Old & Young

It's my father's birthday on Tuesday.  He'll be 88.  Yesterday, we both fired up our laptops, plugged in our webcams and had a video-chat via Skype.  This evening we Skyped Henry's parents.  I'm hoping to Skype my mother later this week.

It's giving me hope that old (sorry, Mum)  may be the new young.  I've been very struck in recent weeks by the gymnastics that some more senior citizens will practice to make the most out of life.  Of the 28 volunteers I've met this month at the PAWS Cheetah Rescue project, 12  have been 40+, or within a whisper of it.   Three have in fact been in their sixties, at least four in their fifties.  I think it's fair to say that the amount of effort they've put in during bush chopping or wood dragging (in 30c+ heat) has given many of the under '30s pause for thought as they rested beneath a sycamore tree.

I'm not declaring that when I'm 88 I'll be out there with my heavy duty gloves, taming the weld.  But I hope, at least, I'll be video-conferencing someone who is.

John

Boy meets girl - saves elephants, cheetahs and kudu

"Anyone can do this, anyone can do what I do."  Clive was right, although part of me didn't want to admit it, because I knew it would make me look closer at my own life and wonder how much more could be done.
Clive is one half of the husband-and-wife team who founded PAWS and now run it, ten months a year, barely stopping for breath. Their vision, hard work, and relentless commitment is inspirational, and infectious.

Originally a Lincolnshire boy, Clive met Roma, a Bromley girl, some years ago while on an elephant conservation project in Damaraland, in northern Namibia. Together they came to Okinjima, the vast privately-owned reservation which works hand-in-glove with the Africat Foundation protecting cheetahs, lions and leopards, and helps raise funds by providing top-notch accommodation in the midst of the Namibian bush.
For various reasons, and not just the big cats, Okinjima is one of the most well-known and sought-after places to stay in the country, and Clive and Roma ran the most exclusive bit, The Villa.
(For reference only, this £1000-per-person-per-night idyll was for example home to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie when they recently prepared for the arrival of their child.) And when The Villa was vacant, Clive and Roma had the privilege of basically living there.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Clive and Roma gave up this world of luxury to sink their life savings into founding the PAWS project. The project is two years in, and in that time they and volunteers from across the world have made an impressive start to what is truly and enormous job.
There is so much sickle bush to clear that the work may take 12 years. It may take 20. And when we look out and see sickle bushes all the way to the horizon - in all directions - it can be, to say the least, a bit dispiriting.
But we all know that every metre of bush chopped or fence rolled can save the lives of countless animals and help to restore this land to how it should really be.
One of my favourite sayings is "Pity the man who did nothing because he only could a little."  As Clive has remarked, if everyone who visited this astonishing and generous continent gave back even only half an hour of their time, just imagine how much more could be done.

Henry

So Spa, so good

Funniest moment so far?
We were asking Roma, one half of the Clive-and-Roma team who run PAWS, for tips on the best local places to stay as well as where to stock up on essentials.
Since our rough itinerary around Namibia includes a two-night stay in nearby Otjiwarongo, not exactly the busiest town in southwest Africa, we asked her whether it would be worth staying two nights.
"There's not much to do," Roma told us, "but if you're going camping, it's worth knowing there's an excellent SPAR."
"Fantastic," replied John, "...after all that hard work it'll be great to really relax properly...."


Henry

Meet Rion

Let me list five things that I have noted about Rion Haraeb, the 27 year old guide who is second-in-command here at the PAWS Cheetah Conservation Project.

1. Rion was born one of six or seven children, to a mother who makes a living on a  farm in one of the poorest areas of Namibia.  It is left to him -- a wage-earning son -- to support his mother and most of his siblings by sending home portions of his wage.   
2. When Rion pulls up in the jeep to point out an animal or a bird, his knowledge seems infinite.  When we ask him questions, he is never stumped.
3. If you offer Rion a beer, he will thank you and accept.  If you offer him a handful of crisps to go with it, you ought not to expect many to be left in the bag.
4. The eloquence of Rion's English would shame many 27 year olds born in England.  Much of it he has learnt through private study in the past three years.  My favourite quote so far, ending a discussion that hinted at racism that may have touched him before he came to work here: "I believe there is a drop of goodness in everyone." 
5. When Rion laughs, it's as if his entire twinkling face has burst into a spray of Cape diamonds.  It happens daily.

John

Henry - Vegging out

And in other news... we've also helped complete an important stage of the new vegetable garden, putting up netting and digging trenches for irrigation.

Nobody knows what will actually grow here - it's not really been tried before - and the arrayed ranks of pests, large and small, will be formidable.

Hopefully the new garden will provide next year's volunteers with a plentiful supply of delicious veggies, provided our hard-wired netting and high-security sicklebush hedge can keep out those pesky baboons.

Henry

The hands of Man

Fence-rolling is one of the most important and rewarding activities here at PAWS. Thirty years ago when the farmers departed their lands and the conservationists moved in, almost everything was abandoned where it lay. This included all manner of rusting equipment but most deadly was the miles and miles of entangled, galvanised steel wire fences.

Today, this means the volunteers spend some of our mornings clearing and rolling up as much wire as possible, not as easy a job as it sounds.

The reason is that many of the animals here, particularly the antelopes, scent-mark trees and posts with glands on their foreheads, and when they stumble upon one of these fences, often become inextricably ensnared. The photos below show one Kudu skull, found in the bush and now displayed at PAWS.

God knows how long this poor animal struggled, and hopefully a predator finished him off before he suffered a long hot, and starving death. Man-made suffering is all too common here, but at least motivation is not in short supply.


Henry

Tales from the Hide 2: Recharging

The symbol on the Ipod looked ominous.  "Low Battery" threatened me with an even lonelier night shift monitoring animals by moonlight than I had anticipated. 

It was 4.30am, I'd been awake for four hours, and one of the pieces of kit that had helped me get this far was about to turn itself off.  There was no hope of it being recharged until plugged into a socket back at base.  Sleep beckoned, a cardinal sin whilst on animal watch duty in a hide.

And then an alternative piece of recharge kit presented itself to me.  No cables for this, no adaptor needed.  It came with a lifetime guarantee.  A flicker at first, then a pulse.  Soon, one bar - then two.  I plugged myself into a Namibian sunrise, and that was all that was needed to reboot me into the Namibian day. 

JY

Tales from the Hide 1: How To Test Your Relationship

"I could do this all day," I sighed to myself, gazing at a giraffe stooping at a waterhole as three warthogs pottered around nearby.  And then I remembered - I would be.  Three days, in fact, and three nights.  Henry and I had signed up to the annual 72 hour animal census. 

Our home for the entire period was a mud and straw shack, six foot long and eight foot wide.  Given the number of bruises already on my head, I calculated the height at 5 foot 7.  Our bed was a mat on the dirt floor (to be used in turns during night shifts); the lock on the door two pieces of bush-wire (only to be used for the briefest of toilet, or wash-from-a-two-litre-bottle, breaks.)  Meals would be brought to us three times a day.   There was no electricity, no stove, no shelves.  Instead, two chairs, a newly-sharpened pencil, an eraser and 18 pieces of paper, each one the log for a different animal, with three separate columns to mark male, female and young. 

What did I learn?   I now know well that male kudus have horns, females do not.  Guinea fowl prefer to drink at dawn and dusk.  A gentle giraffe can look startlingly intimidating when it's sensing something's not quite right, and will stare intently for a full 30 minutes at the hide you're hiding in.  Male baboons take their ladies from behind.  And if you want to test your relationship, 72 hours alone in a bush-prison-cell will do the job nicely.  True,  there were one or two extended silences between Henry and me that weren't down to us keeping quiet for the animals.  But we emerged dazed, happy and enlightened, in equal measure -- and not only thanks to the red wine box that had helped  us through the 7pm-9pm shift. 

JY

Cheetahs and leopards, up close and personal

 

 

 

“Are there any leopards in Alcatraz?”  It seemed like an odd question, but then again we were standing on the back of a jeep, holding on for dear life as we bumped along through dust and dirt towards a setting sun and four wild cheetahs.

John and I are now at PAWS (www.pawsnamibia.org) a project which works alongside the Africat Foundation in north-ish Namibia. We’re here with 14 other volunteers, a good multi-national blend of people of all ages, from Iceland, Germany, USA, Italy and even Wales.

And now the hard work has started.

The daily routine begins with a 6.30am cereal breakfast, followed by four or more full hours of hard labour until 11.30 or so. This can be bush-chopping (using huge pangas/machetes to hack down the ubiquitous and extremely thorny sickle bushes) or possibly fence-rolling (clearing up the miles of tangled fence-wire lethal to so much wildlife.)

And of course throughout all of this it’s hot. ‘Wilt-the-moment-you-walk-into-the-sunshine’ kind of hot.

The worst work shift is the dreaded ‘prickly pear’, helping to collect pile after pile of the cactus-like plant. Its tiny spines – and there are thousands of them – pierce and penetrate any gloves and clothes, conveniently lodging themselves in the most painful and awkward places. Two days on, some people here are still borrowing tweezers.

The reward? In the afternoon, and sometimes even the mornings, you have a range of activities and often get to see the big cats and other fascinating animals close-up. We’ve been cheetah and hyena tracking, gone eye-to-eye with wild dogs barely three yards from our jeep, and watched fire created from two sticks as we learned bushmen skills honed to aid survival in such a harsh and unforgiving land.

On Friday, we got to enter the cheetah enclosures to collect their poo and remove old and splintered bones. It may not sound like the most fragrant of tasks, but we ended up eight feet from four relaxed and very, very beautiful cheetahs. When they glance at you, and the rays of the low early morning sun catch their black-ringed amber eyes, it is mesmerizing.

We’ve also been lucky enough to see the feeding run for the cheetahs, leopards and lions that are being rehabilitated or kept in large enclosures (hence the moniker ‘ Alcatraz’). Whilst the idea is to rehabilitate and release as many of these animals as possible, some have even ended up here because they were raised as ‘pets’, and now their boldness with humans makes release impossible. The stupidity of man never ceases to amaze me, and the heart of the PAWS project is a bold attempt to undo 200 years of destruction wrought on this beautiful landscape.

All of the animals here have something in common though. Their beauty, and sometimes ferocity, is simply breathtaking and we are both truly privileged to experience all of this.

All that said, John and I are about to embark on something even more adventurous because the Africat team needs help with their annual count of all game in the reserves. This requires people to sit in a small but fortified straw hut for a straight 72 hours, day and night, recording all animals that come into view at the waterhole just in front of said hut.

We will have to work in shifts, one on, one off, and have at least two meals delivered discreetly each day. It’s almost full moon, so the African bush is bathed in clear silver light but staying awake is certainly going to be a challenge. It’s really important we get this right because early rains have prevented the last two years’ counts.

But John and I, alone in an eight-by-eight straw hut for 72 hours?? Either we’ll have thrown each other to the leopards, or when we get home it’ll be a quick trip to the divorce court...


Henry

Sleeping Around

Last night, I slept with a rather striking Icelandic girl.  Mid-twenties, I think.  Henry didn’t mind at all; he slept with an eighteen year old girl from Hamburg.  Why not, we thought – this trip is all about trying new experiences.

Altogether, we spent the night with thirteen woman and four other men.  All laid out in a circle, around a mellowing camp fire, beneath the Namibian stars.  We were each tightly wrapped in our own sleeping bag, gazing up at the galaxy of wonder above us, after a dinner of hot dogs and toasted marshmallows.  Our local guide, Rion, had rounded the evening off nicely with a masterclass in counting from one to ten in Khoisa.  Yes, I’ve camped out under the stars once or twice before (in Canada), but the intimacy of this communal experience was something that had reached me, finally, for the first time, at the age of 44. 

I popped on my glasses, to see the stars more clearly.  Another new bedroom experience.  But this time the bedroom was a parched river-bed in a south-west slice of Africa.


John

From Henry, still finding sand in his boots...

Well, as John’s said, we’re just back from the biggest sand dunes on earth – and boy, are they big.

But more importantly, our three-day trip into the Namib-Nakluft desert has been great fun, and a real welcome to Namibia. It was a good group of eight fellow travellers, and quite a mix: people from Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Japan.

The heat here is punishing, up to 38C, but plenty of water and our excellent salad lunches are proving just the ticket. And I’m glad to report that sleeping under canvas and the blanket of the African night sky is as invigorating as ever. Beer, a bit of grub and a campfire should be enough to satisfy anyone – and as a vegetarian, I’ve been pleasantly surprised and not left out at mealtimes. At last, campfire cuisine now stretches to veggie hotdogs and burgers. (We did all have to contend with a cheeky jackal who hung around, popping his head up over the low stone wall around our tents, but he was never quite brave enough to make a dash for the leftovers.)

A 5am start ensured we got to the Sossuvlei sand dunes in time for sunrise. Although the Dune 45 experience had to be shared with about 40 other people (see John’s entry), it’s the only one the park managers are happy for people to climb regularly. It was truly wonderful to watch the vast sculpted sand dunes of the Namib turn gently from a dark fuzzy blue, to lilac and soft pinks, and finally a rich clay red.

During the following hike to the Dead Vlei pan, John decided to take the quick route, and roll head-first down a dune. A fun moment to treasure but possibly a bit rash having just put on half a litre of sun lotion. (Picture hopefully to follow…)

Now, we’re back at our safe Western bubble, a hostel in the capital Windhoek for a couple of nights before we set off to the PAWS project in the north of the country.

This may be Africa, but the city’s shopping centre wouldn’t be out of place in Basingstoke. After touring the aisles of a Boots-clone shop, I was greeted at the till by a smart and uniformed lady who looked up at me, paused for breath, and asked inquisitively “Clubcard?”

Henry

Seeing Red at Sunrise

The sun shimmered like an orange in a pan of boiling water.  We were at Sussusvlei, in the heart of the Namibian Desert, atop a sand-dune that had survived several hundred summers.

"Aw, Stacey, Gav's done 'is knee in, I'm gutted he's not made it to the top, right shame, innit?".  It was a mid 20s bleach blonde English voice, piercing the murmerings of the well mannered line of tourists who'd climbed the dune a few minutes earlier for this thoughtful start to our day.  It triggered a chunder of guffaws and gossip from her friends, comparing notes on their boyfriends' various merits.  The English at their most appalling, I thought primly, more Newport Pagnell Service Station en route to the match, than Namibian sand-dunes at dawn.   I had flashbacks to the time, eight years ago, when two complete strangers (female, middle aged, English) had discovered their mutual taste for Cambridge's Waitrose supermarket, and shared it blindly with myself and a handful of others as we gazed upon Uluru at sunset in central Australia  Back then, I'd lacked the courage to invite them to take their observations elsewhere, whilst I enjoyed the moment I'd travelled half way around the world to enjoy.

Not this time.  Stacey and her friends did look a bit startled, but they moved away briskly.  And I resumed gazing at my sunrise, my heart beating a little faster, and not just because of the eternal sight I saw before me.

JY

Learn to Love Your Luggage

"Please, lovely airport carousel, please, please, please don't slow down and stop" I wimpered to myself.  But the little carousel wasn't listening, and shuddered triumphantly to an insolent standstill.  Gleaming and empty. With Henry's rucksack nowhere in sight.  Henry caught up with me in the luggage arrivals hall -- I shrugged my shoulders, pointed blankly to the row of bags annexed by a Chinese group about to set off through customs clearance.  "It's not here.  We'll have to go to Luggage Enquiries ..."  Destination One, and we've got a little problem.

Henry looked closer.  A lot closer.  And pulled from the Chinese luggage mountain his rucksack.  A rucksack he'd borrowed from a friend, the colour and style of which I hadn't noted very carefully.  An early lesson for me in panic-control.  Learn to love your luggage.  By the end of this trip we'll probably know every inch of it more intimately than is probably decent.

JY

If You Want to Get to Know Your Family Better

If you want to get to know your family a bit better, my advice is to jump on a plane and clear off for a bit.

Henry and I took several calls tonight, wishing us well for our departure tomorrow.  Most touching of all, for me, from my younger sister, in Canada.  It's a bit like Christmas, this, but without going through the motions.  And it meant that I could take instruction from my two neices: I offered to return from Africa with some jewellery for them, and invited their opinion on colours.  Pink for the 2 year old, and (I think) blue for the 4 year old.  So that's sorted, then.  Good to know my family have clear ideas on these things, and good to be part of it.

JY

A word about Rain and Marrow

An anxious day of rain and wind and shredded nerves.  As the rain hammered against the windows we'd had cleaned especially for our tenant (£35, please), I mused over the news from our Lettings Agent.  The tenant (who paid the deposit six weeks ago) hasn't actually signed the lease yet.  Did I sense the tingle of cold feet?

By 10pm, warmth resumed.  Tenant had been chased and faxed the document by 4pm.  We'd finally finished packing by 7pm.  And just before bed,  in a "good luck boys" call from my mother, a phrase that deserves a wider hearing.  The observations of my stepbrother in Canada.  Namibia + Uganda + Kenya + Zanzibar + etc etc etc  = "sucking the marrow out of life."   I was taken aback, and flattered, in equal measure.  Something for Henry and me to remind ourselves when we're 45 minutes into a three hour scrub clearing session in some god awful wilderness, I'm telling Henry I couldn't give a flying fig about the damn cheetah sanctuary, and the only thing I want to suck the life out of is a double gin and tonic.

JY