In search of lions

Audrey and I had a fabulous walking safari in search of the buffalo on Palm Island. If we found buffalo, we would hope to find lions. We didn't on this day.
But the next day, after Audrey had headed off on her mobile safari, I walked with Xugana guides and two guests. We found the lions! I stood 20 metres away from three females. (See my account and guide Lets' photos at desertdelta.blogspot.com)

Hippo lore

Xugana Island Lodge
Okavango Delta
August 28, 2008

I’m wrapping up my week at Xugana, a paradise and place of peace. I am happy to have been able to show my friend Audrey this island where white butterflies flit about, lesser striped swallows whoosh past your head on the way to build their nests of mud and where the hippo snorts and sprays all day and all night. It’s bliss.

And the good news here is that by acclamation the hippo received a new name yesterday. For a long time he has been called “Bruce,” because an Australian guest had a fat friend named Bruce. Upon learning of Bruce and his nocturnal habits, no guests since have approved of that name, and it pales by comparison to the other famous hippos of Desert and Delta lodges: Pavarotti, Amadeus, Tinkerbell and Meatloaf. “Bruce” simply doesn’t sing, although one could make a case for keeping the name if it were in honor of Bruce Springsteen. But, no, it commemorates a no-show fat Australian. Lackluster indeed.

I offered lots of options for the renaming, from Beethoven to Slim to Rambo to Tiny. But the favorite was Fred. I had said “Fred,” like Fred Astaire, light on his feet – NOT. But it turns out that the guides noted how one guest a long time ago wanted to call him Fat Freddie instead of Bruce. And, the most appropriate reason to call him Fred is because one of the most beloved employees of DDS is a manager named Fred, the man who can tell a story about mosquito bites and succeed at making it titillating and hilarious. Everyone adores Fred. He is a 20-year veteran of the company. He was heading back to Xugana as I was heading out. Too bad for me. He and I shared shifts a few days in Camp Okavango, and I saw him again at Leroo Le Tau. I would have enjoyed having some time with him to hear his latest stories. I’m hoping he will like a hippo named in his honor.

The guides say they will refer to Bruce as Fred, Fat Freddie and Fat Fred. It seemed that nearly every time I uttered the words near the lagoon the other night, the hippo responded with a snort and a bellow. I take that as approval. Now how manager Fred will respond, who knows? I’m guessing with a snort and a cackle.

(Photos are of me/Fred, Xugana at full moon and Fred’s hippo neighbors east of here at the Chobe River)

One of my favorite signs in Botswana

I'm posting this in honor of my boss, David Holwerk, who would find it reminiscent of Kentucky, a place we loved and a source of never-ending stories and million-dollar quotes. This sign competes with my favorite bumper sticker I saw when I lived in Kentucky: "Coonhunters for Christ."

Bana Ba Letsatsi goes mobile

I am happy to report that my first visitor from the United States has arrived. After traveling 41 hours, Audrey Lee from San Antonio, Texas, flew into Maun Airport only 7 minutes late on Air Botswana -- a record for Air Bots, I bet. She jumped right into the festivities, managing to stay up for a one-pot curry supper cooked on the camp fire by my neighbor, Kirk. I've told him he needs a Food Network show called, "Cooking in the Bush" or Bush Knife Chef or something....

After hardly any sleep, Audrey happily joined in the Bana Ba Letsatsi camping trip to Gweta, near the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. The kids pitched tents, ate supper around the campfire and roasted marshmellows (Audrey and I are stumped by the spelling; that word isn't one we have to edit in newspapers very often.) She and I had what turned out to be a rather fine room in the hotel portion of Gweta Lodge, so I can't claim that we roughed it. Tomorrow I'm going to show her one of my favorite spots in Okavango Delta - Xugana Island Lodge. Then she goes off on mobile safari in Moremi Game REserve with Karibu Safaris, while I do more relief volunteering at Xugana. Should be a great week in the bush. Enjoy the photos from our games and arts/crafts in Gweta. update: Blogger is letting me down, so photos come later...

"And the gold medal goes to...."

Aug. 18, 2008
Maun, Botswana

Alpha Kilo Kilo – radio-speak for the plane that brought me back to Maun yesterday afternoon – ferried a lone reluctant passenger. You know who….

Not so the rest of my Savute friends: guide Gwist, who kept checking his cell phone as if news from his mosadi (girlfriend) would pop up any minute, rooms ladies (that’s what they call housekeepers here) Maggie and Keba, groundsman and all-around fix-it guy Mocks and waiter Mbombo. They had worked their two months solid and were headed to Maun for their 11-day time-off. After tourists disembarked at Kwando, Matt the pilot reflected the staff’s mood by pumping a low-volume bit of rock and roll through the plane’s speakers.

From the co-pilot’s seat beside Matt with the bird’s eye view, I surveyed the dry scrub of Savuti, then the lush green of the Delta as we made our way west and south, and, yes, I wanted to turn around and go back. I love the bush. I exclaim it from the top of the morning until night swallows day: I absolutely love the bush. But this time I kept my mouth shut. I know those folks from Savute like me, but I would have sparked mutiny had we ventured anywhere short of Maun. Skydiving with no parachute would have been my fate. They were tired. They wanted to see their families, eat traditional food and go to the cattle post. No way, no how would a romantic makgowa (me) with stars in her eyes about Africa stop them.

Why do I love it? The bush reclaims my attention from distraction. I listen with new ears and see with new eyes, and I never cease to feel reverence for the wild.

Last week I was in one of the chalets getting ready for dinner. I had just had a shower. The bathroom sliding glass door was cracked open about a foot and a half. In the bedroom the sliding screen doors were all that separated my room #4 from the balcony overlooking the water hole where the elephants meet. It was 6:08 p.m. when I heard the quick rustle and the thud. I looked out from the bathroom and couldn’t believe it: On the railing of my chalet was an adolescent female leopard! She must have been chasing a guinea fowl, and it was this cat that had landed with the thump on my rounded timber railing just a few feet away.

Job one for me: Close the sliding glass doors in the bathroom quietly, hastily, with care.
Done.

I watched the leopard glide like a gymnast on a balance beam. Slow move. Quick step. Slow move forward again. The sun was setting, so she stood in contrast to the yellow and pink glow behind her. She walked the length of the railing, then jumped down onto the balcony to snoop around. No guinea fowl here. She leapt up on the big tree that leans into the balcony, crawled partway up and came down again. I was watching it all, eyes always on her, my body frozen except for my hands digging through my backpack to find my camera. I failed at retrieving it in time. No matter. I’ll never forget the scene: Her sleekness and elegance, the length of her tail. She jumped off my balcony, and I heard the crunch of leaves as she moved on. I exhaled. Time had been suspended. I wanted to dance with joy. I was shaking with the thrill of it all, though slightly annoyed that I didn’t have a photograph to commemorate those minutes. Of this I was certain: The leopard’s visit was etched in my memory in burnt-black detail. Rembrandt couldn’t have done better.

And then! There she was again! She was at the right-edge of my chalet, craning her neck around the corner to peek in at me through the sliding glass door. Her face was so like that of a house cat, it was uncanny. I glanced at my watch: 6:10 p.m. She sat there looking at me while I muttered something silly, “Hi there, kitty. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s ok. It’s ok.” We stared at each other in high alertness. We were in a sea of stillness. We studied each other intently. I held my breath through it all. Then she was gone.

When nature comes calling with such a creature carrying its calling card, no words can do such a visit justice, only gratitude. That I felt in all its fullness.

I finished dressing in a flash. It was 20 past 6:00 by then, probably safe for me to go from my chalet up to the lodge, but, well, maybe not. My sissy mode appropriately kicked into gear. I knew that the two lodge managers Kobus and Sanet liked to watch the sunset from the chairs near the fire pit when guests were on the afternoon game drive. I figured they were there, close by my chalet but out of sight because of the trees. “KOBUS! KOBUS! CAN YOU COME GET ME IN NUMBER 4?” I yelled. Without a bright flashlight, I figured this was my safest course at dusk, and indeed Kobus came running. He and Sanet had heard the thud and rustle. They had run toward #4 just after 6:00 but stopped short when they saw the “Do Not Disturb” sign stretched across the path. They thought guests had been cavorting. They forgot that was my room for the day, where I had been napping during my break.

I told them the leopard story, and, sharing my excitement, off they went to see if they could track her. My job was to meet the guests coming back from game drives to tell them what happened and how the hunt was on for the leopard. Kobus and Sanet came back to the front of the lodge a few minutes later. They hadn’t found her. Some guests had already gone to their rooms. Energy and Gwist were leading their guests to rooms near #4. It had been a hot afternoon, and the animals had “taken a holiday,” as we say in sympathy about game drives in which Italians in particular arrive back at the lodge disappointed by an absence of big cats. Well, the game activity wasn’t over. The leopard –my leopard visitor – was in a bush on the right side of my chalet. She hadn’t gone far after all. The guides shone their spotlights, and guests got close and shot their photos. Smiles all around. Alas, I still hadn’t dug my camera out from the pile in my backpack, but from disappointing experience I knew that it would have failed to capture the leopard during nighttime anyway.

So I am left with only this tale to tell you, and it is true and will stay with me always. What can be contained in three minutes of clock time? Reflected through nature, it is an alchemical blend of depth and stillness, exquisite, heretofore unknown to me, wherein clock time matters not at all.

In the Pink(eye)

Ah, those cute children at Bana Ba Letsatsi. They are loving and quick to throw their arms around me or grab my hand to walk with them. I can't possibly keep up with the mound of Wet Wipes needed for the aftermath. So today I woke up with what appears to be pinkeye. Thank you, Maun children of the perpetually runny noses. It is winter here, after all. I'm volunteering in a germ factory.

And early tomorrow I'm off to my bush assignment at Savute. I'm sure those guests will be happy to see someone in my condition rushing to greet them as they arrive from the airstrip. Dark glasses from here on out....I'll let you know on the flip side if, from behind my shades, I finally see the elusive cheetah.

Sail on

**"The winds of grace are blowing all the time. It's up to us to raise our sails." --
Ramakrishna, an Indian saint

**(Or in the case of these elephants I saw in June at the Chobe River, it may mean pack and raise our trunks, jump in and swim to the other side.)

She don't know jack

Aug. 4, 2008
Maun, Botswana

I started my day with Jungle Judy, the woman who once single-handedly pulled a python out of a trough. She did it herself after the gung-ho bush guys accompanying her on the mission collapsed into motley uh-oh bush guys and scattered like roaches at the flip of a light switch. When that thick python turned out to be longer than Judy was tall and started wrapping itself around her, only then did the chagrined men come back to pull the snake off and tuck it into a sack, away from the chickens it had been menacing, not to mention Judy.

Yes, Judy Phillips of South Africa and now of Maun, age 30-something, is a pint-sized, ballsy sparkplug, and it is thanks to her serving as my broker and intermediary that I now have wheels. She’s the food and beverage manager for Desert and Delta’s lodges. And she took time out this morning to attend to one final detail of my rented Toyota Surf. She insisted I needed a hydraulic jack, because Kobus Lubbe, the owner of the Surf and one of Judy’s best friends, forgot his in the Central Kalahari.

Judy bought a replacement hydraulic jack this morning, and she made Nick the DDS mechanic check whether it was big enough for the truck. With an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Nick got down on the sand and began coaching me, cigarette still in mouth, on how I would use the jack if I had a breakdown or a punctured tire, or, as they write in Botswana, tyre. I was standing beside him in my skirt and bending down occasionally to appear interested.

If you saw the monstrous size of “tyre” that I would need to wrestle to succeed in changing a tire, you would agree it is hopeless. I told Judy I would revert to my tried-and-true girlie method that consists of standing on the side of the road and looking tearful; usually men stop in a flash, but I guess this is Botswana where it is always possible that the only life form that might pass a stranded motorist is a plodding donkey or a herd of goats.

“Murphy’s law,” Judy said to me. In other words, if I had a jack I would probably never need it, but without one I was as good as a Maun dirt walker again.

The jack she bought me was too small, so off we motored in her Surf to the Motovac, the auto-parts store, possibly the most impressive of all Maun businesses in size and sleekness. You see everyone you know at the Motovac, which gives me the distinct impression that I might be needing that new jack at some stage of the journey.

Turns out that everyone’s vehicle is always breaking down. But this village is lousy with bush mechanics, so even if the vehicles date back to the Stone Age, the mechanics get them rolling again. And lucky for me I live at a safari headquarters where mechanics arrive every morning promptly at 8 a.m. This I count as yet another blessing.

I was waiting in the Motovac parking area when, to my delight, two tiny folk came running for me. Jabu and Fiki! They were waving and wanting to give me a hug. The two little ones go to Bana Ba Letsatsi, the day center for street kids and at-risk children where I have been volunteering lately. Bana Ba Letsatsi means Sunshine Children, and the faces of Jabu and Fiki tell you what the mission is about. (Their mother was nearby; don’t worry that they were hanging out at the auto-store by their lonesome.)

Bana Ba Letsatsi is the little nonprofit that could. It has 226 children on its register. Nowhere near that many show up every day, but children drop in and out – for a hot breakfast or a hot lunch, showers, a place to wash their clothes and a safe environment to read, play sports, do crafts and, yes, watch cartoon videos. You will see photos with this entry that give a glimpse: Jabo/Fiki; Terence, who has a scholarship to the private school where my landlords’ son Kyeren goes and where I attended the barn dance (Terence won a reading award last week!); and Terence again in the office with Matthew Harris, a volunteer from London; Fiona Miller, a Brit who is the center’s executive coordinator; and Oupha, who serves as receptionist and go-to staff member.

I don’t have photos yet of the Botswana classroom coordinators and counselors who work here or of the kitchen staff that makes sure the children receive big helpings of warm food. But they are on hand to do whatever they can for these needy children, many of whom have been skipping school or were sent out into the streets to beg by their parents or, worse, live in homes where abuse is rampant. As far as I can tell, there’s not much happening throughout society to address the abuse, but Bana Ba Letsatsi does what it can to provide the children with a safe place and a daytime refuge. Matthew picks up some children in a combi (a big minivan) at daylight to make sure they go to school and drops them off back home in the late afternoon. An accomplishment can mean providing a tent for a homeless child or moving children away from the bad influences in town to what amounts to a foster grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Maun.

The center receives donations from the European Union and kind-hearted people around the world, most notably a Brooklyn woman who sits on Bana’s board and sends money from her foundation. Tourists mail checks. Others drop by occasionally and dump contents of their extra suitcases. Last week, books, eyeglasses, clothes, children’s Tylenol, pads of paper, colored pencils, Band-Aids and, oddly, Pine Sol in plastic bags lay in a heap on the floor waiting to be sorted. Someone had stopped in between flights and left a much-appreciated bounty. The center has a 60-year-old Peace Corps volunteer from Alaska attending to finances. Local businesses, a few of them anyway, including Desert and Delta, have lent support, and a big hope at Bana is that more local businesses will embrace the center in the coming years.

I have always loved children, and during this sabbatical year I am meant to be in their company. I’m not out to change the world here. I do simple things, but the interactions with the children go a long way toward feeding a tired soul accustomed to running on newspaper deadlines instead of playgrounds and sitting at computers instead of see-saws. Each one of the little ones deserves my thanks. I push Fiki on the swing. I help Rose practice her reading. I listen to Terence read his books for his homework.
During the school holidays a few weeks ago, I played ball with the children at the sports complex and on another day I went with them on a hike at the nature reserve. Like any good safari-goers, we hoped to see the zebra or giraffe at the reserve (no predators at this park), but, like many good safari-goers, we had to settle for a couple of impala. On another day, my task was to separate all of the medicines in an office cabinet and organize them so that little kids wouldn’t run the risk of being given a dose of over-the-counter drugs meant for teenagers and adults. And on yet another day I helped Fiona write a letter asking for support to make a dream come true: The woman in Brooklyn has invited Bana children to New York in April 2009 to see the educational and cultural sights and to be on hand for a fundraiser for Bana. Fiona hopes that 10 children might be able to go, with 2 staff members accompanying them.

But New York is across the globe; despite free accommodations the expense would be staggering. And yet, even in faraway Maun, dreams for those with tangibly little cause for hope are big and stoked by the smallest of gestures. Just look at the smiles. You’ll see resilience enough to humble any world-weary visitor.

And, as for the bush mechanics: When I mentioned to my landlords last week that Bana’s Land Rover Defender had broken down yet again and Fiona was heartsick and confused about whether to spend 15,000 Pula to have it fixed or whether instead to chuck it, my landlord Stuart said, no way, his mechanics would have a go at fixing it, probably for free or at least for a lot less than a local garage was charging.

Today he had the Defender towed to this property. The Karibu Safari mechanics arriving outside my door at 8 a.m. tomorrow might not know it yet, but they have a noble job waiting for them, one that will help ‘the little center that could’ keep rolling. And that is fine news indeed for Jabu, Fiki and the rest of the Sunshine Children.

P.S. Want to see how high I can swing?

Big wheels keep on rolling

I didn't mean to leave you hanging with all of the bad news. It's actually been an uplifting week, filled with volunteer work, fundraisers and a "barn dance" to benefit Kyeren's Matshwane Primary School. (Can you imagine hearing the Dixie Chicks and Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson over the speakers at an outdoor square dance in the Wild West village of Maun? Well, I heard 'em. And I kicked up my heels during the Virginia Reel in an open-air hall decorated like a Texas-themed prom. I was one of the few in attendance without an appropriate costume, and here I am probably the only one in the joint who can claim to have been a Texas resident.)

A family friend of Kim and Stuart's from South Africa arrived and served as our entertainment during our dinners around the campfire and my partner at the barn dance. His storytelling last week made me laugh until I cried. Let's put it this way: Even though Derek is a card-carrying member of People For Wildlife, he's more afraid of spiders than I am, and unlike Stuart and Kirk, he would jump into a get-away golf cart and speed away before he would use a stick to remove pythons and spitting cobras from the premises. Laughter and storytelling -- these were the antidotes all of us living on the property needed.

The big, quick news flash for the day is that I am driving a burgundy Toyota Surf. I rented it from one of the lodge managers. He flew back to the bush yesterday and left the keys for me. I'll see him Friday, because, hallelujah, I'm headed to the bush again for a week. I'll be back in Savute. But, meanwhile, I've got wheels and clean feet for once (no trudging through the dust today), and, you better believe, I am rollin'! I even knocked that bad boy into 4WD on the sandy road. Ignore the fact that I tore a piece of paper and stuck it in my sun visor: "STEERING WHEEL ON THE CENTER LINE". It's my first time driving on the left-hand side of the road, and I need all the cues I can get.