Having arrived in Polokwane, which is the largest little
watering hole in South Africa a few hours from the border with Botswana, I
collected my bags and began looking for my ride. After about 10 minutes everybody
on my plane had left and there was nobody around, outside of a few airport
staff members. Another 30 and still no ride and I figured it was time to figure
out how call somebody, given I have no phone because US phones don’t work
outside of the US.
A friend asked me what would happen if you got there and
nobody was there to meet you (thanks Willa.) I was not worried about it but
here I was, arrived half way across the planet and nobody was there to pick me
up and I have no phone. I did grab the Project Abroad Cape Town number, which I
assume is like making a local call in the US so somebody may let me borrow a
phone. They did, for 20 Rand. But that was fine, I got through to the office and
Flora got the driver and sent him over to pick me up. For some reason they had
no idea I was arriving.
While waiting, I made a new friend at the airport, Rachel,
who was quite interested in my life in Chicago, how many cars I own, am I
married, have any kids, what is there to do in Chicago, Polokwane is so boring,
and so forth. She gave me here e-mail and phone number and said I needed to
call her and she wanted to visit me in Chicago. I got the distinct feeling she
was husband hunting as well. She reminded me of a small one horse town girl
trying to get out by hooking up with anybody heading out. If my ride had not
shown up I was pretty sure I had a place to stay in a pinch. So I played along,
who knew how long it would take for my ride to show.
My driver, Sydney, did show up about 25 minutes after I
called and I was on my way and bidding farewell to Rachel. There were a couple
of other passengers in the car who were not going to the camp and rode with me
the entire 2.5 hours to the Botswana border. I am not really sure what they
were doing there. But whatever.
Sydney reminded me of Ernest Borgnine, in both his
appearance and mannerisms. He also loves the US because we do everything right
here and bigger. Including “lethal injection” which he seemed very fond of. Who
knew I would run into a Tea Party Republican presidential candidate all the way
over in South Africa?! Also for somebody who did not want to drive too fast,
Sydney passed most everything on the road and drove down the dirt roads at a
really high speed. Dude beats the shit out of his Land Cruiser and it would not
have taken much for us to break an axil or roll that sucker over in the soft
sand on the curves. But I made it safe or would not be typing this.
Side note, a few days later I asked and he goes through a
suspension on his truck once per year.
At the Botswana/South Africa border I had to switch vehicles
and go through Botswana customs, who asked if I had any cocaine in my luggage.
I was pretty sure they were joking but not 100%. Get my new driver, Joe, and we
are off we go in his Land Rover pick up on more dirt roads.
We got to the camp around 5:45 that evening and I met the
other volunteers for the first time. All very much younger than I and just
about all from France or Germany. But everybody was quite nice and I expected
that I would be older. The group I had been assigned to was heading out right
after dinner to spend the night in a blind and I thought about going but
declined and instead went to bed early that night.
July 7, 2015 –
Botswana Tuesday Day 1
Today was pretty easy and low key, in the morning I went
through an orientation with Sophie, our group leader. I remembered almost none
of it by the afternoon, but I got to meet the staff, try to learn names, and
get the general layout of the camp. Late in the morning we also took a quick
game ride, stopping to walk a bit and climb to the top of one of the kopie rock
formations that dot the landscape. That was fun and you could see quite a ways
from the top. We took a group photo and in the back of my mind I was thinking
of how easy it would be for us to fall off backwards. The photo was bad because
sometime on the plane into Johannesburg something triggered my sinuses to go
nuts. And now out in the dust of Botswana the right sinus kept acting up to the
point my right eye was hard to keep open due to the sinus pressure and constant
watering.
I am not sure how kopies got here and when I asked nobody
else, they were not really sure either but the prevailing thought is they are
the hard rocks that got left behind as the softer rock and sand eroded away.
The rocks that make up the kopies are very ancient looking and in some cases really
look like somebody dribbled them down from the sky the way they piled up on one
another. In some cases there are old trees growing right out of the side of
them and I don’t quite get how the whole thing holds together.
That afternoon the owner of the place (the project is on private land) Helen was going to have a
conservation debate/conversation with us. Helen is probably in her 60’s and whereas
Sydney is a Tea Party Republican, Helen is more of the left wing liberal and
could have easily played a part in the disaster movie The Day After, where the
world goes haywire. That may be a bit over the top but she most certainly can
be called a tree hugger and stated that the downfall of humans will start about
30 years from now if we don’t start to slow the disaster right now.
Some highlights, the planet has too many people and we need
3 Earths to support what is here now; we need to convince people to have less
babies; we are too commercial; the rich call the shots and the poor nations
will be sacrificed by them; etc.
Mind you she is not all extreme the sky is falling and has
some opinions that I agree with. Like water bottles are a huge waste of
resources when you can drink perfectly good tap water. 1,000 years from now you
can dig them up from a landfill and still use them. Knowing how many just a few
people I know use every day I can see where we will be drowning in the things
very soon. She is also very much against having exotic animals as pets. I too
think this is absurd and don’t get why anybody wants a lion, tiger or monkey
for a pet. I don’t even get how it is legal. Water access will be the next big
area of conflict and I can see where this could be the case. She feels that the
rich will be able to buy all they want and think they are entitled to have
whatever they want, letting the poor people suffer. One just needs to look at
California right now to see that is totally true. Despite all the issues the
rich people in California still soak their lawns and then complain that they
are being picked on and that they have money and have the right to use as much
water for anything they want because they are rich. Kind of disgusting and I
have to wonder if they realize how self-centered and selfish they sound. Folks
you are among the first the mob is going after and you will deserve it in my
opinion.
After thinking about it more, however, I really have to wonder how the conservation area is all that different than the rich people Helena seems to think are the route of a lot of the planet's problems. I think it is good to conserve the area but it is doing nothing to help out the poor people who live in the area. They are not welcome to come by at any time like a national park and they do not benefit from having it near by. If anything it makes their lives more difficult because they loose land to farm or raise livestock. By comparison, Helena is very rich and makes money off having a lodge on site where she gives safari tours. So in some ways I think she is the pot calling the kettle black.
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