By Indira Palmer of University of Vermont
Botswana Student Program – Spring Semester 2020
My 5:45 AM alarm beeps from the watch tightly wrapped around my right wrist and wakes me up from a night of the strangest malaria pill-induced dreams. Jenna had already been awake for at least 10 minutes, dressed, packed, and ready for the day; a usual morning routine from the inside of our 2-person tent. The sun had just begun to rise by the time we all sleepily emerged from our tents, the glow of the propane flame flickered as our water for porridge and coffee heated up.
We gathered for the morning, standing chilly in our shorts and t-shirts, prepared for the heat of the wet-season sun to drown us in our sweat within 2 hours. We all inhaled what seemed like our 100th bowl of porridge this semester, focusing half of our attention on eating our breakfast that was thickening by the second, and the other half of our attention on our cars’ morning maintenance. The two who had the morning off were subjected to listening to the relentless attempts of jump-starting whichever car decided to die that morning and the noise of the air compressor filling the tires that decided to go flat in the night. We stuffed the back pockets of the front car seats full of crackers and cookies like we were frightened we may starve over the next few hours while conducting herbivore transects. Between the four of us in a car, we found ourselves constantly cramped between the stacks of field guides between our feet and on our lap, our heavy binoculars hanging from our necks, and the messy array of datasheets and tools divided up between us. We roll down our windows, let the last remaining coolness of the air breeze into the car, and leave for an unpredictable transect.
Something about the early mornings in the bush of the Okavango Delta will be something I remember fondly. We all came to the Delta with an undeniable curiosity and excitement for the unpredictability of what we would experience, and that feeling carried itself through the program. Morning after morning, we woke up to the same routine, but the type of routine that could never become mundane. The quiet of the mornings reminds you of the importance of slowing down, truly trying to experience life and a culture so vastly different from what we have always known. The early mornings where I am awoken by sounds outside my tent and an inability to fall back asleep for the remaining few hours of darkness leave me only with time to reflect. My phone has been dead for days, it is too dark to read a book, and my cramped hand would rather not do any more journaling. I’m left with time to just simply think without distractions, a luxury we lack in our fast-paced lives back home.
Our immersed life in the Delta put us in a bubble, shut out from the politics and worldwide news happening daily. It forced us to be present in our work and experience. My early morning thoughts never drifted to things back home, or things to come; I only ever reflected on our time in the Delta. So I lay there, the symphony of Cicadas humming through the woodlands, the early morning trumpets of Elephants carrying through the quiet, and the chirping birds awaking with the sun; a small list of noises that kept me present and aware in this mind-blowing opportunity I get to be a part of. Every day, even though we start our mornings the same way as we always do, they still feel the same as the first morning we spent in the Delta.
