Things that I've learned about myself while living in the bush (Part 1): I taste good

Tuesday 31st March

I do. Really, really good. There's no other explanation as to why else I'd be so popular amongst not just the mosquitoes, but also the ants, the ticks, the flies - you name it, they love to munch on me. Or it could be purely personal - they've all ganged up against me, in which case they've also dragged the plants to join them and asked them to do their bit by stinging me as well whenever they get a chance. Call me paranoid but tonight I'm going to bed with at least 30 bites/stings just on my feet - that's not counting the legs, bum, and my back. Also I would like to clarify that I'm not running around in the bush in a bikini, but fully clothed and that means long trousers. It doesn't stop them. I've already used nearly half a tube of the sting&bite cream in a week and a bit - I envisaged that lasting for at least three months. Oh well. I've got to accept that it's just one of the downsides of the otherwise idyllic life in a bush.

Just another day at work

Monday 30th March

The working day starts early. My alarm clock is set for 6.20am, which is roughly the time of sunrise as well. After some snoozing I get up for breakfast, which is usually cereal and fruit. I make some coffee in my little coffee maker, which I managed to hunt down in Maun after a desperate search around town. I wasn't going to bother with coffee, thinking I'd be fine with just tea in the camp, until I panicked at the last minute. I'm quite thankful for it, as the coffee I got from a little fresh produce shop is delicious and it really makes my morning.

If I don't have time to finish my coffee with breakfast, I take it with me in a thermos 'commuter cup'. At about 7.30am we head off in Anna's Toyota and the commute begins - only it's just a slightly different commute from what I'm used to in London. We drive across the flood plain (which is getting more and more flooded so we might not be able to drive across for much longer), past the beautiful white water lilies that have popped up everywhere, the grazing cattle and the birds, through the bush, until we finally reach the dirt road.

There we pick up Nature, who is the translator. He speaks English, Setswana, and some other local languages - there are as many of them in this area as there are different tribes.

A typical day in the office might start with a 'transect', when we drive slowly (not that you can go very fast on the dirt road anyway) looking for elephant footprints on the road and recording everyone we see in a book: men, women, children and babies, the cows, donkeys, horses and goats, also making a note of their GPS location. If we spot any elephant footprints, we get off the car and count the number of elephants and their age (adults, adolescents, juveniles and babies and the bull elephants) as well as the direction they were travelling to - Anna can easily tell that all that from glancing at the footprints. I can just about tell it's an elephant, whether there's been one or many, and whether it's a big or a small one.

Next we might go to see one of the eleven local village representatives (or enumerators) working on the project. The study area is huge: it stretches pretty much over the whole of the Okavango Panhandle - an area of 8000 sq km in size. The village reps will investigate the reports of elephant field raids in their respective villages and its surroundings, which we then go to check together. This includes inspecting and measuring the extent of the damage, and talking to the farmer. Whenever possible we do a longer interview with them as well - we have just finalised the questionnaire (yes, I managed to get involved in questionnaire design already on my first week here…) and it can take up to 45 minutes depending on the answers and also the amount of translating that needs to be done (we've had to go up to four languages through four people back and forth). It's time-consuming work, but I get to meet so many farmers in this area and see the kind of life you could never imagine seeing as a normal tourist. Often we get presents them too: sweet reed, corn, peppers, watermelons. We'll get to see the families going on about their daily lives, cooking lunch, children playing.

Today we went to see a farmer who lives near our camp. We went by a mokoro (a local canoe-like boat which is moved around the channels with a pole) as we suspected the road to have been flooded. Nature and a local village rep poled us there and back, it was a glorious, hot, sunny afternoon. We returned with an interview, a tape's worth of video and eight beautiful, ripe peppers which we'd picked ourselves. We cooked them for dinner on the fire and stuffed them with couscous, listening to a group of lions calling in the distance.

Just another day at work.

Eating, Sleeping and Dreaming

Sunday 29th March 2009

In the middle of nowhere with no electric light, you wake up when the sun rises and go to bed soon after it sets. It just makes sense. Coming up to the winter in Botswana, the days are getting shorter and shorter, so by the time it gets dark we're only just cooking dinner. In London there is a restaurant where you pay a lot of money for dining in the dark; the experience is supposed to enhance your sense of taste. Here we enjoy this experience every evening, for nothing. Maybe that's why everything always tastes so great, or perhaps it's the fact that just about anything cooked on the campfire after a long, hot day will always taste fantastic.

By nine o'clock we've usually finished dinner and had our cups of tea, and after a few rounds of yawns it's time to head to bed. We do the short walk from the kitchen area to the sleeping quarters together, screening the nearby bushes with our torches for pairs of eyes, and then it's the sound of tent zips going up and down, teeth brushing, some more tent zips going up and down, until it's just the sound of the frogs, the hippos, and the rest of the gang in the nightshift.

I usually listen to them for a few minutes until I put on my earplugs and fall asleep within minutes. After the restlessness of the first few nights I now sleep pretty much through the night, easily for eight, nine, or even ten hours - depending on the time of the wake up call in the morning.

In my dreams I visit people form the past. On my first week here I've already met an impressive and a very surprising array of people from all around the world and been to several continents. It's almost as I'm suddenly been detached from my normal life and relationships, I'm making up for it in my dreams. I wake up in the morning still thinking about them, long into the new day. People I haven't remembered for a long time. People I haven't seen in a decade or more. Now we've been reunited again here in the deepest, darkest, faraway corner of Botswana, in my dreams.

Saturday 21st March

What looked like scary, unknown darkness in the night, turned out to be a beautiful Okavango island in the daylight. I woke up for the sound of birds singing, the sun flooding in from the net on my door. I could see the water from my tent, and couldn’t wait to go out to explore.

Our camp is a work of a genius. If I was awarding stars for luxury, I think this camp would deserve five of them. There’s a kitchen tent with a gas hob, fridge and all the cooking equipment you could ever ask for. We have a covered outdoors dining room with views of the hippo lagoon and the night sky as well after the sun has set. Next to the kitchen tent there’s a store tent where all dry food is and other stuff is stored, and last but not least the kitchen complex includes a central fireplace where hot water can be heated, food cooked, or just the general camping atmosphere soaked in. We have a luxury shower room where hot showers can be enjoyed (provided you heat up the water first) while watching the hippos splashing in the water. Alternative views include termites munching away the shower room’s reed wall, or if the shower is taken after the sunset, the starry night sky above and the fireflies bouncing around. But wait, it gets better! The toilet. Not just any old hole on the ground, but we have a proper, white ceramic toilet seat and hand washing facilities. Unfortunately there is no view from the toilet, which is why the camp only gets five starts instead of six. Finally, each resident has got their own en-suite bedrooms with a porch, i.e. the tent. The en-suite facilities are just outside the porch, anywhere you like. If you dare leaving the tent at night, that is. We also have an office being built at the moment.

In the camp lives Anna, Graham, me and John, who is an elderly local man looking after the camp i.e. in case we get any unwanted visitors such as lions trying to coming in. He also is our housekeeper and collects water (we can drink water straight from the lagoon), looks after the fire etc. Lastly, he is a traditional African healer, in case we have any health problems.

On the first night I made dinner of lentil & carrot bolognese with baby courgettes, served with potatoes baked on fire. We ate and listened to the sounds of the night. That includes the hippos, who come out of the water at night to eat (luckily they are vegetarians so that’s one less thing to worry about – although that’s not to say that they can’t be dangerous if you manage to piss them off) in our little island, the frogs, the occasional lion in the distance – and the elephants. There are an estimated 9000 elephants in this area, and on the last two nights they’ve been moving nearby, making their presence heard: blowing their trumpets, crossing the river (an elephant swimming is not a quiet act!). We’ve also heard a hyena. At the moment it’s the new moon so there’s no light at nighttime at all – the millions of stars above are an amazing sight but not enough to provide light. So you can hear a lot of things around, and see nothing. After dark you need to move with a large torch only and preferably in pairs, checking out the bushes for pairs of eyes. Luckily I haven’t seen any yet!

On my second, third and fourth night I slept a bit better each time. Still wearing earplugs though, and I don’t know whether I can lose them at all. At the moment it feels louder for me than in London. On the third night I was brave enough to brush my teeth and use the en-suite facilities outside my tent, but I’m yet to have the courage to venture out in the middle of the night. So I’m trying not to drink too much liquid just before bed! I’m convinced I’ll bump into a hippo, as they do move right outside the tents. You can hear them thumping around and munching away, and you can almost feel the ground vibrating from their footsteps. As you can imagine they are not the most discreet animals – I’ve no idea how much they weigh but their footsteps are enough to leave big dents on the ground.

Into the bush

Friday 20th March

We didn’t make it out of Maun that day. Feeling slightly down, we headed back to the house and unloaded the car. Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves (and the poor computers that were riddled with viruses –I think Anna’s antivirus software was up to about 500 threats and still counting at that point) we decided to try out the boat that had been leant to Anna & Graham and which we were going to take to the camp with us. We drove down to the river, launched the boat and as the motor seemed to be working we happily climbed on and off we went. Until just five seconds later the motor died. It did not start working again despite three men tried to sort it out. We also noticed that the boat was sinking fast (luckily only because of a misplaced plug) so in the end we didn’t hesitate to accept another boatman’s offer of taking us for a ride down the river. We’d also taken a picnic of cold beer and snacks with us – life was good.

Later on we went to have dinner and few more drinks at the nearby River Lodge where I met a few more people A&G knew. That’s also were I bumped into a fellow Finn Janette. It had taken me only about two and a half days to meet another Finnish person in Botswana – unbelievable. What’s wrong with those people? They get everywhere.

The following morning we finally managed to leave Maun. Well, actually, it wasn’t until after midday, after we’d sorted out the computers and had early lunch. But then, off we went. Anna’s Toyota and the boat on a trailor, the load and me at the back with all the stuff. Quite comfortable actually, as I was lying on a bedroll. I watched the scenery as we drove down the road: the mud hut villages popping up every now and then, villagers going on about their daily life, their colourful clothes, the children smiling and waving, riding donkeys, carrying stuff, or on their way back from school. As the afternoon went on it started getting hotter and hotter in the car, but the few times we stopped and got out of the car it was even hotter outside.

We just made it for the last ferry across the Okavango river, and got to the other side as the sun was setting. A teacher from a village near where we were going hitched a lift, so now it was the load, me, and this guy at the back of the car, for the final three hours of the journey. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for him, I was not on a very chatty mood after the long journey even though he was curious about a Finnish girl from London travelling to a remote village in Botswana. I did agree to show him some pictures from London I had in my camera though – it was the first time he’d seen a picture of the Tower Bridge. He thought it was beautiful.

We arrived in the camp after ten o’clock and it was pitch black by then (the sun sets here at about 7.15pm), When I say pitch black, I mean pitch black. Not London kind of “dark”. I stepped out of the car and heard a laud groan just behind the nearest bush. My heart jumped. “What was that?” “Not to worry, just a hippo”, Graham reassured me.

After a quick dinner of pasta we headed for our tents, and Anna and Graham wished me good night. I zipped up my tent’s door behind, and there I was: on my own, in my tent – my home for the next three months. I thought it would be quiet here in the wilderness, but it far from it: it was noisy as anything. The frogs, the hippos, the god-knows-whats. The worst thing was not knowing what was out there, and I didn’t have the slightest interest in finding out either. That tent door was to be zipped up tight until the sun would rise again.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life as I was that night. “Terrified” doesn’t come anywhere near to describe how I felt. I laid there and expected a lion to come and eat me any minute – and yes I know that’s not very rational. After a while I put my earplugs on and managed to slip into a light sleep. I can’t say that I slept well that night.

In Maun

The first couple of nights I stayed in Maun, where Anna and her husband Graham have a house. They had a few things to sort out and it was quite nice for me to 'climatise' here - going straight from London into the bush could've been a bit of a shock to the system.

The first night we went out for a dinner and drinks. I was looking forward to trying out some traditional Botswanan food but it seems to be hard to come by here. Veggie pancakes filled with spinach had to do, and it was very tasty. The beer was a Namibian affair called Windhoek - I'd completely forgotten how gorgeous ice cold beer tastes after a hot day.

The second day in Maun was very chilled out. I ventured out in the morning, but the rest of the day just spent in the house & the garden playing with my camera, reading and cooking. And snoozing - the heat is taking me a while to get used to. The plan was to leave very early today, but both Anna's and Graham's computers got nasty viruses and they're still trying to sort them out. It's nearly midday now, and we're hoping to leave as soon as possible so we'll get to the camp before it gets dark. It's going to be a 7-h drive, most of which is on a dirt road.

Maun is the tourist hub of Botswana, filled with sarafi tour organisers, rich tourists in their 4x4s, and locals in their donkey carts. There's even a Nando's. The animals happily graze on the roadside and mingle with the cars on the driveway: so far I've spotted cows, donkeys, goats and something that resembled a wild boar. It still feels like I'm watching a documentary set in Africa through the car window rather than being in it. The women do carry heavy loads on top of their heads. They smile. They wear colourful clothes.

But the real adventure starts tomorrow.

Arrival

I’m on the security queue at the sparkling new Heathrow terminal 5 when it suddenly hits me. The last few days, if not weeks have been filled with organising this and that, sourcing the camera gear, worrying about finding a comprehensive insurance. Not to mention packing up my room and going through the travel packing list over and over again. A few hours before the flight is due to leave I’m still trying to find thermal underwear in Clapham Junction – you know, for those cold winter nights. Best to be prepared for everything!

So in the queue I suddenly get a lump in my throat and my stomach turns, when I realise where I’m going. This is actually the first time it sinks in. This is not just any holiday. I’m off to Botswana with my little video camera and I’m going to be living in a tent in the wilderness for three months, helping out Anna with her human-elephant conflict research. It’s not just exciting. It’s actually a bit terrifying – but I don’t really want to admit that. It seemed like a very good idea a couple of months back when a friend who was visiting me in London mentioned that her sister might be looking for an assistant with her PhD research, and would I be interested? The next morning in a packed commuter train on my way to work, which I needed to get out of (no offence, if anyone from work is reading this) all I could think was that I could be in Botswana instead. And that’s how I’d got to this situation.

A few hours later, after some more last minute shopping at the airport (batteries, headphones, external hard drive, tape head cleaning tape – not bad going in such a short time) I’m sat down on the plane heading to Johannesburg between the Bermudan cricket team. Literally – no window or aisle seats left. This is of course the perfect chance to casually drop in the fact that I’ve actually been to a cricket match at the Lords, although I decide not to mention the unfortunate incident of ending up being blacklisted from the Pavillion.

(Completely unrelated note that I was completely impressed by the choice of in-flight films – I managed to catch two that I’ve actually wanted to see for ages: Rachel Getting Married and Burn after Reading - both brilliant. They’d also included things like a little documentary Stanley Kubrick’s boxes – what a refreshing change!)

At J’burg I treated myself to a little shoulder rub and a mini facial between flight changes – well worth it and well deserved after lugging that backpack and three pieces of hand luggage around.

My flight to Maun was a little but delayed because the pilot as stuck in traffic. I was quite baffled by this announcement until they clarified that the traffic jam was on his way to the airport, not on the runway or anything.

I successfully fooled the immigration that I was here for a holiday only and whisked through the customs with my bags containing Jaffa cakes and Hob Nobs despite the person in front of me being stopped and stripped off all her sweets and chocolate. Anna was waiting for me at the airport and as I hopped onto her ‘elephant research’ jeep all I could think was how hot and dusty it was (d’oh – Maun is next to the Kalahari desert). But I’d made it, and there was no going back.