We went camping for two nights this week as we had to attend fields far from our camp. Access to our camp is now only via a boat as the flood has got worse, so now our commute involves a boat trip across the lagoon to the other side, where the car is parked, then a drive up a road which is also slowly becoming more and more flooded but still fine to get over by the 4WD.
Our night-time guests in the camp this week included an elephant. Just one, a big bull, who visited us on Monday/Tuesday night. None of us heard it, but it had walked just behind the kitchen and store tents, had a few marula fruits from a tree nearby, then disappeared into the bush. Graham saw it swimming across the lagoon on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday night, we heard it swimming across again toward the camp. It was close, but we couldn't see it because of all the grass and reeds in the water. It never landed however, perhaps it saw the welcoming committee waiting on this side of the lagoon (me and my camera, Anna, Graham and the binoculars) and changed it mind about its visit.
However it was the hippos who took a centre stage on Tuesday. I'd woken up to some strange sounds coming from the water. I brought this up over the breakfast and found out the strange noises were in fact hippos mating. Ok. That night, I woke up again to the sound of a hippo, not mating this time, but splashing water very close to my tent. I listened, and in addition to the munching noises it made as it was eating the grass, it was clearly making its way towards my tent. The sound from its footsteps in the water was becoming louder and louder, and I waited, looking through the net on my tent door, trying not to move. It was nearly the full moon, so I knew if it came in front of my tent I would be able to see it clearly. I could hear it approaching, and surely enough, I soon had a full view of a huge hippo in front of me. It was only a couple of meters away from me, we were separated only by the mosquito net on my tent door. The hippo stood still, looking into my tent. I laid there silent, wondering if it could see me. If this had happened on my first couple of nights here, I would have been close to having a heart attack for sure. Now I was pleased to notice that I wasn't scared in the slightest. After about a minute or so, the hippo must have finished checking me/my tent out, and satisfied that it wasn't much interest to him, turned around and walked back into the water.
Wednesday we started our three-day camping expedition to North.
In Mohembo a car passed us, and Nature's brother-in-law, who hitched a lift with us, tried to get a lift from them for the rest of the journey. The car was full, with about six people on the back, but surely there room for one more. It turned out that there wasn't, as there was also a body at the back of a car. An old man had died in a village near our camp (Gunitsoga) and they said he was a hundred and five years old. Not many people had seen him in the last few years as he hadn't left his hut. Until then, he'd still been an active member of the community. We wondered what it must have been like here a hundred years ago, when he was a little boy. Nature says it's changed a lot in the last twenty or so years, but I doubt that it was really that different. People must have lived in mud and grass huts identical to the ones they have now, living off the land. You see the occasional car belonging to the community trusts or the government officials on the roads now, but apart form that there is not that many signs of modern life. Ok, there are shops in most of the villages that sell a few food items, a bar (metal shack) that sells beer thorough a window, and perhaps a bakery.
Wednesday was also a day when I saw my first elephant. We'd been to several fields in Mohembo, all raided one after the other. We'd spoken to the farmers on each of those fields, until we reached the end of the last field. It was next to a double fence that was the Namibian border. There is was, my first elephant. It was huge, quiet and it laid still on the ground, in lots of bits. It was dead. It had been shot two days before by a farmer - perfectly legal if they are caught in act, in a field. It was barely recognisable as an elephant, as it had been skinned and stripped off its meat. The people around here eat elephant meat, and if an elephant is shot everyone will come and get their share of it - although the Christians tell us they don't touch it (something to do with prohibitions in the Bible we think, we're still trying to get the bottom of it). So two days after this elephant had been shot, there wasn't much of it left. A sad sight, a carcass covered in flies, that's all.
We camped in an old field overlooking a lagoon under the full moon, and I dreamt of people in my past.
Thursday took us to see more raided fields and we talked to even more farmers. We also interviewed kgosi (the chief) in one of the villages, and narrowly escaped being lashed as we accidentally broke a strict rule which states that women should never enter the kgotla (community meeting place) without wearing a skirt. The kgosi gave out to us, but luckily accepted our apology. Nature did kindly inform us afterwards that the punishment would have been lashing should the chief not have been in such a forgiving mood.
That night I finally managed to upload all my blog entries so far from the same field, under the same full moon and the lucky stars, with cows mooing on the background. Later on I finished the History of Love, and I felt very happy.
On Friday we drove up to Tobera, a bushman village far, far into the bush - this was where we'd gone on my first day ever at work here, and I have to say I had not so fond memories of that place (we were attacked by ants, flies and finally got caught up in a rainstorm in the middle of nowhere, got completely soaked and then it took us about three hours to drive home). However this time the ants were surprisingly well behaved, there was no rain, and I met lots of cute babies (the cute babies and the way they are brought up here deserve their own chapter - I've also been keen to photograph them. I might have to steal one when I leave, they really are irresistible!).
I drove on the way back, and managed to run over a child. Really. It was a classic situation of a lorry coming from the other direction, driving way too fast, me slowing down as the dust was partly blocking the view, a group of kids standing on the side of the road and watching the lorry, not seeing us, then walking straight in front of me as I was only a couple of meters away. Luckily I was going slowly and managed to break so that when I hit the boy he got pushed over, but we could only assume that he wasn't hurt as he swiftly got up and legged it, along with his mates. We were panicking, got off the car, wanting to make sure he was ok, but they were nowhere to be seen. We thought it was a strange reaction for being run over, but Nature informed us that the kids probably thought we were going to beat them up for playing on the road, which is why they run off as fast as they could. They are quite a few cars around, but not enough for people (and animals) to have got fully used to them yet. I have to remember that too, and expect everyone to walk in front of me, rather than away from me.
We got back to where we switch from car to boat, and John was waiting for us with the mokoro (we couldn't fit all the stuff to one boat). As Graham was slightly behind us and it was getting dark, we decided that I would go in the mokoro and take as much stuff as I could, and Anna and Graham would follow in the boat. John poled me across the lagoon, and just before we got to the camp he started gesturing that the there was a hippo nearby. Ok, nothing new there, but then he turned the mokoro around and started poling straight towards the hippo. I could see it in the grass, a big bulky one, and wondered why on earth he's taking me so close to it. Ok, ok, yes, I can see the kubu, I said nervously, not really wanting to get any closer. But John didn't take any notice, and we were only about ten meters away when I realised that there was something strange about that hippo - about the same time when the smell hit my nose. "Kubu finished", John informed me. The hippo was dead, and floating on the water.
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