A few weeks ago a friend who I'm not going to name sent me a bunch a questions. I've not been able to give her an answer directly to all of them, so I'm going to take this opportunity to reply in public in case anyone else has wondered the same things.
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS?
I'm living in a tent - quite a large, sturdy one, which is not going to blow away with the wind or anything.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I'm sleeping in a tent, and living outdoors, as I don't really spend a lot of my waking time inside the tent. PERSONAL HYGIENE?
We have a "bathroom" where there is a bucket shower and sink, unfortunately not yet with running water but I believe that Graham is working on it. The bathroom has got reed walls and the sky as a ceiling. It's beautiful.
PERSONAL HYGIENE PART 2
Yes I’ve been shaving my legs while living here.
COMMUNICATION WITH THE LOCALS?
English is an official language of Botswana, but whether people speak it or not depends on how much (if any) schooling they’ve completed. In the rural area where we are people generally don’t speak English beyond a word or two, unless they’ve been to school. Setswana is more commonly spoken, but there are as many different languages as there are tribes, and then dialects of those languages. In our area Humbukushu, Sayei and Sesarwa (=the clicking bushman language) are most common.
I communicate mainly by smiling and waving. No, I’m lucky as we always have a translator with us when we’re working, and everyone working for the project speaks English, some more, some less. My Setswana is limited to about five words: hello, hippo, elephant, work, goodbye. One can get surprisingly far with that! John doesn’t know much English, so there’s a lot of waving and gesturing involved when we speak.
FOOD?
The food is great, because we cook it ourselves. I cook a lot because I like it, and since my laptop broke I don’t tend to have that much to do in the evenings. We eat really well. One would think that camp food is plain and boring but ours is far from it! We get fresh seasonal veggies (peppers, pumpkins, corn, spinach) from the farmers, and whenever we do a shopping trip (about once a fortnight) we stock up. Our favourites are baked potatoes, as there isn’t anything quite like potatoes cooked in tinfoil on fire. We eat them with chilli made with kidney beans, or lentil bolognese, or curry sauce. We’ve made stuffed pancakes a couple of times, carrot soup, stir fries, stuffed cabbage leaves, stews, even fresh bread (baked in a pot), you name it.
Most of the time we cook on the fire, but there’s also a gas ring in the kitchen tent. I was keen to try the local delicacies, having the great cuisine of northern Africa in mind and thinking that surely it can’t be that far from it. It was far from it - really, really far. The locals eat sorghum or millet porridge (cold) with sour milk, pap (maize meal) and meat stews and pumpkin leaves, that’s about it. The first option on the menu I’ve been forced to try once and if I ever have to try it again I’ll know better to say I’m allergic. (This was after interviewing a farmer, they brought out a big pot and handed us all spoons. I tried one spoonful, smiled and said it was delicious; unfortunately I’d had a huge breakfast and was still full from it.
The sour milk is just wrong, it’s not only extremely sour but also warm and lumpy, looks like cottage cheese a bit). I’ve had pap once as well, and it was perfectly non-offensive, but quite tasteless and boring. But the local bread is nice, many of the villages have their own bakery and most days we get a fresh loaf of bread for lunch, which we eat with peanut butter. I used to hate peanut butter before I came out here, but I forgot to mention that to Anna, and now it’s too late. It keeps well all day in the hot car. Plus, I’ve kind of got used to it… ok, I actually quite like it now. Some of the bakeries also sell these donut-like things, that are actually just like the Finnish munkki, without the sugar coating. They’re nice. SPARE TIME?
What do I do on my spare time? Well, during the week there’s not much spare time actually. We leave early in the morning, and often don’t get back until about five or even six, so after the evening is pretty much taken by showers, food preparation and then dinner. I try to read a bit before switching off the light, but often I’m so tired by bedtime I just pass out. I have Sundays off, and the occasional afternoon. I fill up my Sundays with reading books, writing, maybe some yoga, scrubbing my feet (yes they get very dirty in flipflops), baking banana bread, logging my tapes, taking pictures, cleaning my tent, doing some laundry etc, etc – I’m certainly not bored. A recent addition to my list of hobbies is gardening. We’ve now planted our own vegetable garden, and it’s the most exciting thing to check twice a day what has come up and how much it’s grown.
We also go on boat trips a lot. We take sundowners with us – a couple of beers or some wine and snacks, and venture out to the lagoon, past the hippos, park up in the reeds, and watch the sun go down over the delta.
Now. A secret. We have our washing up and laundry done for us by John and Molly, who comes in once a week now to do the laundry. I’m telling you, this is living in luxury! I can’t begin to tell how grateful I am for Molly – hand washing all your clothes all the time is not fun!
TRANSPORT?
We move around by boat, car and foot. Mainly car. No, there’s no escape from the camp on days off, but I wouldn’t actually even want to escape. I thoroughly enjoy not having to go anywhere, as we travel so much during the week.
ANYWHERE TO ESCAPE FROM THE BUSH?
No towns or cities nearby where to spend spare time. Gunitsoga is the nearest village to our camp, walking distance away when there’s no flood, and there’s a “bar” (i.e. a metal shack) there that sells cold beer and soft drinks for emergencies. Seronga is the nearest larger village, about half an hour drive (plus a boat out of the camp first) away. They have a few more metal shacks that sell beer there, that’s about it. Shakawe is a two/three hour drive, and a ferry crossing away, they have a big supermarket there. (We do our supplies stock-up in Swakawe, although the ferry crossing is a nightmare at the moment – last time we went over we couldn’t get back that night anymore because of the huge queue. We got in the queue at 4.30. Last ferry is at 6.30, and we didn’t make it across. Thank God for Jen the American peace corp girl in Seronga knew someone in Shakawe, who kindly let us stay at his place that night). Then finally, there’s Maun, about 7-10 hours away, depending on a lot of things. Maun deserves its own chapter.
COLLEAGUES?
The team consists of Anna, the principal investigator, Nature, the translator, 13 enumerators (one in each village) and me, the assistant investigator and a videographer (I made up that title, sounds much better than just an assistant eh?). So on any day it’s usually four of us going around.
ANIMALS SPOTTED SO FAR?
The animals I’ve seen in the wild so far include: monkey, impala, hippo, elephant (added later), crocodile, snakes (including a cobra), spiders (only fairly harmless ones), toads and countless birds (amazingly beautiful ones) and insects.
TEMPERATURE?
The temperature varies somewhere between 10 and 40 degrees C. It’s hot during the day, usually around 30-35 C and colder at night, probably around 15 C. It’s getting colder now that it’s coming up to winter.
THE HUTS IN TARZAN FILMS?
Yes people live in round mud huts just like those that can be seen in the Tarzan films. In fact (this is going to be particularly interesting to any markets researchers reading this) in our questionnaires we determine the social class (or wealth rank) based on the type of roof and walls that a respondent has – and a number of cows they own. Only white people, or very rich villagers (such like chiefs) live in a house made from bricks and iron.
Most common combo is mud/grass, or mud/reeds. Around the hut there is usually a compound, or a yard which is actually the living room and the kitchen. The compound is fenced with reed wall for privacy. ***
And finally, the GPS cordinates for our camp are:
18º49'57.81"S
22º35'56.26"E
...in case anyone wants to pop round for a cup of tea (I can even manage fresh coffee). The cordinates should work in google earth.
Raj, I'm still to see the elephants showering themselves with their trunks but I remain hopeful! :-)
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