By Siri Vlasic (Westminster College)
Written April 11, 2016.
After finishing up our 17 days in the Mababe concession area (NG41), we made our way to Khwai (NG19) where we are spending 8 days continuing herbivore monitoring and collecting data for our group projects before heading to Kasane. Besides studying for upcoming finals, doing readings, and writing essays we’re still having quite a bit of fun. A few days ago, we drove to Mababe to watch a soccer game between Khwai and Mababe. We were all very excited for the game because we’ve spent time in both concessions and one of “our” escort guides, Wax, was playing for the Khwai team. We drove for about 40 minutes from our campsite in Khwai before arriving in Mababe.
Our camp in Khwai
When we pulled up to the soccer field, neither team was there yet and there were hardly any fans. Almost immediately after we parked the car, a group of kids flocked towards us. At first they were a little timid, but within a couple minutes they were sitting and crawling all over us as we sat in the bed of our truck waiting for the game to start. Soon after, another car approached filled to maximum capacity with people. It slowly rolled up next to us blasting African pop music. As people piled out of the car they started dancing and singing as the car continued to play music throughout the entire game. Gradually more and more people showed and the two teams ran onto the field and started playing. It was hard to focus on the game because there were kids constantly surrounding us either playing with our hair, playing games, or just trying to be as close to us as possible.
When there were about 20 minutes left in the game I made my get-away from the truck to the sideline of the field so that I could watch the end of the game. It was still tied 0-0 and even though we went to the game to support Wax and Khwai I think we were all hoping for the Mababe team to win or at least score so that we could see the village’s reaction. Within 10 minutes and a couple close calls for both teams, our hopes came true and Mababe scored. Everyone cheered loudly for Mababe – not only the die-hard fans but the people dancing by the cars, the children, and even some RRCS students who had been rooting for Khwai, and the whole village rushed onto the field cheering as loud as they could.
Once the field was cleared of fans the game resumed and shortly after it came to an end. We left almost immediately after the game so we could get back to camp and make dinner, and even though Wax and the other Khwai escort guide, Bob, were a little sad, the atmosphere was still high just from the energy of Mababe. As we left the people of Mababe were still dancing and celebrating the win.
Although each concession and village has its own beauty and charms, Khwai might be one of the prettiest and wildest places we have been to yet. Even though we are staying in a designated community-run campsite, a first for us here since being in the bush, it still has the most incredible wildlife sightings. We have had multiple tsessebe run through camp, elephants walk by frequently, and almost every night we can hear lions roaring nearby.
This morning was particularly exciting as Kaggie, Ben H, Laurel, and I woke up around 5am to make a trip into Maun to get one of our vehicles fixed and resupply on food. The sky was still dark and there were stars shining as we were getting ready to leave. As I put my backpack in the car and started walking towards my tent I noticed two eyes shining in the road right outside of camp. I was about to say something as Ben also saw it and told us it was a leopard. It started walking away from us, but walked in a circle around camp.
First it made its way over to Kaggie’s tent (she wasn’t in it), where it scratched the tent and then quickly backed into a bush right next to the tent. We kept an eye on it and it slowly made its way to the opposite side of our camp. We thought it had walked away, when Laurel and I heard birds start to call in a tall camelthorn acacia tree close to the last place we spotted it. We searched the ground with our torches for the glowing eyes, but couldn’t see anything. Then we shifted the beams of our lights into the tree where we saw the leopard climbing – making its way down the tree branch by branch. After it got out of the tree it disappeared from our view, but it was most likely still very close. We then got in the car and started the two-hour drive into town as we left the wild animals behind us.
Even on off days in town we still get to see an incredible amount of wildlife!
