Life at Mundulea

The past few days life has been going on as usual. The day after I last posted, Paul and I went out in our little 1977 land cruiser (I drove) to hyena dam and then further south in order to place a final few ant traps. We saw so many animals that we joked it was like a private game drive. Lots of impala, kudu, duiker, gemsbok (oryx), springbok, Tsessebe, warthogs and a curious Hartebeest that came to get a better look at us as we examined the ground. It always feels like such a privilege to be able to drive freely over one of the most beautiful wildlife areas in the country.

The next day everyone went to Otavi, Grootfontein and Tsumeb for various reasons; Paul to meet some friends and Graham to pick up his motorbike. I was entirely alone on the 12000ha reserve. My plan was to go pick up the ant traps from yesterday, but the land cruiser had a huge flat tyre and I couldnt get the car up onto the wooden block to change it. Also I was hesitant to go out with only one spare tyre (I would obviously have to use up one of them).
The day was spent instead at the house doing various chores and admin work, but was sullied by the lack of electricity (today of all days!) due to the lack of sunlight.

In the evening, after everyone had returned Paul and I went along the public road looking for signal again, having a close encounter with an Oryx. No luck, but I forgot to mention that the previous time something interesting happened:
As we were parked by the side of the road in the pitch black, bright headlights passed us by. They soon approached us again in the opposite direction. A little freaked I watched a man in khakis step out, blurred by the bright lights of his car. To our relief it was Nicky Nshandi, the friendly diplomat and he shook our hands vigorously. An acquaintance of his had found a Pangolin near Windhoek and he had passed on instructions according to our advice, he had stopped in order to gain contact information to pass on.
While making dinner I stepped on a bee and my foot began to swell. It is still swolen.

We returned late so I got up late. We then went to finally retrieve our ant traps which had been out for 48 hours now. One of them was dug into a termite colony and they had used their saliva in repairing the walls - making it almost impossible for us to take out the trap.The 2nd trap didnt have such problems but some not too distant baboons were making a huge racket which was a little unsettling. My foot was still painful but I couldnt feel much of it in my thick socks and heavy boots.

Throughout the afternoon though I began to feel worse and cleaned my foot completely. It had continue to swell and some of my toes were formless now like sausage sticking straight out and thick, unbending. I took some ORS to combat my headache and dehydration, and paracetamol to ease the pain in my stomach and toes. In the late evening Graham took us in the landrover, which is a pickup truck. We decided we werent getting signal because the Pangolin was simply out of range, and so we must extend our search range. We went to Otavi and took some readings at big intervals along the main road. On the way there I sat in the front cab with the other two, but it got uncomfortably hot. the rest of the trip I sat in the cargo bed, or lay down and watched the clouds - sometimes drifting off to sleep despite the bumps. It was nice and cool though.

When Graham had returned from Otavi earlier in the day he brought with him a third person I had never seen before in an Arsenal shirt. He didnt speak english. Graham had hired him, a gas station attendant had asked if they had a job for his brother, so they took this guy - lent him some money for food. He didnt have any possessions, now he lives here in the middle of a nature reserve. One day to the next. At least he is paid a very decent wage and has a living space.

This morning I found my foot even bigger and difficult to walk on. Ive spent the day indoors, sending emails to various entomologists asking about ant identification and cataloging the camera-trap photos. It is exciting being a part of this project; communicating with other pangolin projects (theres only one other at the moment), feels like being at the forefront of something as they often know as little as we do and have the same problems. There are a few pangolins radio tagged at the Erindi reserve south of Otjiwarongo. This is a huge 750Km2 reserve for tourists with the countries only free-roaming lion pride on private land. The pangolins are tracked by microlight so the tourists can see it. Paul is hoping to go down and trade information with them when he leaves, but they cant seem to find their pangolins either.

Ive just had dinner and am enjoying skype calls back home. Paul is out with Tim climbing the bee-sting hill in the dark, which I was unfortunately unable to join due to my beesting. I have a radio next to me switched on in case of emergency. Graham just showed me a Natgeo documentary about filming hyena hunts at night with thermal cameras.

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As its taken me so long to update I thought Id go a little further and describe life here at Mundulea.

When I first arrived I would wake up at 7.00 in order to be ready by 7.30 - as this was when Graham started work. Lately (and since Paul's arrival) Ive had a little more independence and have been pushing this back as far as I dare! My breakfast was usually just a bowl of cheerios, but I bought a few more luxurious products and may sometimes have bulgarian yoghurt with muesli. Paul's a bit of a tea/coffee nut so there are many points during the day when he puts the kettle on, the morning is one of them.
We discuss our plans for the day and can go off in a little 1977 land cruiser that has been entrusted to us. There are no doors, and you have to pump the break (also the steering's off), but it has a very powerful engine. Paul buys the petrol for it, which has stopped me from speaking up about how he's using my toilet paper, dishwash, cooking oil and washing brush (not that I mind!)!
It can get very hot, up to 45 in the sun so I always bring a 5l bottle of water in the car with us. I wear a big round hat against the sun, but also mostly to keep my hair down. I usually wear shorts, though long trousers would be better with the thorns, and thick boots so they dont get into my soles.
Luckily a lot of the past few days its been very cool with cloud cover, and a few slight drizzles. Nothing like the big thunderstorms we had earlier, but still enough to leave us without power sometimes. Today and yesterday were sunny and hot though.

The house is situated on the roll of a big hilly landscape. To the south the hill goes up, and to the north it stretches down onto a vast flat area of thick bush and grassy plains spread throughout. In the far distance we can see the high Otavi mountains, of which the hills on this land are small children. There is the big and beautiful farmhouse which is nicely furnished and very livable. A backdoor opens to a patio surrounded by grass with the most astounding view. A small rock water-bath constantly attracts birds and sometimes even Ruppel's parrots. Also within the square fence is Graham's house, he has a few rooms all with separate doors and you have to walk outside on a covered terrace to get from one to the other. Finally there is a big garage-complex where Graham has an office, and there are many pieces of machinery, old tyres, bits and bobs of metal. A covered parking-area houses the cars and tractors. The staff (now 3) live a short walk away in a separate fenced area. There are 3 3-room houses. They dont have electricity or gas, so cant keep perishables, and have a long drop toilet.

Just outside the fence is a small waterhole where throughout the day there are warthogs, impala, gemsbok and kudu. At night rhino sometimes come.

I spend most of the day walking around in flip-flops if I can help it.

For dinner I have a lot of options in the fridge (I have the top two shelves), but I always end up eating the same thing, because thats just what I feel like eating: Pasta, minced meat, tomatoes, tomato&chili sauce.

Graham is a very nice guy. Hes worked on farms his whole life, in Botswana, South africa and Swaziland. Not a brilliant deep thinker, but he has an immense practical intelligence and knows how to fix a lot of stuff. He has strong convictions that I wouldnt agree with a lot,  and he enjoys telling me them and complaining about things, sometimes the same story is repeated after a few days. He loves nature so we talk a lot about that, and he invites me to watch National Geographic with him.

Paul is very different but also very nice. He is obviously a thinker. He has some very progressive relationships which I dont fully understand. He is a retired inventor basically, and he loves to dance (all his travel stories are to do with dancing in various latin-american slums) and he loves to hangglide. He is very interesting, and to me at least comes off with some hippy-ish qualities (e.g. arguing that greenpeace isnt militant enough anymore), but in contrast to that is meticulously organised and seems to plan out the day carefully including breaks.

In the afternoons and for a lot of things my laptop is my lifeline. Everything is on here from my reading, watching and listening material to papers on pangolin to the internet of course. There is a cable we can plug into for a decent internet connection (complicated initial setup), and luckily Paul doesnt use it so much. I can skype with family after dinner which is great (never really used skype before now).

If we go out after dark its always exciting. There are very different animals about - nightjars and hares, and sometimes we have to stop to let a blinded wildebeest run out of our headlights. I usually go to bed around 9.30 to get enough sleep, but night-drives mean I get back much later.

N.B. I want to clarify something I said a while back. Graham doesnt say lock the doors to keep out Tim and Tommy. We must lock when nobody is here so outsiders dont come in and steal things. For example, someone walks up looking for work and finds a deserted farmhouse. Its happened before apparently.