Granny Goes to South Africa

has been up and down. I’ve finally realised that one reason I’m so tired all the time is that I spend most of the night on the edge of sleep trying to stay under my blanket. I’m pretty spoiled, comparatively speaking.

The bed is one of the very narrow ones – 25″ I think – and the blanket is only a couple inches wider on each side. So if I turn on my side in my sleep, I’m having cold air whistling all around me since the blanket just won’t cover the bulk of a body sleeping on its side. And I’ve spent a whole lot of nights just trying not to fall off the bed. Going to spend some time trying to find a wider blanket so I can get some effective rest.

School today was interesting. The grammar class was mainly wasted time, as not only were the children afraid to speak up, but their grounding in simple tense structures is so meagre that trying to do continuous and perfect tenses as they have been doing is useless. I’ll have to find some practise exercises for simple tense structures and see how they do. Then I’ll know where I am.

The class in number patterns went markedly better. They understood patterns with a positive constant rule, and caught on to those with a constant negative rule quickly. Then I tried some with an inconstant rule (I know those are probably not proper terms, but I hope you get the drift) and that took a bit of explaining regarding the fact that you had to find the rule all the way across the number sequence to find the rule to apply. Onward and upward.

The monkeys (The Gang of Five) have learned to take the logs off the garbage bins, and garbage was all over the yard this morning before I got up. Cheeky little beggars, but so cute.

I’ll post a few more pictures, then got to get on to school work.

because I get to do nothing at all, or just wander around looking for animals.

Today I got asked at 7:50 a.m. to drive the two British girls who were leaving over to the lodge. They said they wanted to drive the alternate route as there had been 4 very large elephants just outside our gate a bit earlier, looking like they were coming in. AND NO ONE WOKE ME UP!!!! The nerve !! So I missed that – too bad.

But coming back, just as I turned out of the lodge gate and rounded the first corner, there were 3 elephants standing in the road. One very large and three smaller – which doesn’t mean they were ’small’ by any stretch of the imagination. I backed up a bit, then phoned Ernest at the lodge to tell him I was stopped for traffic and not to run up my back end if he came around the corner. They sauntered off after a few minutes and I cruised by, stopping to take a picture of one guy’s behind – amazing how close you can be.

Then I finally got a picture of a wart hog. Never have had my camera with me before. I’m getting quite fond of the wart hogs. They are really quite beautiful when seen close up and after you get used to their oddness of form.

And when I got home and went to the kitchen there were three female nyala standing near the front door. They are so beautiful. All russet and stripy – computer at the camp is down again after only one day – I think it must be the sand in the air that is getting to the drives and contacts. The computer is in a screened room and I can’t see that being good for anything mechanical with the constant fine grit in the air. So what I’m saying is, no pics again today. (Maybe now some pics – we’ll see)

Also saw a pair of hammerkop, I’m pretty sure, but the picture just shows their silhouette. My camera is not really good enough for bird pics unless the birds are 3 feet away, but I wanted to take this to get confirmation of my identification.

And found out that the raptor that Bongani and I saw while elephant monitoring – and whose name I still can’t remember – is a quite rare sighting. So I’m pretty happy.

With the British teens gone, there are only Vanessa, Oscar and myself at the camp, and Vanessa leaves on Thursday. It will be peaceful and quiet – maybe too much so. I’m going to miss the British roses, though they were young.

And I asked Oscar to marry me at the braai on Friday. He can cook and hook up computers, so I figured, what the heck, eh? He turned me down <G>. I’ve really got to quit teasing him, but it’s kind of like having a younger brother around, and I find it hard to resist.

Anyway, going to get back on the road and look for more creatures before the sun goes down. Nightfall is very early here, and it seems to be that way all year. Must be closer to the equator than we are. Don’t know, never looked it up.

Met some nice S African folks who just arrived as guests, who have lived in Holland for the past 12 years. They’re just counting the days until their daughter finishes Uni and he can retire so they can come home. Many, many people seem to be very passionate about the ‘new South Africa’ and I don’t blame them. They’re building something wonderful here.

Miss you all – drop me a line or leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Well, I went to the school this morning and they did have a schedule made up for me. It is a good one and only a few adjustments will need to be made. I am ecstatic! Now I can really get going and, I hope, make some progress.

Trying to figure out how to teach direct and indirect speech – it’s not an easy subject, and the teacher says he’s had no success. I don’t wonder, as their vocabularies are not really up to it. I checked the ESL websites and the one instruction on every site says that you have to “back up the verb tense” which is great (??!!) since I do it naturally – but have no idea of the ranking of ‘backness’ of verbs. MEE?? Kath?? Elaine??

They do study verb tenses and so on in ESL that I don’t think you would learn in an English speaking country until Uni, which seems a bit silly, since the vocab is still so lacking. I know I learned them back in my one-room school days, but surely cannot remember much now. I *really* hope they get a printer hooked up so I can print out some rules and exercises to do.

It’s cooler and windy here today, so that’s a nice break. Unfortunately the wind from that direction brings the biting flies, like our horseflies. BUT – that natural insect repellent I got from Hempola works a charm on everything I’ve run into so far. WAHOO!! No DEET!

MT, thanks for your support too. Really nice to hear from you, Lise and Ruth with your ‘been there, done that’ wisdom. I do hope you have seen your leopard. We do have some here, but they are very elusive, and we have to put bait out by the camera to even get video of them. Hardly anyone has ever seen them ‘in person’.

Saw 4 elephants on the monitoring run yesterday. One big guy standing munching lunch in the reed bed – he came to investigate us and crossed the road about 20 feet ahead of us. I was a little nervous, since I’ve seen how fast they can move, but the monitor seemed OK with the distance, though I did notice that he had put the bakki in reverse, even though the engine was off. Then we went to the pan and saw three more. One huge adult male with two juvenile males. It was funny, because when the adult male was there, everything else stayed clear of the waterhole. As soon as he wandered away to scratch his bum on a tree (just glad it wasn’t the bakkie – the tree was pushed right over) all the other animals came out and went for a drink or a roll in the mud – they paid no mind to the juveniles even though they were almost as big.

I just can’t get over the number of birds here. We saw several that I’d never seen before while on the monitoring run yesterday. The yellow-breasted long-claw was one – his legs and feet are so delicate you wonder how they could support even a cotton ball. Then there was a crested hornbill, whose beak was big, thick and bright, bright orange. And some raptors and shrikes.

I didn’t know about shrikes liking to eat maggots. I remember from my childhood seeing them impaling their prey on thorns, and was told at that time that they would come back and eat the mouse or smaller bird when they got hungry. Apparently that’s not the case. They wait until it’s full of maggots then come and munch on those. Yuck!! I’ll stick to Frito-Lay for snacks.

One bird I’m dying to get a look at hoots all day like an owl. It’s and emerald something-or-other. There are so many new names for me to learn: people, birds, animals, trees, flowers, that I promptly forget them all, and it’s really embarrassing!!

Talking about flowers, I got a good picture I think of an tiny orchid that grows here. Almost looks like our dog toothed violet, but grows up in rotten parts of trees. Really pretty. That’s for you, Mary. I’ll get it up as soon as the equipment is back up and running.

Oh, and something I keep meaning to mention. You know you always see those pictures of African sunsets and everything looks pink?? It really is – no photo enhancement needed. The air around you gets this absolutely magical pink glow that halos the trees and bushes, and it slowly fades through a range of pinks, mauves and oranges, until, suddenly, the sun drops below the horizon and it is dark.

The English text used at my school for Grade 7 (only one copy – of most things) was, I suspect, published in about 1910 and is in bad shape, and has many pages with a big chunk out where a mouse has eaten a hole.

The children come to school after the monthly pay day with toilet paper in their pockets to use as needed. Getting toward the end of the month, there is no more toilet paper and no money to buy any, either. The school doesn’t dare buy it, even if they had the budget, I suspect, because it would disappear too quickly. No hand soap either, just a bottle of disinfectant soap kept locked in the principal’s office for use when someone has a bleeding injury. And kindergarten, Gr1 and Gr2 still have to “go” in the bushes, since shortly after the latrines were built a stray baby goat was playing in them and fell in, and it was quite a rescue operation to get him out – so now they’re afraid that the youngest children might have the same fate.

Another braai tonight. Cait and Sadie leave for England on Sunday, so a big party for them. Parties seem to be a very regular occurrence, for any or no reason – so I guess I might as well get used to it.

Hope Nic and Claire are coming. Haven’t had a chance to talk to Claire again since she kindly loaned me the Zulu/English workbooks that she uses to homeschool her kids.

Anyway, off to do more lesson planning . . .

Good grief! Do you know how loud it sounds when some animal (likely a bushbaby) pees on your tin roof? I was awakened with a start and thought that Niagara Falls had moved into the closet.

Thanks for the support Lise. I have done that – asked them to fill out a timetable so I’ll know what time I should be there and for who and what. But guess what? Bet you won’t be surprised . . . There is no word for timetable in Zulu!

I have gone on a couple game drives – that is wonderful. Just cruising through the bush looking for whatever may be there. I have also done one session of elephant monitoring, but no lion monitoring yet. That will come next week when the other two British girls go home. Letting them have their last bit of fun.

That will just leave one British girl, who is due to leave at the end of the month, and myself. A new volunteer is coming in then too. Also a group of 8 wildlife researchers are coming for one night sometime soon.

Juvenile or female nyala got into the camp today and they are so pretty. Standing just a few feet away from them and talking to them softly while they looked at me with those big eyes and tried to decide whether to run or continue lunch was just great.

Passed a still-steaming pile of elephant spoor this morning while driving Vanessa to the gate, so keeping a sharp eye out for those elephants. The Korando may be a big pile of steel, but still not up to taking on an elephant.

It’s fun driving the 4X4 – the shifting on the wrong side turned out to be easier than I’d thought it would be, once I get the right hand (actually, the left hand <G>) going. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to shift with the right door handle though.

And yesterday I went to lean on the left door as I always do, and darn near fell into the passenger seat. I really have to pay attention. But it is harder when it’s well over 90F. You just get drowsy.

Going elephant monitoring again tomorrow, then over to the school on Friday to see if they’ve done the schedule. If they haven’t I’ll have to go around to each class and get them to sit down with me right then and plan.

I’m planning to go out on a culling trip, and have asked to be able to help field dress the animal. I’ll have to get some clothes I can throw away afterwards, as they likely won’t wash out very well. And I probably won’t want the memories.

But I’ve always said that if you were willing to eat meat that you should be willing to kill and dress it and not wimp out with only sanitary plastic-wrapped dinner where someone else has done the dirty work. Time to put my money where my mouth is . . .

. . . but if I come home a confirmed vegetarian, we just won’t discuss it, OK??