last night and this morning

Last night was so quiet. The darkness speckled by millions of stars, yet so quiet I could hear the blood run in my own veins. No sounds of elephants browsing, ears flapping, rumbling as they move past the house; no predators calling in the distance or even close up. No mice in the kitchen or in the roof; no owls hooting to punctuate the dark. Where is everyone?

Sometimes its noise that keeps you awake. The persistent ticking of a clock, or a loved ones snoring.  But when its so quiet that all your ears can hear is the inner workings of your own system - it can also keep you awake.

The mind is full of mischief then. It gives you things to worry about. What if........? and what if..? toss and turn. Try and trick the self into thinking its asleep by adopting the pose and breathing deeply. As if someone had walked in the room and you wanted them to think the same. Can you fool yourself?

Apparently yes - because next I caught dawn stealing in wearing soft grey slippers. Ha - I was waiting for you! Beat off the mossie net and light the gas for coffee.

Get dressed hurridly - could only find one sock so that will have to do. Wash face and teeth; find shoes; pour coffee into go cups and out into the brand new day.

Light comes swiftly, tinting the world with pink and gold. Its good to be awake to catch this gift that comes free with a new day. Mist hovers in flat lines over the yellow grasses, moving all around us, fleeing the rising sun. Gold tipped clouds lead the way as fire and brimstone lifts its head between the distant palm trees.

Soft feathery pink grasses and silver grey sage bushes complement the rosy sky. We drive and drive into the back country looking for leopards and signs of lions.  Gnarled leadwood trees provide abstract shapes like a vast sculpture garden. Giraffe peer from behind bushes, termitaria, and distant trees; They are everywhere posing like super models, aloof and disdainful. Whoever heard of a giraffe migration? yet this is how it seems.

Mad Cow Cutline

We are driving to Selinda. We have just passed through the lovely
linyanti riverine forest and are driving up the cutline that defines
the border of Chobe National Park and the private concession areas.
The sand track rolls out ahead of us like a bent and buckled gun-
barrel highway. Hemmed in on either side by dense green bush and
occasional tall mopane trees.

We pass a bright pool of water - remnant of the summer rains. A sky
blue pan with a small group of impala who raise their heads to watch
us pass. Ahead of us occasional herds of elephants cross from green
curtain to green curtain. The sky is a dome of deep blue, the horizon
is flat. The smell of sand and wild sage fills the air.

We are moving along at a steady pace, rhythmically rocking and rolling
with the dense sand of the track. Far in the distance we see an
elephant next to the road. She picks up her head and watches our
approach. As we draw near she raises her head and sways from side to
side focusing her attention alternatly on us, and a bull elephant who
slowly emerges from the bushes and strolls across the open cut line.

Once the bull has crossed, the cow elephant turns her full attention
on us. She puts her head down and starts running towards us
soundlessly. We start to back up as the gap closes suprisingly
quickly. She doesnt falter. Her ears are back but still flapping
slightly as she runs. Her eyes are focussed on us. There are no
trumpets of warning or mock charges - just a silent full speed run.

She looks remotely comical and undignified at this pace, but my
imagination does a forward leap and starts to picture how it will be
when she connects with our vehicle. We get the message. Reversing is
difficult because we are fully loaded with goods for the safari camps
and cannot see out the back windows.

At last she slows and so do we. We reverse onto the side in
preparation for a turn if necessary. There is a waiting period while
she decides whether to chase again. We watch and wait, willing her to
move off so we can continue with our journey. We still have a long way
to go.

Holding her head high, she draws herself up to her full height and
still watching us, starts to move off into the trees. We wait to see
her grey head emerge from between bushes. She hovers on the periphery.
Eventually we take the leap and decide to carry on. She sees us
passing and races out of the bushes again - erupting through the
trees, head down, running at us. But we are past this time and can
soon widen the gap between us. I watch her recede. She stops and
stands guard over that particular stretch of road. Waiting, I think,
for the next unsuspecting traveller.

Life by Numbers

END:VCARD

Waking up – running a full system check to see if I have finished sleeping – still undecided I become aware of the loud thunking of small feet on the tin roof. The monkeys are back! Up and down the roof they race – turning at the ends like Olympic swimmers. No no stop. I try unsuccessfuly to ignore them then realise with a start that I have an early appointment in town anyhow. Reluctantly, but speedily, I throw myself out of bed, beating off the mosquito net, and into the day.

Bath, dress, clock watch, make coffee in a go cup, load the car with all I need to take then pause….there is a group of ten giraffe at the end of the driveway. My leaving will disturb them and its just so so nice when the giraffe are hanging about the place.

Not to worry though as Rayson – our trusty man about the place – strode confidently into their midst to turn on the borehole pump.

Set off for town. Notice that the dam near the gate is shrinking fast – only a cluster of small pools remain. At the gate check for tracks, wrestle with the lock – these days we have to be more vigilant about locking gates – and head out into the morning traffic.

It's a clear bright day and the road is clear. Sweeping over rolling hills that present views of granite boulders and green tree canopies stretching to the blue Drakensberg Mountains, I arrive in town ahead of the crowd.

I head straight to the licencing department. They open at 730 and its best to get there as early as possible to avoid interminable queues. So far so good. I run a mental checklist – ID docs..yup; vehicle registration papaers..yup…cheque..yup….total file of every bit of relevant paper ever collected on the subject…yup; surely this cant go wrong. And look ma, no queue!! If I was a labrador my tail would be wagging.

But not so fast ….. are all the vehicles in my name? no. Well the owner has to sign the form here – marks a big cross with her pen on an open spot on the form. Nowhere does it say 'sign here' how was I to know?. Rats. Plead and beg and grovel to no avail. I have to go home again to collect the missing signatures. No worries – its only half an hour each way and increases my daily footprint on the planet by a lot.

How much of life is spent pursuing an endless papertrail that allows us to define ourselves by numbers? So far it has been a recurring theme for 2009. hurrmph.

Second time around and a small waiting period in the queue, and at last I was back in the sunshine. Vehicles licenced for another whole year. Perhaps next year I will get it right. Must remember the form signing bit!

typically untypical

well blow me down! after my brave wintery words of yesterdays post it rained in the night - in what is becoming typical untypical behaviour from the rain gods. Today is a day of soft mists and gentle rain. The sound of droplets falling on the roof. Trees are dripping and grasses shimmering with diamante droplets again. Its a good thing. We need it. Winter rain.

The guinea fowl chicks had their first taste of freedom yesterday. We let them out in the morning and they were so excited. They immediately started chasing butterflies and grasshoppers. In a noisy cacophony of cheeps and peeps, the whole group were led by their vigilant parent birds into the koppies behind the house, where they could be heard noisily enjoying a natural foraging diet.

Sadly we lost one over easter weekend in a very unEaster like event.  We tried nursing and feeding and tending, but he was so weak he never really rallied.  RIP little chap. Now we have fifteen hale and hearty ones, but the urge to count heads never leaves. Yesterday there was a band of dwarf mongooses in the garden too.

Just before sunset the chicks emerged from the long yellow grasses, chirping all the way, and dutifully went back into the hock for the night. What a relief.

officially winter

So its official then. March 21st officially marks the start of Winter. A man in a suit announced on the news and right on cue, there is a cool nip in the air. The baobab trees around the house are starting to lose their leaves; grasses are dropping their seeds and turning yellow; dams and waterholes are drying up.  Wide blue skies are swept clean of clouds and defy rationale with their depth of colour. Picture postcard blue.

It seems strange to me that in these days of climate change, drought and flood, and weather behaving as it wants - not as history dictates - that winter should know to start on March 21st. Perhaps Winter is still of the old school and knows when to come and go - not like these young wipper-snapper rainy seasons that stay out all night and sleep all day - missing their appointments and thumbing their noses at calendar schedules.

Lions have moved closer to the house. They seem to be following the wildebeest. There is a pride of fifteen, including three small cubs, one older cub, all the way through to a magnificent dark maned male lion. Their ability to disappear in the tawny grasses never ceases to amaze. Black tips of tails, black ears, eyes, mouths - the only clues to the presence of someone you do not want to step on while walking.

Scorpio is rising in the night sky too. It is such a fabulous constellation and dominates the night skies of winter. It makes me think of wonderful places where I have looked at Scorpio emblazoned in the night sky.

Yesterday there was a spitting cobra in the laundry store room. The room is a chaos of boxes bags stretched canvases - it needs a spring clean. I was working in the office next door and heard munching sounds like a big rat chewing on something. I tiptoed in to try and trace the noise just in time to see the tip of a brown tail disappearing from view. We left him there to do his job hunting rats, making sure to close off his access to the house.

I love the change of seasons, its like the change from day to night - a changing of the guard as different species come to the fore. Time to move, travel and explore. Winter - when the sun is golden warm and the shadows are cold and blue. A time to cluster around the open fire and share tall tales with pals of old. A time when the thick blanket of torpid heat is lifted, and the air blows fresh and clean. Safari season.

elephant dreams

Driving into the setting sun - molten gold spilling onto the warm tarmac. Elephant shapes moving steadily, rhythmically through the liquid light make shimmering silhouettes. The giant dome of the evening sky blooms with cumulus clouds tinted rose and silver. The last rays of sunlight slant through trees bent by aeons of elephants on their way to the Chobe River.

We arrive at Ngoma - the border between Botswana and Caprivi Strip. Floodwaters from Angola have filled the floodplains, catching the evening light and reflecting bright silver behind dark tree shapes.

The sun is gone. In the blink of an eye it is dark. Deep velvet darkness lit only by starlight. A scops owl chirps his rhythmic call and crickets fill in the background sound. The stage is set - let the night begin. Enter left a thirsty buffalo bull heading down the well worn path to water. In the distance an elephant screams and growls - unearthly sounds that leave a vaccuum when they stop. The ensuing silence brings its own tension and we listen for lion, or leopard - the super predators that own the night.

We hunker down in the comfort of our canvas walled hut, pulling up the blankets against the early winter chill. Night air moves freely over our faces through the large gauze windows that keep the insect mayhem at bay. We drift gently away to sleep.

Hours later - I am awake. The moon is up. Though sliced in half it is already as bright as day without the colour. Branches snap and break all around us. Elephants are feeding here. The sound of soft footfalls, and thorn brush scaping leathery hide tell me they are very close, but among the broken shadows of the monochrome landscape and behind the bushes, they are almost invisible. I can hear the wetness of their mouths chewing, but I cannot see them.

The munching and crunching sounds intensify and soon we are surrounded by a breeding herd of elephants. Trunks curl into the moonlight stripping the branches of leaves. Droppings fall softly, wetly, steaming in giant piles that look like fresh bran muffins. 

Elephant flatulence fills the air. The sound of it - the miasma that follows the sound. Elephant smells replace the soft fragrant night air that washes over us. So this is how it feels to be in the middle of the herd.

There is a throaty rumble from the matriarch that calls the herd, and one by one they drift off down the ravine, and we drift off to sleep again.

Dawn light steals in quietly layering colours on the landscape again. A francolin calls loudly near my ear and the distant sound of ground hornbills heralds the new day.

on the road again