The first leg of my trip will be
to Botswana where I will be staying in the Motswiri Camp in the Kwa Tuli
Reserve just over the border from South Africa. My time here will be somewhat
like being on the dark side of the moon as I will be out in a wilderness camp
and cut off from the Internet, phone, television, and so forth. Essentially it
will be a technology black hole, at least which is what I am expecting when
reading “prepare yourself for a stay away from amenities.” There are safaris in
the area so it may not be completely cut off and there is a Wikipedia page on
the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuli_Block
At the camp I will be living in a bush-tent
with other volunteers and be a 1-1/2 hour drive from the nearest town. There is
a solar battery but no electricity otherwise and I think it will be an awesome
way to start this by living outside under the stars out in the wild. Kinda
Hemingway like. The camp is not fenced off and they make it clear you are not
allowed to go anywhere on your own and need to have staff members with you. I
read that to mean somebody needs to have a gun. The descriptions mentions there
are elephants, hippos, hyenas, cheetah, impala, zebra and wildebeest are
frequent in the area. Lions were not mentioned but I have to suspect they are
around too.
As a volunteer I’ll be working
6-days a week with my time divided between research projects and “physical”
projects. The research projects consist of things like collecting data and
mapping GPS coordinates. Not sure exactly what that means but the physical
projects my description goes into much more detail on. I take that to mean they
are going to work me doing things like removing fence posts, repairing or clearing
roads, etc. After having done a few hours of yard work at my condo this spring,
I have a feeling this is going to kick my ass.
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