Written May 9, 2015
By Lindsay Cotnoir (University of Vermont)
With final exams crushed and only a few days remaining in our Botswana adventure, my fellow students and I are beginning to face the reality of leaving this warm place that has so quickly come to feel like home. Like a caravan of loud turtles, for the past three months we have carried our home on our backs wherever we went. Add a few green tents, a poop hole, a fire pit and a ring of camp chairs, and voila we have our home base. Thinking of my hometown across the Atlantic, there are many things I will miss after my departure. I have loved being disconnected from Facebook, but the constant connection to the nine wonderful people I have been surrounded by. I loved falling asleep to owls hooting and hyenas whooping, and waking up to the sqwacking calls of angry fracolins. I loved waking up by starlight and sipping tea while watching the sunrise over acacia woodland. I loved our Teva tans, oatmeal jokes and our random dance parties to music amplified by a tin cup. I loved trying to figure out the males and females in a herd of zebra and getting to know our escort guides on bird count surveys. But one of the things I have most enjoyed about this program is our outdoor classroom. With no walls or roof to confine us during lectures or discussions, the world has become our classroom. Learning isn’t limited to the hour long time slot written in on a schedule, but rather the daylight hours and your willingness to pay attention. Don’t know that bird call? Ask Genifer or Sixteen. Want to identify that flower growing behind your tent? Consult a guide book. The opportunities are endless when your classroom is the environment you live in.
The tiny African Barred Owlet I saw behind my tent one morning
If there is only one piece of wisdom I will take home with me, it will be a new curiosity for the environment around me. I remember one afternoon where Maya and I spent twenty minutes watching an epic battle of the insect world. Big, predatory Ponerine ants and smaller fire ants were besieging a poor colony of termites that had been exposed from under our tarp. The Ponerine ants would carry their victims back to their lair to consume, but some termites would fight back, clamping onto the warrier’s legs in attempt to weigh them down. Everything is interesting and exciting if you keep an open mind and take a moment to look around you, even if it is down at the little things.
Although our program is coming to a close, our last week spent taking finals and finishing projects has been pleasant. It’s hard to be unhappy when you get to take exams in the shade overlooking the beautiful Thamalakane river and floodplain fields across the bank. It has also been satisfying to show off the knowledge and skills that we have accumulated over the semester. Who knew we had learned so much while having so much fun in the bush? Our last exam was natural history, and was quite unlike any other exam I’ve ever taken. We spent the morning walking along the river and in the woodland nearby, while Vehi and Sixteen quietly pointed at birds, plants and trees for us to identify. By the end, we all had identified over a hundred individual plants, birds and trees. It really is amazing how much you learn when the world is your classroom!
Our beautiful work and exam location for the week, nice shade and a great view!
Top photo: Moonrise over the Thamalakane River, a wonderful sight from our final home in Botswana