By Mary Sellars (Northland College)
April 7th, 2017
March came and went in the blink of an eye and we filled our pockets with more and more experiences out in the Botswanan bush living with wildlife. After a relaxing spring break in Kasane, Botswana, we wrapped up with a dinner out for Indian food (the groups favorite). We spent one evening at our headquarters campsite in Maun and began to prep for our last adventure into the wilderness.
The car ride up to our last field station site in NG-34 was filled with quizzing and test preparation for the week of finals, essay writing and project wrap-ups that laid before us. A drive through the African bush acts as the best study tool as we often try to identify every shrub, bird and grass we pass by. It has been such an enriching experience to be able to emerge from my tent in the morning and pinpoint all the species of birds calling as well as all the plants and trees within eyesight of our camp.
Over the course of the semester many of the students have taken up a hobby to aid in chronicling our experiences in Botswana. The most common is writing daily journal entries reflecting on what the day held but I’ve attempted to pick up a hobby that I haven’t had the time to focus on since high school. I’ve loved to draw and work with watercolors my whole life but when I had the chance to attend Conserve School (An environmental stewardship semester school in Northern Wisconsin) during my junior year of high school I really honed my skills and learned the power of using painting to enrich my time in the outdoors. As a student of Wildlife Biology I’ve found sitting down and attempting to draw and paint the animals I see and study to be incredibly helpful. While in Botswana I’ve tried to expand these practices to draw and paint every flower, grass and tree we’re tested on in class as a means of studying and reflection about all that I’ve learned here.
Some of my watercolors have taken the more journal-like form of depicting moments from the past three months, like being stuck in the mud in XaiXai or mapping out our campsite in Mababe. With only two weeks left in the semester my goal is to fill up all the pages of my sketch book; and I’m getting really close! I am so thankful for the time to reflect and bring to fruition all of the beautiful imagery that I’ve witnessed while in Botswana and I can’t wait to look back at these paintings when I’m back in chilly Northern Wisconsin.
We are going to be at the H.Q. campsite in Sankuyo (NG-34) for another week and then we move north to conduct more herbivore monitoring within this concession. As classes wrap up and the nights get colder we’ve had more opportunities to reflect back on the last three months we’ve spent together and all the adventures we’ve had. And while my paintings aren’t much artistically, I think they showcase the story of our semester in Botswana wonderfully and I love my self-made field guide.