Birding in Etosha

yes - that's right. We went to Etosha and twitched. Best Big Game Park in the world ( according to me) and we looked for lbj's, warblers and eromomelas!

I have to say though, that people who have the vaguest interest in birds - should do it this way. When you are sitting at the waterhole and "nothing" is there, or you are tired of craning your neck to see the Lions on the other side of the trees, then the birding comes in really handy. It keeps you at the waterhole for a few hours where you are more likely to see the big game, rather than rushing desperately from one waterhole to the next.

We were very excited and also a little proud of our extensive bird sightings and identifications. Collectively we saw 83 different species, and that is not counting males, females and also one notable "mellanistic form"! I won't exhaust you with the full list. (Well maybe I will, but in another post) I'll just give you the highlights for me. Although I think our number is very impressive considering that there are only 340 bird species to be seen in Etosha.



I think my absolute favourite was the Giant Eagle Owl. He was at the Okaukuejo waterhole, sitting perfectly still in a tree at dusk. We only knew he was there because he started screeching incessantly. Just as the book said, the juveniles frequently will make single piercing screams all night, and he did. We also saw a pearl spotted Owl, which is a tiny and adorable little thing. He flew across the waterhole in the middle of the day, and perched perfectly on a piece of wood for us. He had caught an lbj (unidentified) and was on his way to taking it home, but the lbj was almost the same size that he was so he was having some difficulty flying!



At a tiny and completely deserted waterhole, we had an absolute treat! A huge eagle had come down to drink. Ladydi tortured us by stretching out the 100& ID for a good half an hour, but we eventually agreed that it was a Tawny Eagle!



And of course there were a few tiny birds that I will always adore, no matter how many times I see them! Blue, violet eared and black cheeked waxbills all drinking from a pipe near our camp! Not to mention the delightful red-headed Finch!

Teaching is stressful

I just finished marking the History exam papers.

When I first saw the paper I thought it was reallllly difficult, even for me! They wrote the paper while I was cruising around Etosha, and when I returned there was a massive stack awaiting me and my red pen. Which, by the way, was empty from all the marking through the year.

I arranged myself at the dining room table where I could spread out, made tea and lined up my pink pen and my red pencil. I marked the first paper with the pink and the second with the pencil. Neither was satisfactory and the first two students did not even pass. This gave me an exceptional excuse to work avoid for another 24 hours.

Next day, Mom provided me with an excellent red pen; bright, roller ball, liquid gel, 0.5mm needle tip. I once again commandeered one end of the table and commenced. I marked all afternoon, with a pause for tea and another pause for washing. Some students passed, some even did quite well. After three hours I needed something else red. Red Wine, really gooood red wine. Delheim cabernet sauvignon shiraz. It was wonderful and I had to mark one of the students papers again today because after three glasses everything had taken on a pinkish tinge, and her 85% was generous from the bottom of the bottle.

This afternoon I marshalled my energy and necessary marking resources and finished the last of the lot. It took me a long time but now I am done and have reviewed their marks against homework marks and last term's marks to assess their progress or lack thereof. I don't need the better part of a bottle of red to induce the stress that this brings. Exams were always considered the ultimate test when I was at school. Teachers talked about them all term, and set them very carefully and as a teacher, I am no different. Except from this side you know that here is the way you will know whether you have got through to the students, whether the child who needed special attention got it, whether the child who always gets 90's with other teachers, gets them with you too, and many other nail-biting thoughts.

Thankfully it appears that most of those questions have been answered in the positive and I have to tell myself that for those that are negative, this is the information I need to adjust what I am doing with them. I also had a pleasant surprise on the last two papers. Students who always make the class average, this term have set the upper reaches of the marks.

They call me... MR. PIG

There were so many giraffe, especially browsing really close to the road, so that Keir always had to drive very slowly for fear of rounding the corner and finding another group munching on the trees along the roadside. Most of them were afraid of the car and sadly would gallumph off as soon as the car approached, but there was one who came over to inspect Hank in his fabulousnous and covered in dust.

Giraffe in abundance

LIONS IN ETOSHA

We were lucky enough to see lions almost every day that we were in Etosha, but no matter how many times we saw them we could never resist stopping to spend hours in the hot sunny car exclaiming in awe at their size, grace, beauty and also how similar they were to our little kitties we have at home! Until we got home and were reminded of just how teeny and miniscule Henry is in comparison to this handsome fellow!

Ongava Lodge

This is the area we spent allll day lounging around in chairs admiring the waterhole that was just a few meters away!

Some photos from Etosha to get started...

There are hundreds, but I have managed to select just a few.

Birds and Rhinos

The steam is pouring and swirling off my tea cup, caught in the small and chilly breeze that is also catching the dust out at the waterhole. I am sitting at SC’s place up north. His home is low and open and the line between his garden and the veld is only marked by the end of his lawn. This is our second day of sitting on his porch and looking out at the waterhole.

It has been birding heaven for us. Yesterday we spent the day identifying the tiny sunbirds settling in his lush green garden. Once we had those we transferred the lenses of our binoculars to the grey, brown and black birds that were camouflaged into the veld around the waterhole: helmeted guinea fowl bouncing across the gravel like soccer balls escaping small children, swainsons francolin peeking out from under bushes and around rocks and cape turtle doves perched in the trees cooing to us all day.

For those who are not as delighted by the birds as we are, there have been kudu, warthog, oryx, springbok, wildebeest, red hartebeest, porcupines and the excitement of a brown hyena, alone and thrilling. For us to see this amazing plethora of creatures, big and small all we have had to do is sit in SC’s comfy chairs, drink his tea and coffee and hold our binocs to our faces. When all of this has overwhelmed us, we simply place the binocs on the table and pick up our books. It has been idyllic idleness!

The night before last, as we arrived here, SC had us pack blankets and sandwiches and took us out for a full moon Rhino observation. We drove through the bush at dusk and watched the sun go down behind a dark southern giraffe. Then we settled in at the waterhole to wait for the rhino to appear. And appear they did!

The moon slowly rose, with the strength and beauty of the goddess that people worship her for. The landscape was lit eerily, like someone had thrown towels over the lamps. Throughout the night we had five rhino visit in about the same number of hours. They are massive animals, as though boulders grew legs and decided to eat, breed and be stately. They are also grey like the rocks in the region and when lit by moonlight they are large, intimidating ghosts. What I found amazing was how nimble they are, the rhinos were so light-footed, and twirled on the spot like ballerinas when spooked by the flash of the camera.

Last night as we were preparing for bed, but enjoying the last of the embers of the fire we had cooked on, we heard the deep-throated call of a lion. Suddenly the end of the lawn seemed very close indeed and us tourists scurried into the house to “brush our teeth”. Once safe and warm under our covers with books once again in hand and the lights firmly on, the continued bellowing of the lions was primal and yet somehow managed to be comforting. Perhaps because, as long as we could hear him out there, we knew we were safe in here!

More to come from Etosha at a later date, although how Etosha will outshine Ongava, I have no idea!

Narrec

Narrec is a bird sanctuary just outside WHK that I absolutely adore. They take in birds that have been injured in some way and rehabilitate them for release. They do have some birds that will permanently be there, mostly because of some human unkindness or stupidity.

There is an incredible Black Eagle, who is huge and plugs directly into your reptilian brain when she lands heavily and aggressively on the tree above your head. Her presence is incredibly aggressive and dominating when you are so close. There is no doubt in your mind as to who would win in a hand to talon fight. Unfortunately, she is going to a permanent resident of her aviary. She was taken from a nest as a chick and raised by a farmer who thought it was manly to have a pet eagle. The first time she preyed on his livestock, she immediately became considered a menace to him. Because she has been taught not to fear humans, and because she knows how to hunt livestock, she cannot ever feel what it is to fly completely free and make the decision to mate, hunt, or flow along an updrift from the desert, just a speck in the sky.

Of course, if she had not been rescued by Narrec, she would instead be dead. Which some would say was better than being caught in what is essentially a cage for the rest of her life.

Other wonderful things about Narrec, are two hornbills who followed us around the entire sanctuary, carefully avoiding the vulture aviary. They posed and they primped and they brought us seeds and stones. Which of course made for some fantastic photography.

Beauty in the Journey and the Destination

We recently went to Cape Town again. We were only there for three and a half days which is no time to appreciate the city, but the drive there and back takes two days so there is plenty of time to appreciate the journey.

I most enjoyed the drive back to WHK on this trip. At first you drive through the Cape where there are mountains and endless green fields punctuated by huge flowing trees. Then you drive through the Citrusdahl area, where you are in the mountains, and the road is followed by the canal used to irrigate hundreds of dark green orange trees.

The further north you go at this time of year the more of the famous wild flowers you see. They are streaks of luminous orange and 80's-like eyeshadow blue. And every now and then a voilent purple stands out against the rock. Eventually, on the other side of the border there appear the occasional Quiver Tree, standing alone amonst the gravel plains and dolomite extrusions.

It's a drive that I love to make and have made many times. Even though it is very long, I never tire of the interests that nature and man provide along the way.

Why ya'll should be here

Winter sun

Right now it is freezing cold here. The houses are not heated and they are built for the retention of coolness. BUT every now and then you can find a windless spot in the sun and it is a small segment of heaven to feel the warming rays reach your bones.

winter sun

a uniquely Namibian experience

I had a wonderful experience at the chemist the other day. As I was standing waiting for my credit card to go through, I was listening to the 4 ladies behind the counter having a chat.

Initially they were having a wonderful gossip about someone and how to handle that someone. This conversation was between three of them. One black woman and two coloured women, they were all speaking Afrikaans. Which, in my opinion, is the best language in which to gossip. It's a gutteral language that comes from the back of the throat and is full of onomatopioa and words and phrases that cannot be translated directly into English. Even the word for gossip sounds like what it is. Skinner - pronounced 'skunner', with the R at the end rolling around like the aftertaste of a Cabernet Suavignon.

While I was waiting, they were joined by a tall blonde woman who addressed them in German. Without hesitation and without thought, they all switched to German. Then two of them broke off to speak in Afrikaans again. At which point they were interrupted by a customer speaking English, and of course they responded to him in English. My credit card went through and the Blonde lady spoke to me in English too. All this swtiching between languanges happened without comment from them, and they were all flawless in all three. The whole conversation was fluid and lyrical in a way I have never heard.

It seems as though, in Namibia, you can pick the pieces of the three languages that best express your thoughts, and because almost everyone has the same smattering of those languages, they understand you. Having the choice of languages almost adds another language, one that only a small set of people in the world speak and it gives them intimate knowledge of what you mean to say.

Mom's Birthday

Yesterday was Mom's bday and we had such a lovely day. It started with the traditional brack of dawn present opening. We were all up for coffee before school started and Mom enjoyed her presents. In the evening we watched some absolutely fabulous tennis - Senea vs Henin. Go Henin! Which made us terribly late for dinner at the Taal. The Taal is the only Indian restaurant in WHK and the food is EXCELLENT, their menu is varied and has many vegetarian options. It was absolute heaven to enjoy all that deliscious food in the company of my family. NC joined us as one of Mom's extra daughters and luckily St could stay around for an extra day and joined us too. It made a very lively crowd but not big enough to be impersonal. Once we were all disgustingly full we rolled home and ended the evening with some West Wing. Such a lovely day!

Southern African and Namlish terms

Things you may read and not understand...

Braai - barbeque but usually with more meat. ew.
Padkos - food you take with on a road trip
ummmm can't think of any more right now. I'll get back to you on that.

days when you should have just stayed in bed.

Tough day in the classroom today. I have been promising to show them the Gandhi movie for weeks now, and have also been trying to show it to them. Finally I got the keys to the cupboard and the classroom where the tv and dvd machine are. Allegedly. All the kids troop in, get themselves arranged in front of the cupboard, I open it and viola! No DVD machine... I dispatch a student and her buddy to borrow one from the Bursar... they return. No double adaptor. I dispatch her again... they return. No cord to connect the tv to the DVD player.

Now let me tell you that 20 mins of the 45 min lesson is gone already. The movie is 3 hours long. The maths is not working out in my favour. Also, the natives are getting restless. Not sure if that is a Conrad quote, but it ought to be. And I now sympathise. The volume of chatter is rising and one dear child has already threatened another with his chair, as if to tame a lion. I, in turn threaten with detention, for both of them, for good measure. Guess what... they girl returns. The cord is quite magical and has appeared to disappear. Impressive. There is now 15 minutes of the lesson left and it was at this point that getting up at 6 to be at school and spend my morning with these little muffins, these little fruitpies, these little cupcakes takes it's toll and I banish them to the field where they can be loud and energetic away from me and my detention forms.

Tomorrow I am taking my own dvd player, my own double adapter and my own cords. I will also have detention forms and extra homework at the ready, just in case of power failures or unavoidable natural disasters.

PS. Gandhi was a super caloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis. Go Mary Poppins!

Mother's day in Cape Town

We spent Mother's day driving around the Cape Peninsula, stopped at a market for treats and shopping and ended up at a fish and chip place on the harbour. It was beautiful. The best moment was wondering up and down the wharf looking at the boats and enjoying the company.

Cape Town photo's as promised

The first image is of me at a winefarm. One of the best things to do in Cape Town is to drive out to Stellenbosch and that general area and pick three or four farms to stop at, then end up at Fairview for lunch with all the cheese you can eat. It's my version of heaven!

The second is the highly recognisable Table Mountain as you drive in from the road that leads north to WHK.

School fun day

We spent the day at the school today, mostly under a marquee tent. The sun was shining and there was a lovely, chilly breeze to remind us that it is still winter. The stalls were all selling deliscious and tempting foods and sweets. We each had something different for lunch. I should pause and explain fun day for the non-St. Paulians. It is a day where each class arranges a money making scheme and the whole country is invited to participate. There is always a tea stall, a braai and beer stall and the pillow fight. More recently there have been some new additions. Stir fry, the best biltong and candy floss in Namibia (allegedly) and dodgeball!

Also C was part of a very impressive and toe tapping display of ballroom dancing. She is giving K and I lessons. So far we can half cha cha and a little bit Rumba. I want to Merengue. K wants his laptop and for us to leave him alone please.

The Internet goddess is a fickle sprawling tarantula

Yay! We have internet again after four dry and horrible weeks. So will pick up where I left off soon. but meanwhile to keep you company - here are a few photos from our cards night which is becoming more and more rowdy! In fact they have become so rowdy that we have had to institute an new rule. There is a hat that goes around, and when you have played your turn you must put the hat on the next person's head. Otherwise we alll lose track of who's turn it is and it takes us half an hour to play one round!

Cape Town in May

While I wait for more pics off K's camera - here is one of him on Atlantic Beach taking pictures of rock pools.

The Cape Town trip was all I hoped it would be, nostalgic, comfortable, surprising and all the shopping you could dream of! It is actually amazing how much cheaper everything there is compared to whk. We stayed with M, Mom stayed with Aunty T and so we spent quite a lot of time driving around. Which turned out to be a lovely way to re-familiarise ourselves with the mother city I don't think that I would ever choose to live there permanently but I could see us spending another couple of years there. The population of the city has grown ridiculously but the city hasn't and so now it really feels like it is overfull. No matter what time you are driving on the highways or when you are in the malls, on the beach, walking around downtown, there are SO many people around all the time. To the point where you are constantly asking yourself: don't these people have jobs to go to?? Having lived in DC and now in WHK where it never feels like the town is overflowing with people, it was very suffocating and oppressive to know that so many people were doing the same thing and wanting the same thing from the same small space that you are occupying. I guess we all had a little culture shock.

Of course all the good things about CT are still good. The best day I had was wondering around downtown, up and down Long street and in the Botanical gardens. We were in and out of second hand book shops where the books were piled high on the shelves, floors and and all surfaces available. We stopped in one of our old-time favourite coffee shops and had milkshakes. Although we had forgotten how much people smoke in CT and now that we have not been exposed to it, it really is obnoxious and interfered with our milkshakes to the point that we went and sat outside!

I think the best experience of the trip was catching up with old acquaintances. People have changed and yet still stayed the same, so that the visits were full of curiousity about the new parts of them and the comfort and warmth of the recognisable ones.

more photos to come.

At night

Something about the desert and the lack of cars sent H's car into spasms of loneliness and it kept setting off the alarm. Of course this was mortifying out there, because the alarm could be heard for Km's! But it did make for some amazing photography for K while he was taking his night pictures. In this one you can see the alarm flashing on the car as well as how the landscape was lit by the moon.

Spitkoppe through the Arch

Spitzkoppe photos

The first photo is of a barking gecko. We kept hearing a "kek kek kekk" noise and wondering what bird it was. It went on late into the evening and K remembered someone saying that the sound of the barking gecko drove birders crazy. So we went on a hunt and found one. Their little giggle (for it sounds more like that than like a bark) accompanied us all night.

The second photo is of a piece of bushman art that is high up in the rocks under a ledge and has a very mystical feel to it.

The third photo is of me in the famous arch at Spitzkoppe.

Our campsite and the view

Spitzkoppe

This weekend, on a whim, we decided to drive out to the Spitzkoppe and camp there for a night. The Spitzkoppe is a mountain about half an hour outside Usakos and three hours drive from WHK.

It is a granite extrusion into the bedrock, where the bedrock has been eroded away leaving this massive formation standing alone in a flat gravel plain. The rock is orange from oxidised iron in the rock, which makes it even more obvious on the white, brown and grey gravel plains. Driving towards it, Spitzkoppe turns from a shadow, slowly into a magnificent monolith, completely dominating the skyline.

The campsites are very rustic, there is no running water and essentially you know it is a campsite only because there is a metal drum acting as a dustbin. This does add to the atmosphere of heat and emptiness. Camping there, it is possible to feel entirely alone in that landscape. All that is visible is the Spitzkoppe and the plains dotted with acacia's and dry grass. At night there were other campfires visible, which gave us a feeling of safety, knowing that there were other people nearby. We really do have such a strong herd-instinct as humans. It is an intense experience thinking you are alone, and hearing nothing but the wind and the blood in your ears.

In the evening, after we had had our braai, the moon slowly rose, and as you will see from the photos, it lit up the landscape almost like daybreak. We were amazed at how powerful the moonlight was and how it changed the lanscape and made it eerie. I imagined that the landscape that the river Styx runs through must look like the Spitzkpoppe did on Saturday night.

In other news

We are getting ready to go to Cape Town for ten days. K has set up various appointments with clever people who can help him with his project and I have made a VERY long and complex shopping list which gets added to every day. Thank goodness for our spacious Hank the Tank.

Otherwise, school is out and I should be updating my CV and learning all about Ghandi, which is our gr. 8 topic for the next semester. Instead I am availing myself of my mother's bookclub books which are all in a large box under her desk. Ooh, they have such good books. I highly recommend: "The time travellers wife". fascinating idea, quite bizarre and so interesting.

I am spending the day at home waiting for our new bed! Which was a bday present from K's folks, it's going to be So great!

In sad news, Henry's gallivanting has got him into trouble with our neighbours. SIGH. Apparently he thinks he should replace their two month old baby and has been caught a number of times sleeping in the baby's cot. The family are naturally irate, but actually being very sweet about it. As a result though, Henry and Oleo have had their garden priviledges intirely revoked and we are once again cleaning litterboxes. SIGH. We are going to try putting lion poop around our garden wall in the hope that that will keep Henry in, but I don't hold out much hope. Also - where on EARTH does one get lion poop????? I am sure they have plenty of it in Etosha, but how does one actually lay one's hands on it. And also - how badly does it smell???

Beware the Ostrich!

Before we arrived at the Galloway farm we had been warned about the Ostriches there. We passed on the message to the Bronze group that should any ostrich approach them, they were to immediately lie down on the ground and not look up. The kids seemed suitably impressed, and understood that the breeding pair were naturally protective of their newly hatched chicks.

We set out at a blistering pace early on Sunday morning and hadn’t been walking 45 minutes when an Ostrich appeared on the horizon. It was on the horizon and so we tried not to worry about it or think about it. But the problem with something being on the horizon is that the horizon gets closer, it also doesn’t help if the thing on the horizon is a curious bird and decides to come take a look. So very quickly the Ostrich became something we needed to worry and think about!

Luckily our head leader is someone whose head is very capable. She got the students to slow down and group together. By this time the Ostrich was extremely close to us, and becoming a little agitated. He indicated his agitation by fluffing his wings at us and setting his chin in an aggressive manner. By the time the Ostrich was close enough to see his very large middle toe, which can rip a man from chin to groin in one powerful kick, we had the kids standing in a huddle, with their backs facing out and Their eyes very determinedly down.

If you have ever seen an Ostrich up close you will understand why we were all freaked out. The thing was taller than K. And wide, and does actually quite closely resemble those things from Jurassic park that chased the kid around the kitchen. Pterodactylpolysaurus something or other.

Ostriches will peck at anything shiny, and for that reason we told the kids not to show the Ostrich their eyes. They all had to look down at the ground, but what was funny was that they immediately become obsessed with the concept. They were worried about their earrings, their watches and the zippers on their backpacks. After about 15 minutes of this huddle we started to move the whole group away. Some of the kids were so worried that they were walking backwards and of course there is a tree here called “wagnbietjie” – in English: Wait a little. The thorns of the tree hook into any fabric or skin that comes past and at least one child had to wait while we untangled them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we did eventually manage to move everyone far enough away that the Ostrich forgot about us. They do after all have brain’s not larger than a walnut. Of course when we got back to parents and the school later in the day, there were grand stories of being attacked by an ostrich and rescuing each other mightily. If you look closely at the previous photo you will see in the distance the mighty beast that terrified us so.