October 6, 2011
I can’t believe that I have been here for two weeks. It both feels longer and shorter. We left Wereldsend on Saturday and have kinda been living in limbo ever since. We were supposed to meet up with our research methodologist on Monday to explain when exactly we will be doing as our research project for this semester. However, she ended up having car trouble in Windtoek and still hasn’t been able to make it here. She is supposed to arrive today but it’s now 4pm and she’s still not here. Hopefully I will be able to fill you in tomorrow on what exactly I will be doing for the next ten weeks. Fingers crossed. Therefore since we don’t really have anything to officially do we have been camping at the Ehi-Rovipuka conservancy office for the last five days. This was originally only supposed to be a ten day excursion. One funny thing that we learned upon coming to Ehi-Rovipuka was that the place that we all put down on our visa applications as the research headquarters for Round River does not actually physically exist. The land has been purchased and the road has been cleared but there are no physical structures. Part of this trip to Ehi-Rovipuka is to negotiate with the conservancy about what we can build on this land. For those of you who want to follow me on a map or know that country of Namibia I am about a kilometer away from the South-west corner of Etosha national park.
Even though we have not had anything to officially do we are indeed keeping busy. As part of our research we will be using motion activated cameras to capture animals that we wouldn’t have typically seen (ie if we were present or during the night). Thus we have been practicing using them which turns out to be a very good thing. So far we have managed to not turn on the camera after placing it, not checking to see if the batteries are charged, and not putting in a memory card. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.
After learning that our methodologist would be delayed we were going to move camp until we learned of a conservancy meeting that was being held yesterday. This is a very cool thing and we were told that we could attend. This meeting consists of all of the conservancy board members getting together with all of the supporting NGO’s to discuss important issues. Sadly we did not last long in the meeting since one NGO representative decided that the information that was about to be discussed was to confidential to be shared with the public. Wish they’d told us that a few days ago. I was able to get the jist of what was going to be discussed. The hot topic was regarding whether an investor should be allowed to purchase a campsite to build a five star lodge on. The key is that this lodge would want access to the western gate of Etosha which currently only grants access to researchers and those who are willing to pay a fortune for a private safari. Would have been neat to hear the discussion but we ended up having a fantastic day anyways. We ended up droving two hours along a very bumpy road to go swimming at a watering hole. We all had very low expectations for this ‘watering hole’ since Bekah wasn’t even certain that it wouldn’t be dried up because it is the dry season. I was absolutely spectacular. I felt like I had entered the secret oasis that the main character always stumbles upon in movies. The watering hole was the pool below a dried up waterfall which flows during the wet season. We found a 200 foot limestone cliff face ending in a turquoise pool of water. In the cliff were hundreds of love birds. Imagine walking into the bird section of a pet store and that was the music that filled our ears. It really felt like we were dreaming. After lunch we went swimming in the pool which was so refreshing. We would get out of the water and dry in five minutes only to jump back in. The only thing that reminded us that we were in paradise was the abundance of dead love birds that lined the rocks below the rock wall. Pretty nasty, but at least we had a lot of feathers to choose from to collect. I have to say (sorry mom) that my cleanliness standard has gone way down. I’m kinda surprised that I haven’t gotten sick yet. We drink the local water, constantly have a layer of dirt covering our hands no matter how much you scrub, and eat lunch amongst 15 rotting bird carcasses. But so far so good.
Since today we weren’t allowed to go far from camp our big event has consisted of checking out the remains of a donkey that was killed last night by hyenas. It was pretty bloody and all of the donkey’s intestines have been eaten. But in the name of science we won’t let a perfectly good donkey carcass go to waste. It did not die in vain. In making lemonade out of lemons we set a camera trap by the carcass to capture all of the cool animals that come to feed on it. As we were setting up the camera we counted 25 vultures circling over head. Hopefully we get so pretty cool pictures (and yes we checked that we had a memory card in the camera this time).
All in all life is good. I have become accustomed to living in my camping tent on a yoga mat, half in inflatable mattress and sleeping bag. Probably the hardest thing about living like we are in getting up in the middle of the night to go pee (which happens to me about twice a night since I drink a ton of tea right before bed, really smart right?). It’s a huge endeavor for me and I am certain that I wake everyone up around me as I struggle to get out of my tent. The food is still good, it hasn’t gotten old yet. It’s always a special day when we have something sweet to eat, which means apples, beets and yams. Sugar is just not really a part of our diet. I have been exposed to a whole new world of meat. After the trophy hunters kill and animal they have to give the meat to the conservancy which is put in a meat cooler right next to our campsite. This cooler doesn’t really cool and after a few days with meat sitting in the sun it develops a not so pleasant aroma. We were given Oryx and Eland steaks as thanks for helping around the conservancy and conducting research for them, but we haven’t cooked them yet. I think we’re saving that meat for the bush.
This is an incredible experience that I am having. I know that everyone told me it would be, but to be honest I didn’t completely believe them. But you all were correct, sorry I ever doubted you. I hope to report back tomorrow about what my research project entails.
All my love.
PS: looking through my pictures I forgot that we also went to the local school and taught a lesson to the kids and played some games. I enjoyed the game playing a lot more than the lesson, the whole missionary feel to the teaching aspect makes me uncomfortable.
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