By Mary Sellars (Northland College)
February 18, 2017
Dumela from Xai Xai! We’ve arrived at our second field camp after a seven hour journey from Maun. Xai Xai is situated near the Botswanan/Namibian border and everyone has been excited about the change in vegetation and topography on this side of the country.
Before heading this way we spent a few days preparing in Maun which involved prepping for our research projects, organizing equipment boxes and fine tuning data sheets. We also had the chance to attend a weekly meeting of research officials in Maun to discuss and learn about the Okavango Wetland Committee. This was also a great opportunity to hear about other research projects and organizations working in the delta.
We also greeted our community escort guides who will be assisting with track analysis in the concessions of NG3 and NG4 over the next two weeks. Karo and Jo are master trackers from the community of Lonetree, they are a huge asset to our research as their ability to identify tracks and discern animal behavior from a paw or hoof print is astounding. The group had a great time visiting with and getting to know them in Maun before we headed out into the bush together. The presence of community escort guides is so valuable for us in gaining a cultural understanding of Botswana as well as an ecological one. We have had an incredible time getting to practice speaking in Setswana and learning phrases in the traditional bushman “click” language, Jo//hoansi.
Before heading out to Xai Xai we had the opportunity to meet with Arthur Albertson. Arthur is a figure in the Botswanan conservation initiative and provided us with a background in the current conservation issues they are tackling in this wildlife concession. Arthur also emphasized the complexities of Jo//hoansi and Herroro culture on the international border which provided us with a lot more insight into this community before we ventured out for two more weeks of fieldwork.
Kalahari water tuber that the community escort guides foraged for near our campsite
Battling broken cars, flat tires and a record breaking wet season we made it to XaiXai on Thursday evening. Our first day in this concession began with getting to know our other community escort guides Nature and Xaashe, as well as our translator Kava. From there on we broke up into our research groups and finally began to collect some data for our semester long research projects. My day began at the crack of dawn, setting out early with Xaashe and Kavo to perform spoor (track and scat) analysis on a road transect near our current basecamp. Since the vegetation is so thick here, wildlife viewing is next to impossible while driving our typical road transects; this makes track analysis a much more effective means of data collection in order to gauge wildlife density here. Other groups headed out to collect more spoor data on the border and some headed into town to meet with community members to discuss the implications of human/wildlife conflict on this village.
Overall, I think we’re all truly settling into the African way of life and getting used to home in the bush!