FU All the Time! In the Bush

Curious Baboon

We are driving as fast as we can to Mowana Lodge in Kasane, Botswana. It is barely 8 AM on Sunday morning and we’re trying to reach the van from our day trip to Victoria Falls on Saturday to catch it before it heads back to Zimbabwe for another trip. We need to search the backseat for a missing passport of a client who is supposed to fly back to the States in a matter of hours. 

Oh crap! There’s a police roadblock ahead. I dig for Paul’s driver’s license and PRDP (the licensing needed to drive a safari vehicle, even if it’s empty). While the cop is fine with these documents, he asks for the “Road Worthy” documentation and since we are in Audi Camp’s vehicle, we have no idea where it is. All I find in the glove box is either a giant bag of cocaine or washing powder (admittedly the chase scene intrigue of this all may have been getting to me). 

“Pull over to the side”, he says and I almost burst into tears. I quickly explain that one of our clients has misplaced his passport and if we don’t catch the van before it leaves, it will go to Zimbabwe and our client will miss his international flights. I must look desperate enough because he tells us to carry on. 

As we’re pulling into Mowana Lodge on two wheels, an African Odyssey van passes us. That was the name of the company we did our day trip with and we are like two ships passing in the night (ie. two passing ships if they are speedboats). Hoping there’s another van waiting for us, we ask the workers milling around outside the lodge where African Odyssey parks their vans. They reply, “Marina Lodge.” This is a different lodge farther into town and, if that is the case, we are in trouble. 

We call Lesedi, the office manager at African Odyssey, and ask, “Marina Lodge?” She says, “No, Mowana Lodge!” (which is where we are) and we realize it was the vehicle that just passed us. We quickly reverse and careen out of the parking lot like a scene from a bad 1980s movie with a high-speed chase. 

Damn…we’ve got to go back through the roadblock in the opposite direction but we haven’t found out where the “Road Worthy” paperwork is. Fortunately, the cop who originally flagged us down is giving someone else a hard time and his colleague just waves us through. 

We arrive at the Botswana side of the border but there’s no African Odyssey van on our side. We must have missed them. We call Lesedi again. Each time we speak to her we get slightly more information from her. It’s like she’s feeding it to us in dribs and drabs. “No, no,” she says, “They are not transporting people to the Botswana side of the border from Mowana. They are picking up people from the Zimbabwe side of the border.” (It took about six interchanges and as many phone calls to get this clarification.). 

We can’t drive across the “no man’s land” between the two borders without checking out of Botswana and paying a fee to enter Zimbabwe, so we move to the return side of the Botswana border and start accosting drivers of African Odyssey vehicles. “We need to check the back seat of your van for a passport!” we shout to confused looks. Again, images of a B-rated film fill my mind where they are trying to confuse pursuers by having several identical vehicles swirling around. 

Even though the company has reassured us that they checked in the van this morning and the passport was not there, we don’t totally believe them (they don’t have as much at stake as our client does in this). We want to check for ourselves. 

On the umpteenth call to Lesedi, we learn the driver of the African Odyssey vehicle we are looking for is named Moses (will Moses deliver us to the promised land??). We start walking into “no man’s land” between the two border posts hoping to find Moses and search his van for the missing passport. 

We see a man walking towards us. He asks, “Are you looking for a passport?” We explain the entire situation to him at length. He listens patiently. Nodding. “Eh-hhh-ing” in classic Motswana style. And then he says, “Do you mean this passport?” whipping it out from his pocket. I practically knock him over by hugging him! We are saved!!

Me and Moses at the Border with the Passport

This is how our first Furman alumni safari ends and it is really the only glitch in an otherwise successful safari. Our group of fourteen includes Furman alumni and family, and we adventure to some of Botswana’s most famous locations including Moremi Game Reserve, Savuti, and Chobe National Park. During our seven-night safari we even managed to squeeze in a day trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and a Chobe River Sunset Cruise.

Crocodile on Chobe Sunset Cruise

Marabou Storks

Ellies on the Chobe River

Cape Buffalo on the Chobe River

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Visit to a Croc Farm (see the baby croc in my hands)

Our five nights camping in the bush were some of our client's first camping experiences EVER! Upgrading from our typical student safaris, we offered “ensuite” tents each with their own pit latrine and shower (no sharing toilets/shower tents like our student safaris). Our camp staff took good care of us offering both housekeeping services (e.g. they made our beds and swept out our tents while we were on game drives) and delicious meals cooked over the fire.

Ensuite Tents 

Bush Flight

After landing in Maun, the group is whisked off on a bush flight over the Okavango Delta, one of the largest inland deltas in the world. As a Furman alumni safari, this is more than just a typical safari, in that it has an educational component and Paul orients them with maps, entertains them with tales of the Southern skies and regales them with stories from his 50+ years living in Botswana. I share my 18 years of experience in Botswana and a decade of directing Furman’s Southern Africa Study Away program (2009-2019) and do my best to share my knowledge of the bush (I am not a safari guide but I play one in the bush!).

Paul Orients with Maps

Paul Explains an Elephant's Skull

We are super lucky and see lions just about every day with some unique sightings at that (e.g. a young female uncomfortably perched on top of a termite mound). At one point, our open safari vehicles are completely surrounded by a pride of lions on an elephant kill (one of the worst but most memorable smells you will ever smell). I caution them to stay silent and not move as the lions come within less than a foot of us (I probably should have reminded them to breathe once the large male walked past as nothing makes you feel more alive (vulnerable?) than being within an arm’s reach of scratching a lion on the head!).

Our Safari Vehicle Right Next to a Male Lion

And speaking of smells, one of our tents was “christened” by a striped polecat (think skunk) and its occupants were real troopers declining our offer to switch tents with them (neither Paul nor I have very good noses) and instead “freshening up the place” with sage brush branches and dryer sheets from a traveling companion (note to self: pack dryer sheets! They are small, lightweight and can really make a stinky tent (or bush clothes) smell better!). 

Finally, even though overall the safari was a great success, we did have our own Botswana-style adventure when the safari vehicle pulling the trailer with all our bags in it got stuck in some deep sand…in the dark…just after observing a pride of lions. We evacuated the vehicle, dug out the sand in front of/behind the tires, gathered limbs and branches to put under the tires for traction, kept an eye out for eyes in the darkness, and pusssshhhheed! All’s well that ends well and we arrived in camp feeling victorious. 

In the end, I think the first Furman alumni safari was a great success and I hope there will be more in the future. It was so wonderful to have the opportunity to share my love for Botswana with Furman folks again (COVID killed the Southern Africa Study Away program) and I think we all made some new Furman friends. 

As we bid farewell to our guides as they dropped us off for our last two nights at the lodge, our group chanted in unison, “FU one time. FU two times. FU three times. FU all the time!”

Saying Goodbye to Our Guides

PS: I’ll be sure to explain to the guides before our next trip that this is a traditional rally cry shouted at football games on Furman University’s campus!

PPS: We even caught a glimpse of a leopard and enjoyed some beautiful African sunsets!

Spotted a Leopard

Sunset at Dombo Hippo Pools

No more monkeys jumping on the bed! Human-Wildlife Interactions

I’m innocently washing dishing in the bush after supper. We’re keeping an eye on two honey badgers not too far off in the distance who are trotting around the staff village at South Gate of Moremi Game Reserve searching for some dinner. All of a sudden, BAM! A bug flies straight into my left ear. It is flapping seemingly on a mission to reach my cerebral cortex. It sounds like it is the size of a pterodactyl! “Help, Paul! Help!”

 

He tries shining a light near my ear to woo it out but it keeps flapping and going deeper. I’m starting to lose it! I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy! I’m surprised it is not used as a torture tactic like waterboarding to get prisoners to give up secrets! I would say anything to make it stop. Unable to entice it out, Paul suggest pouring vegetable oil in my ear to smother it (how can this be my best option?). I shout and cry, “DO SOMETHING!”

 

We scurry to the front seat of the Land Cruiser with oil and drown the damn thing! Finally…relief. No more flapping. But now what? I’ve got an ear full of vegetable oil and a dead bug in my head. We move to the tent…headlamp, toothpick, tweezers in hand. “GET IT OUT!”, I cry. The thought of a dead bug in my ear is FREAKING ME OUT!  (I’ll be honest, this was not my proudest moment in the bush!). Paul thinks he sees a leg and starts to pick and poke until he hits something and I cry out in pain (we learn later it was my ear drum and he accidently perforated it!). We then try flushing it out. More oil. More water. But no carcass is produced.

 

When we emerge from the tent, we see destruction – washing basins over turned, forks in the dirt, dishes everywhere, Paul says, “You must have done this when you were flailing around trying to get the bug out of your ear.”  Then we remember the honey badgers…they must have raided camp while we were distracted! Cheeky bastards!! They even licked the dirty bowls clean. Gross!

 

We have come to Moremi to “cut” some roads for DWNP (Department of Wildlife and National Parks) and the HATAB (Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana) mobile operators. Paul has managed to get DWNP to agree to let the connector roads be “cut” and HATAB has raised the funds. Paul is adding his GIS expertise and advice for free. While we originally thought this was a two to three-day job with a chainsaw (which was highly delusional thinking), a giant front-end loader has been “hired” to bull-doze through the thick mophane forest like a scene out of Avatar…for a week!

Me, Ishmael, Paul

You might wonder…How does one “cut” a road? It is quite arduous and potentially risky as Paul with his GPS in one hand and a rifle in the other sets out into the bush followed by Ishmael and a fist full of red and white tape strips to tie on branches leading the way for the giant front-end loader. They walk and tie ribbons and the front-end loader followers with its path of destruction. Pearl, the park manager, myself, and Thomas, a DWNP employee, follow in the back up vehicles.

 

It sounds simple but it is not. Sometimes they have the good fortune of following an elephant trail, but the days I walk with them and carry the ribbon roll, I’m quickly reminded how thick elephant skin is and how much more easily they can withstand the whacking of branches against their bodies. Branches whip back smacking us in the face, arms, legs…I feel like I’ve been beaten by they time we return to the vehicle. And if there’s no elephant trail, you have to force your way through thick mophane groves. There is often barely enough room to even squeeze a full-size adult’s body through.

 

Pearl and I

We also learn quickly that those clear areas we saw on google earth we thought would make a nice route for a road are actually populated with Kalahari Apple Leaf trees and with those trees come deep sand. A potential hazard for future supply trucks, mobile operators and tourists alike. So, we must pick our way through from point A to point B being battered by branches all the way.

 

Paul, Thomas, Pearl and Ishmael 

And the branches aren’t the biggest risk, as traveling on foot in the bush away from the safety of the vehicle has its own set of risks. Paul recounts stories of coming across an agitated bull elephant that caused them to “back up quickly”.  “Did you have to run?”, I ask. To which he replies, “We backed up very quickly because he was not happy to see us.” I suspect this is what they describe in Southern Africa as “not feeding them the whole chicken” (or not telling the whole truth). I try not to think about it, day after day as the love of my life walks miles in the bush to “cut” a road with all types of potentially lethal encounters awaiting him. Another late afternoon as evening is approaching (most of these days were 10-hour work days), the follow up vehicles spot a lone buffalo not far off in the bush. Known to be a serious risk, this one really catches my attention. “He will be fine. He will be fine.” I repeat to myself in a not so reassuring mantra.

 

The red and white ribbons for marking the trail

And let’s not forget the lions stealthily sitting behind the bush that we didn’t see as we jumped out of the vehicle to tie ribbons for the front-end loader to follow as we moved from one road site to the next. Ishmael was ahead speaking to some tourist asking if we’ve seen anything when we spot them. I shout, “TAU!” (which means lion in Setswana) and Ishmael hurries back to the vehicle. The tourist we came upon felt lucky to see them (a small pride of one healthy looking female and two scrawny males), but my heart was racing given we didn’t notice them until after we jumped back into the vehicle. We are the ones who were lucky! Yikes!

 

Stealthy Lion

Over the week, the crew manages to cut about 26 KM (~16 miles) of road in the Game Reserve. The routes are designed to avoid rising flood waters and bridges in need of repair so that mobile safari operators and self-drive tourists can continue to use the park. Paul suspects that these roads are the most significant changes made to Moremi in the last 25 years and they will save hours of driving as they connect previously unconnected areas of the park.

 

Paul at the end of the new road

Setting up our camp on the edge of the staff village really made me think about human-wildlife interactions. A leaky water system creates a makeshift “watering hole” nestled between the staff housing that brings in elephants, impala, zebra and basically any living creature in need of a drink during this incredibly dry time. Each morning we are awoken by a crescendo of lion calls. There is a pride of four that hang around near the camp and their calls to each other get louder and louder as they approach and quieter as they move away. The loudest one sounds absolutely HUGE and every time he calls for his mates, somewhere deep in my brain a survival instinct makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. All night long we hear the crack snap of elephants finding things to eat. Things are so dry the crack snap is followed by a loud THUD as what sounds like a very large tree is pushed down as the food supply dwindles.

 

Elephant coming to water in the staff village

Uninvited visitors to camp are not only coming for water, they are coming for whatever they can steal to eat. There is a large troop of marauding baboons who have figured out how to open doors (staff must lock their houses when they leave or the baboons will come in and eat everything) and zippers. After the second long day of road cutting, we come back to find a pile of ripped up items in front of our tent. As we get closer, I realize it looks like the contents of my first aid kit…rehydration salt packs, punctured Neosporin tube, and torn up MiraLAX packets. The baboons not only unzipped our tent to get in, but they unzipped my bag to get to the first aid kit and then bit their way into the kit and several items. The good news is…the childproof cap on Pepto Bismal is also “baboon proof”. They also did not poop or pee in our bed! I’m relieved but I feel violated! I always felt that inside our zipped tent was a safe haven when in the bush, but not anymore! Given the MiraLAX packets consumed, I hope they had a really crappy night! On the following days after the “tent-invasion” we secure the zippers together with a piece of wire and tie the tent flaps off with rope. Fortunately, we had “no more monkeys jumping on the bed!”

 

PS: Bug in my ear update – I lived with a bug in my ear for an additional day and a half so Paul could finish the road mapping (for anyone who has benefitted by traveling on these connector roads in Moremi, you are welcome!). When we get back to Maun we go to the clinic. They take a look in my ear and see no bug but lots of redness, inflammation, and a perforation of the ear drum (PS: never put anything sharp in your ear!). I assure them that it did not come out, so it has to be in there. They flush, and flush, and flush. Wax and blood and yuck, but not bug. They keep flushing and finally catch a glimpse of something WAY in there! They flush more and it gushes out (see picture below). Three days of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and ear drops every two hours and I’m mostly better (except for the perforation which could take weeks to months to heal itself!)

 

The bug that was in my ear

CARROTS! What life is really like in a village on the edge of the Okavango Delta.

We’re having a meeting to discuss details for our upcoming Furman alumni safaris when one of the people we’re talking to, looking over my left shoulder shouts, “CARROTS!” Others in the restaurant cheer at the lucky find of the kitchen staff. Their enthusiasm derives from the current ban on imported carrots from South Africa. Of course, I didn’t know this when we searched four different grocery stores for this crunchy orange staple food. There must also be a ban on red peppers because they have been equally elusive. Last week there were onions, this week none. I think the goal is “citizen empowerment” (if Botswana doesn’t allow importation of items from South Africa, then the Batswana can sell their own goods), but in reality, it means a diet without carrots (or red peppers or onions) for the foreseeable future. (The worst is a ban on Helman’s Mayonnaise and Heinze Ketchup…subpar condiments bring a tear to my eye).

 

While I’m sure most of the readers of this blog are used to stories from the bush (here I’ll put some pictures of lions and a leopard from our last bush outing with international journalists to keep you reading), today I want to talk about what it’s really like to live in a village on the edge of the Okavango Delta.

 

Our morning typically begins when the hornbills start clucking for their breakfast. While we no longer have the inquisitive pair who we called “Koko” and “Tsena” (which is equivalent to “knock, knock” and “who’s there?”) that used to fly to the window sill, violently banging their large bills on the window in order to peer in one eye at a time (can’t really look straight in a window when you have a bill that large) to see if we’re up yet, we now have a flock of 20+ red, yellow, and gray hornbills that descend on our “yard” at the crack of dawn (when I say “yard” think sand box). Paul is very loyal to his birds, whether in Botswana or the USA, and his first course of action is throwing them some seed (often before he even puts pants on!).

 

Once the small birds (hornbills, doves, gray lorries, starlings, etc.) and large birds (ostriches) are fed, it’s time to make coffee. While I had several bags of decent coffee from our March trip to Costa Rica put aside for my three-month stay here, they got left behind when a friend from Botswana asked Paul if I could bring over “a couple of books” which ended up being three very LARGE books (weighing in at 7 pounds). Since the migration over here includes a “smaller” international flight from South Africa to Botswana on Airlink with a 20 kg (44 pound) bag limit, something had to go. Fortunately, some friends who own a safari camp just ground us up an ice cream tub worth of decent coffee (otherwise I might still be trying to drag myself out of bed).

 

With coffee on board, we head off for our morning walk with Spike (the dog that’s not our dog). No one can really knows how old Spike is but his face is definitely more white than brown these days (maybe he came to the ostrich farm in 2009??) but he has no shortage of enthusiasm for our morning walks. Jumping up to nip you in the butt cheek if you’re not moving early enough, he bounds off down the dirt driveway to the gate that leads outside the ostrich farm. His eternal enthusiasm for walks made it especially concerning the other day when, after walking through the opened gate, he promptly sat down and refused to move. “Come on Spike! Time for a walk” Nope. He was not going anywhere. Trusting that he smelled or heard something that we didn’t smell or hear, we headed back into the farm for a shorter walk (as opposed to the ~2 mile walk around the outside of the farm’s perimeter).

 

We immediately came upon elephant spoor (tracks) throughout the farm. While we hadn’t seen them in a while, they were back in search of food and/or water. Perhaps that’s what Spike was worried about (or the hyena that is rumored to be wandering around the Boro area). While I’m pretty used to having an ostrich catch the corner of my eye out a window as I’m brushing my teeth (the fences that used to separate us and them are all destroyed so they are “free range” these days) and I’m getting more used to the plethora of cows with their ding-ding-ding bells around their necks searching for water, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to “checking for elephants” before you walk outside.

 

While the ostriches live on the farm (although currently there are only three and when I left last July there were 17), the cows and elephants are in search of food and water. It was a particularly bad rainy season this year and things are very very dry. Botswana has a dry season (May-October) and a rainy season (November-April). The rains in the rainy season water the grasses and trees and create pools of standing water that get everything (animals and people alike) through the dry season. With poor rains, there’s little grass, dried out leaves and no standing water. The animals are quite frankly desperate (already). Joe, the Zimbabwean farm manager, even saw a cow jump over the wire fence he had secured back in place after an elephant crushed it down the night before. While nothing short of an electrified fence stops an elephant from coming in (and the landlords are not about to spring for that), cows are now regular visitors (which is not typical). This morning one was even on the brick walkway right next to our house drinking the water out of the dog bowl!

 

Poor Joe has a Sisyphean task (you know the story of Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll back down) of chasing the cows out and re-securing the fences back up. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. To add to this is our precarious water supply. While Paul was in the USA for six months, thieves stole the pump out of the borehole (well) that is used to supply water to our house. Fortunately, there is another borehole and pump on the property that we’ve hooked up to in order to have running water in the house for washing (it is not drinkable, for that we have to regularly purchase large containers of potable water). But on the day of the Spike-sit down-strike where he wouldn’t leave the gate to go for his walk, our walk on the farm revealed that the elephants had pulled up the plastic piping the takes the water from the borehole to our house. Elephants can smell the water even when buried in pipes underground and poor Joe spent the entire next day digging and burying the pipes again. Did I mention Sisyphus already?

 

We’ve already taken several trips to the store to purchase t-joints, elbows, clamps, more piping, etc. When you brush your teeth tonight before bed, be thankful that you have potable running water at you finger tips. This is what it’s like to live on the edge of the Okavango Delta.

 

And, quite frankly, we have it easy. On our 20-minute drive from town (half on paved roads, half on dirt roads), we pass several mud-dung huts (that’s right, houses made of mud and poop) with occupants that rely on the river that comes down during the dry season for their water. I don’t know what they are doing to survive. I’m sure praying that the flood waters that come down from Angola and fill the dry river bed near our house will make it to Maun this year. Things are so dry and it is still unseasonably hot (at times in the 90s), it is possible the flood waters will dry up before they make it to Maun.

 

Having been in country for just two and half weeks so far, much of my time has been spent cleaning up the house (a herculean task after sitting empty for 6 months), getting over jet lag, spending five days with 3 international travel writers (more on that later), reading (some for pleasure, some for work), catching up with friends and doing typical hunting and gathering that it takes to feed oneself in Maun. Neither Paul nor I are superior cooks and I think what it would take to thrive here is to be like someone on the “Iron Chef” TV show where you get 5 ingredients and whip up something fabulous. If you head to the store with a list of ingredients for a recipe you want to try, you might be lucky if you can find half of what you need!

 

I’ve often said that part of what Paul struggles with in the USA is how “easy” and “predictable” things are on a daily basis. Need a new trash can for the bathroom…order it on Amazon, it will be on your front porch tomorrow. Everyday in Botswana is unpredictable and at times hard. Two days ago, for example, I was reading out in the sun on our patio and I was bitten by an ant and injected with formic acid! Paul came running when I screamed out in shock and pain at the stinging/burning sensation in my toe! He thought it might have been a poisonous snake bite (which is also a possibility).

 

Earlier in the week I was working on answering some emails when a bird flew through the front door (no screen doors or screens on windows here). Paul scooped him up and put him outside on the table where he proceeded to poop (after just pooping on the inside table). I watched him through the window for a long time (so as not to scare him by going outside, Paul is always worried about how I might scare things, not how they might scare me!). He eventually (thankfully) flew away once he caught his breath (he was panting like crazy) and got over the fright.

 

Last weekend we had a major clean up to do when a suicidal gecko managed to get himself eviscerated by crawling into the running air conditioning unit (don’t think about it too much, it was really gross). Gecko parts, old gecko poop and lots and lots of dust was everywhere after that clean up job. I can’t get the sound of the air conditioner grinding to a halt out of my head! Yuck!

 

So, while what you normally see on this blog are exciting tales from the bush, I wanted to give you a glimpse of what it is really like to live here. Botswana is certainly an amazing country when it comes to wildlife viewing. It is truly magic to feel that you are the visitor in their space. But day-to-day life can be a challenge, much more for the local people than me. I have the advantage of resources that make my experiences here amusing and perspective shaping. When I think of water or climate change, it is in light of my experiences in Africa. And the next time I’m in Trader Joe’s and I see carrots I’ll be sure to enthusiastically shout, “CARROTS!” remembering how lucky I am to find them.

Cobra(s) in the Container and a Porcupine on the Porch

 I’m cowering in the kitchen (with “baby goat” and Spike, “the dog that’s not our dog”) as Paul and our friend Tim empty out every item in our container (the trailer of a tractor-trailer truck that we use to store camping equipment and valuables). Tim is kitted out in extra-large Hollywood style dark sunglasses, long pants and a long sleeve shirt and armed with our “gentle giant” (long-handled snake catcher) as he goes into our container for the second time in as many days to try to find (and remove) a Mozambican spitting cobra (hence the glasses as they aim for your eyes when they spit their poison). 

 

This particular saga has been going on for several days when Paul first spotted the thick body of a yellowish snake slithering under some jerry cans for fuel and water transport in the back of the container. Getting near the end of the day and my pleading to “NOT GO BACK IN THERE!” (I’ve still got a little PTSD since I almost lost Paul to a wave in early September which broke his neck in three places), he locks the container for the night vowing to “make a plan” tomorrow. 

 

When tomorrow comes, Tim volunteers to go in and see if he can get him out. At 81 years old, he assures me he has less to lose. I think we should abandon all our property and move! 

 

Consulting our snake books that evening (that’s right we have “snake bookS”), Paul convinces himself that while it looked like a (deadly) Cape Cobra, those aren’t really in our area and the book reassures him that Cape Cobras are often confused with (harmless) mole snakes. I treat all snakes as if they could kill me. It seems like a reasonable approach. 

 

So, on day two of the snake saga, Tim goes in looking to remove a “mole snake” with Paul as his back up assistant (much to his chagrin but on my insistence). I’m not sure exactly when they figured out it WASN’T a mole snake…perhaps when it flared its damn cobra hood or maybe when it started spitting what the snake book calls “copious amounts of venom”. The thing was terrifyingly big, defying the 4-5 foot estimate our trusty book tells us it typically is. Trapped in the gentle giant, dragging the remainder of its body down the sandy driveway, its hooded head spitting in all directions, Paul and Tim relocate it outside the ostrich farm and we hose Tim down when he returns before the “skipping necrosis” of its venom starts to rot his flesh or destroy his eyesight. We naively assume that saga is over. 

 

The next morning (day 3 of the snake saga) we begin packing to head off into the bush for a couple nights of camping so that Paul can to do a star show with his two telescopes for clients. I go in the container to grab my duffel bag to pack. I get tent poles, the bedroll, etc. When Paul goes in to get “Lexie” his 10-inch Meade telescope he’s met eye-to-eye with a snake perched on top of the case. What the what! Did the thing come back? Is there a hole in the container it’s sneaking in through? I burst into tears. Pleading my case again to simply abandon our house and all of its contents. There’s really nothing in there that is THAT important! Paul insists he’s going in to try to get it out. I INSIST he is NOT! It’s one thing to think you’re headed in to remove a (harmless) mole snake and another to go BACK into a container to remove a known deadly cobra! 

 

We call Tim. He’s ready this time with the appropriate snake removing costume. They carefully begin removing items from the container. Bedroll, tent, poles, boxes, Jerry cans, tools, nuts, bolts, suitcases, etc. This goes on for hours. They are both sweating like crazy in their closed toed shoes, long pants, long sleeve shirts…Paul even has on giant work gloves that go up past his elbows used to trim thorny bushes. Our yard looks like the container threw up. Everything is sprawled out across our “yard”.

Paul keeps saying, “it’s always the last place you look” and my thought is, of course it is because when you find the poisonous snake, you stop looking! With just about everything out of the container, they are about to give up. Tim is wondering if Paul’s vision is okay after that head knock in the ocean. Maybe he didn’t see what he thought he did. They’ve looked for holes in the container that perhaps the snake came in and out through and there are none. And at the moment they are about to throw in the towel, so to speak, a slight movement in one of the few remaining boxes catches their eyes and there he is! It hurries to conceal itself more, sneaking under a shelving unit. Rods and wood pieces are used to push it out of its hiding place enough to grab it with the gentle giant. The only good thing about snake removal from the container two days in a row is that I had a second chance to video the removal (see below). And, low and behold, it was NOT the same snake but probably its mate, a much smaller male with the classic black bands under its neck. Despite its attempts to escape the box used for transport it TWICE, they get it secured and Tim agrees to drive him far away from the farm and set him free (you couldn’t pay me to get in a car with a deadly snake in a box!). I breathe a (tentative) sigh of relief and we begin the arduous task of putting everything back into the container. 

 

 

We’ve had a lot of activity on the ostrich farm since I arrived in early June. Ostriches have been mating (it is quite the dance, I’m still trying to get a video). Impala come to drink out of a water bucket near our outdoor shower. Elephants have routinely roamed the farm at night eating seedpods of acacia trees, stripping tasty bark off limbs and leaving spoor (tracks) and shin high piles of poop that deter us from making our normal walk around the farm. We check the freshness of the poop piles before cautiously walking down to see the Boro River which filled overnight in mid-June. 

Ostriches waiting to be fed at the fence

     

Impala drinking from water bucket

Flooding of the Boro River

Spike on our daily walks

Sundown brings a six-pack of bush babies emerging from a hollowed-out pole on our porch. The earliest riser looking as curiously at me as I look at him out the window of our living room. After stretching and scaling the beams to the highest point on the porch, they spring into the mopane trees launching themselves in death defying leaps from one tree to the other like popcorn escaping an unlidded pot on a stove. Five going in one direction and the sixth headed in the opposite way for their nocturnal forging. 

 

Bush baby emerging from pole

Things don’t quiet down in the deepest of night as several mornings we awaken to find the metal ostrich feed boxes dragged across the yard and tipped over to release its content for midnight snacking. For the life of us, we cannot imagine what is strong enough to drag the boxes which weighs in at about 25-30 pounds. A honey badger? So, when I’m awoken at night by Spike’s barking, I get up to see what’s happening out there. And, as I peer out the living room window, what do I see? A GIANT porcupine on the porch trying to claw his way into the box. I don’t know why I thought porcupines were the size of large racoon but boy was I surprised to see this thigh high creature standing there (they can weigh in over 50 pounds). I rush back to the bedroom to get Paul up to have a look. He must hear us because as we look in awe at his size, he rattles all of his quills to full height and does what I’m calling the “porcupine shuffle” that would put the best of speed walkers to shame, speed shuffling across the yard and down the path. 

 

Drag marks from porcupine dragging ostrich food bin

 

White Faced Owl

Of course, the biggest animal excitement we’ve had on the farm is the arrival of “baby goat.” (I’m already too attached and can’t bear to give it a real name.) Returning from our morning walk around ten days ago I hear what sounds like a child crying frantically near one of our neighbor’s homes. Following the wail to the source we find a tiny tiny baby goat so small that it’s practically two-dimensional. It still has its umbilical cord attached. I scoop him up in my arms and carry his featherweight body back to our house. We call the farm manager, Joe, who says it showed up yesterday and he has asked around and no one is claiming him. We’ve got to feed him. Joe brings a bottle and nipple, Paul runs to the Agrifeed to buy powdered goat milk and before you know it, I’m bottle feeding a baby goat that follows me around like a dog. 

 

This is not okay!

Spike took out some of his resentment on his toys (the blue bits were an elephant)

Brotherly love

 

Just to be clear, raising a baby goat is a sh*t ton of work (literally). We’re bottle feeding 4-5 times/day. He freaks out if I’m out of his sight (runs around the house screaming for me!). Without Amazon 48-hour delivery, I’m resorting to old dish towels and binder clips fashioned into a diaper (which cut down on some of the mess when he comes in the house). Spike is not so sure about all this… The long-term plan for “baby goat” is to be bottle fed until he can eat on his own (Google says 6-8 weeks) and then hopefully he will join the farm manager’s goat herd. In the meantime, I’m especially enjoying “goat parkour” where he launches himself in jumping fits off any elevated object.  

 

My heart breaks when I think of leaving all my African loves (Paul, Spike and Baby Goat) next week. I really have to stop following in love with things that live in Africa.