A New York Navel-Gazer Looks at Botswana, South Africa
and Mozambique by Way of London
By Kyle Thomas Smith
Part Four
August 26, 2009 – Tubu Tree, Botswana; Savuti, Botswana
Morning/Afternoon
Julius goes on morning safari. I stay in, read, write. All come back w/ news that, ~ 1 mile from camp, carcass of impala hung from tree. Lioness hunted it, tore out jugular, dragged it to tree & hung it up for stripping. Also, saw rhino, which we saw yesterday.
Graham discusses how mating season w/ lions goes. Lion mounts lioness, she allows sperm deposit but then whips him to ground. 2 mins later, he’s on another lioness and, 2 mins after that, another. Sounds like trip to Amsterdam to me.
Graham gives me copy of mystery he’s finished reading, Blood Moon by Garry Disher. Says it’s set near Melbourne. No contender for Booker Prize. Just good holiday read. Also mentions liking work of Australian crime fiction writer Peter Temple. Never heard of either. Want to read more crime fiction, again, to learn plots. Want to learn how to write better fiction. Julia mentions book group favorite, The Slap by Greek writer named Christos Tsiolkas. Coming away from Tubu Tree w/ extensive reading list that includes Booker Prize winner whom Graham regrets telling she couldn’t write.
Lunch is on. Buffet-style again: beef stew, rice, beans=basic. Spend last few minutes @ camp observing Giles. He talks about how Australia commemorates wintry aspect of Xmas with July 25 celebration, which coincides w/ subequitorial winter. Hope he had happy Xmas last month and will have another in December. Newlyweds from England (guy) & Australia (woman), both living in Singapore, sit on own side of table. We don’t interfere w/ honeymoon – those always end too soon.
Julius & I say goodbye to Jacky, Justin, Giles, Graham & Julia. Julius has Graham & Julia’s email. Both want us to keep them apprized of when my book will be in print. Well, gotta get a publisher first, but Tubu Tree was enough to take my mind off anxiety around that. W/ 6” of sunscreen on skin, clap safari hat on head, climb in jeep, where bags already waiting, & drive off to Okavango Delta airstrip w/ Johnny.
Once there, we wait for plane to Savuti Camp. Plane is late.
Waiting around in shade but hot out. Julius takes out iPhone, clicks on iPod, turns on Exile on Main Street, my favorite album, which he downloaded. Asks Johnny if he likes this kind of music. W/ most pleasant smile he can muster, Johnny says, “I like softer music.”
Julius puts on La Boheme. Johnny likes it. I say La Boheme = one of stupidest plots in opera – Rodolfo confesses everlasting love for Mimi (chick he met 10 mins ago), she leaves him next day & comes back to his garret dying of tuberculosis many mos later & Rodolfo says he’ll never love again. Julius insinuates that I’m a churl/cad for thinking this.
Charter Flight arrives. Say goodbye to Johnny; show our appreciation for his stellar hospitality & savoir-faire around game parks. Don’t know how any camp will measure up to Tubu Tree. Board plane, bracing myself slightly but not so scared of flight after chat w/ Alan. 12 passengers going to/from various camps on board. Pilot gives pre-flight instrucs. Mentions “comfort bag” in front of each seat. Euphemisms never cease, do they?
Doing pretty well on way to Linyanti Marsh. Only close eyes through ~ ½ trip as plane sways aboveground. But woman next to me reaches for “comfort bag,” sticks head in. Fear chain reaction, praying plane lands soon. Prayer answered & turns out woman never needed to puke in comfort bag.
S. African guide named Ant picks us up on way to Savuti Camp, located @ confluence of Savuti Channel & Linyanti River. B/f leaving Linyanti Marsh airstrip, Ant mentions has surprise for us. Says we’ll be meeting special guest. Gets on CB, asks colleague, “Is she still there?” Colleague says, yes. Ant says, “Can you tell us who we’re going to see?”
Julius and others answer, “Madonna?” Even Ant says = reasonable guess in this phase of pop singer’s life but, “No,” he says, “Better than Madonna.”
Jeep pulls out, travels ~ 1 mi. over to brush, where lioness sleeps w/ her cub. Snapping pix all around her, she doesn’t flinch. Amazing how animals not in least intimidated by jeeps.
No natives greet us w/ song upon arrival @ camp, except for non-singing woman named Carrie, native Botswanan who’s whiter than I am. Don’t know her story, except she says Afrikaans parents settled in Botswana ~ time of her birth & she’s never lived anywhere else. Camp appears to be 3 Xs size Tubu Tree w/ log ramps gliding for city block in network of deluxe cabins.
Staff takes us to common area, overlooking Savuti channel, where few dozen guests from America & Europe congregate, drinking Iced Tea, munching on lemon cookies & baklava. We sign indemnity form like we did @ Tubu Tree, tho don’t fear mortal injury since having experienced no incidents when driving right up to wild animals. Woman who was about to use comfort bag has just arrived, finds me, introduces herself as Jane from Seattle; says I looked ready to grab my comfort bag too. I deny it.
Our cabin looks out on to Linyanti River, which reflects moss-green marshes & weeping willows. 2 Xs big as Tubu Tree cabin. Canopied bed w/ mosquito netting, looks like accessory in sultry moment in old French-Indochina, tho danger of mosquitoes this time of year = minimal. (Mosquitoes = annoying in America but often disease-ridden in Africa.) Open shower on concrete floor. Must keep valuables in safe, tho. No danger of thieves, but squirrels get in through slats & gnaw thru bags.
Afternoon Safari
Before embarking on afternoon safari, I have a chat w/ guide-trainee from neighboring village named Tony. Says being accepted to guide program = competitive. Out of the 4 applicants, only 2 made it. Tony obviously hasn’t experienced NYC-style competitive. He must be ~ 19 yrs old. Farthest outside Botswana he’s been = Zimbabwe. Wants so much to go to America.
Says will lose most of $ to $-changers when comes to exchanging Botswanan pula for US dollars.
In jeep w/ 3 people from D.C. – Frank, Ann, Mike. Frank = lawyer, Mike’s friend. Mike = lawyer, Ann’s husband. Ann = lawyer-cum-executive coach. Ask re: her practice. Says focuses heavily on Myers-Brigg. I’m an INFJ. She’s the opposite – an ESTP. We spend rest of ride discussing theories of personality.
See leopard, rhinos, jackals, elephants, wildebeest (stay hunched all day long). Most engaging of all, tho, our jeep & 2 other jeeps pull up to lions feasting on buffalo:
Pix snapping all around them & couldn’t care less.
Then there were the hippos. They can dunk their heads under water for 8 to 10 minutes at a time:
And the Savuti sunset:
Dinner
Buffet-style dinner @ Savuti. Hummus w/ pita, beef stew, chicken, pork dishes (latter I ignore). Drinking hulking glass of Merlot. Sit w/ Ann & husband Mike.
Discuss Bernie Madoff. How could he get away w/ it for so long? His sons turned him in. Why? Was it family arrangement? Madoff taking whole sentence to clear rest of family? Another Botswanan guide named Chet hasn’t heard news. Wants to know who Madoff is & what he did.
Seems shocked that one can make so much $ in America like America. Talks about how he wants to come to America, just like Tony. Some former guests from LA invited Chet. He’s saving up.
Meet Loku, a camp employee from just outside Sheffield, England (birth name: Nick). Comes up in conversation he doesn’t understand American obsession w/ always having to get more degrees/letters after one’s name. Turns out, tho, he graduated from Oxford. After college, went to work in mktng dept of London Times. Couldn’t’ve been more miserable, so logged on to Internet to look up jobs in Africa. Found NGO that worked to preserve rhino population of Africa. After lil back-&-forth, found himself on plane bound for Botswana & got job. In course of working there, he met people @ various camps, who asked him to help out w/ some work here & there. Work accumulated to the point where Savuti asked him to come on staff. Been in Botswana 13 yrs, doesn’t know what’s next & doesn’t care too much.
So nice to meet successful rat-race refugee. Julius & I drink champagne w/ him till about midnight, talking about favorite areas of London & naughty things that naughty Brits get up to. Too stunned by Botswana’s beauty to discuss it right now.
August 27, 2009 – Savuti Camp, Botswana
Lunch
Let Julius go ahead w/o me on morning safari. Wrote journals, read Elegance of Hedgehog instead. Saw squirrel in cabin. Don’t mind. Just want make sure it has way out, don’t want going crazy & tearing things up w/ sharp lil claws. @ lunch, jump in jeep w/ Loku. Driving out to lunch site miles away. Had to change lunch site @ last minute.; herd of elephants showed up & might upset balance b/t man & nature if we sat @ tables & ate w/ them.
Loku says China ~ dominant in world economy. Chinese taking over Africa. Telling local governments they’ll build hospitals, schools & highways in exchange for land. Many questions if they’re making good on their part of the bargain. America’s economy still in recession, tho. Is America a crumbling empire? We discuss, don’t know, maybe. Whatever happens, our old way of doing business = untenable. Both applaud ourselves for eschewing corporate culture.
As we speak, herd of elephants marches into a gigantic mud puddle to our left. 2 are young & injured. Both have severed trunks & bandied legs. Hyenas probably got them. Loku has seen them out here before, didn’t think they’d last this long. Older elephants form circle around them, feed them branches & leaves from trees, ensure safety in herd.
Several elephants roll around in mud, let it bake on to their hides in sun.
Loku & I drive to new picnic site. Others pull up in jeeps, including Julius. Lunch buffet much same as yesterday, except for addition of beef kebabs, chickpeas, & omelet option. Again, I opt for St. Louis Lager. Julius & I sit @ end of table. As we eat & talk to many of the other 20 or so guests, the elephant herd from mud puddle crosses over hills & marches w/i only a dozen or so yards of us.
The matriarch sounds her trunk-horn. Trees shake. Sensing we’re just picnickers, not hunters, she gives signal to our guide Ant that we’ll get along fine as long as we stay on our side of the mud lake next to us. 10 or so elephants tumble into mud, roll around, frolic, stand in sun. Avoiding incident, we clear away from table, give them space. No incident. Herd goes about its business, takes last stand in sun, & walk over to other hill, injured young in tow.
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