This gets infinitely better in you have a Grapetiser in your hand. Especially if it’s free.

Hey hey!

Another day, another blog. Not many more though, mind! So read up while you can.

We've had some pretty rainy and miserable days this week, but in between the storms we've managed to get a whole lot done. We spent 3 days working in the neighbouring community, Sankoyo, where we were surrounded by inquisitive kids & mums, goats, donkeys, and lots of Mopane. The drive out there is pretty long (anywhere between 2 and 3 hours, depending on the stability of your wheels and the wetness of the road), so you really have to think of it more as a game drive than anything else. Which it is – we’ve seen hyena, jackal, elephant, giraffe, buffalo, kudu, impala, zebra, warthog, a ton of birds, and I’m sure plenty more that I’ve forgotten for now. Of course I’ve forgotten – my brain is fried. It was my day off, remember? I spent it watching 2 movies, drinking WAY too much coffee, and stomping around in my gumboots in the constant drip drip of rain. The kind used for torture. Anyways.

On one of our trips into Sankoyo we saw the most amazing beautiful thing – ginormous flocks of Red Queleas all over the road and in the trees alongside. And when I say ginormous, I really mean it. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them. Teeny weeny little birds all flying together in waves, pausing just long enough on a branch for you to make out their shape, and then in flight again. It’s difficult to think of them as individual creatures – they just move as a whole. Like that school of fish in Finding Nemo. You know what I mean. I have pictures, but you can’t get a good idea of what it was really like from the pictures. Maybe I’ll show you the videos when I get home :)

Well, the excitement continues…on our 2nd day of work in Sankoyo, we saw some zebra on our way back to camp. Wait! There’s more! One of these zebees was collared. This means that somebody, being Hattie, was working on zebees in the past and needs to get all collars off. They’re expensive, plus they’re not super comfy for the animal, so the practice is to radio fellow researchers when you see a collared animal like this, so that they can organize a vet to come out and dart it. And that is precisely what we did. We needed to stay with the zebra until everyone got to us, to make sure we didn’t lose it. This was made difficult for a few reasons. One – zebra move while they eat. A lot. Two – these ones get freaked easily. Three – Maun is hours away, and the vet was performing operations. Four – it was crazy hot on the back of the TDI, and I was on the back. Well, the next 2 ½ hours of life were not all that great, but finally everyone arrived. They brought cokes and Easter eggs. :) Rob the Vet was super efficient in darting the zebra, but the poor things got such a fright that they ran like MAD the moment they heard that POP! Well, it got dark, and we spent a good 3 hours in 3 cars with lots of spotlights and torches and people searching everywhere possible for a mommy zebra lying unconscious in the grass and her little foul standing nearby, looking forlorn. Well, every pair of eyes belonged to a silly impala, and we never saw the zebra again. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine – a pretty unsuccessful time altogether, but lots of fun anyway :)

Whew, I can think of lots of funny and strange animal stories to tell.  But I think I’ll save some instead of getting them all out here. You’ll just have to wait. On Friday we officially finished all of our field work, and on Saturday we finished sorting out all of Mich’s soil, packing it all into boxes ready to be sent to Maritburg. What a feeling! Very satisfying! It was fitting that we should have a celebration, and we did it with style.

Emily planned a most marvelous quiz, and last night we went over to Dog Camp for our quiz night and a braai. We had great fun teasing each other for our silly answers, some getting pretty competitive, and just enjoying everyone’s company. Musi was in charge of the braai fire (and what a good job he did), while Face and Olf entertained us with some dancing. They just couldn’t stop. The rhythm got them. Emily made us a delicious cake, Rob grated some carrots, Femca mashed some sweet potatoes, and we had a feast on our hands.

I'm not sure when I’ll get a chance to write another blog - we leave this camp (HQ) on Thursday, to stay with the guys at Dog Camp for a few nights, before I fly home on the 4th! It’s very exciting – as I was excited to come here, and have loved it here, so am I excited to go home and move on to a new part of my life.

By the way, one of my new favourite things to do – sit on the back of a bakkie, looking out at the world as it moves on, listening to only the best of tunes on my wonderful kPod, with the breeze in my hair. This gets infinitely better in you have a Grapetiser in your hand. Especially if it’s free.

Last 2 weeks in the Okavango - it's happy sad. Sad happy.

If you ever need a break from the craziness of city life, this is the place to visit. No jokes. I have never been so super ultra relaxed.

Important things to remember:

1. Maintain a comfortable body temperature. This is done by: a) immersing oneself in a swimming pool at least once a day, preferably more often and; b) coordinating time spent in air conditioned office with the schedule of the camp generator. No power = back in pool.

2. Maintain a consistent supply of drinks. These must be ice cold at all times, and suitably thirst quenching. No diet drinks will do.

3. Never eat before a camp braai. There will be beef fillet, and you will miss out, and then you will cry big crocodile tears. And no, we will not leave you anything.

4. Remember to set alarms for important movies to watch. For example, 'He's just not that into you' is on tonight at 8pm. To be coordinated with air-conditioning and dinner time.

5. Do not, I repeat, do not exit your tent if you hear strange noises outside. Best to stay indoors and read on your bed with high speed fan.

6. Do not let the brights lights of Maun lure you into buying things you cannot afford. Seriously, 3 packs of marshmallows, 5 slabs of chocolate, and 3 big bags of chips, is enough.

7. If you think that you will not need your camera, you are mistaken. You will see a leopard lounging in a tree. And you will have absolutely no proof of this.

8. If you think that the walk between the office and the kitchen will be fine in the middle of the day, you are mistaken. You will cross paths with an elephant. Your chances are not good.

9. Not matter how hot you are at night, the above rules for maintaining body temperature do not count. At night, you cover up. The trick is - the thicker the layers, the fewer mozzie bites you'll have to scratch in your sleep.

10. I'm leaving number 10 open - I still have 2 weeks left, and I'm sure there are still more lessons to be learned.

On Monday we drove into Ma-ooon to fetch Mich's soil samples from last year and renew our visas (which was a surprisingly painless process, always awesome). Ooh, on the way, we saw...wait for it...Goose!  Remember him?  Goose, the cool leopard!!  Just walkin on down the road, like he owned it. Hardly paid us a bit of attention. Scenting a little there, sniffing a little impala here, jumping into a tree there and lounging on a branch, easy  as pie. Some tourists drove past and we quickly pointed Goose out to them. Ooh, la la, blah blah blah! Snap snap. And that was it. Not even 2 minutes looking at him, and they were off - nothing left but a cloud of dust. Foreigners!  If only they knew!  That was a first for Mich and I, a leopard in a tree! A perfect view!  Anyway, can you tell this annoyed me?  Whew.

Since I had sweet cash on me for this trip into Ma-oon, I went a bit nuts. Well, not really. But it felt like it. I bought the most delicious non-schwarma-tasting crispy tasty beef schwarma I have ever had, from The French Connection. Maybe that's why it was non-schwarma-tasting. The French have never been known for their schwarmas. But it was good. I had schwarma all over my face. Well, after plenty of eating, shopping, and generally having a good time, we were on our way home. This could have ended very badly. Let's just say that we pulled over after hearing strange noises in the car, only to find our front left wheel almost off - attached with one wheel nut. One. God really was protecting us that day, that could have been such a nasty accident. Actually, He has been protecting us this whole time - if I think about the sticky situations we've been in.

Well, once we stopped shaking and realised that we were alive and that was all that mattered, we felt pretty cheerful. We called our rescuer Sven for help, pulled out a long cushion from the back of the Landrover (Stanley, remember?), and settled down to relax in the shade. Mich had magazines, and I had a cell phone with kick-ass games. It was great. After a while, a bunch of kids ran out of the Mopane trees (where they had been swimming in the river) - running up to us with the kind of grins that made us feel like giant lollypops or something. Or, in their case, Simba chips! Peering in the car - "You have Simba!  We want it! Simba!" They spent a good while with us, sitting on our laps, being cheeky and naughty and silly and funny and altogether lovely. I had the best time :)

We were rescued by a few people, and it all turned out great. So this week we've been doing bits and bobs of work with Rob (a visiting volunteer from the UK) and planning our work in Sankuyo. This is the local community where we'll be working next week, and we visited them last week to chat to the chief. Well, I say local community -it's really a 2 hour drive away, but that's local here :)  We've sorted through a ton of soil samples, had a lot of cool chats and relaxed lunches and dinners, and I've just finished my Michael Crichton.
NEXT! Genetic engineering takes over the world!  Transgenic apes and flashing purple leatherback turtles!

Jackals at Jackal Pan - wow, this was a real treat!  They were so calm and chilled, just lying down in the sun.


Heard on repeater radio: 
Emily: Guys, just to let you know, there are lions in the road.

Femca: Oh really? I thought there might be but I wasn't sure. How many are there?
Emily: Well, I counted....
Sven: Lion Shmion, let's go get some ice cream

Well, dinner time's coming up, and that important movie is on telly, so it's over and out from me.

Later, home dogs!!

Living in the bush

Hey all!

How's it going? What's happening yo?

We've had a pretty darn interesting week - I so wish I could share it all with you, but I've taken tons of photos, and I'm sure we'll have lots of chats when I get home - there's just so much, it's difficult to describe what life is like out here. But, for your enjoyment, here are a few tidbits of stories:

On Monday, riding around the concession looking for new sites, we stumbled across a hyena den - I don't mean actually STUMBLED, Mum - we were in the car :)  There were a few adults lurking around, and Mich saw a flash of a little pup running into the den to hide away from us scary people. We came back later that night for a 'stake-out' - sounds cool, doesn't it? With Ros and Emily in tow (on the back, hee hee), we waited for something to happen. We were hoping for a cute little family scene, pups rolling in the sand, tumbling over one another, while the folks look on with proud and slightly amused looks on their spotty faces. We sat there waiting for a while, sipping on wine we found in the fridge, staring at this den hole. Three adults came prowling out from the bushes behind us (back from foraging, but I didn't see any foraged bits anywhere - maybe they were feeling lazy), and they all took their turns in STARING at us - pretty freaky. One came right up to the car, I mean like 1m away from Emily and Ros's toes dangling off the back of the landrover. After some serious death stares, the sun went down (boo!), and we managed to see a little teenager hyena come out of the den and stare at us some more, before it got seriously dark and we gave up seeing anything. On the way back home, since we were having a night drive, we decided to do it properly, with Em & Ros standing on the back with the spotlight spotting a bunch of stuff for us: more hyena, 3 African wild cat, 15 chameleons, elephant, wildebeest, giraffe, and a lot more that I can't remember, cos by that time I was seriously sleepy. :)

 The local folks here are SO friendly! Can't tell you how many times we've seen guys taking people on game drives, stop and chat just be generally awesome. It's very easy to feel welcome here - it doesn't matter if you don't know people's names - you see someone once, and that's all it takes to make a friend. Awesome.

Last night, it seems that the whole population of the concession converged on our camp - we had a great night braaing and chatting and eating so much - Emily and Ros have been cooking up a storm last night and this morning. Won't go into details, but there was a lot of cheese involved, and it looks like we're having home made caramel/chocolate shortbread ice-cream for lunch. WOW!!

 This is a pair of mating steenbok we found - very seldom seen, and just too adorable for words!

Last night, while we were waiting for dinner and drooling at all the amazing smells coming from the kitchen, Sven called us outside to see a honey badger right outside the kitchen. he didn't really care much about us, but was very focus on licking up a patch of cream that Emily had tossed into the bush. His nose was all covered in it, the little piggy. We thought he was just too cute, until he glared up at us as if to say "Back off, it's my cream!!" Then we remembered all the stories of people being bitten and attacked by vicious honey badgers, and slowly backed away. Whatever you say, Mr Badger!  Sven always finds these amazing things, chameleons and giant stick insects and black mambas...but I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now, cos I just found a baby mole snake outside the office this morning. :)  Not poisonous, don't worry - but I found it, and that's just awesome.

Ok, at the moment the office is full and my brain is no longer in writing mode - will update soon. :)

Love
The Kelminator

Thunderstorms in the swamp

Happy Happy Easter!

It's pretty difficult to celebrate Easter out here in the bush, except by trying to spend some time alone praying and reading my Bible - this is when I really miss home and fellowship with family and friends. Mich and I agree - being away from home for a while definitely makes you appreciate what you have :)

Last Sunday was Sven's birthday braai, and we got to meet a bunch of his cool friends from Maun. When the thunderstorm came and soaked us through, we didn't let it get us down - we sped off down the road (through a river, I might add) back to Dog Camp for coffee and birthday cake!  Ah, bliss! That was Steph's last day with us, so we had to say a sad goodbye to her. Monday was the MTC Christmas Party in March - wow, they have the most stunning camp!  So beautiful! We walked around in awe for a bit, snapping away with our cameras like mad, while we were treated like absolute stars by all of the lovely and friendly folks there. After lunch, the entertainment began (100m sprints, tug of war, egg races, and all kinds of tomfoolery), and we spent the better part of 2 hours kicking back with as many soft drinks as we could hold, watching the games. Ya ya, we were lazy not joining in - my excuse was the skirt I was wearing, but then I saw a bunch of local ladies racing while wearing the kind of dresses I would attend weddings in.

We've had a pretty difficult week in terms of stuff not going exactly as planned, but we've been working hard - every time we look at the number of sites we've done, we feel so proud of ourselves :)

Tuesday - we got stuck in the stickiest mud in the world. Cake mix, as Mich calls it. I just call it pure evil. It tricks you, you see - you walk on it, and it seems perfectly firm. Apply a bit of extra pressure (1x Land Rover, for example), and the stuff turns into quicksand. Slowly sinking deeper and deeper, we radioed for Sven and Bonnie to rescue us. That pure evil stuff took our rescuers too, and there we were - trying to stay positive and dig and jack and stick branches under the wheels, but in the end, the cake mix won. After 4 1/2 hours, Emily & Roz saved us with winches and tow ropes and Coke Zeros and lots of delicious hot sticky meatballs, fresh from camp. Goodness, I never thought I'd be so happy to see a Coke Zero! Needless to say, I felt pretty spaced out with a teeny bit of heatstroke for a bit :)

Thursday - A trip into Maun in the pouring rain, which yielded lots of amazing goodies like a new monitor for the computer I've been using, radiators and other car bits, burger pies and choc Super Moos from Mich, and shampoo (so I don't have to turn Rasta).

Friday - Spent a day recovering in the office and sorting out soil samples, while Stanley got a bit of TLC from Moses in the workshop. Moses is on leave now, and I don't know what we're going to do without him! He's just the kind of dependable clever guy you need in a place like this. On Friday night we watched the Jane Austen Book Club, so great - I love it!

Last night the heavens opened up right over Michelle's bed. Luckily, it was before she went to sleep - she might have floated away in the night. There was some seriously gushing water pouring down from the ceiling, which is basically thick foil. We have had this problem a lot. You stand in any one spot in your room while it's raining, and within about 30 seconds your skin is covered with a light spray. Well, what was going on in Mich's room was not a light spray. We quickly pulled the bed away from the leaks, so that Mich was left with about 30 squared centimeters to spread out on and fall asleep. It was a long long night.

It's better when you mush it with All Gold

I think I owe some more detail in this blog – the last one was a bit skint, no? It’s Friday night, and I’m frantically trying to remember everything we’ve done in the last while – the days kind of melt into one another after a while – a blend of hyena dreams, ticking off sites, lasagna (what’s for dinner?  Yeah, I love that stuff! It’s better when you mush it with All Gold), keeping hydrated, finishing my masters thesis (well, this draft at least), trying to keep in touch with family (Yes, internet! No, sorry – false alarm. Cell phone? Left it at the cell phone tower – two bird poos right on the screen).

Well, we’ve officially finished up our sites in Moremi – we were so excited on our last day, we left singing at the top of our voices!  Mich has this great PDA loaded with a bunch of classics – loads of Johnny Clegg, Roxette, Jon Bon the Great Jovi, Billy Joel, Dire Straits, ah…. My favourite so far is “She’s got the look” – it’s been my favourite for a while, but you just can’t resist the “na na na na na!” until your jaw hurts! 

Ooh, before I forget, we saw a cute little jackal the other day. Oh my goodness. Reminded me of little Jack Russel Woody (who we suspect is a dwarf Jack Russel – he’s just too tiny to be normal) – I just wanted to call him over, pull him into my lap, and give him cuddles. Oh, cuddles. I will call him Jackal Russel and he will be my Jackal Russel.




Things are still eating me in the night – I find a new and fascinating bite almost every day. I have an idea that it may be spiders – never seen mozzie bites that go white and bulgy – and something that gives me this idea is the collection of spiders and webs I have all over the corner of my wall, next to my bed. I have doomed and doomed, but they persevere. By the way, Michelle says stupid mozzies keep trying to bite her screen. Ah, the number of times I’ve had the blood sucked out of me here (this has nothing to do with the fact that I just read the third Twilight book in just a week). But don’t worry mum, apparently there’s only a real malaria risk when we’re in Maun. Another aside in my tumble of thoughts – this is pronounced ‘Maaah-oooon!’ in reference to the sound a lion makes. Maaa-ooon!  I’ve only heard them go ‘ooh ooh ooh ooh!’ So I’m trusting local knowledge here. 

So, National geographic came and went. Our lives didn’t change, they didn’t give me a job on the spot, and they don’t know what they’re missing. They obviously were preoccupied, but I’m sure they’ll realize their mistake at some stage and come hurrying back. Totally. The only thing that really changed is that we lost our friend Chris for a few days, and we realized that the ladies here make pizza – we realized this when we saw them making pizza for the film crew, and now we realize that maybe they’ll make for us too. Yay! 

Today, as we were having our afternoon swim (ahh!), two very friendly folks came over to the pool to say “Hello!  Hello there!  How are you!?” They were so friendly and smiley! They handed Mich an official invite and proceeded to explain – we have been invited to…wait for it…the MTC 2009 Christmas Party!!!  It’s late, but better late than never, right? How awesome!  So, MTC is Moremi Tented Camp – very fancy, how do you spell laany? Larny? Laaney? Very expensive, I’m sure. On the edge of the river, naturally. So, they’re having this amazing CHRISTMAS party on Monday, and so far Mich, Roz, Emily and I are going – party!!! There’s gonna be food, and maybe even entertainment, PLUS we get to see MTC, take pics, and pretend like we stayed there! Woohoo! Anyway, I deserve a party, cos Jess (Jamo’s lovely cousin) is having her 21st down in Durbs this weekend, and all of Jamo’s family are down there, and they’re out at dinner tonight, and I so wish I was there!!

And now, to end, a quote from Michelle:
‘You know you’ve been in the bush too long when hot chocolate and cake makes you so happy that you flap your arms like a little bird.”

Hey hey!

It’s Saturday – and I felt like writing a bit for the blog. Just cos I can. One of the big bosses, plus some peeps from National Geographic, are arriving today for a bit of lion filming. I think? I was going to try to make a good impression, but the mysterious ‘thing’ that’s been biting me in the night has obviously got some pretty nasty venom, as certain areas of my skin are looking quite diseased at the moment. I’ve tried to cover up with plasters, but...let’s just say, Michelle’s avoiding skin contact. And I don’t blame her.

Anyway, enough of that personal embarrassment. I’ve been missing home so much, and been feeling pretty down about this whole Masters thing – not being able to do work on it except on a giant TV screen bigger than Hagrid’s torso, which is often being used as an actual TV. Not Hagrid's torso, the screen. Papers I need, I can’t access on the net. No stats programs to use and absolutely no way that I’ll finish by the end of March. So I’m feeling down, and this is the song that God gave me on my kPod:

Artist : Sonicflood
Title : Everlasting
----------------
The sky will fall
The ground will give
Through it all You will be faithful
Friends may leave
They come and go
This I know
You will be faithful
You will be faithful

You will always be the same
Your love will never change
You are the everlasting
I will put my trust in You
Forever to be true
You are the everlasting
You are the everlasting

When beauty fades
And slips away
For all my days You will be faithful
When I breathe
My final breath
I find my rest in Your
faithfulness


As far as news goes, we’re almost done with work in Moremi (2 more days), and then we’ll be moving on to our burnt sites. All is moving at a good steady pace, so that’s excellent! We’ve been so spoiled with everything we’ve seen, and the beautiful drives as the Okavango is waking up and going to sleep. We’re onto Rachel and Ross breaking up in Friends (watched 8 episodes last night!). Emily and Roz are nowhere to be found, and we’ve just about given up on them ever coming back. They’re having serious car issues in Maun – who knows when it’ll be fixed? They’re spending all their days on the net in the airport, just biding their time. Sven has gone off on holiday too, so camp is so quiet!  Well, that is until National Geographic arrive. Wish Zambuk would work faster, darn it!

So that’s it from me for today!  Drop me an email when you can - always feels like Christmas when I get news from home! :)

Love
The Kelminator

Some new pics - quick blog on extremely slow bush internet

The elusive albino red lechwe, up in Moremi

Baby ele running as fast as his legs could carry him, and Mommy looking very cross. So cute man.

We spotted this serval in the road by chance - so lovely and super cool

The wild dogs that Mich found 100m outside of camp - there were tons of these guys. Very skittish, because of the lions that were just another 100m down the road.

Bullet point, action-packed, goodie-filled blog!

Everything in Botswana is either non-existent or huge.

Non-existent: 

• Milk - this one doesn't count for the whole country - this is in my experience only. When you really gotta have that hot choc, you seriously consider buying a goat.

• Tarred roads - actually, I have seen some a few hours away.

• Bridges that make you feel safe in Moremi Game Reserve

• This tortoise was almost non-existent. This guy's thanking his lucky stars for Mich's sharp eyes. He hissed at us a little. Think he didn't like me grabbing him and placing him a photo-op position. Well, little guy, deal with it. 

• Doors in the loos and showers at The Old Bridge Backpackers in Maun.  What a beautiful place. You drape a rope across the doorway to show that the loo is occupied, and keep your knees bent in the shower to avoid swallowing the creepers hanging over the reed wall.

• Any cheese flavoured crisps. The favoured flavour of the national population is...wait for it...Pickled Onion!

Huge:

• The elephants standing in the middle of our roads, crushing our sage plants & trumpeting at us (giving us the fright of our lives).

• Emily's fund-raising Human Foosball Tournament!  Almost the entire population of Maun, getting ridiculous, kicking shins, trying very hard to be THE BEST TEAM EVER!  We didn't win. But we gave it our best shot and that's what counts. It's just a game, really. 

• The church service at Maun's All Nations Village Church - a really fun but LONG service, with songs that leave your arms and hands aching from all the clapping and dancing.

• The Most Amazing Extra Large Chocolate Hot Cross Buns from Maun Spar - this, plus yummy (free!) coffee, made the best breakfast. These things were like, bigger than my face. Like a big moon-shaped face. Actually, like a big hot-cross bun shaped face. This is getting silly.

• Mega-holes in the road, just waiting for you to get stuck in. So what if we need to radio for help? You know, even Bear Grills needs a little hand sometimes. Sometimes.

Exciting news!

Jamie wobbles has the most amazing job in Durbs, starting on Monday 15 March!

Well done my Jamie love, I'm so proud of you.

Is that a growl, a rumble, or thunder? I don't care. I'm getting in the car.

First of all, I have to say - the cool photos in the last blog (you'll know them if you just glance once) are Michelle's. She took them, she gave them to me, and I stole them for the blog. She knows it, and I know it. But I did it anyway. All credit to you Mich, your photos are WAAAAY better than mine :)

So Sunday, which would have been my day off, was instead filled with inward screaming as I watched my mac laptop disintegrate further and further into...a piece of metal that opens and closes, and makes a cool sounding 'bong' when you press the power button. That's all. Oh, and a flashing question mark in the middle of the screen, which sometimes changes into a smiling computer-shaped face, although why on earth he's smiling I can't imagine. It's just not funny. It flashes half-heartedly for a little while, then just gives up and switches off completely.

Thank goodness for the big old computer in the office, with a screen image that jumps up and down, and is even now making me just a little queasy. Kinda like that flight the other day. Anyway, I've been having computer nightmares lately, full of beeps and bongs and flashing screens, so I'm not gonna talk about it anymore.

We've taken to watching old episodes of Friends on Michelle's lovely laptop after dinner - normally with some PFMs, choccie (if we have any to spare), and hot chocolate. It's our indulgence. Yes. And we deserve it too, because this week we've been eating lots of carrots and pears for lunch, instead of last week's cottage pie. Anyway, last night, as we were getting our dose of Friends (Rachel and Ross finally got it together! Well, for the first time, you know)...I heard this weird loud scraping scratchy noise on the canvas (which is our wall) - I looked over, and saw the unbelievable. And this is gonna freak you out, but don't scream. I saw...CLAW imprints on the canvas, scraping down the wall in a long streaky, claw-like line!! **SCRAPE!!** Mich didn't see it, and we spent the next while completely freaked out (well, I did), trying to work out what on EARTH that was trying to get into our tent, and why on EARTH an animal would do that, and WHICH OF US is actually gonna look outside? Mich was the brave one, and as she was peering, Emily and Ros jumped out from behind Stanley and we got the fright of our lives!  We laughed until our stomachs hurt, and felt thoroughly embarrassed. Well, I did - Mich never did think it was an animal. I felt embarrassed.

All in all - Face doesn't have malaria, and he's right as rain. Andrew and Steph have been stuck in the mud enough times to drive a man insane. Even one as tough as Andrew. They spent the night in their vee-hickle (not a car, mind you), stuck in the mud, swatting mozzies and collecting drinking water from leaves. Bear Grills style. Minus the cliffs and eating snakes. We had apple pie this week...twice! Steph gave us some fancy American dark chocolate. That's our news. Big weekend coming up, so keep reading! :)

 The office

There's a storm rolling in - one of many!

Stanley getting some juice - he just oozes cool. Like Goose.

The boys - Moses and Tsitsi helping us give Stanley his juice. They're always full of smiles, but you know, gotta look cool for the camera!

Over and out ***

First bit of real hard work

Hey guys,

Just had to write a quick blog, cos the past few days have been amazing. We've been working hard this week doing lots of vegetation transects, and pushing it until we drop.

This involves Michelle walking 50m into the bush, which, in tall grass and thick trees, is sometimes too far - I get nervous when I can't see her, and imagine her being munched by something. She's started singing while she's walking, just so I know she's still alive. Sometimes the singing stops, but so far that's just cos she's forgotten the words. I stand at the other end of the transect (close to the car, yipee!), or sometimes sit (when we remember to bring the chair), and scribe for her. I'm slowly learning the grasses and trees again - Shmitia (I spelled it wrong the other day and crossed it out VERY fast), Dychrostachys, Stipagrostis... and so it goes.

The last thing to do at a site is collect the soil samples - the most strenuous bit, and the bit when we move slower and slower until we get to stop under a tree and munch on some food. This bit is always great - the kitchen's here are fully stocked, so we've been having roast beef sarmies with mustard, cheese, gherkins... and today was cottage pie, grapes and pears. :)   When we went into Maun the other day, we bought ourselves some bags of toasted marshmallows. So each day, when we come back, we are each allowed one marshmallow. We've named them PFM's - Post Field Marshmallows. They keep us going.

Yesterday Face (yes, that's his name - stories about him later) told us about Goose, the leopard, sitting with a kill off one of the roads, and gave us his coordinates. So, being the cool trackers that we are, we tracked him down. Well, actually, Michelle tracked him down :) We got right up to his little copse of trees, and found his kill hidden in a tree, but couldn't see him anywhere - eventually I spotted him under some thick Acacias - if we hadn't been like 2 metres away, we would never have seen him. And if he hadn't been collared, we could've done a transect right there and not seen him until it was too late. Well, too late for Michelle - I'd be in the car by then. He was beautiful, and so cool - not skittish at all. He just walked in front of us to change trees, did some yawns, flicked his ears, and went on being cool Goose.

Face also told us about two male lions, Doohan and Mike (what kind of name is that for a lion?), that were sitting just outside of Savanna Camp with a kill. We found them too, and their kill... the punks killed a giraffe! Just two of them, taking down a giraffe! It was pretty impressive.

"Do you see what I killed?"

It doesn't end there - Michelle decided that today was gonna be my day for learning how to 4X4. As we were driving out this morning, I stopped to contemplate a wet and tricky part, and Michelle said "Ah, Kelly - are you seeing this?" I looked up to see a massive pride of 14 lions just strewn all across the road RIGHT in front of us - all looking up and looking quite menacing. This pride has been walking through our camp in the night and early in the morning - we've heard them a lot very close to our rooms (but by now I'm just sleeping through it). Also lots of elephant feeding right outside our room most nights - we just keep praying that they don't walk through the canvas walls! :)

Anyway, i could give a long list of animals we've seen and stared at for ages, but that would just take forever :)  Besides work and animals, we're watching a lot of movies in the evenings, drinking lots of hot chocolate and coffee, and chatting until we can't keep our eyes open anymore.

I miss all of you so so much, and it's only been a week.

Some new pics (First week)

Hello! 

It's been a great week so far - no field work yet, with all of the car probs we've had, and now since our's is the only vehicle in camp that actually works, it's being used for everything else. So hopefully we'll start on Monday, but we've been enjoying ourselves exploring the concession a bit, and doing lots of chilling and swimming! :)

Here's some new pics.

Lunch at Hilary's on our Thursday trip into Maun, with Michelle and Hilary. The most delicious homemade lemonade and butternut soup!

Stanley in his natural environment. This is our trusty TDI that I'm slowly learning to drive.

Pilot Chris and Tracker Andrew with the 4-seater - we went up tracking the predators with them on Saturday morning! I was trying to think about not losing my breakfast.

Wild Dog Camp kitchen - these guys have the coolest place. Andrew, Face, and Stephanie live here, and we popped over for tea with them after the flight, just before we tracked down Darkness' lion pride. Not bad for a Saturday morning!

first days

Yesterday was the start of the little adventure!  Michelle and I met up in Joburg airport, and fly across to Maun via Gabarone.  We were told that our plane was just stopping in Gaborone, but when we got onto the plane, the air hostess who took our passes said "You're going to Maun?  How are you getting there?" 

So in Gabarone we eventually figured out that we had to board this little 20 seater plane to Maun, where we grabbed cokes from the pilot's cooler box during flight. Everyone is super chilled here, with the biggest smiles on their faces, as if to say "Yup, we know we live here. It's awesome."

Maun is super tiny, but I bought a sim card that works, some air time. We picked up our massive landy (that one of the camp managers had brought up for us and left at the airport - so safe, keys in the ignition, doors don't lock) and off we went down the long road to the game management area.  We gave a lift to 2 guys that work here, one Tsitsi, and another who's name i can't remember - SO glad these guys were with us, because we got one flat on the tar road, and then the spare went flat once we were in the management area at sunset.  Thankfully all the vehicles have radios  (cos cell phone signal is non existent unless you're standing right up against the cell phone tower) - so we radio-ed in for help on our first day in!   Sven came through to help us with two wheels stolen off a car from the camp next door (the wild dog camp).  Anyway, long story short, most of our tyres are messed up, we got in last night at about 9, and we have to chance the trip back into maun on Thursday to get some more tyres.  We had a quick dinner, met everyone, and crawled into bed.  I couldn't stop thinking of scorpions, and it took me forever to fall asleep...

Since we couldn't exactly explore the concession today (with a landy standing on jacks in the workshop), we spent the day exhausting ourselves with unpacking all the equipment and luggage, scrounging around for cardboard boxes to fashion into cupboards, and making our rooms a little more homey.  Jamie made me the most amazing calendar, featuring his many handsome faces, and it was the first thing I put up.  :) I even went as far as to hammer in some nails and make a little cardboard shelf for my girly things!  it's attached forever, but it's awesome, I'm sure no-one would ever want to take it down.  that was Michelle's amazing suggestion. :)  We found a rusty old tressle table and scrubbed it down nicely for Michelle's desk - gonna keep looking for one for me, but my room's looking fab already!

We're being super chilled now, had a yummy lunch (food's good here!), and about to have a swim in a bit.  You can't see the bottom of the pool with all the murkiness, and Michelle says you get lionesses drinking from that pool at night!

It's not easy to skype in the office, as jamie and I found out.  We can chat easily just typing notes, but as soon as you switch on the video, it dies (internet too slow here).  Chatting with the microphone works ok if it's quiet in here, but there's often people working in here, so it might have to be an early morning thing.

It seems that there is a fundraiser planned for the buffalo project, on my birthday, 6 March - Emily is planning to have a human foosball tournament in Maun, getting a bunch of teams together, having a braai, and mainly having a good time.  So we're thinking about going - that would be a pretty cool way to spend a birthday in the bundus, I reckon!  

Keep me entertained!

So, home dogs...

I need your suggestions. If you don't want Crazy-Kelly when I come home, I need to take something to keep me entertained. A challenge. A project. An escape from the hum drum life of Sundays off. My first choice was to read Lord of the Rings again, but I gotta keep my street cred. Suggestions?

In preparation

I reckon this blog is the best way of communicating with my dear family and friends while I'm away... ON MY FIELD TRIP TO THE OKAVANGO DELTA!!! :) I've got a short job as a research assistant, working with a PhD student from UKZN, Michelle Payne. We'll be there for about 3 months, starting around 15 February 2010.

So if you're interested in my news and keeping in touch with me, following this blog should be the easiest way.

For now...I'm busying myself with preparing all my equipment. Apparently I need to take a mozzie net - for mozzies, obviously, but also to prevent the scorpions in the roof from falling into my bed!!! Flip. When I was on standard 4 tour I had a nightmare that there was a scorpion on my pillow - I screamed and jumped up and woke up everyone in the whole camp. I still haven't got over it.

Cheers for now :)

The Kelminator