sick day

waking up at 7am for breakfast is a big of a struggle - i feel horrible, my nose alternating between clogged up and sniffly, coughing my lungs out and my asthma starting to play up. i have 3 hot teas and am informed that sundays are pretty much free time as well as a town trip (which you have to put your name down for in advance). reassured i'm not missing out on anything, i crawl back into bed and pass out.

~~~

i wake up in time for lunch, feeling a little better after my sleep. i hate being sick here and really hope it passes quickly.. i think the dust and the dryness out here aren't helping with my breathing troubles so at least i know to keep my ventolin close. i'm bored of doing nothing so i decide to pay the junior baboons a visit (there are baby, junior and adult enclosures).. i walk up near the cage and sit down on the other side of the electric fence. immediately two of them walk over to investigate. they make funny smacking noises with their mouths and tongues, a gesture i later am told is a friendly greeting. they're so cool looking and their eyes are amazingly expressive.. it's crazy to think that an adult baboon is so strong it could easily rip your arm clean out of it's socket!! i pick up a stick and start drawing and digging in the dirt, the baboon opposite me does the same and we sit there drawing in silence whilst her mate grooms her fur, occasionally looking up to grin at me through the wire.

after a while, a few of the remaining volunteers walk up holding bottles and ask if i'd like to help feed the baby baboons. obviously i say yes and leave the junior cage. the five kids are evidently pretty excited for their feed, jumping up against their cage wire, grunting and carrying on (: we stick the bottle teats through the holes in the fence and they all latch onto one and start suckling. it's probably the cutest i've ever seen them.. all we can hear is them sucking away at the milk, occasionally producing satisfied little murmurs. a few of them even close their eyes.. once again the similarities between them and human babies is astonishing. once the milk is gone, they're back to their usual antics and their calm demeanor vanishes completely.

~~~

back at the communal area, the family of meerkats is running about. i sit down on the grass with a book and the bravest babies pause to sniff my feet before scampering off to dig for grubs. poor sylvie gets chased around the garden and the sight is quite ridiculous: she towers over the little devils, even with their tails sticking up into the air. as the sun starts to lower in the sky and the light softens a little, eric and lauren (a lovely french girl and her dad) offer to show me around the closest cheetah enclosure, home to three thus far unnamed cheetahs - a mum and her two cubs.

it's about a 15min walk and as we approach the fence, eric spots the mother laying in the shade of a tree. it's the first cheetah i've ever seen outside of a zoo and i'm literally breathless. the big cat is stretched out lazily and hardly seems to bat an eyelid at seeing us through the wire. we watch her for a moment, then call the other two using the standard "kom, kom, kom!!". a young one slinks out of the bushes not too far from his mum and pads over to stare at us, before deciding we're not very interesting and flopping back down into the shade. then his sister appears and begins licking his head as he yawns. even lazing around their enclosure, they're still such graceful beasts: long, slender and lean.. i don't think i can describe how amazing it is to be observing these guys from so close!! and to think they're just a few of the many animals at N/a'an ku sê is pretty exciting.. then we realise the sun's sunk a little too far in the sky and it's time to head back for dinner.

~~~

as dinner comes and goes, i start feeling a little worse for wear again. i don't know if it's the evening chill that worsens my cold, but in any case i'm thinking an early bedtime is the way to go once again. before retreating to my room, however, i follow two of the girls into lorie's room as she's keeping rudie for the night. it's quite an experience - the little monkey is galloping around the room, swinging off the curtains and climbing up onto the wardrobe only to leap off again, bounce off the bed, snatch emily's cardigan she foolishly left beside her and race off with it. the 3 girls sit and chat but i'm mostly interested in playing with the raging ball of mischievous energy.. he's by this time managed to find 3 items he wants in the supposedly 'monkey-proofed' room: his bottle, the cardigan and a small piece of plastic ripped off god knows what (by monkey-proofed i mean EVERYTHING packed away and locked into cupboards). his mission seems to be climbing onto the wardrobe with all 3 things at once but every time he tries he drops one or two or all three of them and screeches in frustration. for the next half hour, i help him pick up the toys and offer my limbs as extra climbing frames to aid in his endeavors. it's a mission alright but in the end he gets there and, satisfied, proceeds to roll himself into the cardigan. unfortunately at this point i'm pretty exhausted and still feeling quite shit so i call it a night.


[p.s. i'm still finding it quite hard to set up my camera in dealing with the harsh, dusty light out here.. please excuse some of the photos looking washed out just not being of great quality and bear with me..]

first day

i awake to the sound of my 7am alarm. emily and i both head out for breakfast, rugged up against the chilly morning air, where the first thing i notice is a baby baboon in a nappy running rampage on the tables.. after overcoming my initial surprise, i turn to notice the garden is pretty crawling with animals - a bunch of hens, a cat called pervy (she apparently sits and stares at you when you're in the shower), a goose called norman begging for food, even a little duiker antelope called sylvie who timidly nibbles at pieces of toast presented to her. i'm pretty sure i'm gonna like this place (: i make myself my first rooibos tea since my south africa trips and re-discover my love for rusks!! (hard bread/buiscuitty things you dip in tea that soften and crumble in your mouth).

as all the volunteers slowly arrive, i'm introduced to rudie, the little baboon, who is being such a cheeky bugger - running off with people's cutlery, trying to steal food, eating paper, swinging off the tablecloth. turns out he's the youngest of the baby baboons and is the one who can't yet sleep alone, hence the nappy. looking at him sprinting around the place i find it hard to imagine getting any sleep at all when my turn comes to have him in my bed!!

but anyway. come 8am it's time for the morning meeting - we all make our way down to the food prep area where i properly meet the staff members. the volunteers here are divided up into 3 groups and each group has a delegated set of jobs for the day that rotate around. every morning during the meeting the staff run us through our responsibilities for the day and make sure we all know what we're meant to be doing (: for me, however, it's induction time so as the group separates i'm taken into the induction room. elzette, one of the staff, briefs me on N/a'an ku sê's history, vision and aims, as well as familiarizing me with the various animals i'll be working with (: [ it really is an amazing place and although i'm not gonna write down everything she said i'll be more than happy to tell you about it if you're interested!]

once induction is over, i make my way back to the communal area for muffin break (the routinely 10am bout of temptation) where the 3 groups congregate after completing their morning tasks. the lovely bushman cooks have prepared these incredible donut-y sugar-coated muffins, still warm and steaming from the oven.. so, so cruel!! i love listening to two women chatting, clicks bouncing off their tongues so smoothly and rhythmically..

~~~

as muffin break draws to an end the members of my group tell me i'll be taking the baby baboons for a walk and suggest i get rid of every scrap of jewelry on my body and empty my pockets as well as wearing the least fiddly clothes possible and leaving behind my camera. i'm a little disappointed at the camera mention, given i want to document everything, but i'm guessing they know best so i act accordingly.

within about 30 secs i'm 100% grateful to them for discouraging me camera-wise.. we walk towards the cage with stu, another staff member, open the door and all hell breaks loose. there are 5 little baboons: elvis, rudie, carola, rafiki and shauna. imagine 10 of the most hyperactive, badly behaved, ADHD kids on the planet and they have nothing on this lot. the baboons immediately jump all over us, tugging at clothing, pulling at shoelaces, screeching in delight at being let outside.. 3 of them climb up onto stu to perch on his head/shoulders/back, obviously loving him, the other 2 on two of the girls, and we walk out of the farm buildings and onto a dirt track. the babies just keep tumbling off their human perches, rolling in the dirt, chasing each other around, climbing up legs, leaping from one person's head to land on another's.. it's so hard to keep track of them!! we arrive at a big tree after 10min or so and the real playtime begins. the baboons run up the tree so quickly, then proceed to propel themselves off branches and onto us humans down below.

we all sit down on the grass.. two of the monkeys proceed to groom stu's dreadlocks and carefully inspect his ears, his mouth, the inside of his nose.. carola comes over to me and i'm suddenly so glad i have no jewelry left on me - her little hands go everywhere, into my pockets, down my shirt, scratching at freckles on my skin until she finds the buckle and zip of my shorts and proceeds to try and tear them off me. i gently push her away.. big mistake!! immediately she starts jumping up and down and screaming, giving me the evil eyes and feigning bites. stu reassures me it won't get too out of hand and i calmly stand my ground. eventually she forgets about it and moves on to tug at meike's long blonde hair. that's the thing with the baboons.. like rude kids, they hate being told no.

all in all it's pretty crazy though - 5 bundles of fur running a muck all around us. they each in turn come suss me out (being the newcomer).. i ruffle their fur, pretend to groom them, swing them by the arms like children.. i can't believe i'm actually playing with baboons!! i mean that's purely and simply what it is - playtime. it's eventually time to head back for lunch and this time on the way back i've got little monkeys jumping on my hands, wanting to be swung up onto my head.. they use my hair as climbing vines, swinging down onto the ground, climbing up someone's back to jump off and land on another person's side.. they're so unbelievably agile!! getting them back into the cage is a mission, especially with shona and carola, the two girls, who i've already learned are the difficult ones. it's a good thing stu is so great with them - men automatically have more authority with the baboons as they're closer to alpha male stature.

~~~

1pm is lunch, then something a little different - on saturday afternoons we're taken out for activities and today is abseiling (: we jump into the back of 2 big land rovers and i leap at the opportunity to perch myself up on the roof. it's a 15-min drive to the lodge (a more luxurious accommodation on the N/a'an ku sê property) where we'll be spending the next few hours. the landscape is so different to what i've left behind in kenya - long, flat plains of golden and almost silvery grass, clumps of scrub and acacia trees, the blue silhouette of mountains in the distance.. it's so dry and dusty. the place we stop at is a sort of river flowing between two big rocky faces, upon one of which is perched the lodge.. here the staff pull out the rope, harness and helmet and set up the climbing wall. as a few volunteers take turns at climbing and abseiling, i walk along the rocks enjoying the countryside. then it's my turn and i'm pleased to say i climb up and abseil down in record time (: eventually one of the utes heads back to camp and 5 of us remain behind to try a more challenging climb.

this time the rock face is a bitch - it starts in the river, effectively soaking your shoes, then climbs up to a ledge (which is too narrow to stand on) and then a practically smooth wall with hardly anything to hold onto. the stone is brittle and the only dents in it are sharp so i end up slicing my fingers and legs open, but stubbornly will my limbs to cling on and work my way up to the top. only stu and i make it all the way. apparently brad pitt and angelina jolie's kids climbed the same wall but the staff member belaying us admits he pretty much pulled them up there (;

~~~

back at camp, i have my first hot shower in 3 months. i don't think words can describe how unbelievable that feels.. and i have clean feet in clean socks too!!! amazing!!! the girls laugh to see how excited i am by this as i run around the communal area praising the showers aloud (: it seems silly but i don't care, you will honestly never realise how divine hot water is until you have to go without it for that long. especially when it's this chilly in the evenings!!

[something i forgot to mention is this weird bite on my leg (i think it might've been a mosquito but i'm not sure) that has over the past day and a half progressively swollen up and by this evening really started to throb and redden.. rudie, marlice van vuuren's husband (the owners & founders of N/a'an ku sê) is a gp and is kind enough to drive to the farm to have a look at it - apparently it's well on it's way to becoming an abscess (yummy!!) so he gives me enough penicillin for a 5-day cycle and an antiseptic cream to try and fight the infection.]

then it's 7pm and dinner time and before too long i'm feeling really rotten - my eyes are watery and puffy, head aching, i'm sneezing incessantly and a nasty cough has picked up.. i guess the 13hrs in mombasa airport wind corridors have finally caught up to me and i'm so annoyed it's here that i'm getting sick for the first time on my africa travels! and for such a stupid reason.. but regardless, an early bedtime seems the best option for me and i head off to sleep, pretty amazed by how full my first day has been and excited for what's to come.

arrival at n/a'an ku sê

friday night, touchdown at windhoek airport, 6:30pm local time.. i'm so glad my trip is nearly over!! from when i left ocean camp to the time i arrived it's been around 32hrs.. seems so stupid considering i've only flown from one side of the continent to the other.. but anyway. the arrivals terminal seems pretty much deserted, the only traffic being the 20-odd people from my little plane. i sling on my oversized backpack (it's always a relief to see it sitting on the baggage carousel and not lost in transit god knows where..), pass through the visa check and walk up to a man in a N/a'an ku sê t-shirt holding a sign with my name on it. [it's pretty cool, i feel like one of those weird vip guys with a limo driver awaiting me!!] i've just enough time to withdraw some local currency from the atm, purchase a local sim card and then climb aboard a white jeep [not a limo this time..].

the drive to N/a'an ku sê takes around 40mins, bumping around on dirt tracks and moving further and further away from the glow of windhoek lights in the distance. eventually we pull up to a big, white gate where the driver exchanges a few words with the guards who then let us through. [the bushmen language is riddled with varying clicks of the tongue, sounding like a percussionist ensemble playing alongside a smooth-flowing melody.. so damn cool!!] not far now.. a few more twists and turns and suddenly we arrive smack bang upon a huge porcupine just chilling in the middle of the road. i've never seen one in the wild yet and he looks pretty funny waddling off into the scrub!! we then arrive another gate the driver jumps out to open and finally we pull up next to a group of vehicles.

opening the door, the heated air rushes out of the car and i realise it's pretty chilly out here! the stars are amazing.. the driver (whose name i still haven't quite caught) helps me with my bag and shows me to my room - i'm in the 'oryx' room and can't help but grin at the sight of my first proper, comfortable bed since tsavo. he leaves me to get settled in and points out the way to the dining area, where i proceed to after pulling on my fleece. a few girls are sitting around chatting and introduce themselves. they're really sweet and soon we're discussing my kenya trip, life on the farm, the things they've been up to during their stay.. it's a little strange being the 'new girl' after my 3-monther kenya status but people here are always coming and going so i'm not too fussed (:

after a short while chatting, i'm pretty much falling asleep at the table and say goodnight. i set my alarm for 7am breakfast, pull on a pair of pjs and don't even bother braving a cold shower before passing out.

goodbye kenya

thursday arrives.. our final day in kenya. most of us finished the bulk of our packing on wednesday night - shaking the sand out of our clothes and trying to get everything to fit in our over-stuffed bags. a few people leave early in the morning and by lunchtime another handful have gone.. we spend our last hours writing messages in each other's books and making sure for the final time we haven't left anything behind. it's strange and a little sad to realise i won't be seeing these guys for ages, if ever, after living with them for so long.. when our bus finally arrives, bumping down the dirt track, i'm ready to leave and all i can think about is namibia (: i'm glad i've got another adventure ahead of me..

the drive to the airport is pretty standard.. it's weird driving past the familiar places in town for the last time.. we cross the ferry over to mombasa and i'm flooded with memories of our first crossing 3 long months ago. finally we arrive at the airport and everyone except chris and i check in - unfortunately our flight leaves friday morning at 5:30am but camp kenya didn't offer a later airport transfer unless we paid a standard taxi fee (which i don't really have the money to spend on..). within 45 mins everyone's ready to go and chris and i see them off at the terminal gate. the aussie kids i'm alright with leaving given they live close enough to sydney and get-togethers can always be organised.. but once again it's the british (and danish!) to whom it's shitty saying goodbye. a final hug with joe, jasmine and seb.. then they're gone..

~

chris and i now have around 13hrs to kill in probably one of the most boring airport terminals imaginable. its just a rectangle structure with the bag scanning machines, a few metal table things and the check-in desks. and that's pretty much it.. no benches, no cafés, nothing. luckily i notice a sign upstairs advertising a 'visitors lounge' that offers internet, snacks, drinks and comfortable couches. its 1200ksh for a few hours but at this point in time there's no way i'm missing out. it changes everything.. we stuff ourselves with fruit juices and croissants and although everyone's asleep in australia, the british kids are awake and i skype my hours away (: then comes the dreaded closing hour of 9:30pm.. i beg the cleaner to let us sleep inside but surprise, surprise she refuses. the wondrous lounge is no more and we go back downstairs into the now empty terminal.

8hrs to go.. nothing to do. i walk outside for some fresh air but the guard tells me to come back into the building and we get literally locked inside the terminal alongside the cleaners and a handful of overnight guards. great. i'm so grumpy about the lounge being closed.. you'd think it wouldn't make the slightest difference for them to lock us into that couch-filled room as opposed to the big hallway of nothing.. -_- we have a choice between lying on the floor or on the metal tables.. metal tables it is. chris chooses a table, gathers up his bags and curls up to sleep.. i plug in my ipod and attempt to do the same.

the bloody fans are on full blast and the wind corridors and draughts in this place are horrific.. it's really quite awkward lying like a hobo on this metal table, trying to sleep, and opening your eyes every so often to see 3 guards just sitting there staring at you.. the lights overhead are painfully bright and after 2hrs my body is aching everywhere. my hips are digging into the cold metal, my neck crooked and stiff from being propped up on my lumpy backpack, my back killing me.. i change sides to relieve the growing discomfort and after half an hour, waking up from a power-nap, i've lost all feeling in my left leg. i'm generally capable of sleeping in weird places but i can feel a cold building up from the damn fans and time seems to be crawling past..

eventually i hobble over to the bathroom, feeling like an old decrepit man.. and all of a sudden discover what is to be my 5-star hotel until check-in time tomorrow: the baby nappy changing table. now i know that sounds gross but bear in mind how uncomfortable i was at this stage and the sight of a cushioned bench set off hallelujah angels in my head. i immediately went back to my metal table, wheeled my luggage into the bathroom, switched the light off and curled up, praying for sleep. best idea of my life. i was out in a matter of minutes and only woke up when my alarm clock rang.. i can safely say that is the first time i've ever slept in a public toilet and the joy i felt at finding my bed was pretty amusing..

i check in my suitcase and read for the last hour and a half until the flight leaves. the trip from there on is pretty standard.. mombasa --> nairobi, where my next flight is delayed so i go buy a couple of books at the duty free bookstore. chris heads off to his connecting flight and i spend the last hour of my wait watching really strange cartoons on the kenyan cartoon network channel (the most memorable being a perplexing tribe of palm trees making chicken noises, dancing, and flashing different bright colours each time they laid eggs). nairobi --> johannesburg, where i thankfully find internet again during my 5hr wait.. johannesburg --> windhoek, which is a tiny little plane with probably the sweetest air hostesses i've ever flown with.. i sit and talk with them and they give me a couple of local beers to try which makes the flight pass by a lot faster (:

animals

tuesday night was our last night out.. back in mwaluganje we wrote all the girl's and boy's names on slips of paper and drew them out of a hat to pair ourselves up. each pair then decided on an animal to dress up as and be tied together from 8-12pm.. i was paired with sebastian and, surprise surprise, i chose tiger.

once again there was a big lack of materials to use as costumes so i ended up just buying a can of fluro orange and black spray paint.. and spray-painting every scrap of bare skin on my body, feet included. unfortunately we'd run out of black face-paint crayons so i had to improvise and use a half-empty liquid eyeliner to paint my face. sebastian hadn't really managed to find anything so i decided to make him my tiger hunter - we chopped up a shirt of his to make a vest, i lent him my bone 'tooth' necklace and david tossed his hat into the pile. what resulted was, i think, i pretty successful costume pair!!

once again it was pretty funny watching everyone get ready and being creative with costumes - sam and gerry, the leopards, cut out a spot stencil that they spray painted onto each other.. jasmine the lion teased and spray-painted her hair into a big, orange mane.. mary and matt, the zebras, had commissioned zebra-print shorts from the local tailor..

the night was a big success with the camp kenya staff once again thinking we were mental.. trying to run around and dance whilst being tied to someone was a bit of a challenge and only one of the pairs stayed connected until midnight. i've gotta say though that scrubbing off paint meant for metal in the morning was really quite painstaking and unpleasant!!! and my toenails are still fluro orange..

zombies

for our last two nights out in kenya, we decided to do something a little different.. someone came up with the idea of dressing up like zombies on the saturday we arrived at ocean camp and that's exactly what we did!! now the local nakumatt isn't exactly as well equipped as sydney shopping centers for dress-up materials but we managed to find talcum powder, face paint crayons and cans of metal spray paint. after spending our saturday on the beach, we started getting ready in the late afternoon.. it was a pretty funny affair: ripping, cutting and burning old clothes to make them look completely derelict, back-combing and spray painting our hair to make big, tangled nests on our heads, covering ourselves in talcum powder, using the crayons to design our faces and the red spray paint as blood.. needless to say the poor camp kenya staff thought we were absolutely mental!! we hadn't even been there a full day and suddenly we were zombies!!

the boys returned from their city trip and were quite surprised at finding us already dressed up and ready to go so we proceeded to help them out with their outfits. david painted on a terrifying grin reminiscent of the joker in 'the dark knight', joe decided to go for a freshly-dead look using the red spray paint as blood and we all put in our ideas until only a few people were left un-zombied. we had a traditional camp kenya pre-drink session then set out to forty thieves where our arrival certainly didn't go unnoticed!! it was altogether a pretty crazy night.. i adore dress ups and was so glad that everyone got into it and had actually ended up looking so scary (:

i've gotta say it was a pretty funny sight to see hungover zombies emerging from tents the next morning, face-paint smudged and smeared, still in torn and tattered clothes..