Maun Madness

Spotted Bush Snake

“Kristy, we have a problem in here,” Paul shouts from the living room on Saturday morning as I’m in the bedroom changing the sheets. I hear furniture scraping and turned up on end as I rush to see what’s happening. Of course, if he had said, “SNAKE!!!” I would have locked myself in the bedroom and cowered (safely) behind the closed door. I should have known it wasn’t good when he called me by my proper name. He rarely does that.

Typically we keep the doors and windows closed, especially since we were inundated by mosquitoes about nine months ago (for Valentine’s Day I got a custom made mosquito net for the bed, how romantic…), but a brief burst of air blew it open as Paul was rewiring our battery UPS – Uninterruptible Power Supply source (that keeps things running temporarily when the power goes out), and in that 30 seconds in slithers the speediest meter long spotted bush snake (of course, we didn’t know that he was harmless until we identified him up in the tree after the fact). Grabbing two brooms I arm both of us and build up all my courage to go towards the door to open it again (Paul is trapped behind turned over furniture). When I do this, the uninvited guest makes a beeline directly for it and out he goes and up a tree in a split second. Once he’s there we try to identify him, snake books in hand, until his camouflage wins and we lose sight of him. Makes you wonder who else is up in the trees that we don’t notice. Yikes! Time to change the latch on that door…

We suspect he came in to eat our resident lizard but he fled  to the safety of the office and hid among the power cords. 

Our Resident Lizard

In honor of “March Madness” (a phrase used in the States to refer to basketball finals) I’ve decided to title this entry “Maun Madness” and tell you a little bit about our day-to-day lives in Maun and some of the madness which that sometimes entails.

Much of our time, since I wrote last, has been spent in Paul’s office where he is busy making maps and working to help with the anti-poaching efforts by training some of the Botswana Defense Force (BDF) to use GIS (geographic information system) to better chart the patterns of poachers. I’ve been busy using the first part of my sabbatical to prepare a new course called the “Social Determinants of Health” that I’ll teach in the fall. I’ve been reading lots and making a syllabus and day-to-day class schedule. So far I’ve read several books, two of which I will definitely use. One is called The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills and the other is The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.  Both help to illustrate how things outside of the individual (societal level economic policies and the amount of inequality in a society) help to shape health outcomes. Hoping the students will find them as interesting as I have.

We haven’t had much of an opportunity to get out in the bush, partially because Paul has been so busy and working on weekends to catch up and partially because it has been raining lots and that makes roads soggy and difficult to navigate. The sand track that leads from the tarmac (paved) road to the ostrich farm where we live has been so full of water that we have been unable to use our Subaru Forrester (she would sink) but instead have to take one of the Land Cruiser safari vehicles in to work on a daily basis. One day last week it was raining so hard when we got to the gate to the ostrich farm that I have to open (if I don’t drive, I have to open the gate), I literally stripped down to my underpants, took off my shoes and trudged through a shin deep muddle puddle to open the gate. No point destroying my “school” pants and shoes. It is moments like these that I often think, screaming silently in my head, “But I have a PhD!!”

We did manage to make it out to Black Pools in Moremi Game Reserve one Sunday for a picnic lunch. We are about a two hour drive from there so we headed out mid-morning and by lunch time were eating our lunch in the company of hippos (immersed in green weeds), lechwee (water antelopes), and whistling ducks. It was a good day for giraffe sighting as well and  we kept encountering one family after another on the road. Carmine Bee Eaters were still present to escort our vehicle through the high grass, eating all the bugs we stir up.

Hippos at Black Pools Covered in Weeds

Giraffe Family in the Road

Curious Zebras

Carmine Bee Eater with Swallows in a Bush

Despite our lack of time in the bush, our days are filled with wacky and wonderful animals. Each morning, for example, around 6:30 AM we hear banging on our windows made by one of the two red hornbills who have taken up residency in our yard. We call them “Koko” and “Tsena” which is the Batswana equivalent to “Knock Knock” and “Who’s there?” They like to get our attention in order to encourage Paul to bring their birdseed breakfast that he puts out every morning. Their large red bills prevent them from landing on the window sill silently so instead they BANG their way onto the sill (as if someone threw an apple at the window) and then peer in with one eye. If not on the sills they can be found perched on the top of the outdoor shower looking through the kitchen window, hopping on the roof rack of the Land Cruiser or eating windshield wiper blades (which must taste good, since they are often in need of replacement).

Koko and Tsena on the Outdoor Shower

"Cable Chewers" or Tree Squirrels having Birdseed Breakfast

Each afternoon, we try to eat our lunch we bring from home outside at the new picnic table that Paul had built for the office block. We get out of the office for a little while and sometimes have interesting people to watch or birds to listen to. The other day, for example, we were entertained by a forked-tail Drongo, a rather ordinary looking black bird with a unique talent for mimicking sounds that others make. We saw one in Khumaga near the Boteti River a while back confusing the heck out of a Pale Chanting Goshawk by mimicking its call only to dive bomb it when it came to see which of its mates was calling it. The other day at lunch we hear, “Meow, meow,” and thinking one of the local feral cats has managed to get on the roof, we’re surprised when to see this Drongo meowing like a hungery cat. More Maun madness…

Upon returning home from work each day we feed our neighbors, the ostriches, and then we are enthusiastically greeted by Spike, our landlord’s Jack Russell Terrier. He stays with us pretty much every night. We feed him dinner. I give him his nightly brushing. We play with toys and bones we’ve purchased for him. Sometimes I trim his nails. On weekends he gets his flea dip, if needed. So…if you’ve followed this, in Greenville I have a “cat that is not my cat” and in Maun a “dog that is not my dog.” I’m the only person I know who buys pets supplies regularly, that doesn’t own a pet. Except for the toe chewing and ankle biting in the morning (did I mention I’m not a morning person?), he’s really fun to have around. When he gets too “full of beans” as Paul puts it, I send him out the door to where ever he goes for the day shift.

Our weekly entertainment includes getting the local paper, The Ngami Times, each Friday. The editing errors keep my paper grading skills limber and there are always a few bizarre stories to keep things in perspective. One of my favorites recently was about a new “soap” that supposedly “prevents” HIV/AIDS named after a previous president (that caused a stir). On a more serious note, there’s been a big stir over a local farmer’s wife from Ghanzi that was raped and murdered. The tragedy is that the two guys suspected of doing it were let out on bail (this is AFTER one of them had already escaped while he was in custody and then was found by local farmers, not the police, who proceeded to beat the heck out of him before returning him to the police). They were then re-arrested for “stock theft” (stealing cattle) – and no bail was offered for that! Most recently the Magistrate that gave them bail for the rape and murder but not for the cattle theft was shocked when the case was moved to another district. He is now refusing to hear any further cases until he gets an explanation as to why it was moved. You’re kidding me right?

On a lighter note, my friend Mike shared an article from the Botswana Guardian about how “Botswana won’t allow grass-eating at church service.” The subtitle of the newspaper is “Fearless and Responsible”. The article comes with a photo of people lying on the ground in their Sunday best eating grass with the caption “No herbivorous worship within Botswana borders…Botswana Government is not going to allow its citizens to be coerced into herbivorous behavior all in the name of faith.” You really can’t make this stuff up…

Just a little Maun Madness to let you know what’s been happening so far this March. 

Sleepy Spike

Sleeping Spike

high kicking impalas, cheeky monkeys and a squished solifugae

Impala

I wake to the sound of lightly running hooves outside our tent at Khumaga campsite in the Makgadikgadi National Park. I open my eyes and peer out the front door of the tent to see a line of impala about twenty feet from the tent making their way along the elevated bed of the Boteti River. Each leaps then makes a high kick with its back legs like a rocking horse as it passes from left to right. They are so swift and delicate in their moves the sound they make in the sand is soft and systematic. If we Westerners count sheep to fall asleep, I now suspect the Batswana might count high kicking impala. Magical!

We have come down to the park for two nights to install magnetic white board maps that allow visitors to use different color magnets or whiteboard markers to indicate animal sightings or road closings. They were made by Paul and purchased by Meno a Kwena and now the last step in the process is to install them and teach the park workers how they work.

Paul Installing Maps

We are the only ones camping at Khumaga as it is not the ideal time to be out in the bush. Rain, specifically thunderstorms, greet us regularly making for spectacular skies but also high grasses resulting in difficult animal viewing. Additionally, with all the good rains and high grasses, the wildlife disperses making them less concentrated around rivers and watering holes and thus harder to see. The morning we plan to pack up camp and leave we have a spectacular thunderstorm which is nice to listen to on the tent but crappy to pack up as the combination of rain and sand make for a real mess!

 

 

The rainy season also brings out a world of “creepy crawlies” and I had an opportunity to see my first solifugae. This incredibly fast, yellow, “spider like”, scorpion eating, nocturnal creature is totally creepy! I know I should give you a more scientific explanation but let’s just say catching a glimpse of it running around our campsite at night and hearing what sounded like two of them chasing each other up over our tent as we tried to sleep was enough information for me! While Paul was sad to see that one had gotten crushed under our tent as we were packing up camp (I don’t even want to think about that fact that it was under where we slept!) I did not shed a tear, but I did take a picture.

Squished Solifugae

Bush Traffic

Fish Eagle

On arrival to camp we are greeted by a large group of Vervet monkeys. They are swinging through the limbs of trees. Running around the campsite. Sitting on the edge of the fire pit as if sitting on the edge of a hot tub, toes in the water. Climbing up and down the metal braai (read “grill”) like it is a jungle gym. Seeing how close they can get to us before we chase them off. I affectionately call them “lemon cream stealers” because the first time I met one, he swooped down into the open safari vehicle we were in, grabbed a pack of lemon cream cookies, ran up a tree and proceeded to eat them right in front of us. Cheeky monkey!

This time I engage in a bit of “monkey see, monkey do” as one abruptly stands and bobs its upper body up and down. I mimic this. Stand tall, bounce my upper body up and down. Next, he proceeds to move his head and shoulders left to right (similar to a dance move from the 1980s). I repeat. This goes on a while. Unfortunately, while I thought we were having fun, I later read in our animal behavior book that these are “defensive territorial moves.” Apparently I was staking my ground under the tree in the middle of the campsite. He later showed his disapproval by crawling up said tree and pooping on our tent. Thanks for that!

I’m not sure where January went. Since we returned from our holiday travels, we’ve pretty much been in the office. We had a German couple that Paul has known since his Bushmen development days “back in the 70s” camping in our yard for about a week. A delightful couple with adventurous spirits, who embrace each day with enthusiasm for all things amphibian and reptilian. So much so that their visit was delayed because Bernhard was bitten by a stiletto snake. Not knowing what that snake looks like I grab THEIR book (that’s right, they have authored a book with the subtitle “more than just creepy-crawlies”) where it advises not to handle stiletto snakes because they will inevitably bite you (guess he forgot that entry!). After a few days in hospital, they are on their way again. Delightful dinner conversation for a week and a nice day trip up to Khwai River where Bernhard even took a dip (not me, there are crocs and hippos in that river..I have seen them!).

Warthogs at the Khwai River

Bernhard IN the Khwai River

Saddle Bill Stork

Getting a drink

Our other adventure has been trying to get Paul’s PRDP license renewed. Sadly he let it lapse (AGAIN! Don’t ask!) so renewal involves starting from scratch. First, there was the “physical exam” to ensure he is not insane. Second, there was the finger printing to make sure he hasn’t committed any crimes since he was last finger printed (apparently they only keep finger prints for 3 months after they are taken so they must be taken AGAIN – I’m not sure that’s an effective use of a finger print database but, who am I to say?). Then there is the written test which we have been trying to complete since January 13. First, Paul wasn’t ready to take it (there is a manual with crazy rules you have to study)…we postponed until the 17^th. Then his German friends showed up on the 16^th so he postponed until the 24^th. Then the “woman who administers the test” was out that day so the test was cancelled. On to the 31^st where a friend was also planning to take the test so he offered to “get a number” for Paul at 3:30 AM (he was #70) only to wait for about ten hours and still not have the opportunity to take the test (they only made it to the first 40 that day). So today we decided to drive 6 hours (no I am not kidding, three hours each way) to Ghanzi to take the written test there. Here we encounter no lines and Paul registered, took the test, had it graded and we are out of there in 15 minutes! Even though we are exhausted because we’ve been up and driving since 5 AM we do a little dance of joy at accomplishing this step (and he only got one wrong out of 45 questions!). Next, the driving test - it might be back to Ghanzi next week.

Finally, it continues to amaze me how, despite the fact that I have been coming here now for eight years, I am still befuddled by some of the interactions. The other day, for example, I got into this rather comical phone conversation with a woman who I was trying to give my email address to (to plan a visit for my students this May). First of all, it should be noted that my alter ego African name is “Kirsty”. Don’t even bother to try to tell people your name is Kristy, because they won’t get it. Pretty much everyone here calls me Kirsty. I just go with it.

So first, in giving my email address, we struggle with the first name k-R-I-s-t-y then I say “period” m-a-h-e-r, etc. At the time there is no objection or request for clarification but about five hours later I get a confused call explaining that the email address I gave her is not working. We try again.

Ultimately she says, “I do not know what that is”, when I get to the “period.”

I say, “You know, like the punctuation mark you put at the end of a sentence?”

She says, “Full stop?”

{I think, “isn’t that what you do a stop sign?”} I ask, “Is that what you call the thing at the end of a sentence?”

She repeats, “Full stop.”

So I say, “OK, my email address is k-R-I-s-t-y “full stop” m-a-h-e-r…” That seemed to work as I ultimately received the email.So, it is true, you do learn something new every day!

That is all I have to say about January and the start of February…full stop

Stuck in the Mud at a 45 Degree Angle or Lost in a Mopani Forest While Angry Elephants Trumpet: Tales from Our Christmas-New Year’s Adventures of 2013

Hope your 2014 is off to a good start! We traveled for almost two weeks over the “festive season” and, by the title of this entry, you can tell that we had some pretty exciting adventures. We spent the first half of our trip in the hot and steamy Mkgadikgadi Pans at a campsite called Tree Island. We stayed here last Christmas and found it quite peaceful and a nice retreat, so we decided to go back again this year. Rarely do we camp in the same place for five nights and it was very restful. We spend our days watching the zebra migration, spotting interesting birds (saw my first Africa green pigeon – what a beauty!), getting some driving lessons (one of my New Year’s resolutions is to improve my giant Land Cruiser driving skills, remember back in the States I drive a tiny VW bug!), and trying to stay cool while swinging in the hammock and reading. Fortunately, Santa did find us and Christmas day was occupied with playing a trivia game my sister sent us that only proved that my husband is a lot smarter than me (except when it comes to an American cultural references, where he is…useless! In the end, I think we’d make a great “team”).

Zebra Migration at Mkgadikgadi Pans

Tree Island Camp Site

Santa Found Us in the Bush

African Green Pigeon

One of our favorite days on this leg of the trip was spent watching elephants frolic in the waters of the Boteti River near Kumaga and play in mud holes to stay cool. With temperatures in the high 90s, it seemed like all the elephants in the area were headed down to the river for a drink or a dip. Down on their knees, spraying mud on their backs, rolling around trying to cover as much of their massive bodies as possible, dunking each other in the river like kids playing in a pool – it is hard not to see joy in their actions! We spent hours just watching them “play” (On a couple of occasions, the time spent was not of our own choosing as elephants came down from up on the ridge toward the river both in front of us and behind us. We had to wait until they cleared out in order to drive through). There was a spirit of Christmas in the air as elephants and cows (from outside the park boundaries) intermingled to create a peaceable kingdom.

A Peaceable Kingdom: Elephants and Cows Together

Animals Marching Two by Two

We should have known the rain was coming when we saw the “animals marching two by two”. After a brief stopover in Maun for a couple of days to restock, we headed north toward the Linyanti, Savuti and Chobe areas. This part of the trip was somewhat of a “Busman’s Holiday” (did you know that term? Because I didn’t but Paul tells me it is a vacation during which one engages in activity that is similar to one’s usual work). Paul needed to map some new road networks and stretch points in the parks for his maps.

Our first night we camped at the staff village up in Linyanti (a section on the Western side of the Chobe National Park that I hadn’t been to before). We needed to map the new water front routes around the Linyanti Swamps. And, as you might image, “swamps” bring all types of challenges including a mosquito population that was so tenacious that they even persisted in the heat of the day and the pouring rain. At night we didn’t even go outside for fear of their attack. Despite our best efforts with bug spray, it will be amazing if we don’t malaria! One night as we hunkered down in the tent, we could hear a hippo grazing nearby. Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp like some incessant mowing machine that didn’t even take a moment to chew the content of its full mouth before swallowing. At one point, Paul grabbed his glasses to see if he could see how close he was to the tent (it sounded VERY close) and the chomping stopped instantly! We didn’t breathe. If he got frightened and charged the tent, we were goners.  We left that location after one night!

Throughout the trip we encountered stranded and sometimes terrified tourists challenged by the extreme road conditions. With water water everywhere we towed stuck tourists out of mud holes, followed a broken down camper being towed by another vehicle to make sure they made it out of the park and even had to winch ourselves out of a tricky spot at one point in time! The roads from Linyanti to Savuti was especially bad, not only because of the amount of rain water, but because elephants had had a field day digging in those roads and their damage was impossible to see until you landed in it. 

On one such occasion we had our two left wheels attempting to maintain solid ground out of the water, while our two right wheels navigated the depths of the flooded road. A Land Cruiser can tilt quite a lot without flipping over and it always makes me nervous (Paul routinely asks, “How’s your tilt-o-meter?” when we find ourselves perched at an uncomfortable angle).  We are trundling along when BAM we hit an elephant hole and get stuck. No forward movement, no backward movement – we are stuck!! The vehicle is tilted at a 45 degree angle and, since Paul’s door is literally hitting the earth, we have to crawl out of my door which now is at the “top” of the vehicle (Did I mention that on our two days back in Maun I managed to throw out my back trying to straddle a mud puddle while opening up the impossibly heavy gate to the ostrich farm and am now on pain medication while climbing out of the vehicle? Just adds to the excitement). Fortunately, we have a winch mounted on the front of the vehicle. We tie it around a small tree, Paul climbs back in the vehicle and I stay outside to operate the handheld device that reels the wire back in thus pulling the vehicle towards the tree and out of the mud. I start winching, he starts driving and we manage to get the stuck vehicle righted and we’re back on our way (so sad to report I don’t have a picture of that but I was a little busy. I promise to do better next time).

Super wet roads in Savuti

Camping in the Bird Hide

We spend a couple of nights, including New Year’s Eve, camped out in the bird hide of a relatively new lodge in Savuti called Ghoha Hills. We ring in the New Year serenaded by a deafening chorus of frogs (I’m not kidding you. It is so loud we have to raise our voices to hear each other!).  By day we map their newly established and highly overgrown roads (with all this rain, all the new roads they cut the previous dry season are almost undetectable). Much of the time we have a staff person with us to “show” us the roads (since they are nearly impossible to identify). We venture out one late afternoon alone to get the final road before we depart the next day. We’re feeling pretty confident as we’ve actually acquired some skills at “undiscernible road identification” (the trick is to not look at the ground but at the brush to the side of where the road should be, if you see a space wide enough for a vehicle between the bushes, it MAY be the road). Paul moves trees the elephants have knocked over into the “road” and we’re doing pretty well until we lose the road in an open field and all that stands before us is wall to wall Mopani forest. 

Bush Break

 

Clearing trees from the road

In a situation like this one can follow an elephant trail (a single lane path used routinely by elephants) but, perhaps surprisingly, elephants are narrower than our vehicle and they can squeeze through spaces the vehicle cannot. We struggle to find clearings in the forest we can get through. 

We have a GPS and can see where we are and where the road we are trying to get to is, but we can’t find a way to get there. In my mind, I’m making a plan for staying the night here, as the sun is starting to go down and it will really be impossible to find our way out in the dark. We have come too far to turn around and go back. “We’ll be OK,” I tell myself. “We’ve got wine and food in the fridge. And I can sleep curled up in a ball in the back of the vehicle (not advisable by back specialists, I’m sure, but I can do it!).” But just when I think we’ve got it under control, we encounter a herd of unhappy elephants and they start trumpeting, standing tall (stretching to their full height and width with ears out), and shaking their heads (a rough shake of the ears to signal they are NOT happy with our presence). We retreat as quickly as one can in a Mopani forest only to bump into another unpleasant group of elephants. They are everywhere and they are not happy! (What happened to those frolicking friendly elephants we watched at the Boteti River?). The elephants up this end of the park are on edge. Some suggest it is because poachers coming in from Namibia (we are very near to the Caprivi Strip) are active in this area and the elephants see vehicles as a potential threat. Miraculously we “bush bash” our way out, eventually finding the road near Quarry Hill and ultimately (after a long very wet drive up from Savuti) make it back to the comfort of our bird hide and frog chorus. Phew!

The rest of our trip is spent in Chobe (where we see a beautiful pride of three adult and six young lions on a kill) and Kasane (where we have a lovely meal at an Indian restaurant). Unfortunately, somewhere along the way (according to the Center for Disease Control website within the last one to three weeks) we’ve picked up a case of giardia and I am sicker than sick (what we call “the twirls” since this best describes the action you engage in trying to determine which end of your body has the highest priority over the toilet – not fun!) which delays our return to Maun by a day (there is NO WAY I could get in car).

Ultimately we get back home safely. Paul gets sick when we return (then drops a 20 liter jerry can full of fuel on his toe!) and we are now both on medication that seems to be helping the giardia situation. Did I mention, “Africa is not for sissies”? Oh yeah, that was the last entry. Hope you’ve enjoyed (from a distance) some tales of our Christmas-New Year’s adventures of 2013!

Flame Lily