Snakes

So, I am not really too afraid of snakes. I have had one pet snake or another for over 30 years. Of course, my snakes have been captive snakes and they are not venomous. Even when our current snake went missing in the house for 5 weeks I worried more about him getting outside and lost than I ever worried about him showing up in some unsuspecting place in the house, like my bed.

I have a little bit different feeling about snakes here in Africa, especially this week. I am not afraid of snakes here but I am certainly more aware and alert. Maybe it is because the rainy season is starting or maybe it is because I am new here and just hearing more about snakes but they seem to be being seen kind of frequently. Three reports on people seeing Black Mambas last week. All of them seen on the road but all of them as long as the road is wide. I looked up Black Mambas, seems they are the most feared snake in Africa. It is not just their bad bite it is their aggressive behavior. These snakes can lift 2/3rds of their body off the ground. People worry about them jumping into open car windows. Seems a bit of a stretch but on our night game count last week our driver said "just be ready to roll your window up fast if we see a mamba PLEASE". My thought, "we need power windows!" Came back from a different afternoon game count and the driver said "please put your windows up." So I say "yeah, it looks like rain." "No, he says, it is to keep snakes from getting in the truck."

Well, no Black Mambas for me yet. I would like to see one from the safety of the truck. I did find a 6 inch snake in the garden when I was watering. I looked it up and it is just a friendly, little, harmless snake.

Then a few nights ago there is all this commotion after dinner. Someone in the dorm building saw a cobra by her door. All the biologist type folks decide to go looking for it. Of course, not to be left out, I went too, but first I went home and changed out of my flip flops into more sensible Tevas! I figured I could run faster in Tevas.  I also made sure to follow behind someone with a flashlight and boots. My heart was racing and I had the thought that it would be an interesting way to end my time in Africa, but alas no cobra. The very next night however, another spitting cobra was seen in the yard next to the dorm. I have been moving a bit more carefully at night. Looking along the path, checking in front of my door, closing my screen door tightly, using a light when outside.  So far, so good.

We chat at dinner about our various adventures. Top story so far -
While camping in Mozambique, one of the guys did not get his tent zipped up tightly. That night when he crawled into his sleeping bag he felt a snake in the bottom. A big snake. He whispered "please be a python, please be a python." He remained very still as the snake crawled up his leg. He then managed to slowly unzip his bag a bit and the snake, 2 meters long, emerged from the side. He still had his headlamp and he had it on the red, night setting. He clicked it on and there beside him was a cobra (so much for divine intervention). The cobra crawled out of the bag and on to the tent floor. He then reached back, carefully unzipped his tent and tossed the light outside.  The cobra slowly moved outside toward the light, leaving my friend shivering uncontrollably in the corner of his tent. Lesson learned, ALWAYS zip up your tent tightly.

So, it seems Africa has many species of venomous snakes. Some are aggressive and some are docile. There are many types of cobras. I am assured that if you remain calm and do not move the cobras will just slither on their merry way. I am hoping I do not have to check out that theory.

Life on the Farm

Life on the farm is kind of laid back. I love that. Everyone at CCF gets 6 days per month off. Not much but when you live where you work life is simplified and especially when town is a 40 minute drive away. Not to mention the fact that most people here do not own a car.

We went on outreach to schools last week. Stephanie, the education manager, arranges with schools to provide them a 45 - 60 minute presentation on "A predators role in the ecosystem". We visited seven schools in three days. The difference between state schools and private schools was immediately clear. Our first state school did not have an auditorium or any room large enough to hold the 600 1st through 6th grade students. So the students were directed to form lines, crowded together in the courtyard. Stephanie gave the presentation as she stood a bit above them on the walkway. This was not her first rodeo as we say out west. She has created large canvas posters of many of her PowerPoint slides. As she spoke to the kids her husband Bobby and I flipped the posters. All went amazingly well.

The next day we were at a private school. Seventy five students in grades 6, 7, 8 gathered in a nice board room. There were comfortable, matching chairs for the older students to sit on while the younger students sat on the floor. The school had a computer and projector set up and ready for us.

The next school had an auditorium for the 500 students to gather in but no electricity that day. It was back to a poster presentation. And so it went for three days.

I chatted with the principal at one of the schools. She has 570 kids in the secondary school and the primary school has 600 kids. Many/most of the students are from rural farms. The school has boarding space in a hostel for 60 secondary students and 50 primary students. Not nearly enough to meet the demand for housing. Students not in the hostel try to find families in the small town who will take them as boarders. You can imagine the troubles that occur. Some families take the kids but do not feed them. Others have the kids working. One student told the principal she was not coming back after break because the family made her work in their bar at night serving beer. Another girl was found to be sleeping in the field behind the truck stop because her family kicked her out. Teachers live in a dorm situation too with four or five to a dorm room. Their building has no running water. There is a shower house and for drinking water teachers must go outside to the pump. The principal was worried about the kids, worried about money for text books and worried about housing for her teachers. School is now free in Namibia for all secondary students as of this year. It has been free for primary students for a few years. The government needs to fund the schools, the books and the teaching materials but there is not enough money. A familiar story. I found myself thinking that the problems she described were not much different than the problems we face in US schools and likely the same problems faced in schools the world over.

It was great fun to see a bit of the country, get away from the farm, stay in a guest house with AC, no ants and a TV. Nice going out to dinner and running a few errands but at the end of three days I was ready to come home to CCF. I was delighted to see warthogs as we drove down our 40 km of dirt road. The Tawny Eagle and the Black Snake Eagle were at their usual posts in the top of the acacia trees. The cheetahs were moving about in their enclosures and my friendly bathroom gecko was here to great me when I returned to my rondoval.

The 4  rondovals. Mine is the one in the foreground.

African Sunset

The gecko in my bathroom. 

From Extraordinary to More Ordinary

Anyone that knows me will probably not find it too hard to believe that I have become involved in the CCF gardening project. There is a nice garden here that seems to have gone through times of production and times of being ignored. Today I joined forces with two CCF staff members and two of the Namibian workers to plant, transplant and harvest the garden. Cantaloupe, beans, tomatoes, and greens were planted. Chard, cukes, basil, carrots and beets were harvested. It is summer here in southern Africa.

One of the things I pondered as I went out to water the garden this evening was how some of the more extraordinary things here have become more ordinary. As I was moving hoses and sprinkling plants, on the other side of the path (and behind a fence), 10 feet away were four cheetahs. They all came over, wandered along the fence, checked me out, then found their own spots to lay down. It is not often one gets to garden with cheetahs hanging about.

Each morning, as I walk the path to my office, I go past three cheetah enclosures. The enclosures are big, maybe 5 or more acres. There is no guarantee that you will see a cheetah but most days I do. It has become more ordinary, not expected or taken for granted but ordinary. It has also become ordinary for me to see things such as Crimson breasted shrikes and Go Away birds. It is normal to see the warthog family with the male, female and two young go past the dining hall at dinner time. I have grown accustomed to encountering the gecko that lives in my bathroom. I am used to the smell of the thatch roof of my rondovel. I know that every day will bring a stunning sunrise
. Dung beetles, bazillions of butterflies, ants from tiny to giant, have become a normal part of my life.

Yesterday, on the way out to feed cheetahs, some of the staff saw a leopard run across the road. Last night the farm manager had to kill a cobra that kept coming up to his front porch. Tomorrow the director and several of the staff, along with a film crew from CNN, are headed out to track a cheetah whose radio transmitter batteries are getting low. They need to find her, tranquilizer her and replace the batteries. Extraordinarily ordinary events that occur as part of our everyday life here in Namibia or at least at the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

The Story of the Hornbill

Hornbills at CCF

I have been checking the Yellow-billed Hornbill's nest each time I walk past. By my calculations the female could emerge as early as next week which would mean the chicks should be making some noise. I do wonder, since the mom is with them all the time and it must be fairly dark in the box, if they would have any reason to make noise.

The male and female Hornbill work together to get the box or cavity ready for the nesting season. They carry the sticks and debris into the box then begin to mud the opening closed. When there is barely enough room for the female to squeeze through she enters the box and finishes closing the entrance. She may or may not start to lay her eggs right away. Once she lays all of her eggs she molts all of her feathers. Everything! Tail, wings, head. She is just a bald bird. The male does his duty by bringing her food all day and carrying away her waste. If something happens to him she will die too as she cannot fly.

It takes about three weeks for the eggs to hatch and the female stays with the chicks roughly three more weeks. The male must really be hustling at that point as I see him coming at all times of the day now. Once the female opens the hole and climbs out she and the male mud it in again. Then they both feed the chicks for another three weeks. Finally the chicks break open the mud and emerge into the light of day.

This behavior has allowed Hornbills to be one of the most successful cavity nesting birds. There is not much other than a snake that could get into the nest to eat the eggs or the chicks. And with that bill maybe a snake will not even tangle with the female Hornbill.

Life in Africa

Life in Africa

Keep thinking I will Blog every day but the time slips past so this first Blog will be a one week impression of Namibia and life at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) which are two very different things.

Life at CCF has settled in quickly. I started work the second day here and we work a real 8 – 5 schedule. I am working in the education program and they have numerous things they would like me to accomplish. I wonder if I will actually be able to get any of them to completion in 3 months. Currently I am trying to find out what the education standards are for students and how accountable teachers are to those standards. Hopefully I can arrange some meetings with principals next week. I will also get in touch with the universities in Namibia that offer education degrees and try to meet with some of those people.  So that is the work situation.

CCF owns a huge amount of land. There are 7 different farms. Goats and cows are raised here as are livestock guarding dogs.  There is a creamery – Dancing Goat Creamery - where they make feta and chevre cheese along with ice cream. These are sold here at the café and also in town at the farmers market. The main center for CCF is the area that has the visitors’ center, café, gift shop, offices and supporting facilities. There is a veterinarian clinic, genetics lab, education center, animal husbandry office, library, museum, and barns. The Namibian workers here at CCF are given a weekly ration of 2.5 kilos of game meat. The animals are hunted here on the property. I was in the barn one day when they brought in several warthogs and an Oryx to butcher for the workers.  This is to keep them from poaching and it is part of their pay.

The captive cheetahs, most of which cannot be released, are all kept around the main site which is also where most of the staff and volunteers live. Only 5 cheetahs are in an area that can be seen by the public. The others are in 4 or 5 different enclosures a distance off. There is the area for the old cheetahs, 3 of them being 16 and one who is blind. There is also an area for the cheetahs that might be able to be released at some point. They see very few people. The problem with releasing cheetahs is not the cheetah, it is having a place for them. Imagine trying to rehab a wolf and then finding a place for it in eastern Oregon. Like wolves, cheetahs are thought of as livestock predators and many people have no love in their hearts for them. We have 33 cheetahs on site.

The cheetahs are feed horse and donkey meat. Farmers throughout Namibia sell or donate their old animals. These are held on site, butchered when needed, cut up and big chunks feed once each day. I think they go through around 5 donkeys a week. The cheetahs here at the center know when it is feeding time and start coming in from the far reaches of their enclosures. There are two young girls who are a pair and a sibling group of one male and two females. These are the cheetahs the tourists see. They can pay extra to be allowed in the enclosure when the cheetahs are being run.  There is a system based on the Greyhound dog racing system that is used to get these cheetahs exercise. They are the only ones run like this. I was in with the cheetahs and that is where I got my first good pictures of them. Pretty exciting actually since they come within 2 meters of where you are standing. The others are run in their much bigger enclosures. Those cheetahs follow the truck as it races around the area. Then the truck stops, they get a treat (liver bits) and off it goes again. Treats are thrown out the window. I got to do this one day. At the end of the runs the cheetahs get their big chunks of meat.

Most of the staff and volunteers live down the road a bit from the Visitors’ Center. It is maybe an 8 minute walk. We have a dining area, 4 rondovals like mine, a dorm with 6 double rooms and a wash room, 4 double duplexes and another rondoval.  These are scattered far enough apart that it does not feel crowded. My rondoval looks out onto a termite mound, an open field and some trees across the field. I have seen lots of birds and warthogs at my door. Someone saw a jackal in the field yesterday. A yellow billed hornbill, Africa’s version of a toucan, is nesting near the dining hall in a nest box. The female gets mudded into the box by the male with just a small little opening big enough for the male to poke food through. She is in the box sitting on eggs. It will be quite exciting when the eggs hatch. The male comes and goes all day long.

Sunrises and sunsets here are astounding. I got the most amazing photo of a giraffe with the sunset behind him. This was one night when I went for a drive with two of the staff. We went into the “reserve” area.  It is 15,000 hectares. The animals are free to come and go but it is a protected area which hopefully means little or no poaching. That night we saw several Oryx, steenbok, duiker, two pairs of ostriches running, black backed jackals and most exciting of all an aardwolf. Aardwolves are thought to be the smallest hyena although there is some discussion about that. They are insectivores eating primarily termites. They can eat 250,000 a night.

The ants are bad, the food is not great, the wildlife is unbelievable and the work will be interesting. I have gotten new lifer birds every day.  It is green because the rains have started. 
So this is life in Africa.