Written November 28, 2015
By Amanda Ramsing-Lund (University of Vermont)
If you’re like our group of dedicated Disney fans, you might have just started singing the uplifting chorus of the opening song in the Lion King. Although we will readily admit that we all are rather moved by that song, and consider it the soundtrack to our lives here in Botswana, I’m actually describing a particular, very well-known circle in all of our lives: the sun. It may at first seem strange for me to be writing an experience blog from beautiful Chobe National Park that is centered around such a regular sight – the sun is obviously visible all around the world – but I can truthfully say that the “African sun” is an entity all its own.
Typically, our Round River group starts the day when we wake up at 5:15/5:30, just before sunrise, and ends around 20:30, a couple of hours after sunset. With this schedule, we are dependent on and work in collaboration with the sun: every movement it makes affects a different aspect of our day. Since we have no artificial light sources other than the modest beams of our headlamps and flashlights, we must make the most of the sun’s light between waking and sleeping. We prepare our equipment and head out on herbivore transects or bird surveys just as the sun lifts over the horizon, and we try to get as many assignments done as possible before the last streaks of daylight fade. Though we can also do readings and such in the dark, it is much more difficult to read by headlamp light when insects greatly enjoy flying straight at your face.
There has yet to be more than one, maybe two, truly cloudy days since we arrived in September, so we are now pretty confident about the amount of sunshine we will get at different points during the day. The height and position of the sun not only indicate basic details of our environment, such as changes in direction and the passing of time, but also alert us to likely changes in animals’ behavior: we know that herbivore counts will likely drop starting around 9:00 because the animals move out of the open into more shaded areas to avoid the strongest period of sunlight that starts at 10:00 and drops around 15:00. Other than contributing to the visibility of animals we might be observing, the extent of sunshine largely determines where our constantly mobile congregation of chairs will be positioned at the campsites, our instincts tell us to shun the sun and seek the shade! Needless to say, sunscreen is as central a part of our days as the sun itself.
We definitely have much more of a love-hate relationship with the heat that comes hand in hand with sunny days. The arid-eutrophic climate of Northern Botswana is what makes it such a diverse, dynamic location, and the intense heat of the dry season that is currently upon us is an essential part of the ecological processes that, overall, create the circle of life. Mornings might start out at temperatures between 16 and 21° C (60-70° F), while mid-day reaches peak temperatures of 42°C (approximately 108°F), such as yesterday. We are so finely tuned to this immense range of temperatures that we are in long sleeves and possibly pants for early mornings and then change into short sleeves and shorts for the rest of the day. I was even comfortable in a long-sleeve shirt until it was 34°C (92°F) today!
Ultimately, I have never been so aware and appreciative of the patterns and characteristics of the sun as I am here in Botswana. I can truly observe the way it shapes and supports life in all creatures, quite worthy of singing a few rounds of the “Circle of Life.” I have included a few pictures of my favorite Botswana sunsets during my time here, one of which I took under the artistic direction of our wonderful Motswana instructor himself, Sixteen. All I can say for when most of us return to a much darker and colder, wintery country in a few weeks, is that despite the sheer contrast in temperature and daily living conditions, we will at least have our Chaco tans to remind us of warmer and brighter days.