Dec 15-17
Northern and southern Namibia are divided by a 3 m fence, designed to prevent Foot and Mouth Disease from moving with livestock or wild animals. In colonial times (20 years ago), when Namibia was still Southwest Africa, whites owned enormous cattle ranches in the arid southern region and were able to export cattle free of FMD; blacks had communal land where rainfall was higher north of the fence, but per capita land area was small. This pattern still largely holds, although the government is attempting redistribution of land through a “willing seller, willing buyer” program: the government buys farms when they are up for sale and selects new black owners. We’ve crossed the fence northward a couple of times en route to seeing elephants, crocs, and hippos in Chobe National Park (Botswana) with Alan’s older kids, and to pick up day-old chicks for our class experiment at the Polytechnic. But in mid-December we had an altogether different experience of the fence, as we spent several days living right next to it.
Uapindi Kazahe, one of our students at the Polytechnic, grew up literally just north of the fence as it wends its way westward through mountains to the edge of the Namib Desert. When his exams ended, he joined us for 3 weeks on the coast – he had never even seen the ocean before. Then we visited his home when we dropped him off. It was a profoundly interesting experience. Traveling with Uapindi gave us a much more intimate and authentic interaction with rural black Namibians than at any time during our year here. We had lunch with an older man who walked across a rugged rocky landscape on bare feet the size of dinner plates, and who had never before had a meal with a white person – he almost refused to join us, because his previous experience with whites involved beatings. Uapindi translated (the man spoke a home language and Afrikaans, but not English) and also indicated that he had some of the best natural history knowledge in the entire area.
To reach Uapindi’s mother’s house, we turned off the “main” dirt road onto a winding track that passed through the fence at a small border crossing, then entered a stunning valley of always-flowing water and giant makalani palms before branching back up the hill to the half-dozen stick-and-manure houses at our destination. The area is part of a locally-managed conservancy that stretches from the fence north along the western edge of Etosha National Park – Hobatere Lodge, where we traveled with my parents in June, sits in the middle, although we’re not sure if their concession is from the government or from the conservancy. Every km or so was another group of houses. Uapindi’s mother has some 40 cattle and 30 goats and lives in a Himba culture where a person’s wealth is measured in animals (primarily cattle) – by this metric, she is quite well-off and can sell some cows each year (albeit at a lower price because she’s north of the fence) for other purchases. Still, among the half-dozen adults and dozen kids, there was not a single writing instrument, book or ball. We had anticipated that this would be a place to make a difference while we lightened our load of luggage for the return to the U.S.: we left books, pens, balls, cots, camp chairs, sleeping bags, tent, and food. (Uapindi recommended flour, sugar, tea, macaroni, and biscuits [cookies], plus a bag of sweets to hand out to kids. Wherever we have traveled in rural Namibia, gifts of store-bought food have been really appreciated.) In return, a goat was slaughtered for our visit, Uapindi’s grandmother gave me a necklace that she had carved herself, with the distinctive orange color and earthy scent of traditional Himba women, who paint themselves with a concoction partly made of that wood, and we were offered a cow on departure!
The fence provides dramatic results of an unreplicated experiment: on the south side, where few people live close by, the grass is tall and starting to green with summer rain, and the shrubs are full and diverse. On the north side, the ground is rocky and bare, with just a slight wash of green as grasses germinate. It’s clear evidence of the importance of herbivores (from an ecologist’s perspective), and obvious overgrazing (from an agriculturalist’s). The goats and even cows slip through holes in the double fence and graze on the non-FMD side, herded back to their home kraals in the evening. But even with this semi-permeable barrier, the difference in vegetation between the two sides is perpetually evident. The cows also have easy access to the stream of running water – although older water diversions and tanks indicate that stock may have been watered differently in the past, presumably on a larger farm with more infrastructure investment. So the water is eutrophic and smelly. The Red Cross has installed several water pumps for people to use – for instance, every 2 or 3 days, water is fetched by hand at Uapindi’s mother’s house. On an afternoon donkey cart ride down the river, Katie and I drank water from one of these pumps and spent the next day with crummy tummies and diarrhea (fortunately, we were traveling back roads to our next stop at Etosha, so we could stop the car at a moment’s notice in relative privacy). Alan wisely avoided the water. I guess I had become too accustomed to clean water from Namibia’s taps, plus was assured that water was clean and abundant, and believed in the filtering power of soil – anyway, it wasn’t a pleasant result, but could have been a lot worse. The donkey cart ride itself was an experience, with a harness constructed of bits of tire and wire, some chain and metal poles. We had a flat tire on the way, where we learned the “African way” of fixing a flat – on the tube in the tubeless tire, take a handful around the puncture and wrap with a strip of rubber cut from another tube! The 3 small donkeys suffered from this rig, plus carrying 6 people in an unbalanced cart through gullies and over rocky ground. They were fast on the downhill, but I preferred to walk the last stretch.
We observed but didn’t understand the cultural quilt in this area: it’s Damaraland, so many Damara people, but some Himbas interspersed with more cattle than goats, and San people doing most of the work.
We left Uapindi with professorial admonitions to put his theoretical agriculture knowledge to work: this past year, he has learned to calculate stocking densities, build a chicken coop and balance rations to improve chicken production (the chickens roosted in trees at night and had a high rooster:hen ratio), and design a better donkey harness. All of these ideas, put into practice, should raise the health and well-being of the plants and animals in the region. But, of course, they also take some time and capital investment.
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Treesleeper
Here’s the story I wrote for Katie’s cousin Tess, who turns 3 one week later than Katie. One day, Katie drove with her family down a long road through dust and heat. At last they reached the forest of the Treesleepers. There, everyone walked quietly, listening to the news of the wind and sucking on dry sweet berries picked from the bushes. In the dark, kids danced and clapped and sang around a leaping fire. Katie’s family slept in a tree that night, just as the Bushmen had done to protect their hunt from lions so long ago. The next morning, 2 girls appeared out of the bush: we bought a hat as a birthday present and gave them each an apple. From an old carver, we bought a family of elephants. The orange one is of Tamboti, the Treesleepers’ tree.
The real story is almost that magical: Treesleeper now ranks at the top of our list of places to stay in Namibia. Check out www.treesleeper.org if you’re ever going to be in that neck of the woods with a tent – or even if you’re not, because the pictures are evocative.
It came as a surprise to me to learn that the !Kung are not the only Bushmen in Africa, contrary to what I’d learned from National Geographic and the like. In fact, there are at least 5 San (Bushmen) ethnic groups in Namibia, each speaking a click language so distinct that the groups often cannot understand each other. These groups traditionally differed in their distribution and also their degree of nomadism. All, however, had adapted culturally to survive in areas of incredibly low rainfall, knowing not just natural water points and edible succulents, but remembering where ostrich eggs filled with water had been buried, or reading the news of water in paintings left on rocks by previous travelers. They hunted with small bows that were effective primarily because of poison arrows – the array of poisonous plant species offers a wealth of possibilities. The Hei//omn group lived in northern Namibia, where Tamboti trees are sparsely distributed: these are relatively tall, with no lower branches and a Y-split in the trunk big enough to hold a person out of reach of predators. If a hunter killed game late in the day or far from camp, he could haul it into a tamboti tree and himself afterwards. Sometimes the hunters would prop poles with pegs against the trunk for easier climbing. Somewhat safer in the tree, they could sleep, or at least survive through the night: Hei//omn means Treesleeper. Just beyond living memory, San hunters walked 150 km from Okaukuejo to Namutoni, areas that are now resorts within Etosha National Park. The eviction letter for the San came when the park was established in 1907. For a hundred years, their hunting and gathering existence slowly eroded – when land is off-limits or private, a nomadic culture is squeezed out. Some San were hired on farms (we heard stories of farmers promising food and income to willing workers, then bringing them to a new place from which they could not easily return home, and not following through). Some worked as exceptional trackers for the South African army during the 1980s independence struggle (which may explain current discrimination from other ethnic groups). Some have been jailed for poaching on private land (killing a cow is apparently a much more serious offence than killing a kudu, regardless of whose land). At independence in 1990, the village of Tsintsabis, perhaps 100 km east of Etosha, was opened for “resettlement” of people with no land of their own and so is largely composed of San inhabitants. Housing construction has been borrowed from ethnic groups to the north – San people never used to make thatch roofs or reinforce walls with cowdung/ termite mound clay. So has basketry – palm fronds from the Makalani are woven for laundry containers or food storage. Each year, maize seeds are distributed for planting – at this time of year, it was difficult to judge the success, although the harvest was reported to be high. There were village chickens, but not laying (chickens are non-ruminants, so we immediately began trying to diagnose the egg problem, or at least trying to dispel the myth that a rooster was required to get eggs). A program of providing 2 goats per family to start herds had a short-term result of increasing goat meat in the village diet, but a similar program for cows (starting with fewer families, and requiring “repayment” in the form of passing along cows to the next family) seemed to be a bit more successful. Still, the older people in the village wondered what was the point of agriculture when the bush still held so much food that was simply there for the taking.
We took advantage of every opportunity offered at Treesleeper to learn about history and culture: We walked to the village with a guide, bringing some food as a thank-you present to the families that met with us. We walked through the bush with a guide, learning some of the plants that were traditionally used and watching in amazement as a twirling stick turned into fire in a matter of minutes. We saw a set of dances performed by teenagers who are part of the Traditional Dance group at their school in town – we only wished there had been a CD available of their clapping and singing, because it was some of the best music we’ve heard in Namibia. Maybe it helps if you’ve walked down a long, winding trail in the dark and into a clearing of firelight, huts, and smiling faces. We slept in trees. Okay, well, Abby and Teddy pitched their tent on the 10-foot platform built against a strangler fig. Katie, Alan and I still slept in the Kombi. Also in contrast to the original Treesleepers, we had a private flush (!) toilet and hot shower (solar heater thoughtfully donated by the US ambassador).
Treesleeper is entirely run by San – most seem in their mid-20s and are computer-savvy and exceptionally good with tourists. We enjoyed the staff immensely. The design and implementation of the camp were apparently facilitated by a visiting graduate student (wow!) in anthropology, who helped turn an idea into a business plan worthy of financial support from the Dutch government. Large groups of young people from overseas (we’ve encountered several that we’d never heard of before: Raleigh International, World Challenge…) helped build the campsites. The camp had about 600 visitors in 2007, which looks to be doubling this year. In general, Namibia is recognized as a world leader in Community-based Natural Resources Management, which has empowered local groups to diversify their activities and therefore strengthen the economic return from their (otherwise arid, pretty unproductive) land. Community rest camps or campsites are a prime example, because they attract tourists. Tourists go places where they can see wildlife and striking natural features. So, communities shift emphasis towards conservation of natural resources, rather than just using land to grow sheep, cows, and goats. Treesleeper Camp has carved out a different sort of niche: this has been necessary because, in fact, this community has not been granted conservancy land, but only a lease on 10 ha. Against all odds, Treesleeper has emerged as a luxury camp with this tourist attraction: the opportunity to visit a cultural group, not as a voyeur or spectator, but as a participant in their development.
The real story is almost that magical: Treesleeper now ranks at the top of our list of places to stay in Namibia. Check out www.treesleeper.org if you’re ever going to be in that neck of the woods with a tent – or even if you’re not, because the pictures are evocative.
It came as a surprise to me to learn that the !Kung are not the only Bushmen in Africa, contrary to what I’d learned from National Geographic and the like. In fact, there are at least 5 San (Bushmen) ethnic groups in Namibia, each speaking a click language so distinct that the groups often cannot understand each other. These groups traditionally differed in their distribution and also their degree of nomadism. All, however, had adapted culturally to survive in areas of incredibly low rainfall, knowing not just natural water points and edible succulents, but remembering where ostrich eggs filled with water had been buried, or reading the news of water in paintings left on rocks by previous travelers. They hunted with small bows that were effective primarily because of poison arrows – the array of poisonous plant species offers a wealth of possibilities. The Hei//omn group lived in northern Namibia, where Tamboti trees are sparsely distributed: these are relatively tall, with no lower branches and a Y-split in the trunk big enough to hold a person out of reach of predators. If a hunter killed game late in the day or far from camp, he could haul it into a tamboti tree and himself afterwards. Sometimes the hunters would prop poles with pegs against the trunk for easier climbing. Somewhat safer in the tree, they could sleep, or at least survive through the night: Hei//omn means Treesleeper. Just beyond living memory, San hunters walked 150 km from Okaukuejo to Namutoni, areas that are now resorts within Etosha National Park. The eviction letter for the San came when the park was established in 1907. For a hundred years, their hunting and gathering existence slowly eroded – when land is off-limits or private, a nomadic culture is squeezed out. Some San were hired on farms (we heard stories of farmers promising food and income to willing workers, then bringing them to a new place from which they could not easily return home, and not following through). Some worked as exceptional trackers for the South African army during the 1980s independence struggle (which may explain current discrimination from other ethnic groups). Some have been jailed for poaching on private land (killing a cow is apparently a much more serious offence than killing a kudu, regardless of whose land). At independence in 1990, the village of Tsintsabis, perhaps 100 km east of Etosha, was opened for “resettlement” of people with no land of their own and so is largely composed of San inhabitants. Housing construction has been borrowed from ethnic groups to the north – San people never used to make thatch roofs or reinforce walls with cowdung/ termite mound clay. So has basketry – palm fronds from the Makalani are woven for laundry containers or food storage. Each year, maize seeds are distributed for planting – at this time of year, it was difficult to judge the success, although the harvest was reported to be high. There were village chickens, but not laying (chickens are non-ruminants, so we immediately began trying to diagnose the egg problem, or at least trying to dispel the myth that a rooster was required to get eggs). A program of providing 2 goats per family to start herds had a short-term result of increasing goat meat in the village diet, but a similar program for cows (starting with fewer families, and requiring “repayment” in the form of passing along cows to the next family) seemed to be a bit more successful. Still, the older people in the village wondered what was the point of agriculture when the bush still held so much food that was simply there for the taking.
We took advantage of every opportunity offered at Treesleeper to learn about history and culture: We walked to the village with a guide, bringing some food as a thank-you present to the families that met with us. We walked through the bush with a guide, learning some of the plants that were traditionally used and watching in amazement as a twirling stick turned into fire in a matter of minutes. We saw a set of dances performed by teenagers who are part of the Traditional Dance group at their school in town – we only wished there had been a CD available of their clapping and singing, because it was some of the best music we’ve heard in Namibia. Maybe it helps if you’ve walked down a long, winding trail in the dark and into a clearing of firelight, huts, and smiling faces. We slept in trees. Okay, well, Abby and Teddy pitched their tent on the 10-foot platform built against a strangler fig. Katie, Alan and I still slept in the Kombi. Also in contrast to the original Treesleepers, we had a private flush (!) toilet and hot shower (solar heater thoughtfully donated by the US ambassador).
Treesleeper is entirely run by San – most seem in their mid-20s and are computer-savvy and exceptionally good with tourists. We enjoyed the staff immensely. The design and implementation of the camp were apparently facilitated by a visiting graduate student (wow!) in anthropology, who helped turn an idea into a business plan worthy of financial support from the Dutch government. Large groups of young people from overseas (we’ve encountered several that we’d never heard of before: Raleigh International, World Challenge…) helped build the campsites. The camp had about 600 visitors in 2007, which looks to be doubling this year. In general, Namibia is recognized as a world leader in Community-based Natural Resources Management, which has empowered local groups to diversify their activities and therefore strengthen the economic return from their (otherwise arid, pretty unproductive) land. Community rest camps or campsites are a prime example, because they attract tourists. Tourists go places where they can see wildlife and striking natural features. So, communities shift emphasis towards conservation of natural resources, rather than just using land to grow sheep, cows, and goats. Treesleeper Camp has carved out a different sort of niche: this has been necessary because, in fact, this community has not been granted conservancy land, but only a lease on 10 ha. Against all odds, Treesleeper has emerged as a luxury camp with this tourist attraction: the opportunity to visit a cultural group, not as a voyeur or spectator, but as a participant in their development.
Monday, June 16, 2008
African elephant encounters
The morning had been filled with wildlife – Etosha National Park was certainly living up to its reputation. We’d seen herds of zebra, hordes of springbok, countless oryx/gemsbok, wildebeest, and some of the less common antelope – steenbok, impala, hartebeest, dik-dik. We saw a male kudu with two full twists to its horns send mud flying into the air, probably trying to reduce its insect issues at a small pothole. The birds had also raised our admiration: iridescent blue and violet rollers, stately bustards, a pale chanting goshawk with unbelievably orange legs and beak. Nevertheless, my dad commented, “I’m ready to see an elephant.”
So, when some of the dark shapes that we spotted across a broad grassy/dusty plain looked like they had ears and trunks, we all got pretty excited. Looking at the map, we could guess that our paths might intersect.
Indeed, a few km down the road, after a deliberate right turn, we saw a large elephant ahead of us on the road. (Okay, “large” is an adjective that doesn’t really need to be associated with elephant – it sort of goes without saying.) Alan said, “I’ll just shut off the Kombi here and we’ll watch it.” Well, an elephant has a slow walking cadence, but it covers a lot of distance fast. In just a short time, we could begin picking out the details – missing most of both tusks, a hole in the top of the left ear, slightly incontinent dribbling pee as it walked. The zebras in the foreground hustled out of the way. And still the elephant strided towards us down the road. Every so often, it snuffled its trunk on the ground, picking up dust and blowing it onto its sides or underneath, bothered by bugs. Apparently it wasn’t aware of Namibian traffic laws, as it was on our side of the road. The footsteps of an elephant crunch sonorously on gravel, measured and inexorable. About 20 feet in front of us, it stopped. We had long since started to get a little nervous. My mom rolled up the window on the passenger side. The elephant waved its ears a little, but perhaps not as much as I had been led to believe signaled threat. Then it shifted its position to pass us on our right – no one moved except to close the windows on that side as well. It stopped even with Alan in the driver’s seat, its eye level above the roof rack. Some time recently I had paged through the mammal field guide and exclaimed about the weight of a large bull. Alan had done a back-of-the-envelope calculation that it was 17 times more massive than the Kombi! I remembered that now. I also began wondering how I could best protect Katie, who was unusually quiet in my lap, in the event of a roll-over: no one had their seatbelts on. I had the impression of an enormous curtain of deep grey wrinkles right outside the window. It wound its trunk around and fanned its ears. Then it continued on. Whew! We let out a collective sigh of relief and giggled a little. But the adrenalin rush wasn’t over yet: I looked around behind to find that the elephant had turned and stopped, facing the Kombi directly behind us. Again, we waited, barely daring to breathe. Was it looking at us with irritation or perplexity? Had we posed a challenge, parked in its way, or was it simply trying to figure out the dimensions of this large new rock? It reached out its trunk and touched the back of the vehicle, then turned and walked away.
When we checked later, we found dried dust mixed with nose snot, in a 6-inch line on the back window.
Other notable events of the day: 4 other dusty elephants, taking a well-worn path through the savannah; 2 lions by the road, including a young male who climbed out of the culvert to pee right in front of us; jackals in camp, waiting for something to happen at the waterholes, in yipping choruses of high wails all around; lightning to the north the night we stayed at Numatomi, and more unseasonable rain; surprising diversity of vegetation types, from grassland to thick thorn to almost aspen-like copses of small trees; Etosha pan simply full of water, appearing as vast as the ocean in a 180 degree arc from some viewpoints.
Our 2nd elephant encounter occurred when a tuskless male (but not the one near our Kombi – different distinguishing marks!) visited the Okaukuejo waterhole one evening when we were there. He spent a lot of time fanning himself with his ears and standing with his bottom facing the crowd!
Our 3rd elephant encounter was en route from Palmwag to Brandberg: Desert elephants!!! 8 on one side of the road, uprooting bushes and making low rumbling sounds; 4 on the other side, who eventually ran down a gully and across, trumpeting at the other group. There were elephants of all sizes- but, of course, all very large!
So, when some of the dark shapes that we spotted across a broad grassy/dusty plain looked like they had ears and trunks, we all got pretty excited. Looking at the map, we could guess that our paths might intersect.
Indeed, a few km down the road, after a deliberate right turn, we saw a large elephant ahead of us on the road. (Okay, “large” is an adjective that doesn’t really need to be associated with elephant – it sort of goes without saying.) Alan said, “I’ll just shut off the Kombi here and we’ll watch it.” Well, an elephant has a slow walking cadence, but it covers a lot of distance fast. In just a short time, we could begin picking out the details – missing most of both tusks, a hole in the top of the left ear, slightly incontinent dribbling pee as it walked. The zebras in the foreground hustled out of the way. And still the elephant strided towards us down the road. Every so often, it snuffled its trunk on the ground, picking up dust and blowing it onto its sides or underneath, bothered by bugs. Apparently it wasn’t aware of Namibian traffic laws, as it was on our side of the road. The footsteps of an elephant crunch sonorously on gravel, measured and inexorable. About 20 feet in front of us, it stopped. We had long since started to get a little nervous. My mom rolled up the window on the passenger side. The elephant waved its ears a little, but perhaps not as much as I had been led to believe signaled threat. Then it shifted its position to pass us on our right – no one moved except to close the windows on that side as well. It stopped even with Alan in the driver’s seat, its eye level above the roof rack. Some time recently I had paged through the mammal field guide and exclaimed about the weight of a large bull. Alan had done a back-of-the-envelope calculation that it was 17 times more massive than the Kombi! I remembered that now. I also began wondering how I could best protect Katie, who was unusually quiet in my lap, in the event of a roll-over: no one had their seatbelts on. I had the impression of an enormous curtain of deep grey wrinkles right outside the window. It wound its trunk around and fanned its ears. Then it continued on. Whew! We let out a collective sigh of relief and giggled a little. But the adrenalin rush wasn’t over yet: I looked around behind to find that the elephant had turned and stopped, facing the Kombi directly behind us. Again, we waited, barely daring to breathe. Was it looking at us with irritation or perplexity? Had we posed a challenge, parked in its way, or was it simply trying to figure out the dimensions of this large new rock? It reached out its trunk and touched the back of the vehicle, then turned and walked away.
When we checked later, we found dried dust mixed with nose snot, in a 6-inch line on the back window.
Other notable events of the day: 4 other dusty elephants, taking a well-worn path through the savannah; 2 lions by the road, including a young male who climbed out of the culvert to pee right in front of us; jackals in camp, waiting for something to happen at the waterholes, in yipping choruses of high wails all around; lightning to the north the night we stayed at Numatomi, and more unseasonable rain; surprising diversity of vegetation types, from grassland to thick thorn to almost aspen-like copses of small trees; Etosha pan simply full of water, appearing as vast as the ocean in a 180 degree arc from some viewpoints.
Our 2nd elephant encounter occurred when a tuskless male (but not the one near our Kombi – different distinguishing marks!) visited the Okaukuejo waterhole one evening when we were there. He spent a lot of time fanning himself with his ears and standing with his bottom facing the crowd!
Our 3rd elephant encounter was en route from Palmwag to Brandberg: Desert elephants!!! 8 on one side of the road, uprooting bushes and making low rumbling sounds; 4 on the other side, who eventually ran down a gully and across, trumpeting at the other group. There were elephants of all sizes- but, of course, all very large!
Mother and Father in Namibia
Mother’s Day to Father’s Day: JR’s parents spent these holidays on day-long journeys from Bloomington, Indiana, USA to Windhoek, Namibia and back. Maybe that’s why this itinerary was still relatively cheap when they decided to take this opportunity to visit Africa for the first time. In between, 12-15 May in Windhoek; 15-24 May at the salt ponds in Swakopmund; 25 May-3 June on a northward loop that included Etosha National Park; 3-6 June at the salt ponds in Swakopmund; 7-8 June at Gobabeb desert research center for their Open Day; 8-12 June on a loop south that included Namib-Naukluft National Park and Namib-Rand Nature Reserve; 13-14 June back in Windhoek. They celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary in the middle of the Namib Desert, the oldest desert on earth, and the driest area of sub-Saharan Africa! Just a year or 2 shy of 70, Albert and Kathy nevertheless embraced African-style camping. For more than a month, they slept in a tent (okay, it was a pretty big tent [3x3 m, plenty of standing room], with cots and pads)! They packed and moved effortlessly from one campground to another, some more rustic than others: at one extreme, the pit toilet at the Salt Company was a half-mile away; at the other extreme, some of the camping sites had individual power and light, flush toilets and warm showers, and special rooms for doing dishes. Although we promised them laundry access at least once a week, in fact we never made it to a Laundromat, and they ended up washing most clothes by hand. And they didn’t bring any extra baggage – just one carry-on apiece, plus one small checked bag that mostly included books and clothes for Katie and some biology textbooks. They were wonderful traveling companions, and we will be forever grateful for this strong connection that they’ve forged through discovery with their granddaughter, and for this opportunity for us to explore parts of Namibia that we would otherwise have been too busy to visit.
Funniest things they said on the trip: Mom, en route from Windhoek to the salt ponds on the coast: “Is that a real giraffe?” Yes, indeed, 4 of them – the first of many that we watched over the next month. They really do look other-worldly, with their long necks sticking up above the bushy vegetation of this arid land. Probably, you’ve all seen pictures of giraffes spreading their front legs to be able to stretch down to drink water, but did you know that they hop their feet back together when they’re done? Dad, while on the dirt road circumference around Namibia’s tallest mountain, Brandberg: “Could you stop a minute? I think I just saw a Welwitschia.” In fact, along that stretch of desert road, there were hundreds of these curious plants, with their two leaves that grow perpetually from a low woody trunk, sporting small male or larger female cones. Apparently Namibia has NO native gymnosperms – is this weird, or what! Especially coming from the Pacific Northwest, which is chock-a-block full of conifers! – and Welwitschia is the closest it gets!
The trip was also book-ended by two critical meetings at the Polytechnic of Namibia. It is with a great deal of relief that we report that JR’s “baby”- the new Agriculture and Aquaculture programs- passed at the school-level on May 9 and passed at the university-level on June 13! Woo-hoo! Well, the curriculum development aspects of the Fulbright year are not entirely complete, as JR will now coordinate the development of a new BSc in Applied Biology across several schools, and AT continues to advise on the development of the Namibian Business Innovation Center.
Funniest things they said on the trip: Mom, en route from Windhoek to the salt ponds on the coast: “Is that a real giraffe?” Yes, indeed, 4 of them – the first of many that we watched over the next month. They really do look other-worldly, with their long necks sticking up above the bushy vegetation of this arid land. Probably, you’ve all seen pictures of giraffes spreading their front legs to be able to stretch down to drink water, but did you know that they hop their feet back together when they’re done? Dad, while on the dirt road circumference around Namibia’s tallest mountain, Brandberg: “Could you stop a minute? I think I just saw a Welwitschia.” In fact, along that stretch of desert road, there were hundreds of these curious plants, with their two leaves that grow perpetually from a low woody trunk, sporting small male or larger female cones. Apparently Namibia has NO native gymnosperms – is this weird, or what! Especially coming from the Pacific Northwest, which is chock-a-block full of conifers! – and Welwitschia is the closest it gets!
The trip was also book-ended by two critical meetings at the Polytechnic of Namibia. It is with a great deal of relief that we report that JR’s “baby”- the new Agriculture and Aquaculture programs- passed at the school-level on May 9 and passed at the university-level on June 13! Woo-hoo! Well, the curriculum development aspects of the Fulbright year are not entirely complete, as JR will now coordinate the development of a new BSc in Applied Biology across several schools, and AT continues to advise on the development of the Namibian Business Innovation Center.
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