July 13 & 14 - Botswana

July 13, 2015 – Botswana Monday Day 7

Last night I broke my sleeping bag zipper. This should teach me to buy cheap stuff but I was planning on abandoning the bag in Botswana and really did not want to take my nice one or spend more than the $60 I did on this one. The fabric on the bag kept catching on the zipper and last night as I was trying to close it in the dark, once again it caught. In the process of trying to free it I managed to unzip the teeth on the opposite side of the zipper so it would not go up or down. This morning when I was trying to get it to go back so I could re-seal it properly, the stupid sipper pull broke right off and now it goes nowhere.

REI is really good about taking this stuff back when it breaks but it would be somewhat hard for me to exchange it out here. We are planning a trip to a local lodge on Thur and Fri so I really only need to get through five more nights with this thing and I can dump it. Perhaps they will be able to fix it and let a future volunteer use it. If not I will dump it in Polokwane so they don’t need to deal with the trash.

Back to the manual labor and today we are working on erosion control. This largely involved digging holes into areas where there is no grass using, my favorite tool, the pick-axe. We dig down about 6”-10”, piling the dirt on the downward slope of the hole in an arc that dams the water and slows it down as it runs through the area. Then we cut stakes about 2’-3’ long, sharpen the ends and drive them into the ground on the back side of the dirt mound about 2.5’ apart. Each hole gets anywhere from 5-8 stakes. From there we cut long branches off the scrub trees in the area and weave them into the stakes like a basket. The idea is to build up a wall with the branches that will withstand a heavy wash after the rain. Then we dig some more, piling the dirt up onto the branches we weaved between the stakes. In total the hole gets to be about 15” to 18” deep with a mound of dirt on the opposite side about the same height. Now when it rains the water will flow through and pool here, hopefully with grass seed. If it works grass will start to grow on the spot and the erosion will slowly reverse.

After two hours of this my shoulders are sore and I think the arthritis does not like the pick-axe any more than I do. But it is not so bad and I have plenty of Advil with me, which is good as I am taking more the past week than normal in 6 months. If I were in Botswana more than the two weeks I don’t know how well I would come out the other side but for two weeks I can take it.

That afternoon we do what is called an adventure walk. This is essentially walking around in the bush to see what you can see and it turns into kopie climbs. Which is cool as you get a good view but I’m torn up from the morning and not as into it as I should be. All I really want to do tonight is have a hot shower and even that becomes difficult as we get back late and only have 10 minutes to dinner. But finally after dinner I get my shower and feel relaxed.

 

July 14, 2015 – Botswana Tuesday Day 8

Today was a trash cleanup day over in an area where they want to build a new water hole. So we walked around clearing wire and stray trash that was lying about. The idea was to walk in a search line but that pretty quickly broke apart, like 20 feet into it. Our supervisors were calling for us to stay into a line but I noticed that they did not really keep to this themselves and overall I have to say this was pretty disorganized. First we cleared south to north and back but then we started clearing east to west in the bushes and people were essentially everywhere. Then we concentrated on a spot where there was a lot of trash and people pretty much went wherever then. My personality is somewhat methodical and this was anything but, which just irked me. After about 1.5 hours we moved on to the Limpopo River where we were going to do a crocodile census after lunch. We walked about 1.5 miles up the river and back and saw several monstrous sized crocs, but the majority of the time we could not even see the water. Which again irked me as how are we supposed to do a croc census if you can’t see the water. My feet hurt and we seemed to go out of our way to walk over the most difficult terrain possible. So I was getting a bit old man irritable over this as none of it seemed very well organized today or making much sense. But we did have the side benefit of getting back to camp about 2 hours earlier than normal so there was down time and a shower which helped my mood tremendously. At least until they announced we are building water holes on Wednesday, again with the pick axe. I’m getting ready for Cape Town more and more and can’t imagine the volunteers who are spending 6-12 weeks out here.

A couple of the crocodiles we saw were enormous. The teeth on these things are nightmarish looking and I am quite sure they could bite a person in half with little problem. Surprising to me they were quite skittish of people and would take off at the slightest sign we were there. I am not really sure why but overall the animals here in Botswana are much more likely to take off quickly than when I went to Tanzania in 2006. So animal watching here is much more of a challenge.

Captain is also in the area still as we ran into him on the road not too far from camp. He essentially stood in the road looking at us like “what the hell is your problem” and took his time doing what he wanted until he moved off to the side. But even then he put on a show with us. If we just sat there he kept an eye on us but more or less went on his way eating. But when we would start the engine he would screech at us and put on a show as if to say “I am not done with you yet.” After about 15 minutes I think he had his fill with us and moved on.