by Ziggy Berkoff of the University of Vermont
March 4, 2023
Our second full day at Camp Kaziikini near Sankuko, Botswana. Today started like any other transect day, the harsh beeping from my watch startled me from my deeply detailed malaria med dreams at exactly 5:30am. Before I had the chance to pretend the beeping was just a part of my dream, Lauren’s watch went off exactly 5 minutes later, almost as if we both know we need our two alarms collectively to wake us up each morning. After Lauren started to rumble around getting ready in the still darkness of dawn, Nicole and I dragged ourselves out of the comfort of our sleeping bags. I grab my clothes, change, and pack my bag in the dark. A ritual at this point so engrained it doesn’t require the light from my headlamp. I do, however, turn on my head lamp to put my contacts in because last time I tried to do that particular activity in the dark I got a few pieces of sand in my eye. I won’t be doing that again.
Lauren beats us out of the tent, as usual, and Nicole and I soon follow making our way across the sandy campsite to the camp stove. Others are already awake, and we congregate for our daily transect breakfast of oatmeal and granola like ants would congregate around a dropped piece of rice, all trying to get the best angle to reach the oatmeal, hot water, and coffee all at once.
Against the grain I decide to try Nick’s Yerba Mate he brought from Chile and drink it while loading our car, Lucy, with my bags for transect. Just after six we are ready to go and Lauren, August and I jump into Lucy with Nick as our captain and XK in shotgun as our guide. We are about to pull out when a loud “CREEECH” comes from our other car, Mowana. I was told car trouble would be common here in Bots, but this was the first time we’ve had it affect one of our transects. Since we only had one working car, Marcus and August decided to take the day off and Lauren, Nicole, and I made our way to Transect 3 still with Nick and XK leading the way.
We left Camp Kaziikini and bumped along the dirt road avoiding helmeted guinea fowl and red-billed spurfowl here and there. Finally, we’re at the start of Transect 3. Just a quick right turn off the road and we’re faced with an open field Savannah with knee high grass and sparse umbrella thorn acacias.
It wasn’t long before we stopped to log our first herbivore, a lone male impala. We stopped shortly to measure its age, distance, and GPS coordinates before continuing down our route. Soon we saw a pair of steenbok (phuduhudu in Tswana), a few birds of prey, a white-backed vulture, a whole herd of zebras, and a large male elephant grazing and throwing mud on himself. A little further down the road XK asked us each what we wanted to see on this transect. “A leopard,” I replied nonchalantly. It was wishful thinking to see something highly unlikely but XK just laughed and taught us how to say, “I want to see a leopard,” in Setswana: “Re batla go bonye nkwe.”
Soon after, Nicole spotted a bird far in the distance and we stopped to identify it. We were immersed in our bird books and staring off in the distance in our binoculars. We didn’t even notice the big cat perched on the lowest branch of the acacia tree less than 30 meters away, so close we could see his left ear twitching. He sat there so quiet like a still frame photo and I couldn’t quite believe he was real, let alone that I had just joked that I wanted to see him. But there he was, real as I am, a leopard laying regally on his branch. I have seen many things here in Botswana so far, like giraffes’ knobbly knees running, bat-eared fox cubs playing, woodland kingfisher’s open winged dancing, but nothing so far has come close to the way I felt turning my binoculars from a far-off bird to this terrifyingly close predator hiding from the midday African heat. He lay quietly panting with his head perched up by a stop on the branch and his tail swinging lightly below him and he watched us watch him. And watch him we did. We sat there for quite a while all quietly in awe of this mythical creature and his warthog meal hanging from the branch above him. When we finally did leave to continue our transect, it was with the memory of his spots ingrained in my mind.
The rest of the transect went slow. We saw many more elephants, zebras, and even a kori bustard. And then it was over, just like that. We collected our temperature and wind measurements and turned around to traverse the savannah back to camp. Only once did we stop, in front of that acacia tree, to see our new friend the nkwe still hiding from the sun.
When we reached camp, it was already half past 11 and we dove right into the ramen noodle stir fry prepared beautifully by Nicole and August. Soon after eating lunch, we placed our camp chairs in the shade to work through class. Today’s class was on photographic tourism and the resources it requires. I helped facilitate this class by first asking everyone to take a photo of a tree and then discussing what resources were required to give us the opportunity to take that photo. We talked about airplane equipment, ability to take time off, resources to build or buy a camera, and other things required to travel to Botswana and take a photo of a tree at a well-cared for campsite during the rainy season.
We talked for some time about the benefits and downsides of the photographic tourism industry in Botswana and how it compares to the hunting tourism industry. When class wrapped up, we all made our way over to the bar to learn from our instructor Dix’s sister, Connie, how to weave baskets and bracelets from palm leaves.
We all sat there, quietly watching from the floor as Connie masterfully poked and prodded wet strips of palm leaf into beautiful zigzags and patterns layer by layer until a full bowl was formed. Eventually we even got to try out this technique ourselves and I very quickly discovered my rhythm for poking the layer of previously built palm to slip in the strip for the new one. We soon moved onto bracelets and I found that this simple but meticulous way of overlapping small strips of palm to form a ring reminded me of braiding strips of dough to bake a loaf of challah.
We each crafted our own bracelet and thanked Connie for her skill and time as we walked back to camp. Later we (my classmates, our guides and a few other people who work at the Kazikini camp) played a good old game of volleyball on our sandy court. The volleyball court we made here at Kaziikini is one of my favorite parts of this place because, within its foot drawn lines and net held taut with three hair bands, everyone at camp can participate and I found it broke the ice incredibly fast. It also helps that Camp Kaziikini’s has showers so none of us have to go to bed sandy.
We played until the sun went behind the Mopane tree and it was hard to see the ball and even though I was sad to see it go, the end of volleyball meant the beginning of dinner time. August and Nicole, still on cooking duty, cheffed up a wonderful Botswana spin on hot dogs with homemade tortillas to fill in for our lack of buns. We sat around the pit of fire, roasting, and it all felt very mundane as if I wasn’t on another continent but in my childhood backyard with a group of friends roasting an Oscar Mayer. That was a delicious meal, and I was so so hungry.
So now here I sit. Full stomach, full day. I sit next to the fire using my headlamp to see this paper in my notebook as I write this down. Not every day in the bush is this eventful. Some days we see nothing but guinea fowl and others we have nothing to eat but corned beef and rice. But the guinea fowl are beautiful, and I can genuinely say that I now know how to make at least 30 things with corned beef. Every day in the bush brings something new and I am grateful for them all. I can’t wait to see what the rest of my time here in Kaziikini, and in Botswana at large, has for me to learn from. And, very importantly, I can’t wait to see what type of goodies I learn to bake with just a cast iron and an open flame.