Bush Diary 11/07/08

In the summer of 2008 I had the brilliant opportunity of going back home to South Africa to research dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula) in the Phuza Moya Game Reserve assisting Dr Lynda Sharpe with her behavioural study of them in the wild. Below is an extract from my bush diary that I kept during my time spent at Mongoose Manor as we called it. Enjoy :)

"When I first found out I’d be going to Africa to research mongoose I started worrying about what to pack! Its winter in South Africa therefore I'll need warm clothes, socks, thermals, warm hat, gloves and what ever other home comforts I could force into my bag. But in fact nothing I packed, useful or not could prepare me for what I was to experience. It’s the height of the dry season in South Africa, the landscape is dry, the tree’s are bare, the red earth is scorched and worst of all most of the animals are emaciated, painfully thin and approaching starvation. The grazers have no food, the browsers even less, the giraffe are lucky enough to reach the tree tops where a few green leaves still remain. The game lodge are providing sustenance food for most of the animals such as hay and lucerne but most die before finding these feeding stations or get shot before they starve to death.
My first day started at 33 degrees celcius, tracking mongoose through the bush which is like searching for a needle in a haystack. They weigh no more than 250g each and live in termite mounds. The reserve is 6000 hectares of thick arid bush, most of which have dangerous thorns, which I’ve managed to get myself tangled in more than once.
On my second day I was given a can of pepper spray? ‘‘This is for when you meet any poachers or a leopard!’’ Okay so when I’m confronted by a group of poachers armed with AK47’s I'll aim and fire my pepper spray shall I? That should protect me!
My third day and I’m left alone to fend for myself in the bush. So I find a nice rock to perch on, it's a cloudy today and the mongoose have decided to stay in bed so I’m well prepared with a set of binoculars, which make you go cross-eyed because they’ve been dropped previously, to spot any mongoose which decide to brave the cool wind outside their termite mound, and I’ve been given a radio in case of an emergency. If you see a rhino and it charges you, radio through on channel four and someone will answer your pleas for help but climb the nearest tree fast! Okay roger that.
So I’m sat on my rock being the ever observant student and watching my mongoose specimens closely when I hear a sudden grunting noise behind me. Instead of obeying the bush rules of ‘remain calm and never run’ I jump up with fright and spin around to see two warthogs looking at me before turning and darting off in fright themselves at this hysterical human being wearing a funny hat in their garden!
Not long had I recovered from that when I heard a gun shot in the distance! Okay I’m armed with pepper spray, a radio and a climbable tree nearby. Which to use first?
But before my brain can register these thoughts and complete a sentence another two shots are fired! So I turn to technology instead and text Lynda telling her I’m in the middle of a crossfire! Her response was ‘‘I think its ok. If they are very close, call steve on channel 2 and tell him your at Bugbears and don’t want to be shot!’’
Met the manager of the reserve today and while he’s jabbering in his typical South African accent, using a mixture of Afrikaans and English ‘vrek’ ‘oke’ ‘ag man’, his ranger pulls up and gets out of the car with a rifle slung over his shoulder and blood dripping down his leg and in Afrikaans saiz ‘I shot myself by accident’ and walks off.

The Toyota ‘bakkie’ pick up truck has more dents than an armoured vehicle, jumps a kilometre when it starts and crackles while you drive. I’m due to drive it in the next few days!

Yesterday Lynda and I took the dogs for a walk around the reserve, and on the way back were walking through the river bed when I heard loud grunting noises ‘‘Hippos just there, was what she said’’
But the still quiet peaceful evenings are what I crave. The brightest night sky, cool breeze, the hippos chatter, a night jar calling off in the distance, the shrill sound of a hyaena calling, all the sounds of the African bushveld.
The second day I got here the bore hole pump broke. The old madala (man) who came to tell us said he didn’t know when it would be fixed, we could run out of water any time. So for now its no showers, flush the toilet only when absolutely necessary and drink water from jerry cans filled up in the town of Hoedspruit. As the weeks have progressed the bush is only getting ever drier and I’ve decided I'm cracking up! To my surprise there is a TV in our bush dwelling but not having one would have been decidedly easier but definitely less entertaining! It only has 3 channels, all of which are fuzzy unless you move around the house to a certain corner, stand on one leg, put your nose against the wall, and your foot up on the ceiling, then in this extremely comfortable postion you can enjoy a clear picture on the TV and be mesmerised by Isidingo or 7de Laan, A mixture of Afrikaans & Tswana program’s with English subtitles! The plot and cast have not changed in 10 years, riveting stuff! So when you don’t feel like watching the fuzz on the box then there are videos. Oh yes, millions and millions of VHR video cassettes! But don’t be fooled! The video machine doesn’t work…. Or at least it does but stops every five minutes to tell you to clean the heads… and then you have to pick the machine up and shake it violently upside down to get the video out!

We visit the mongoose everday or try to at least. As I wander through the thick thornscrub yelping every five minutes because I've got a ‘hak en steek’ thornbush wrapped around my leg, amongst the array of bird calls, wildebees snorts, fish eagles calling, breaking branches and crackling dry grass, Dr Lynda Sharpe’s ears prick up and as she glides silently through the bush, she suddenly saiz ‘I heard a mongoose!’ And then she says ‘there they are’ So I start scanning around, looking low, listening intently, can't see anything, so we walk for a another 500 metres through thick thorny bush and trees and there perched on top of a termite mound off in the distance is a mongoose sat on a termite mound! I only spotted him because I was looking at it through binoculars! So we get to the group and before me are 26 little brown bodies scratching here, zipping in and out of termite mound air chambers, running up branches, and all the while making tiny peep noises which Lynda heard 3km away!
And she knows every individual by name, number, sex and status. That’s Kodiak, Female 3 years old, she’s the dominant female. And that was only looking at her little pink nose stuck out of a great big termite mound. Oh boy! I have my work cut out for me! There are 4 habituated groups in total which we visit everyday and not only am I expected to locate them in their range using a GPS, or perhaps by my failing hearing and eyesight and woman’s intuition, but also learn to identify each one of the 70 individually, so that I’m able to collect data efficiently. So the first day she bravely sent me off on my own with the vehicle to track and find my very own mongoose group, before I’d even left the spot we’d parked in…. the steering of the bakkie locked! Ok not a problem.. surely you just turn the key and it unlocks? After a frustrated half hour of nearly breaking the key off in the ignition, headbutting the steeringwheel in fury and breaking my toe from kicking a landrover wheel I radio Lynda. And she saiz ‘oh yes I forgot to tell you when that happens, you have to turn the steering wheel with your knee, press the button on the dashboard with your left hand and turn the key with your right hand, all simultaneously otherwise it will never unlock.' Sorry run that by me again!!!

The binoculars in this setup are another whole story all together! There are three pairs in total. So you’d imagine at least one of them to be in proper working order! No, no that’s definitely asking too much. My pair make you see double and go cross eyed unless you only use one eye! Lynda’s pair have the eye pieces glued on in the most precarious way! I looked through them once while standing on a rock and when my eyes finally adjusted and I took them away I lost my balance and promptly landed in a heap on the ground! Then there is the final pair. How does anyone describe such a specimen? They are definitely an antique. I mean they’re metal for a start. And they’re made for another kind of mammal, but definitely not a human being. Either the eye pieces are too far apart or my eyes are too close together! The next volunteer to arrive will be the lucky owner of these masterpiece bino’s. Lynda & I had to laugh and say that perhaps he’ll be a herbivore with eyes on the side of his head to see out of these babies. In fact when the other volunteer first arrived, we were all sat around the dinner table in a very civilised fashion and I blurt out ‘would you like a shower?’ Totally out of context with the whole situation! Horrified he said ‘oh I'm sorry do I smell?’ And Lynda pipes up ‘A fumigation perhaps!!!!’ Well that was it. I was off in a fit of hysterics. Could not stop laughing!
Our after dinner delight was spent sipping hot chocolate under a full moon watching a hippo root around the veg patch. What more could I ask for? I’m living my dream."