Mundulea

I spent the past 3 nights at Mundulea - the reserve where I will spend a month looking at pangolins.

It was nice to return, I had forgotten just how beautiful some parts of the reserve are. A lot of it is still degraded farmland - overgrown bush, but where Bruno has succesfully opened the land through burns it is starkly pretty.

It was also nice to see Bruno again. We stayed here as 'regular' guests and joined 2 other english people on walks every day. They were travelling friends, the man had a grand old english accent and spent much of the last half century working in Zambia and Botswana and China, and had a lot of stories to tell. The woman was much younger, but had travelled a lot in the past years.

Bruno managed to find a few pangolin feeding spots, but more importantly we found two sites where there was pangolin scat. It was very much mud with ant pieces scattered through it. We took down the coordinates of the areas and took a few samples with us.

On the first day it rained. A lot. It was hard to believe, but since then its been clear skies. The rains are very very early this year.

I havent written much about the last 3 days as I know I will have a lot to write about when I return. Instead let me talk about the future:

Tomorrow, dad is leaving back to holland. Im a little nervous. It will be the first time I have been so far away, completely on my own; no friends, no family, no-one. Ive already felt a little homesick at times, so today when buying my food for the next 10 days we also got a good choice of 'comfort foods': toffee popcorn, muffins, bacon and eggs and lots of coke.

Im spending the next 10 days at the Rare and Endangered Species Trust. (www.restafrica.org). I dont really have much of an idea of what it will be like, so its a little scary, but I spoke to the lady over the phone and she seemed very nice. The website describes briefly:

Daily work is quite varied.  We work as a family doing whatever needs to be done that day. This can include everything from animal handling and painting new walls to moving rocks to build a new roost for birds.  Everyday tends to bring new challenges and jobs.  Once a week we feed the wild vultures and the day is spent monitoring birds coming in and out. 
We try to find out what people enjoy doing most and let them concentrate on that work.  Many volunteers bring building, artistic or computer skills that are necessary and valuable.

Housing consists of one two and one three bedroom home with shared kitchens, solar showers and flush toilets.  All beds and bed linen are provided.    REST provides a trip into the local town of Otjiwarongo for each person at least once every two weeks. 
Our cell phone reception is very good and so connecting to the internet via cell phones is easy.  The lights are very basic, but it is possible to recharge phones and laptops if you bring a car cigarette charger or buy one locally.


Washing is done by each person by hand. 

They work mostly on vultures.