Survival 101

July 11, 2008
Maun

Today I unveil photos of my little cottage, home to mystifying night sounds and spiders of remarkable size. I let them be as I crawl under my bug net from REI, tucking myself in tight. The thought of the critters crawling on me makes me shiver. I stuff in my earplugs. The less pitter-patter I hear, the better. But that means I miss the screech of the barn owl, the hair-raising cry that sounds like brakes applied just before a car wreck.

I saw that owl, finally, yesterday in full swoop for only an instant but a magical one. I hope it got a rat -- a fat, hairy, juicy one.

You can see my home is fine – clean, equipped well and sunny. It even boasts a red wall in the sleeping area and a purple one in the bath. (On the table sits the excellent new book by my dear friend and former colleague, Bill Bishop, and the esteemed Bob Cushing. “The Big Sort” is about our self-selected, lifestyle segregation and its implications for American political life. It’s the talk of NPR, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and it’s well worth your time.)

The true storybook home – the green one with the thatched roof – belongs to Kim and Stuart and their 10-year-old son, Kyeren. To my delight, their Jack Russell terrier named Jenna and new puppy, Sandy, wander over to visit me most days. So does Kyeren, always in search of a banana.

Yesterday he regaled me with survival tips for the bush, a proper topic of discussion for a third-grader whose parents helped found People For Wildlife in South Africa and who now run their own mobile safari company.

“Do you want tropical rain forest, savanna or desert?” Kyeren asked.

“Well, I don’t need rain forest around here. I need something useful like for that out there,” I said, pointing to the blasted, endless sandy road that is my nemesis when it comes to getting back from town. (I’ve still not managed to find wheels. Taxi drivers give me what-for when I tell them to keep driving; we’re almost to my cottage. Needless to repeat, I am not living a big-night-out-on-the-town kind of life. I might as well be living by kerosene lantern, on the Abe Lincoln schedule.)

Kyeren began to expound on how in the desert the first thing to do is rip my T-shirt and wrap it around my head to prevent sunstroke. I then must go in search of shade and water, a slog likely to be fruitless but one I should undertake with optimism. Otherwise, I must harvest my sweat, but I’m not clear on how exactly to do that.

Now it’s time for my knife, or without a knife, a stick or stone. Kyeren inspects my Swiss Army knife and concludes there is quite a lot I can do with that piece of equipment. Once upon a time, pre-9/11, immigration officials threatened to confiscate the knife in Cairo. Considering my current and possibly imminent harrowing circumstances, I am relieved I talked them out of it.

I must kill a snake, cut off its head and then skin it. I then will lay the innards on rocks to cook in the sun, a perfect spot that Kyeren assures me will heat to 56 degrees centigrade.
By this time I am making faces at him.
“Yuck. I can’t do that,” I protest.
“Well, it’s bugs then,” he said, skipping forward to menu option number 2.

Or if I’m fortunate enough I can hunt down a hare, cut its head off first, then slice it from neck to groin, gut it and skin it. That would make a good dinner, too, he said.
I could tell Kyeren, a blue-eyed towhead who looks more burhead Buster Brown than mini-Indiana Jones, was enjoying himself at my expense.

“You’re probably going to die,” he said, noting that I had announced that too many things are too gross to eat. I surmise on my own that I am as good as the entrée and the dessert for the vultures, which I envision ready at the instant of my test of survival to jet in for a sure landing on my sissified heap of hysteria and chow down. (Everyone around Botswana says the same thing: “Africa is not for sissies.” Well, hello? Look who’s come to town.)

Kyeren moved on from the food part of survival to the more palatable instruction for building a camp shelter. That merely involved cutting twigs and grasses to build a shelter like the San build. No problem.

Pretty soon I could tell he was giving up on me. Who wouldn’t?
The remarkable fact is that I sit here in my little cottage and feel my heart aching for the bush, the bona fide bush, where it is entirely possible to have survival skills tested. I look at my photos and wonder how can I get back there. Stow away on one of Kim and Stuart's safari supply trucks headed for Moremi? I could easily hide under the canvas. Who would know?

I look at my photos and remember what it was like, only two weeks ago, to wake up to the sounds of wild animals, to revel in the gifts of nature that are all but forgotten in our cities of asphalt and metal. We walk around in a trance, receiving all manner of computerized information, but bereft of signals from the natural world that can soften the relentless static of modern life. Nature can bring us home, to ourselves. At least it has for me.
I sip filtered coffee poured from my new French press, a touch of city life that I savor down at the end of the sandy road. I promise myself I won’t forget.