In a Drought

My firs day in africa, I woke up at dawn shivering, hearing strange bird calls in the trees. Our orientation meeting in the morning, performed by our two guides, Gareth and Jacks, was interrupted by a few huge shongololos (millipedes) and a large colony of ants. I took this as auspicious start. I was wrong.

It turned out that the project we were put on was working in a game park. But this park had no or very few, animals.  As a zoology student, I had come here to gain practical field experience in studying animals. As it turned out the perfect project for this was being run in Swaziland. I was very disappointed when I found this out. Actually, crushed may be a better word for it. It was even worse when we met up with them two weeks later, and had to listen to them talk about all the animals they had seen, including a close encounter with a lion, the animal that had led me to Africa. However, after the original animal envy wore off, I realised I'd been given an amazing opportunity.

As I have said, I came to africa for the animals. It sounds terribly selfish, but I didn't have much interest in the culture or the people. So when I was sent to an area with limited wildlife, I was devastated. And then I was forced to pay attention.

When I say animals, I really mean mammals. And by mammals I mean, things bigger then a rabbit. I have no interest in plants, and only a limited interest in birds, reptiles and insects. I had come to the land of the big cats. The last thing I expected to care about was birds. But with no large mammals in sight, and with several serveys revolved around the plants and birds, I had no choice but to learn. And I realised how closed minded I had been.

The people in our camp helped a lot. Caroline was a walking legend. She could identify a bird by its flight pattern, it call or by where it was. She knew the names of all the trees, an could tell apart ones that looked identical to me. She had an amazing eye. Driving along the dirt road back from the park between two massive cliffs, she slammed on the breaks and pointed up the cliff. She told us there were two cliff springers up there. After much searching and zooming with the binoculars, we saw two tiny dots high up on the cliffs that, even through binoculars, were hardly identifiable as any other than rocks.   She was amazing.

Hen was also an inspiration. She started in England doing studies on wild boars, and then came to africa to volunteer in a baboon shelter. Now, she was working with the community attempting to education them about the environment. She has the kind of life I'd like, and has the most amazing stories to go with it.

These two people showed me what it could be like, living and working in Africa. Over two weeks, I slowly learned about the birds and the trees, and developed a much greater respect for all of nature. But it was the insects you really had to look out for.