is far cooler) so read it and weep. However there are a number of success stories as wel; situations where displaced villages have not settled back for example but chose to rent out the land to the government or farmers who owned it in the first place (so nothing changes, but the village gets a bit of income); or where people from a displaced tribe are now taking tourists out in "their" patch of national park and building tourist accomodation on it, again not upsetting the natural order.
So you see it is not all fun and games out here in the wilderness, but serious issues are being discussed. Laetitia is very eager to learn from me about what SANParks is going to do about this major problem - SANParks is the governmental body responsible for the national parks and who I will be working for starting February.
But obviously we have been out getting down and dirty in the bush as well!! On wednesday we went further into Balule NP (where I am right now and it is connected to the Kruger NP) with the jeep to look at an elephant carcass. This old bull was probably killed in a fight with another male and has been nicely rotting away for a few weeks now. Obviously certain shady individuals (hyenas, jackals, vultures) have come and taken the meat and other juicy bits, but most of the bones were still there and despite the intensely nauseating smell it was very impressive. Afterwards we drove on to the Olifants River (a major source of water, especially now that most smaller rivers and waterholes have dried up because of draught) to look at tracks and hopefully to spot a hippo or crocodile. It was a beautiful patch of river, lush and green and very quiet despite the rushing waters, but there were no animals in sight. Many tracks however of lions, antilopes, hippos, elephants and crocs. We did spot a lonely elephant in the distance but it never
(this is long so I hope you're sitting down with a drink)
Dear diary,
Although I am familiar with - and people have warned me about - the concept of African time, we are still suprisingly active down here. I am confident this will not last however as my time down here progresses and eventually it is my hope that sending one e-mail a month will feel like plenty to me.
For the time being however you will have to cope with more regular reports. :)
Tuesday morning has been eagerly awaited since I arrived on Sunday, because Laetitia (the daughter of the game farm owner who does most of the guiding and teaching) would return after having spent several days in Nelspruit, a town several hours south. She is quite the legend among all the students who have visited Campfire Safaris over the years, mainly because of her kindness - which she certainly inherited from her parents - and laid-back attitude. She has now become a fully qualified fieldguide, which she started studying for after I left in 2005, and her knowledge of the bush, ecology and conservation is much more extensive than 2 years ago. Anyway...our little reunion on Tuesday morning was great, she hasn't changed and she told me I had not either. Which makes it feel even more as if I had never left. ;) (obviously we've both changed, but just go with it ok?)
After quickly catching up she gave us a lecture on Integration Policies - meaning how displaced villages and/or tribes have been getting their ancestral lands back in South Africa, often this includes land in use for conservation purposes (such as the Kruger NP). Pretty hot topic at the moment and something I luckily know a little bit about from researching it last year. I won't get into the whole debate now, but what stands out is how little (read: nothing) government regulations there are after the land has been given back to a displaced village. Picture this: you're in one of the national parks, you're doing the tour either in a jeep or on foot, and suddenly a flipping herd of cattle walks past led by a teenage boy...not a strange sight in rural Africa, but in a national park? As there are no fences between the new tribal land and the rest of the park (no regulations), the big predators are having a field day with all this easy meat (teenage boy included) making them into potential man-eaters; not to mention the havoc the ever increasing number of elephants will do to a village that stands between them and a fresh patch of trees...
I've gone into the discussion haven't I? Oh well, you rarely read about this in the West (terrorism is far cooler) so read it and weep. However there are a number of success stories as wel; situations where displaced villages have not settled back for example but chose to rent out the land to the government or farmers who owned it in the first place (so nothing changes, but the village gets a bit of income); or where people from a displaced tribe are now taking tourists out in "their" patch of national park and building tourist accomodation on it, again not upsetting the natural order.
So you see it is not all fun and games out here in the wilderness, but serious issues are being discussed. Laetitia is very eager to learn from me about what SANParks is going to do about this major problem - SANParks is the governmental body responsible for the national parks and who I will be working for starting February.But obviously we have been out getting down and dirty in the bush as well!! On wednesday we went further into Balule NP (where I am right now and it is connected to the Kruger NP) with the jeep to look at an elephant carcass. This old bull was probably killed in a fight with another male and has been nicely rotting away for a few weeks now. Obviously certain shady individuals (hyenas, jackals, vultures) have come and taken the meat and other juicy bits, but most of the bones were still there and despite the intensely nauseating smell it was very impressive. Afterwards we drove on to the Olifants River (a major source of water, especially now that most smaller rivers and waterholes have dried up because of draught) to look at tracks and hopefully to spot a hippo or crocodile. It was a beautiful patch of river, lush and green and very quiet despite the rushing waters, but there were no animals in sight. Many tracks however of lions, antilopes, hippos, elephants and crocs. We did spot a lonely elephant in the distance but it never
came closer, but more importantly we saw a African fish eagle in action! One of the largest eagles in the world - closely resembling the famous American bald eagle - it is called the Voice of Africa because of its high-pitched call, often in duet with its mate. Stunning.
Today was also very interesting, the morning-walk consisted mostly of plant and tree identification. As there is no water in the big waterhole close to the house there are no elephants, lions and large herds of antilopes around at the moment, but that means you keep an eye out for the smaller animals...and we were very fortunate in that respect. First and foremost we spotted an adult chameleon climbing a tree - incredibly well camouflaged (obviously) it is nearly impossible to see - and I got some amazing close-up pirctures of the little fellow. Secondly we ran across several baby leopard tortoises, looking very frightened being by themselves in the big bush, none of them were bigger than my hand. I just hope they get to adult size (about the size of my head) soon!
Chilling out during mid-day and afternoon (about 30-35 degrees and very very humid), we headed out to one of the smaller drinking places - not more than a big pond - to clean it and put some fresh water into it. Being used quite regularly combined with the fact that no fresh water had been added in a while made for some dirty fu***** water. Oh, and there are about 40 catfish living in it (they're those fish with whiskers). Sooo...we had to throw the old water out first, using big buckets, and THEN catch the slippery catfish (about 30 to 60 cm long) and put them in the buckets while fresh water can be put into the pond. Let me just say: smelly brown water combined with very nervous catfish does not make you look any prettier. I literally stepped into the shower afterwards with my clothes and shoes on. Enough said.
Tomorrow we're going back to the Olifants River early in the morning, hopefully we'll see some more activity this time.
Hope you enjoyed my second report! I never know when I will get a chance to use the internet - right now using an ancient dial-up internet connection - so expect my third report either tomorrow or next week!
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