All creatures great and small...well, mostly small in fact

My personal view on what qualities one needs to possess to be allowed to work in a national park are perhaps a bit idealistic. I have always naively assumed that anybody who fulfills some type of function, no matter how important or menial, needs to at least care about nature and every beautiful, slimy, scaly and hairy creature it may contain. This type of thinking is of course complete fantasy. Although I had kept that little midget of rationality and reason safely bricked up somewhere in a dank and forgotten dungeon vaguely located in the south-east corner of my brain, it still managed to escape after a recent encounter with housekeeping. Let me explain: the appartment next to mine which until recently was inhabited by a schizofrenic party animal/tourism intern had to be thouroughly cleaned before the next unfortunate student happened to wander into our park. Two lovely ladies from housekeeping came over one evening and got stuck in - literally, as it turned out the place was quite dirty - while I was observing the wax on/wax off magic from the safety of the doorframe. One of the ladies was busy with a feather duster but I noticed she wasn't being particularly focused...instead she just kept sweeping at the same spot on the wall. I quickly ruled out that she was on some type of medication when I saw a little gecko lizard happily being tickled from head to two. I mentioned that she would not be too successful if she kept up her chosen reptilian-removal effort but she would not get an inch closer to the prehistoric menace currenly enjoying a good massage from the duster. I casually strolled to the wall, cupped my hands around the little beastie and it quickly scampered up my shoulder where it took a moment to recover from what had to be its most exciting day in existence yet.

The cleaning lady with the duster looked at me as if I had just tackled a hungry lion using nothing more than some peanuts and a rusty fish-hook. I walked outside to show the other housekeeping rep my little friend, but I need not have bothered. Duster-lady was already in hot pursuit, screaming to her companion not to approach me as I was obviously carrying the devil's own offspring on my shoulder. As I walked outside both of them kept a safe distance, well, they kept their distance in any case. For my piece the resistance I then walked over to my own appartment and dropped the wide-eyed gecko on my wall with the orders to eat bugs to its heart's content. One of the cleaning ladies actually fainted at this act of surpreme horror while the other merely screamed and ran off into the night - we haven't found a trace of her since.


Some parts of the above story may have been slightly exaggerated but my point remains a valid one: appreciating nature around you is not a prerequisite for working in a national park. In fact you don't need give a crap whatsoever, although when applying for a job in the conservation department this is considered a plus. But perhaps I am just too optimistic when I expect the gasstation attendant inside the park to care more for the environment around him than a gasstation attendant outside the park. For many people their job inside the park is just that: a job.

As you may have guessed I am rather more intrigued, even captivated, by the things that live and grow around me. My house is ideally located right on the border with the wilderness and therefore many creatures pass my house on a daily basis obviously looking to get a good rub-down by a feather duster. Some days are particularly busy, especially in the late afternoon which also happens to coincide with the time that I get home from work. On days like that I do not so much feel as if I'm surrounded by the serenity of nature but as if I have been dropped into a Disney movie where no humans exist and all animals wear waistcoats and can speak.


If I just continue with the Disney imagery for a moment I will tell you about all the animals that I spotted one random Tuesday afternoon while sitting in front of my door.


The protagonists or heroes (think Simba, Aladin or the Little Mermaid - so hot...) are without a doubt the klipspringers. On first glance poor excuses for antilopes or heroes, but look closer and you will find the courage burning within (cue Circle-of-Life-esque themesong). Compared to their larger cousins such as impala or springbok, these knee-high acrobats are incredibly muscly, having thick and compact bodies. On the other hand, impala and springbok are so thin it's not a stretch to think that you are able to see through them. Klipspringers are, of course, very proficient when it comes to walking and jumping along cliff-edges. This is not only because of their build but also because of the unique texture of their hooves which is rubbery on the bottom, allowing for a firm grip on almost any surface. Furthermore they are among the few animals which mate for life, never taking a new partner unless death do them part, so you will always encounter two at any time. Clearly these are the good guys. (there are actually three klipspringers which I see regularly: two parents plus their kid)


Unfortunately no leopard sightings around my house, but the baboons will make an adequate replacement. More a nuisance than outright menace, they are nevertheless always on the wrong side of the moral coin. The males will especially frighten any 8-year old Disney enthusiast with their black mane and lion-sized canines. Recently a pair of adult males has been causing some havoc around the restcamp area because they are almost unafraid of humans - a quality which can unfortunately prove fatal for most baboons. Until the reaper comes calling however (or the .22 in any case), they can make a handsome living by stealing and eating anything they can lay their paws on, regardless of any homo sapiens present. This I found out first-hand the other day while I was sitting outside against the wall of my house, looking at a clan of baboons doing cartwheels in the grass. Suddenly I heard the "mosquito door" (not my actual door but an iron mesh in front of it which opens seperately, no idea what it's called) open and before I could even get up, one of the villains had grabbed a fresh loaf of bread right off my kitchen counter. For the second time since I've been here I had to watch my bread run off into the sunset, this time carried on four legs instead of a few thousand (See the Klipspringer Trail story). Pure evil these guys. (baboon pics were taken while sitting on my porch as mentioned earlier...trust me it's an act of willpower to remain seated as one of these guys trudges past)

Now it's nearly time for my customary after-work shower while performing a critically acclaimed rendition of Bon Jovi's Dead Or Alive followed by an ice-cold beer, so I'm going to keep it short from now on.

Comic relief is no doubt provided by the ground-squirrels: intensely hilarious to watch whatever they're doing, eating, sleeping or fighting. Sometimes all at the same time.

The ever-present provider of wisdom would not be a dull old owl or a hooting hornbill, but the century old leopard tortoise which lives somewhere around my place and often comes out for a bit of fresh grass and a friendly chat. Here we both are taking it easy and eating some aloes after a long day at the office.





























You have no idea how frustrating it is to put all these pictures in an article, mostly because they never want to stay in one place...give a tap on the spacebar and the whole kit 'n kaboodle goes haywire. So I'll save the rest of my anthropomorphically challenged friends for another time and another blog. I'm sorry if this abrupt end to what looked like a promising description of Southern African wildlife is a bit of a disappointment, but what would you like me to do? Dress in drag and do the hula?