I did a flight over the delta. Anna booked a pilot to come up over one weekend so she could check out where the elephants were hanging out during the day. It was a great mystery to us, as elephant sightings during the day were extremely rare, yet the roads were covered in footprints every morning. Elephants can walk tens of kilometers every day, so we were curious to see how far they were coming from. Hal the pilot flew over from Maun with his wife in a little two-seater plane, and after Anna had done all her flying I got to have a go.
They had discovered an elephant paradise deep into the bush, completely inaccessible by road, where hundreds and hundred of elephants gathered around the waterholes and mophane forests. My flight lasted almost half an hour, but it felt like five minutes. It was quite amazing – just the experience of being in a tiny plane alone, not to mention seeing all the elephant from the air. SCHOOL TALKS
We did another two school talks. The first one was in Gudigwa, a remote Bushman village, and the other one in Seronga, the “capital” of the panhandle area. I was keen to film one of the talks, and after being refused permission last time despite being all organized and applying in writing beforehand, I tried a different tactic this time, the opportunistic approach.
When we turned up in Gudigwa Primary School, I just asked the teacher in charge and it was ‘no problem’. Much better! In Seronga I had my own group again to do the activities with, and this time I did a more convincing job of acting as the elephant expert. THE TAPAS
One Sunday I was in a mood for some serious cooking, so I decided to cook tapas using whatever ingredients we had. Our supplies were running low as Graham had tried to go to the supermarket earlier that week, but wasn’t able to cross the river as the ferry was broken (250km round trip just to find out that the ferry is broken…). This was my tapas menu – put together from tinned stuff & leftovers mainly…
- Spanish omelette with tomato, roasted pepper & caramelized onion sauce
- Feta cheese wrapped in chargrilled courgettes drizzled with olive oil
- Garlic mushrooms in herb butter
- Butter beans in tomato sauce
THE GUNOTSOGA CHOIR
I wanted to record some local music to include in my film, so with the help of Nature I got together a few local girls to sing for me in exchange for cash. I set up a recording studio in our camp, but no singers turned up at the time agreed. I blamed the agent (Nature), who’d set up the session to clash with church service. So a few days later, I set up a mobile recording studio in the village, gathered everyone up and off we went.
The choir consisted of three women and Nature (who insisted on joining them) and it was actually quite nice. I asked them to sing traditional songs from Botswana, and the second song they did sounded particularly nice, both me and Anna agreed. Afterwards, we asked what that song was about. “It’s about syphilis, AIDS and gonorrhea”, Nature helpfully translated. Great. I might have to think twice about using that one. THIRTY BULLS
This is the time when the elephants have started to come in large numbers. The waterholes in the bush have started to dry up so they’ll have to utilize the river more and more. We were counting footprints one morning on the road to Gudigwa, and the relatively short stretch had already taken us hours, there were so many footprints everywhere. All of a sudden we saw elephants in front of us crossing the road. They kept coming, and we counted thirty bulls altogether.
Anna said she’s never seen such a big bachelor herd together. We drove up to where they’d crossed, and saw them bathing on a puddle of floodwater just by the road. In silence we watched them bathing for about ten minutes, until I spoke just a bit too loud and the herd fled in a flash. It’s quite amazing how shy the elephants are in this area – as if a group of thirty bulls had anything to fear! THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING
I’ve lost a few things in the past three months: a pair of underpants, a belt, a Swiss army knife and now my boots as well. The first three items I suspect I’ve dropped behind when we’ve been camping off-site, but my boots were a subject of a cold-blooded criminal act. It was the last week in the camp, I’d left them on the back of the car which Graham took to Shakawe (when he finally managed to do the supermarket run). On his way back he gave lifts to people, as we always do here, and as a thank you for a free lift someone walked off with my boots (and didn’t even leave his old shoes for me in exchange!). Shame really, but luckily we only had a few days left in the camp at that point so I didn’t desperately need them anymore. It was more the principle than anything else – Anna and Graham ARE the public transport for this area, as the actual bus (unreliable but still the only way for people to get around) broke down a few months ago. They’d never charge people and always pick up passengers on the way, but might think about it twice now. 99% of the people here are completely honest, but you just need the one to ruin it for everyone else. So to make a point, we reported the incident to the local police, after having Nature on the case first to track down the names of the people Graham gave lifts to - No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency-style (I’d lend him the book previously and I think he’s getting quite into the detective work now, Anna had better watch out so she won’t lose her translator). It remains to be seen whether this crime will be solved.
JOHN THE HEALER
Not really related just for the last few weeks in the camp, but I’ve been meaning to write about John our security guard for a long time. I guess the boots incident reminded me again – for I could’ve actually asked John to tell me who it was that took them, if we hadn’t already got the names of the suspects from Nature.
You see, John knows these things. He’s not just a traditional healer, but also a clairvoyant, and a famous and an expensive one. Being our security guard is just one of his jobs, he also runs a hospital and a clairvoyance service from our camp (quite understandable, as he’s got not only one but two wives, who go off on furniture shopping sprees in Shakawe and leave poor John to pay off the bills). He has people coming all the way from Namibia to see him, as he is reputed to be one of the best. For the last two months he’s had a few long-term patients living in his camp, one of whom is being healed for ‘madness’, we learned one day. So our camp population has grown slowly from just four of us to about ten at its best. GOODBYE TSA HA
Sunday was the last day in camp. Not just for me, but also Anna and Graham were leaving for two months, so we had to pack up most of the things. All finished in the afternoon, I took a chair and sat down at the quiet end of the camp by the water, determined to memorise the smell, the sounds, the view. I don’t know of a more beautiful place on this planet than Tsa Ha as it is now, completely unspoiled. It will all be different soon, as they’ve already started building a lodge across the water in Ndovu. I was very lucky to live there for three months, and as I’m writing this now I get tears in my eyes as I miss it so much already.
I made two lists.
Things I will NOT miss from the delta (to be read when I’m feeling particularly nostalgic and desperate to go back): The insect bites. The ants. Smoke from the fire. Not having a computer to write on. Having to remember taking the malaria pills every night. Waking up in the middle of the night and needing to go to the toilet. The cows raiding the camp and pooing everywhere. Cold mornings.
Things I WILL miss from the delta (to be read when someone asks me what I liked best about living there): The sound of the frogs at nighttime. The birds in the morning. The grunts of the hippoes in the afternoon. The distant growls and trumpeting of the elephants as they’re crossing the water and talking to each other. The view from the shower. Sundowners on the lagoon. The water lilies. Cooking on fire. Having the sun shining - every morning. Falling asleep within seconds every night without a fail. Having someone to do my laundry! Sliding through the reeds in a mokoro. The boat journey across the lagoon in the morning. The sound of the hippoes munching the grass. The moments when everything stands still, when it’s completely quiet.
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