What's next?

There are a lot of things that I would like to write about but have not had the time yet. Hopefully you will continue to check back for updates about Project Bush Baby, Project Squirrel, and my other work.

Coming sometime soon: What is Wild?, What is Natural?, and, now that I have more time on the net and a better connection, I will go back and illustrate past posts.

The journey home--via the Zoo

Well, it has been a while since I have written. The last few days were a flurry of activity. I managed to get some small kudu horns to make a trumpet with when I get home and picked up a few souvenirs for people back home. There isn’t a wide selection of interesting artifacts here, as I have reported, but I have some friends who will enjoy chakalaka and rooibose (there are some scrabble words for you).

Hillary, Eric, and I returned home together. We traveled for 30 hours, not including the bus from Makado and the overnight at the hostel. Our flight was late enough that we were able to spend the morning at the Joburg Zoo. It is a small but nice zoo with a lot of great keepers. We were able to spend a bit of time with several of the keepers who showed us their genets, greater and lesser bushbabies, and aardwolves. We learned a lot about their captive husbandry and behavior. I was especially pleased to see that the bushbabies foraged from their food trays with their mouths then transferred the food to their hands if it needed additional manipulation.

Here the lesser is foraging with it's mouth. The greater is showing how much control galagos have over their ears.

We were also able to see several other animals in nearby enclosures. To me the coolest was the ratel or honey badger. We had not seen one in the wild. They are apparently becoming scarce in much of their range and had been disappointed so the chance to see one up close was great. With most carnivores, the rule of thumb is “don’t run.” In America we tell this to our kids in relation to dogs. In Africa it is the mantra drilled into your head when you go on safari. It’s far easier to not run from a dog than a lion or hyena. However, the other part of this mantra is, if you see a ratel, run as fast as you can. Chances are you can out run it if you really try but if you don’t, it will latch on to you with its vice-like jaws and cause some serious damage. So, it was with a little trepidation that we watched the badger climb, human-like, down the mesh of its cage and, with the typical badger snuffling, grunting, and swaggering walk, approach us to sniff our pants. I recalled the movie star who was in the komodo dragon cage a few years ago who had his white stocking foot bitten by the dragon who mistook it for a white feeder rat. My pants certainly smelled of things that the badger would enjoy eating; I just had to hope he had enough experience not to test the palatability of those smells. All turned out well and we concluded our morning by walking around the rest of the zoo.

Those masseters and the architecture of the skull make the ratel one of the most tenacious and powerful of the carnivores.

One thing that often strikes me when visiting zoos and museums outside of America is the lack of protection given or needed for the artifacts. Many of the ungulates at the zoo were enclosed by nothing more than a two or three rail fence. This allowed wonderful opportunities to get close to the animals and make observations that are impossible from far away. It also allowed the possibility of school kids or stupid adults climbing into the enclosure with the animals. This happened a few years ago in the Anchorage Zoo when a woman climbed in with the polar bears, and more recently with the tragedy with the tigers and the irresponsible kids at San Diego. Such antics are not a realy problem in Joburg nor, apparently, many other zoos throughout the world. May times while at Lajuma it became clear that Americans have a lack of respect for authority and an in-your-face attitude that both contributes to the stereotype of the “ugly American tourist” but also provides us with a cultural foundation for innovation, self-expression, and freedom. However, this attitude, when decoupled from personal responsibility and the more socialist ideals of community property espoused by some of our European friends, necessitates that American zoos and museums put up many more barriers to access to the specimen that other places. Such barriers are necessary for both the protection of the specimen and of the visitor, and (due to our litigious legal climate) the educational institution.

When we got to the airport, there were no lines anywhere. This created a bit of a problem for me because I usually use the time in line to get out my passports and tickets, pack my knife, etc. In the end all went well, though I gave one of my knives to a nice guy who I think will mail it to me soon. The airport looks great and was very efficiently designed. South Africa is preparing for the 2010 soccer world cup and Joburg in general is trying to grow well. In my brief time there it was clear that they have a lot of struggles, especially with crime (nearly every house and business has thick bars on the windows and 10 foot razor wire fences around everything) but they are on a good track overall. Hopefully they will continue to have positive progression.

My computer and data book have made it home safely with me. The next phase of this adventure is to work with the data…

It has been an adventure

If “tourism” can be defined as following an itinerary that takes you to new places for the purpose of entertainment and education , then maybe “adventure” can be defined as managing the obstacles and opportunities encountered in a new situation for the purpose of education and knowledge generation (and a little fun, too).

If these definitions can apply, then I have had an adventure. I came here with several ideas, found a few that worked, and developed those that worked best. Logistical problems have been numerous, labor intense, ideas built upon, skills developed, and insights into the science and my own abilities expanded. Joel has encouraged us to begin missing this place now because soon the physical part of the adventure will be over. The intellectual will continue as I sit under flickering lights in the bowels of some building running the statistics on my numbers but the cold dust and fragrant vines that are just on the other side of this grass wall from me now will be far away.

A tough decision and lots more work

I stopped running the Samangoland grid (now renamed Galagoland since Sara is not using it any more) last night. It was a tough decision. For a few days now I’ve been collecting only morning data, no midnight forays. I’ve gotten into such a groove of baiting, collecting, and recording data but there is only a little time left here and I need to spend every second finishing my citizen science grid, talking with the kind of people who will be using it, cleaning, organizing, and preparing to leave.

I will have two galagoland grids that hopefully will continue to run using primarily European and Venda students. My ideas seem to be interesting to everyone I talk to and several people have said it is the kind of project they would like to work on or help out with on their days off from research. I have had a lot of help and interest, especially in the last month when the ideas and infrastructure were well designed and running smoothly so I have hope that the work will, indeed, be able to continue without me being here. I just need to get the protocols and curriculums written up…

What is "rural"?

As I noted in a previous post, the places where most of the tribal villages are located are called “rural” areas. Though every community here is surrounded by bush, ranch, and farm, most people live in big villages or small towns. It’s not like driving across the Midwest where every few miles you pass a lonely farmhouse--until you get out to the regions where there are game farms and irrigation farms—rather there are dense population centers surrounded by working land. Electricity has been slowly coming to the villages here. Apparently in the early 1990’s one could look out from Lajuma at night to a dark valley. Now it is speckled from one corner to the next with lights. Every light must represent at least a half-dozen households because when I have been on the roads at night I pass many homes with no light more than a candle or kerosene lamp. So, these rural communities are more like suburbs and the land around them is hugely impacted by a variety of human activities.

South Africa is a big country with a diversity of situations and issues, so take what I report here about Limpopo province as a skewed but earnest perspective base on what I have seen and been told. I have been through Gauteng and Mpumalanga and it is obvious to me that Limpopo is very different than those provinces. Most of the black people here live on traditional homelands, some of which were obtained through land claims, which means the previous owners were likely white Afrikaners who were farming or ranching the land. Land claims are awarded if the claimant can demonstrate that they were forcibly removed from the land. Many claims have been made on the national parks and many more on small parcels and farms. In some cases, whites of Dutch, German, French or English descent have made claims, too. Many of these white races have been in the region as long many of the black races. Though this region encompasses the Venda homeland, they have only been here for about 400 years. Archaeological pits may yield Venda pot sherds under colonial china ware under Zulu artifacts. The San were mostly pushed to the Kalihari or incorporated into other tribes, before any of these settlements were very old. Blacks, Whites, Indians, and Chinese may all be equally “South African.” The Chinese are currently trying to get some apartheid rectification legislation amended to recognize them as “black” because they were also discriminated against during the apartheid era but have not been given any of the rectification benefits under the new government.

Though the government seems to be trying to be equitable in the redistribution of land, it is not a simple matter and it seems to me that, in at least some cases, what may be good for the individual or group may be bad for the country, and what may be good in the short term or politically expedient may be ultimately problematic. Many of these tribal homelands include substantial veld that was originally grassland, went through a period of intense farming, was invaded by woody vegetation, was used for game ranching, and was then turned over to the tribe. The government will buy out the landowners as part of a claim settlement but they will only pay for the land, not the game on it. Therefore, the land owner will sell as much of his game as possible before the land is turned over (game on high-fenced land is privately owned). The tribes usually use the land as communal grazing land or farm plots but often they lack the resources to fully utilize it either as intensive agricultural land or as a preserve or game ranch. It other areas, the land that was turned over includes tea estates, nut and fruit orchards, or potato farms. Ranch, estate, or farm, the tribe seldom initially has the expertise to keep production (and income) at pre-turnover levels. However, after some initial struggles, former land owners, managers, other experts, and the tribal governments have been able to work together to make successful enterprises.

These various uses seem to be effective ways for the people to provide for themselves and their local tribes. Of course farming on a small scale can help insulate a community from the massively fluctuating food prices most of the world is experiencing right now. Unfortunately, the government recently announced a “Use it or Lose it” policy. Either the tribes intensively farm their land, or it will again be redistributed (in this case it sounds like it will become government property.) For owners of developed farms and tribal lands in the east where the rainfall is higher, it seems like there’s hope because they are “using” the land according to the proposed government definition, but some of the people in this dry part of the province don’t know what they will do to “Use it” with the resources they have. Without capital for irrigation and machinery, expertise and training, facilities for game ranching and tourism or some other money and logistics intense operations, they are already doing the best they can. This is something to keep an eye on as South Africa continues to develop.

The Freedom Charter

Have you ever read the Freedom Charter?

South Africa has its share of problems with poverty, racism, education, and the other issues that all developing nations face but they are on the right road and really are progressing well considering that apartheid was broken only 14 years ago. Many of the readers of this blog were very young when apartheid fell so I suspect they will be surprised by the blatant racism of the apartheid government. Under apartheid, the Freedom Charter was a banned document written by the black opposition party that espoused racial, economic, and educational equality. I don’t necessarily agree with some of the communist solutions that are proposed here but, to progress from apartheid to today, when the Freedom Charter’s goals are being pursue,d shows important progress for South Africa and, in many ways, sets an example for the rest of the world to help resolve their racial and economic problems.

The Freedom Charter

Adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955

We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:

that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;

that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;

that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;

that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;

And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;

And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

The People Shall Govern!

Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;

All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;

The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;

All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government .

All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!

There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;

All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;

All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;

The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;

All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.

The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!

The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;

The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;

All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people;

All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!

Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;

The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;

Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;

All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;

People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.

All Shall be Equal Before the Law!

No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;

The courts shall be representative of all the people;

Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;

The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;

All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.

All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!

The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;

The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;

All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;

Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.

There Shall be Work and Security!

All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;

The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;

Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;

There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;

Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;

Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.

The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!

The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;

All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;

The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;

Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;

Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;

Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;

The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.

There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!

All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;

Unused housing space to be made available to the people;

Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;

A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;

Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;

Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres;

The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;

Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all:

Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.

There Shall be Peace and Friendship!

South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;

South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;

Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;

The people of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;

The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.

Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY

Quiet birds

When I first arrived here I thought that there were no species of bird that chirped before the sun came up. In the states, I often hear robins begin calling at about 3:15 am. Other thrush species in the states and around the world may call all night. Since I have been cathemeral, I have found that there are plenty of species here that call at night, but they call very quietly. Even during the day most birds call very quietly, even the widely spaced and melodiously tuned thrushes. There has been research showing that birds that inhabit loud places are more likely to sing loudly. I don’t know if this is the reason the birds here are so quiet but I did hear a lot more bird song while I was in Joburg, which is a very loud and bustling city. Here there is a lot of human activity but there is little electricity and little money for petroleum so the activities tend to be pretty quiet.

Acacia Pied Barbet

The Greater Double-Collared Sunbird, one of the common species in camp.

A Southern Boubou

Cheaper is not less expensive

It has been very frustrating to work with some of the materials available here. As one would expect in a developing country, there are few competing brands for many of the basic products. As a result, many of the products are very poorly made. Matches and nails are the ones that affect me most. Matches have so little compound on the tip that they often flare up and go out before they light the wood of the match. The nails I am using bend within a few blows of the hammer. It the end it becomes necessary to use more product than would be necessary if it were higher quality. It’s a good lesson to learn from: spend the time to make a quality product and in the end it will be less expensive because of reduced repair time and less wasted material.

Demons in the dark

Two nights ago, near where I saw the leopard, I walked around a bend in the cliff face and suddenly something was screaming at me. The habituated baboon troop was sleeping on the cliff and I had surprised a sentinel. He ran up the cliff face with amazing agility while two other large baboons and several small ones ran down hill. I decided not to bait that trap so that the baboons would not figure out that it was a potential food source and moved down the hill to the next station. Unfortunately, several baboons went down the hill ahead of me. I checked all of the stations but did not bait the four in that line for fear of training the baboons.

The night after the baboons slept near my grid, the galago GUDs were completely reversed from their usual pattern of low GUD at high stations and hign GUDs at low stations. The difference wasn’t huge but it was there. An interesting coincidence, I think.

Winter may end yet

The days are getting longer. I have been here long enough to watch the trees lose leaves and many are now leafing out again. Many trees are blooming and, in general, the weather is a bit warmer during the days but more misty at night.

The only people in camp now are Annick, Eric, and myself. It is very quiet now but the work is intense as we wrap up everything we have been doping and clean up our widespread messes of flags, traplines, and supplies. Annick has been very helpful, she often has all of the dinner preparations complete for us by the time Eric and I return home. Though she can’t eat gluten, she often prepares nice breads and pies, and has kept up Emmanuelle’s tradition of the occasional chocolate cake.

Visitors to the patches

There are a lot of new students on the farm these days. I have been able to take many of them out to my grids at various times. I have also taken out farm workers, research volunteers, professors, and local residents from many countries including Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and America. Interestingly, many people prefer to go out with me at midnight, which is great for me in one sense because it makes the time pass pleasantly and keeps me alert; on the other hand its difficult because, as those of you who know me would expect, I enjoy filling the students in on all the interesting details and possibilities of the experiment. Everyone seems to enjoy my lessons but they often make us take a little longer than simply collecting GUDs does, so we don’t get to bed until near sunup. Based on how physically difficult midnight GUDs are for me, I’m a little surprised that people want to join me them rather than the morning or evening collections. Many people only come once but several people have helped me several times and occasionally for a whole day. As I teach these people the principles of GUDs I also ask them for feedback about the curriculum I will be writing. Most of the people have been enthusiastic about my proposals, though a few have pointed out that months of GUDs would be torture for them, regardless of the data output. I anticipate making a protocol that has data collection for several days on either side of a moon phase, with plenty of breaks in between. Though this would not be very effective with only one observer, using multiple citizen scientists enables me to not torture and of the workers while still collecting enough data to get a complete picture.

A wonderful experience in surrounding communities

I have reported that it is my feeling that many aspects of the black cultures are suppressed somehow but I am sure they still exist somewhere. Well, we were able to take a day trip with a wonderful guide, Willie Bortha, who knows all about the local cultures and natural history and has personal contacts with many of the best artisans. If you ever come to this part of South Africa, make sure to spend some time with her.

Willie met us in town (just after I collected GUDs with Ben’s help to make it faster .) As we were driving out of town (I was right, the dominant native culture in this town is Afrikaaner so to experience the other cultures we had to go to other towns) she made a sudden U-turn and said, “I’m sorry but if I see something interesting I must go check it out.” We told her we understood, we’ll even back up mile for road kill. Well, it turns out that Willie saw a Shangan and Venda dance competition taking place. We pulled in and some of the troops gave us private performances. Willie made contact with their leaders so that she could involve them in a cultural celebration she is organizing for later this month. Through teams made up of people like these dancers and people like Willie, I suspect that many of the local black cultures will become a more visible and respected part of this region.

After the dances we sped down the road past macadamia, litchi, banana, orange, and pecan groves. As you move east through Limpopo it gets wetter and the soil richer. This is one reason the game was so plentiful here in decades past. The more arid portion have been left for game preserves that are still very productive, and are sometimes also used for sheep and potatoes. Some of the roads in the east are paved with macadamia shells.

We visited many “rural” communities. These areas are “rural” in that they are surrounded by tribal communal land but the residential centers are large, densely populated villages. Communal land is often used for small garden plots and cattle grazing. Yet, to call these communities “rural” gives the wrong impression. The houses and lots are much smaller here than in the States, and there are people per house than the average State-side household so they are more like small cities that lack shopping centers and large utilities and other characteristics of collective infrastructure that we associate with urbanization. Though they have a very different impact on the surrounding land, most rural areas here are as rural as Naperville and other bedroom communities distant from a city and buffered by patches of agriculture. In these “rural” areas we met bead-makers, Venda clothing tailors, several wood carvers, community batik vats, a school for the blind, potters, sculptors, and student artists.

We arrived at the potters in the evening. The pottery project was originally set up by a group of women who noticed that European tourists liked their traditional work. Eventually the women began making designs specifically for tourists and foreign investment came in. Unfortunately the money apparently caused a schism in the group. Eventually a modern kiln was built along with a brick shop but it turned out that the European designed building was too hot and too dark for work and the kiln was too small for more than a few small pieces. It is all still there but most of the women have gone back to traditional tools, locations, and pile-firing the pottery. Another problem with the potters and, apparently with most of the arts, is that the refined skills that elevate the craft to art are being lost. The older generation is teaching the skills but the younger generation is dying of AIDS before they perfect their technique or pass the knowledge on. In fact, when we were planning the trip, we were told that Sunday would be a difficult time to go because everyone would be at church and Saturday would be difficult because that is the day everyone goes to the various funerals. AIDS is ripping everything apart here.

In any case, Wille took us past several pottery sites, saying that they were good but we should go to the best. We arrived in the evening so everyone in the village was home. Pots of all shapes and sizes lined the trails between the homes and a big, flowery sign painted on one of the rondavels proclaimed that this is where Sarah, one of the best potters, made her pots. It was a lot of fun to look at the pots, play with the kids, and try to talk with the potters. There were a few traditional designs, Willie explained, but most of these were made for the tourist market. We were tempted to buy lots of pots but they were thick and heavy; we thought about how we would pack them and get them home and realized pots would not make a good souvenir. Many of the sculptures we saw were similarly interesting but not very portable. In any case, our main goal on this trip was to see and learn about unfamiliar traditions.

As we left Sarahs’s place we saw a traditional firing pile just being lit by a small boy. Traditionally the youngest boy in the village who can handle a flame lights the kiln fire because he is likely without sin and so the gods will bless the fire to temper the pottery. This little boy was about three years old and, as we stopped the truck to look at the fire he held up a small pot. I thought he was offering to sell the pot (I’ve met many little kids who were great entrepreneurs) so I held out R10. He looked at me strangely. Willie suggested that I get out of the car. As I took a step towards him he started to cry and an older boy yelled “makuah, makuah” I took another step and the little boy cried even harder and pulled his shirt over his face. Willie suggested I get back in the car and we drove off. She explained that there are many plaes, not so far off the main road, where white people had never been. The older boy had been yelling “white people, white people” and it was likely this young boy had never seen a white person before. I have experienced this before in Cambodia, where they kids called me “khmaoik” (ghost). To make matters worse, I was wearing my snake shirt, which likely labeled me as someone very scary to the poor kid.

I was still feeling pretty bad when we arrived at Jackson Hlungwani’s place. He is a well known sculptor in wood and is getting pretty old. When we arrived he was sleeping but two village boys went to wake him up. When he came around the corner of the building and saw us he said in creaky English, “Oooh, whiiiite people, whiiiite peeeople” then greeted Willie fondly. From the uncomfortable experience with the little boy we were now in on the joke and found it quite funny.

It was great to get out of the woods for a day and meet people, see interesting parts of their culture and daily life, and understand a little better the challenges of this place. I would love to look at bushbabies and other urban animals in these areas. It is apparent that the buffer zones of communal land that surround many of the settlements are very important habitat for the urban wildlife here. These zones may also allow more wildlife, or at least a greater diversity, to exist near and in these towns than in more American-like developments where the habitat is more or less homogenized through the city.

Running to finish

During the first weeks here we would all get up an hour or so before work and have breakfast on the edge of the cliff to watch the sun rise over the valley. At night we would have big meals with a few courses. We would try to adapt the recipes so that we all could eat together. This was a challenge because we had a vegetarian who eats fish, crustaceans, milk, cheese, etc.; a vegetarian who eats milk products; a vegan; a celiac; and me and Eric who were willing to eat anything at any time. We made it work though, and evening meals were a lot of fun. After dinner we would play cards or Munchkin Chutulu by candlelight.

As we caught our research stride though, we stopped getting up early for breakfast because we were getting up even earlier for work. We were too exhausted from the previous day’s exertions and in some cases work started at 5am. Breakfasts became cursory then abandoned all together in favor of a 10am brunch break, lunches were in the field or when we could get them. Dinners were our only real break of the day and game nights became a once every two week occasion where we slumped around the fire and talked til we were ready to sleep. We were just too tired to play much.

Now Ben and Lindsey are gone, Eric and I are running every second to finish our work, and Annik and Emmanuelle are working no less hard for Sara. We make large and filling but simple meals now, talk for a while, clean, and head to bed. Or in my case, stay up and do things like write this blog or enter data until I go back out to the patches then sleep for a few hours in the middle of the day. It has been a long, intense summer (winter) but fulfilling and fun. I think I will enjoy sitting in the car, driving to work--at least once-- and I will really enjoy being in my own home with my family. A few more weeks, a little more work…

No more midnight work

I have collected data at 6 am and midnight on both sides of the most recent moon phase. Now I am only doing morning GUDs so that I can be conscious and strong enough to work on my second grid. It has taken a long time to figure out how to collect effective GUDs from the galagos and to overcome all of the other logistical hurdles necessary to ensure meaningful data that I can work with over the next year or so. It has also taken a while to confirm the presence of another population of galagos and get the infrastructure there set up.

I’m very lucky that Eric was so vigilant in noting and reporting galago sightings to me before I arrived and that the grid that Joel and Chris set up last year was within the range of the population he found. This allowed me to get my projects up and running even faster. I have also tried to work with lesser galagos and with giant rats but the greater galagos began to show promise quickly so I have focused on them. I have called the Samangoland work my “alloyed egg” I don’t know yet if it is gold, copper, or lead--it is likely that it is an alloy of everything and I will have to tease it all apart—but it obviously has value and I should be able to publish some useful results. Because it has been yielding good data, I have focused my efforts on this and not sacrificed good galago time for other species.

It can be very difficult to get study subjects to work with you. Sara has spent quite a bit of her volunteer’s time trying to get vervets to feed (or even allow close observation) with little success. Her volunteers have gathered some interesting preliminary data on troop size, interactions, and movement, but, last I heard, she has not been able to get them to feed. The food patches are dominated by samangos to the complete exclusion of vervets, or the vervets are too afraid of the patches to feed well. I got no Galago feeding at all in the Otto’s and Eucalyptus sites and, though we have seen vervets and samangos in these sites, Sara did not get any feeding either. Thankfully Samangoland has been continuing to yield interesting data and the galagos have responded well to my setup; and Ian’s site (the new grid I am working on) looks like it will yield similarly useful data.

At this point I have several goals:

Organize my data so that I can read the story they contain.

Publish my results to contribute to the limited body of natural history and conservation information about this species.

Develop a protocol so that citizen scientists who visit Lajuma from around the world, and South Africans who have these animals living in their yards, can continue to add to the body of data and understanding of this species.

Aligned with the above goal, I want to develop a curriculum that can be used by local universities and possibly younger grades to teach some of the fundamental principles and tools of biological research. Both of these goals will be synergistic with the work I am doing for Project Squirrel.

Develop Project Squirrel and this new program, Project Galago, together for the purpose of enhancing our understanding of these species and especially to promote the love of nature and a conservation ethic among urbanites in Chicago and the rest of the world.

Galago neighborhoods

We did a vegetation survey of my sites a few days ago. Based on the size and age of most of the trees, it seems the ground was cultivated right up to where it began to get rocky and a little steep. Just inside the forest from this line we found a few ash pits that the archaeologists had not previously discovered. As I noted in an earlier entry, these sites could have been made by just about anyone over the last half-century, Afrikaaner, Zulu, Shona, though most likely Venda.

Both sites are very similar, though the second site has a little more water, as evidenced by the lemonwood and yellowwood trees. It seems to have been heavily logged because the only really tall trees belong to the fastest growing species. The slower growing hardwoods that have long been prized for furniture are all relatively young and small. Both of these sites support larger trees than adjacent sites because the cliffs give them moisture from mist, shade, and runoff. If a site has 50% boulders, the soil around the boulders has 50% more water than soil in more uniform areas. In the flatter areas below the cliffs the only really big trees are the ficus that the farmers left for beauty and shade. The rest of the area is dominated by pioneer species, like Acacia karoo and Acacia ataxicatha, of which I have a thorn tip stuck in my forehead right now. (You never stop running down a mountain so quickly as when something like a fish hook grabs a part of your face.) On mountainous property further to the east there are vast plantations of pine and blue gum. In addition to game, this region produces most of the bananas of Africa and much of its plantation grown timber. There have also been experiments with red woods which, in the end, proved too slow growing or too soft for commercial success but there is one stand that was never logged and is now so tall you can see it from town.

Though the mountain slopes are dominated by trees in modern times, they would have been grassland and savannah until 100 years ago or so. This is one reason it was such a favored place by the Venda when they moved into this area. They could easily see game on the valley below as well as enemies, had a strong point of defense with the cliffs, and if all else failed, they could disappear into the rocks and forest patches. One of the difficult goals of the biosphere reserve is to restore much of this grassland habitat. This will be difficult because, like in Chicago, people are used to the trees being there and they like them. Also, they provide good habitat for a wide range of species, some of which would not do as well without the trees.

On that note, most of you likely know that cheetahs are found in the open plains and pursue relatively small game with bursts of speed. They are not usually found in woodlands like those that dominate the slopes of the Soutpansbergs today. This is not because they don’t want to, it’s because in less ecologically disturbed times, they couldn’t. Before human fragmentation of these habitats and predator control, lions and spotted hyenas as well as other predators like leopards and wild dogs were able to dominate these more forested habitats. They could easily take game from cheetahs and the cats couldn’t use their speed as well to escape predators. Therefore, the cheetahs “realized niche” became the savannah. With the elimination of other predators and the introduction of cheetahs to woodlands, it became clear that cheetahs could hunt very effectively without reliance on speed and that they could take down large ungulates including kudu and gemsbok. Most animals are like this, they can fill a much larger niche than they actually do, simply due to competition by other animals. This is why urban animals sometime reach plague-like proportions. We have eliminated their competitors and predators so they expand their niche.

Galagos are one of those animals that can expand its niche. They can, with varying success, inhabit plantations, garden plots, and early and late successional woodlands. I have seen a galago in an acacia in the middle of a small grassy field and it is clear from my GUDs that they can function well on the ground. However, it is also clear galagos don’t like the ground as much as the trees. From my Otto’s and Eucalyptus plot grids, it is also clear that if the vegetation is not dense enough, they are not present. Since they can persist in these disturbed and urban habitats, I hope to get more people excited about galago GUDs so that we can compare the habitats and learn more about the nocturnal ecology that is happening around people every night here. I suspect it will give us information on a range of threats that impact not just galagos. For example, I expect galagos to be afraid of domestic cats and dogs, the same animals responsible for the loss of most diurnal biodiversity near human habitation. Maybe galagos will be our canary in the coalmine to tell us the extent and intensity of such problems.

The adventures of a typical week

I’m cathemeral right now so I’m constantly exhausted, sleeping 3-4 hours at a stretch, but I’m pretty healthy again. The data are rolling in. The days are cold (4 to 10 degrees C during most of the hours that I’m working) so I’m happy to be in a warm sleeping bag when I don’t need to be collecting GUDs.

While I was sitting in the forest taking notes yesterday a southern boubou (a colorful shrike-like bird) sat next to me for about half an hour. It inspected all of the sites that we had disturbed the night before when looking for spiders after GUD collections.

Now that we know some local recipes, we finally cooked up some mopane worms. They are a moth larvae that have regular, major outbreaks in the mopane woodlands. Mopane trees are usually only a few meters tall and relatively thin trunked but have lots of leaves. They are browsed upon by a few species of vertebrate, especially the elephant that completely rip them apart in some areas. Despite all the damage caused by elephants, ungulates, and caterpillars, the mopane just puts out more leaves and branches the next year. The leaves of the mopane have two big leaflets that make them look like butterfly wings. Mopane worms feed on these leaves and when they are about 4 centimeters long, are collected, abdomens pinched to kill them, and dried as an important source of protein. The “worm” tastes pretty mild, a bit like slightly overcooked popcorn when it is just salted and fried, smoked ones are a bit more like smoky sunflower seeds. In any case, they are a lot better than cicadas! We’ve prepared the worms a few different ways, fried, stewed, in sauces, and with pap. If protein were hard to come by, I would certainly eat these often. Thankfully, I can afford enough meat to braai.

Also, earlier this week, Stephan brought over a foot of crocodile tail for us. It had a four leaf clover -shaped deposit of fat surrounding the tail but little fat in the rest of the meat. Most lizards and salamanders use their tails as fat storage organs (this is why the popular pet lizard, the leopard gecko has such a fat tail). The meat cooked up firm and white, like a pork chop, with a slight fishy overtone. We had it pan fried, to get the natural flavor, with kabichi, with curry, breaded and fried, and my favorite way, slowly baked with a little salt and chakalaka.

Sleeping with the monkeys

I have been sleeping in my Samangoland grid occasionally, some nights because it’s easier than hiking back up to camp but most nights because I’m trying to see exactly how galagos feed. Hillary has loaned me her night vision binoculars but I still haven’t had success watching a feeding galago. Galagos in the trees move at a pretty leisurely pace and usually seem unconcerned about observers with bright headlamps. (Though I have yet to get a really good photo of one. They’re like the birds here, they always keep a branch between them and you.) Galagos intent on feeding though, run very quickly as soon as they note someone in the vicinity. This obviously plays into their ecology of fear, when they have fed enough and are in a secure place, they are calm but when they are hungry they might need to put themselves into a dangerous position so they are nervous. They must be more tasty to something than they seem at first glance.

The night vision binoculars are fun to play with. In addition to seeing animals in complete darkness, you can see stars and shooting stars very well. The night sky is full of stars without the binocs and saturated with them.

The binoculars only register shades of green and black. They give me a whole new empathy for non-color perceiving animals, like dogs and many other predators, and a better understanding of why the run-and-freeze technique used by many forest antelope works so well. The animal runs out of acute danger then freezes. This makes it effectively invisible to an animal that can see only one color because the antelope have disruptive patterns that blend well with the rest of the forest texture. As soon as an animal moves, it is visible but until then I, at least, have a hard time seeing it.

I hope Zim gets as much press as Georgia

Joel spent much of his childhood in Zimbabwe back when it was Rhodesia. His family moved away just before the genocide began in earnest though he still has many friends there. Although there was significant turmoil in the country earlier this year, we were still planning on visiting some of Joel’s friends and Victoria Falls when we left Chicago. Unfortunately, Robbie Mugabi has caused his country to fall completely apart now, passively (or actively, if recent allegations in the paper prove to be true) aided by SA’s president Mbeki. Everyone who can leave does. Hillary works right along the Limpopo River, the line between SA and Zim, and she sees a half-dozen or more refugees crossing through the park each week. Even some of Joel’s friends who have stuck it out for the last 30 years of inept and murderous rule have finally given up hope and fled.

Snakes and Shirts

When I go to town, I usually wear the Nature Museum’s Massasauga conservation t-shirt. It is the best conversation starter I have ever found because everyone here has a strong opinion about snakes. One old Venda woman picked me out of the crowd of shoppers to ask about my shirt. I told her my usual line about this snake being my co-worker in education, that snakes are important for the environment, that most snakes are not dangerous to people though, admitteldly Africa has some very dangerous ones, and that I like one snake near my house more than 100 mice in my house eating my pap. She agreed with much of what I said but still taped the side of my head periodically and pointed out that I was very crazy to choose a snake as a co-worker. She also told me about her life as a potter, how proud she was of her grandchildren, that the government may be different but life is the same, and that pap must be cooked over a wood fire but there is no wood anymore.

I try to keep my snake shirt clean but I have been a little self-conscious about my appearance recently because my clothes are pretty ragged and stained, my beard is scruffy, and my hair uncontrollable. Still, I don’t feel like anyone has pre-judged me and I have always felt comfortable in town. However, one day I was in a nice shop looking for paper. As I walked up one aisle, an employee walked sideways up the aisle ahead of me, watching me out of the corner of her eye. I figured she was trying to surreptitiously keep an eye on me and not doing a very good job of being sneaky. The aisle was a dead end though and suddenly she walked towards me, side first, then squeezed past with her back to me with a tremulous intake of breath. I turned to her and asked where the paper was but she turned her back to me and covered her face asking, “What is that?” I quickly realized the problem and covered my shirt with my backpack. She kept her back to me but looked at me over her shoulder and talked to me. I don’t think I convinced her to love snakes but she talked with me for several minutes and when we parted there was not so much fear in her eyes and she was smiling.

Most people don’t react as strongly as this woman did but, given much of a chance, most people here will make a comment. In line at the post office, when checking out at the grocery store, buying biltong or fuel, walking past taxi ranks or street vendors, I have had many opportunities to spread the good word for snakes. It turns out that most people have seen a few snakes but not as many as I would have thought and, while everyone knows stories of envenomation, few have had personal involvement with envenomation of themselves or their friends or family. This is a pretty heavily human impacted area and while species diversity and numbers are certainly high, much of the area represents a sink for snakes so, much like in Chicagoland, the stories are more common than the sightings.

These snake conversations often turn to other wildlife and, while most people recognize the common game species, many people have never seen the big five. Lions have been seen one the main road two hours due north of here. Elephants are so common in the preserves little more than an hour north and west of here, as well as in Kruger and other national parks, that there are calls for culling. Leopard roam freely throughout the region, limited somewhat by the game fences. Buffalo and rhino are rare here but easily viewable with a little effort. It comes down to finances. Most of the Afrikaners I meet here are relatively secure financially. Many in this region make a living from game ranching and some have the big five on their property. Some of the urban blacks and most of the Indians are also financially secure. (There are a good number of East Asians here too but it has been hard for us to communicate.) But the majority of “rural” people, blacks of various races (which are the majority of people here), live day to day. There is no extra money to take a day off, let alone to spend on the fuel to get two hours out of town. Anyway, their only motorized transport is a taxi with a regular route and these cannot be hired away from their route. I would love to go from village to village with a big bus to collect everyone who could make the time to a game park. Once there, we would jump into a fleet of bakkies and spend a day or two game viewing.

A quick trip to Botswana

With the break in the moon phases I was able to join a quick trip to Botswana. Tuli Wildlife preserve is just on the other side of a border crossing only two hours north of us up a nice dirt road. Right after we setup camp we set out a few strings of Sherman traps to see what kind of small mammals live in the mopane woodlands here. With the emphasis on the tourist-luring mega vertebrates, very little work has been done one the more obscure animals in the parks. We finished setting the traps just as the sun was painting the sky violet and fuchsia and the bats were beginning to tumble past our faces when we felt the thunder of an elephant. We thought we had heard it a little earlier in the evening but when we paused to listen, didn’t hear it anymore so concluded in must have been the beating of our hearts from the exertion. As we listened now we heard the elephant ripping branches from the mopane and rumbling to himself. Based on the spacing of the traps, we could not have been more than 300 feet from him. We were downwind so he never noticed us and, though we could smell him, we never saw him.

That night there was a lot of elephant screaming and trumpeting. I drank too much hot chocolate before bed and when I got up to go to the bathroom I saw a half-dozen elephants on the other side of the river browsing, drinking, and playing in the mud. The girls were awakened later by a pair of hippo grazing near their tent.

In the morning we only found one rodent on the close trap line but we also found where the elephant had been the night before. His passage made evident by freshly broken mopane, “sneaker” prints, and a very flat Sherman trap. On other lines we caught gerbils (not the jiirds that are called gerbils in petstores), rats, spiny mice, and elephant shrews. We didn’t see much big game other than elephants and impala but we had a great time looking at the rodents, hanging off the back of the bakkie as we drve from waterholes, kopjies, and traplines, and walking in the bush, looking under logs, rocks, and piles of dung for other animals.

Making study skins on the Limpopo. This one is stuffed with a mannequin made of dry grass bound with lily leaves and reinforced with supple twigs.

On the way home we made a short detour to drop Hillary back off at her site in Mopungubwe. Joel had spent a few days with her there and they had met up with us for the trip. We stopped at a water hole near one of her camera sites and shortly thereafter, a herd of elephant strode silently into view. They made an orderly assembly at the bank of the hole and drank. When everyone had finished drinking they began spraying water on themselves then began to wallow in the mud. It was amazing to me how silent the herd was as it approached the hole. If I had not seen them, I would not have known they were there until they began to drink. However, when they began to bathe, they made a huge racket. Some of the animals were only ten feet from us so we all tried to be pretty quiet as we moved around in the blind to better see the elephants and take pictures. We still made a bit of noise though as the wood and grass structure creaked under our weight and our camera shutters tripped but this didn’t seem to bother the elephants. Then, one of the students dropped a lens cap and it made a sharp, ringing sound. Suddenly every elephant from the huge matriarchs, to the still suckling baby, the young bulls busy ripping up trees and fighting, to the big females up to their armpits in mud, every one of them rose in unison and ran from the watering hole on the same trajectory towards the forest. Then, at exactly the same moment, every individual froze, some were midstride, their legs bent, feet high in the air, others were still trying to extract themselves from the mud pit, a baby was reaching for the tail of an adult in front of it. They all froze, like something out of the Twilight Zone, mid-stride, frozen in time. Then after several seconds they, in unison, assembled into a dignified group and casually, silently, strode back into the forest.

How would you like to be the researcher who put this collar on?

Ahhh...refreshing...

We left soon after because I had to be back to Lajuma in time to bait my stations but on the way out saw kori bustard and eland. If we say T.I.A. (This Is Africa) every time a schedule changes abruptly or something goes strangely wrong, we must also say T.I.A for all the perfect timing that happens when driving through game land

(read the earlier post first) Excitement part 2

Tonight was my last nocturnal night for about a week, until the next moon light phase. I’m happy to be done for a while because I am pretty fatigued from my disjointed sleep schedule. On the other hand, it is pretty addictive to see the data come rolling in. What will the next station show? Will the pattern hold? Will my predictions be correct? Will rodents beat the galagos to the food? Will a predator scare them away? What makes this station different than the next in the eyes of the galago?

I’ve never really enjoyed watching sports, and people who know every statistic and watch every game baffle me. But maybe I can understand where they are coming from now as I track the nightly “plays” of my focal species.

I’ve been ok working the patches at night. Joel went with me the first night afterwards and Emmanuelle came along to see if she could have my luck, and to check the camera trap cards. At station two I about jumped out of my skin when a fast patter on the leaves broke the night’s silence. It turns out that a bunch of guinea fowl were roosting nearby and I had scared the poop out of them and it was splattering on the leaves. My fear is quickly subsiding though. If there were old leopards on the property, I might feel otherwise but there is so much hunting on nearby farms that an old leopard doesn’t stand a chance. If the hunters don’t make a trophy of it, dispersing individuals will kill it and take over the territory. This means that the leopard population here is composed of healthy individuals who have no need to experiment with alternative sources of prey like humans or garbage pits. They all prefer duikers, bushbuck, and baboon. I think the leopard and I were just walking opposite directions on the same path and we didn’t hear each other before we saw each other. A few days before I saw it, Joel was pointing out that it is certain here that each one of us has been seen by a leopard and it chose to go the other way. I just got lucky to be out on a night when vision and sound were obscured.

Some excitement at midnight in the patches

Between all the people who have helped me while I was sick and the Venda students, tonight was the first time in a while that I have gone to the patches by myself at night. Frankly I’m amazed when anyone volunteers to join me on the midnight runs and not surprised when they don’t join me a second time (Though several people have gone out multiple times, but not on successive days.) Today has been miserably cold and by the time I left camp it was raining hard enough to soak through clothing after about 15 minutes, so I was glad to be alone and not subjecting another person to the icky weather.

Despite the water dripping off my nose, it was a pleasant walk to the patches. There were hundreds of lycosid spiders moving about in the grass and across the road. Their eyes shone like sapphires and the water that caught in their pubescence glisened like diamonds. I stopped several times to admire them. Half way to the patches I saw a medium-sized carnivore with a clear blue tapetum lucidum, likely a genet. Closer to the patches I finally saw the first greater galago I have ever seen in the wild. It was sitting in the top of a tree, swaying with the wind and presumably pretty wet. It stared at me while I stared at it. It was still sitting contentedly in the leafless tree when I came home.

While the Venda students have been with me I have been teaching them about GUDs in general, my project in specific, and my study philosophy. One thing I have emphasized is trying to be able to empathize with your focal species. We sometimes sat in the dark, listening to the sounds and the silence, trying to figure out what it meant to be a galago in this forest. Tonight I was on a high because I had finally seen a galago. As I walked from station to station, I was thinking about how the galagos felt tonight, reflecting on the low GUDs of some of the previous inclement nights, and the low GUDs I had measured so far tonight. The galago must be a pretty hardy animal to forage so well in weather like this.

It was 1:15 am and I was lost in thought, cruising through my GUDs and walking quickly towards station 13 when a glimmer of reflected light caught my eye. About 15 feet away, just down the slope from the trail that follows the base of the cliff, was a leopard. It was close enough that the light from my headlamp illuminated it well. It stood there for 3-4 seconds while we stared at each other, then it looked off to one side and lope, lope, loped down slope, looked back up at me and loped off quietly with a slight curl of its tail.

In a past post I made a glib comment that it would have to be a quiet leopard that snuck up on me. Well, when the leaves are wet, the rain is falling, and the wind is blowing cascades of water from tall trees, a leopard is as quiet as a bunch of raindrops.

Kevin saw a leopard on the trail when he was coming home late from baboon observations. We all said how lucky he was to have seen it and how happy we were for him. He said that he probably was lucky to see it and probably would be happy for the experience…tomorrow. Today he just felt a little primeval fear. Then I sympathized with Kevin, today I empathize.

Seeing a leopard at the zoo is interesting, seeing one at Kruger was thrilling, when I saw this one tonight, it took some personal motivation to leave the cliff face and walk back down the mountain, finish my GUDs, and go home. The thought flashed through my mind that I should just stay with the cliff at my back and sleep tonight in a cranny in the cliff face. The wind, wet, and cold motivated me to quickly seek other options. If I didn’t keep moving and get home pretty soon, hypothermia would get me before the leopard scavenged my body. So, I threw rocks, growled, and chanted a poem in Cambodian that I made up a few days ago. Cla cla jane pi plowv. Dough dow dam phnom pseng elowv . (Leopard, Leopard get off the road. Go walk along another mountain now.) (OK, it sounds better than it looks Romanized.) Despite my yelling, while I was quiet and writing at station 15, I heard a flock of crested guinea fowl take of abruptly followed by soft loping in the leaves. At station 16 what sounded like a red duiker took off in a panic. I guess I’ll go back. I’m at the upper limit of leopard weight preferences and probably look bigger to the cat than I actually weigh, but I can empathize with the galago, and with Kevin better now.

I hope everyone can enjoy a night hike

A Lajuma tradition is that Joel takes everyone on a moonlight hike up Mount Lajuma. All the researchers and students are invited to come along with the caveat that on the way up, no one may use a light. On the way down, if you must, a light is permissible because the fall down is much further than the fall up. We had about 30 people participate. For some it was a strenuous hike and for many it was the first time they had been in the wilds at night, but no one used their lights going up or down. The mountain is pretty tall so we passed through several different kinds of habitat, from thorn forest, to mistbelt forest, sedgeland, aloe savannah, to the rocky, windswept top. We stayed til everyone was cold, watching the towns below and the stars above. Anza and Madeline sang Venda songs for us as we descended the mountain.

How to Find and Celebrate African Cultures

Doctor has helped me on several occasions over the past few days. He and I have discussed many issues but in particular, how to bring local cultures to the fore, how to make them a respected and normal part of every-day culture. Doctor sees that many of the older people still wear traditional dress, follow traditional codes and use traditional language but that younger people are rejecting most traditions and this is breaks down village and cultural bonds.

As a tourist, I feel like the culture is, in some ways, actively hidden, suppressed, or an embarrassment. People seem not to believe me when I tell them I’m interested in hearing about their traditional ways or when I express admiration for a traditional craft. When I first went to Makado, I was surprised to see that, thought the dress and languages of the people on the street hinted at cultural diversity, but that there were no stores that carried any products one couldn’t find in Chicago. Most of the stores were dollar stores, discount clothes stores, furniture stores, fast food joints, and grocery stores. And far too many funeral supply stores. Even the funeral stores had nothing new, just granite headstones, fake flowers, urns, etc. The same stuff you find on the corner of Roosevelt and Wolf Roads.

I was disappointed when I went to Kruger to see that most of the souvenirs were made in China. I even saw wooden frogs that, when rubbed with a stick, make a croaking noise, that I had seen being made in Thailand (I think they are also available in the Museum gift shop.) On the way home from Kruger, we stopped in several villages to buy a little fruit and talk with the people. Whenever we asked if they had any crafts for sale we were referred to Forever Resorts. We never made it. It was far out of our way and we didn’t really want tchochkies, we wanted to spend a little money in the villages and have something to remember Africa with. So we just bought more fruit and went on our way.

As a capitalist, I see this as a lost opportunity for the locals, an untapped market. Of course for Doctor, it is even worse because it is a symptom of the breakdown of his culture.

Leisure

Since I have had so much help to collect GUDs recently, I have been able to get to bed a little earlier. It’s amazing how much better 6 contiguous hours of sleep feels than eight hours broken into three parts. With all of this extra sleep I had time to take a shower this evening. Yesterday I smelled something that reminded me of my commute up the Chicago lake shore. I realized that it was the smell of a homeless person. I will make it a point to shower more but there are a lot of reasons not to... We have a way to heat water for the showers but it takes a lot of wood so we only use it at night. But, since I work at night, I don’t want to wake the others with the sound of my shower when I return in the early morning, I usually would rather go to sleep than shower, and the water is seldom still hot by then..so I usually miss the opportunity to shower. All these reasons and my 24 hour work schedule mean I tend to stay in the same clothes for the better part of a week. This is nice in a way because it means I spend less time scrubbing clothes (we do most of our laundry by hand.)

Good Food

On the note of tasty traditions… It has been great to live and cook with the Venda students. We have been looking for opportunities to eat non-European based cuisine. There are no restaurants here that serve such fare and most white people we talk to have either never tried such food or can’t tell us how to make it. Much of what I have learned til now is from the ladies who sell fruits and nuts on the street but they don’t speak English very well and many seem a bit suspicious of me. So, I have been very pleased not only to be able to share food with the students but also to learn how to make it. Here are the dishes we have made:

Vhuswa (bvooshwa) Meelie Pap

Boil water

Add a solution of pap and cold water to the hot water

Boil until soft. Fold in dry meal to desired stiffness.

For general meal purposes, it should be stiff enough to eat easily with your hands, pinching a large glob of porridge and a thumb-full of sauce

Khavhitshi (Kavichi) Cabbage sauce for pap

Slice the cabbage thinly (like for coleslaw)

Sauté in pan with corn oil

Add chakalaka spices (a spicy, round flavor. Likely a bit of shallot and yeast along with peppers) and a pinch of salt

Fry until the cabbage until al dente

Gwengwelele Stew (a pap sauce)

Dice green pepper, onion and carrots finely

Grate tomatoes

Fry carrot, onion and green pepper until the onions are gilded and pepper is a little soft

Add the tomato with a pinch of sugar if it is too sour and a pinch of salt

Add shisanyama spices (also spicy but with more garlic and herbs) and stew for a moment to incorporate flavors

Tshitzulue (stew) tsha (of) kholomo (beef) or khuhu (Chicken )

Boil meat in salted water for 20 minutes. Reduce liquid and fry the meat in its own fat (add oil if necessary).

Slice carrots, potatoes, green pepper, onions, very thickly

Add water to meat and bring to a boil. Add vegetables. For additional flavor and salt, add Robertson’s chakalaka or shisanyama spices or a dry soup mix.

Peace and violence

Yesterday evening and night Anza and I worked together and this evening Madeline and I worked together. They had the concerns similar to those of Elvis did but once we were in the forest, they both followed the trails without a problem and moved quickly, despite a minimal moon.

Anza says that the Venda are the most peaceful people in the world and that every Venda can speak at least four languages, not including Venda, English, and Afrikaans. Both statements are likely to be generally true based on archeological, political, and sociological data. However, we were a bit disturbed by a traditional dance she and Madeline taught us. It is a courtship dance that depicts the dancing couple falling in love but then the man beats the woman so, the woman rejects him. The man then offers her money and she still rejects him until he offers yet more money. When we protested that this was not appropriate they said it was traditional and cultural--it’s ok. Earlier today Madeline explained that she knew her boyfriend of many years was with another woman while she was here. We talked a bit about the emotional and health ramifications of this but she sees it as the normal course of a relationship. She is happy and this is what she expects, she says.

No conclusions on this cultural issue either… I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions, just to report and explore some more. I wish I had more time to be involved in some of the local traditions here, many seem very beautiful, interesting, and/or tasty . However, these discussions as well as several billboards and radio ads have brought a disturbing new perspective to an ironically title book we saw the other day, “Domestic Violence for Beginners”.