November 5, 2012
By Sergei Poljak (Colby College ‘14)
Forty days and forty nights seem like a long time, sparkling and glistening and thriving in my memory, replacing more distant memories of my life in America like an invasive plant. Namibia, and my mind, is a chaotic collage of the incredible, irreplaceable experiences we have every single day. I’m blessed to have spent slightly over half of a percent (.00565% on Nov. 1st) of my life in this exotic and foreign, but still wonderfully terrestrial and aesthetically comforting land.Like a beautiful, half forgotten dream recalled from your youth, this place triggers powerful and indescribable sentiment.
Yes, some days are hard…but never that hard, because we don’t not to lose sight of our spectacular predicament. No matter how many stingless mopane bees are swarming in the region of one’s head (think electrons spinning around an atom), crawling in one’s ears and eye-balls, and releasing a repulsive acidic substance reminiscent of Sharpie permanent marker (it tastes bad too), we’re happier than a bunch of Frenchman on the first day of their all-inclusive two week safari. It doesn’t matter if our double-decade-and-one Toyota Land Cruiser breaks down twice in half an hour, and we have to walk an hour to the nearest village to get a tow and a start. We like walking more than driving anyways.
The more our plans go awry, the more elastic and adaptive we become, solving problems as we go, expecting the unexpected, acquiring knowledge and honing our intellect. Through the course of the adventure described above, Miles and I discovered how to predict the afternoon’s weather (on account of wind direction), how to change a car battery, and that not wearing a shirt in the village is indecent exposure (for which we received a stiff admonition from a police officer), not to mention the more subtle aspects that develop as one is exposed to a culture that is entirely different than one’s own.
In Namibia, if you’re not on African time, you’re like to go mad. It’s not a bad thing; plans are more flexible, the pace of life slows to something that humans can actually enjoy, life expectancies go up, etc. I sleep much better at night without the constant force of the knowledge of later plans sputtering around my head. To exhibit this point, as I started writing this and looking in my journal, I realized that for the first few days I included the day of the week as well as the date, but that has long since ceased, simply because the day of the week does not matter here.
The lack of technology is absolutely perfect. Most days I go without looking at a screen, with the exception of my kindle (it’s not a screen, it’s e-ink!), and when I do, it’s almost exclusively for academic purposes. Occasionally we’ll send emails and talk to you people on the phone, but only occasionally.
All of this, the relative lack of plans and deadlines, the relentless knowledge given to us about our ever-changing surroundings, the absence of non-essential technological comforts, they all contribute to a dimension of time that has eluded the average Westerner for at least fifty years. While I know that eventually I will return to America, to college and frigid Maine temperatures and getting sick and taking exams and having to socialize with people, I am forever grateful for this glimpse of a different sort of energy.
It’s hard to tell whether or not I’ll ever come back and live in Africa, but I will say that the chances are much higher than before.
I’m sure you’re anxious to hear detailed accounts of particular adventures, so I’ll try to enlighten you on some of the things that we experienced this week (roughly Oct. 27th to Nov. 2nd). Many of our exploits involve water, since that resource is so rare here in the desert. On the 28th, as the worst hurricane in several decades prepared to make landfall south of New York City, we we’re similarly astounded by the most beautiful pond any of us had ever seen, a luminescent green fissure of untold depth, lurking unseen at the base of a 150 meter cliff (the height of which we found via our rangefinders and knowledge of geometry). And we were equally dumbfounded, and horrified, by the smell and only slightly later the sight of a dead Kudu, suspended on the surface, its spirit trapped in a long lifeless, maggot-ridden bloat that would travel very slowly around the pond depending on where the wind was blowing from. I spent a good while contemplating the Kudu’s death; did she die of sickness, or did she slip and drown whilst getting a drink, or, most interestingly, did she run and accidently fall from the cliff, and splat down into the water below? The answer to this great question will remain unbeknownst to us forever and ever. But one thing is for certain, and that is that nobody dared to go for a long awaited and desired swim.
Meanwhile, the cliffs surrounding this magnificent enclosure were riddled with dips and crevasses, nooks and apertures smaller than a finger tips, yet caves that would please the largest of leopards if he or she were agile enough to scale the steep, loose walls. Birds of prey were numerous, perched upon any of the many perches available to them, scanning the landscape for wary critters. Birds not of prey were even more abundant, in particular the rosy-faced lovebirds that are drawn to water en mass. These endearing little parrots fly and squeak all down the day, shrieking like an over-crowded pet store (citing Maggie on this bit of tasteful imagery).
On this particular day, the combination of humidity and heat were oppressive, and sure enough we got our first taste of rain a few hours later, albeit only a few drops. With water moisture in the air, the desert does not cool down very well, and that night, our first in the Omatendeka conservancy, was very sticky. Personally, I slept naked with no blankets, and awoke numerous times to find my sleeping pad wetter than the time before. The next day we encountered actual rain, on our drive to a new campsite (Vehi later reported that hundreds of springbok had moved to that exact location when he drove by again a few days later).
Often times the conservancies provide us with springbok, and always from a fresh kill. This week, three of our students were lucky enough to witness our game guard, Garrison, shoot and prepare the meat. Although maybe not the most pleasant thing to watch, they were appreciative of the experience, and were able to see the cycle of life (that humans are very much a part of) with a bit more clarity and authenticity.
As difficult as it is to watch an animal’s life be taken right before you’re eyes, consumption of said animals is very rewarding, to say the least. We don’t waste much; on one occasion, we successfully finished hides of springbok using Annie’s knowledge and instruction. This is a laborious process, involving many careful and repetitive steps, and I was not interested enough to fully commit; my hide is like plastic, whereas some of the other students have something impressively close to the soft leather you buy at the store. Although we didn’t use the pelt this time, I had the unique opportunity to dice up and sauté the liver and heart with onions. It was the tastiest thing I have eaten in months and months, and is by far the best part of the springbok. These parts are small and were eaten within minutes, but the rest of the meat lasted for a few more happy dinners. Omatendeka was our last conservancy, and we will not be getting any more springbok on this program.
Dulaney and Sergei giving a binocular lesson to students in Otjokavare, a village in Ehi Rovipuka Conservancy
Aileen and Molly lead an activity to familiarize local students with compasses, in Otjokavare.
Maggie looks on while a young student explores a mammal field guide.
Around the 1st or the 2nd of November, we finished up our work in the conservancies, and headed to Etosha for a bit of a vacation, and the opportunity to see things that we have not seen as yet. Arriving here on the afternoon of the 2nd, we were immediately overwhelmed and inundated; by the hoards of tourists, by the amenities provided by the resort (and it really was a resort), and by the staged “live-theatre” viewing of copious quantities of wildlife that we have worked so hard to see in the conservancies.
Mano, Dulaney, Aileen, and Molly smile in front of the vast Etosha salt pan, Etosha National Park
One hundred meters from our campsite, and directly in front of the luxurious rental bungalows that must cost thousands of US dollars a day, was an artificial waterhole which animals frequent. Surrounding this spot is a sort of stadium seating, and several spotlights to light up the place at night, when most of the “charismatic megafauna” (lions, rhinos, etc.) make their appearance. Indeed, we saw several lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffe, jackals, and later, when these guys had disappeared, springbok and other common ungulates. In a bout of good fortune and excellent spotting, Miles and I saw a brown hyena at about 11:30 pm. When we told our leaders they didn’t believe us, simply because these animals are so rare in Etosha, and don’t often show themselves anyways. Only when Bekah saw it a while later was she able to convey a real excitement; an Etosha guide sitting near her alleged to have not seen a single brown hyena in five years of guiding at the park.
Students take a lunch break in Etosha National Park
Experiencing Etosha put so many of the questions we have been pondering over the last month into perspective. What is wilderness? How do tourists wish to see the wild? Are conservation projects involving tourism good for wildlife in the long term? Etosha helped shed light on things we didn’t understand. Like most students, I had never been to a wildlife park like that before, so I had no idea what to expect. First of all, Etosha is not wilderness. No matter what your definition of “wild” is, it will not include the amount of human interference that helps shape Etosha into the resort that it is. The park maintains a ridiculously high number of wildlife species, and makes them accessible to the public, through several artificial water points like the one I just described, located conviently close to roads from which tourists can see. The animals are totally habituated to the presence of cars and humans, and will not acknowledge you or run away. You will only see wildlife from the safety of your car (not in the truck bed, our usual jam), from which you’re not allowed to leave, but you will see lots of wildlife. We saw herds of hundreds upon hundreds of zebra and springbok and blue wildebeest and over 40 lions to feed upon them. This is what tourists want to pay to come and see. They love nothing more than sitting in their cars, stopping occasionally to stare and gawk at lions and rhinos and elephants, while ignoring other species that maybe seem less interesting to them. Then, they get to spend long hours eating expensive food and going in the pool, or maybe meandering down to the watering hole to stare at a few more animals. The whole experience left many of us feeling more disconnected from our environment than before.
Yet, I can’t dismiss this place because in the long run it is important to conserve the rare and endemic species that occur in Etosha, and there really are extraordinary amounts that occur there. But know that if you ever go there, or some place like it, I must warn you that there is so much more to be experienced in Africa, in every conceivable way. You wouldn’t cheat on a test to get a good grade would you? The same principle applies here. Go out into the bush, sleep in the sand, sweat in the heat, meet the local people. Familiarize yourself with wildlife: spoor, scat, habitat, time of day, absence or presence of other species. Work to see the animals you want to see, whether though tracking, or opening your eyes, or waiting longer than almost immediately. You might just find that you’re more a whole afterwards. You’ll see and be thankful of seeing species you’d not have noticed in a resort (even though they’re also there). And most essentially, you’ll begin to understand what it is to be wild, to interact with wild, to see how the animals react to you in their own spot. Not many people are fit for this task, and that’s good. Too many people creeping into the bush would further damage some of the last remaining wildlands, and arguable wild people, that there are in the world.
Basically, there’s more truth to the world than the western truth. There’s more than one way of looking at everything really. There are plenty of people who would have shipped themselves right back home if they came as close as I did to being killed by a disturbed lion, but I cherish the experience. After you fear for your life like that, you just understand yourself better. What’s living if you never get out and explore? Humans, we’re meant to live for excitement. Recall Achilles, and his infamous heel. When the River Styx dipped him in, she asked him if he wanted a long, boring life, or a short, exciting one. Man, the Greeks really did know what was up.
I’m not telling you to go out and do idiotic things. I’m just saying go out and do something you’re not used to. They say that success is the pursuit of happiness; everybody knows what they say. Does that mean that people who kill themselves in a last resort for solace are successful? One day you’ll die, and you don’t want to rue it. So before you kick it, forget what America says is good and right, just for a week or two, and go out and blow your mind with something nuts, something new, or something beautiful. The earth has got a lot to offer, and few of us have seen enough of it to understand half the assertions that fly out our mouths.
Can’t cough it up? Take out a loan, cut into that savings (you’re not taking that stuff to the grave), it doesn’t matter to me because you can’t let something so ridiculous as money obstruct your passage through life. Ok, so I’m writing this for older people, and that sounded idealistic, or worse, like a direct product of what I described above (half-baked assertions). Oh, but I’m so sincere! Stay local, sleep in a tent, cut comforts, for no adventure is too close to home, just as long as it’s costs your cutting and not the quest. I want you to have these experiences too, to feel what I’m feeling. And those are some of the things I’ve been thinking about in Africa.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away…