Camping

Hitting the Road

Tomorrow morning I am leaving the farm and hitting the road for a 10 day camping trip around Namibia. I'm not planning on taking my laptop and modem so I probably won't be updating my blog again until I get back to San Francisco on November 18.

Savaged by the cheetah

I do enjoy the occasional sensationalist headline. Okay, so it wasn’t me who was savaged by the cheetah. And when I say “savaged”, I mean he was scratched enough to bleed. And when I say “bleed” I don’t mean pouring blood, more like a bit of oozing blood. But it was the cheetah that caused the bleeding scratches, so technically . . . . . . .

I was walking to school yesterday when I saw the office manager followed by one of the guests heading towards to laundry room where they keep the first-

aide kit. I noticed that the guest’s clothes were torn, so I stopped to find out what the problem was. The guest had bleeding scratches all over his legs and arms. He said he had been taking the cheetah for a walk when it had attacked him. He seemed to be in a jolly mood about it “look, I got attacked by a cheetah, isn’t that cool”. From a health and safety standpoint I was a little bit more concerned. I had finally taken the cheetah for a walk the day before (see photos below) and the big cat had gnawed a bit at my lower leg but didn’t put enough oomph into it to break the skin. I must say it was a bit of a troubling experience to have a cheetah gnawing at my leg, but in my case she seemed to be just playing around. Although, it would have been a great badge of courage to have a cheetah scar. Nothing disfiguring, just something I could whip out at dinner parties to make myself sound interesting. Alas, no luck. I asked Stoffle (who takes the cheetah walking every morning and evening) what had happened. Had the guest done something stupid like trying to hug the cheetah? His answer was “no, the cheetah just went after him. Maybe she didn’t like him.” Of course the cheetah attack was a hot topic of conversation over dinner. The cheetah seems to have just lunged at him again and again. He had defensive wounds all over his arms including one nasty puncture wound in his forearm from the cheetah’s dewclaw. While the cheetah had his jaws clasped around the guest’s forearm, the guest had the presence of mind (strangely) to grab his camera in his other hand, hold it at arms length and snap a really cool photo of the cheetah’s mouth attached to his arm. One of the other guests on the campsite had seen the attack happen. She hadn’t realized it was a “tame, pet cheetah” and had seen the big cat run at the unsuspecting man. She had yelled “watch out behind you” and become hysterical as she watched the attack unfold. Apparently it had been quite a scene. All the guests sign a disclaimer when they check into the guest house saying that they recognize there are dangerous animals on the farm and they take full responsibility for their own safely. The three-legged cheetah’s name is Circa and she was hand raised from a cub and probably isn’t full sized yet. Someone needs to decide when this animal is finally getting too big and dangerous to be unrestrained around the guests! I only have two more days left at the farm. I guess it’s not going to be my problem.

Bartending African Style

Patting the three-legged cheetah

Tales from a Namibian Classroom

Denzel’s first words of English seem to be “No chickens in class.

” Every day, at some point, and maybe as many as 10 times a day, chickens seem to think the classroom is a good place to get out of the sun. Whenever we see a chicken in the threshold, the tradition is to turn around, wave our arms wildly and yell “no chickens in class!” Denzel has taken to jumping up and chasing them away with arms flailing and a big grin on his face squeaking “no chickens in class! No chickens!!!!” At least I’ve taught him something. If nothing else, he’ll make a fine security guard when he grows up. All last week the class kept breaking out into a chorus of “Happy birthday three you”. It sounded so hilarious I didn’t have the heart to correct them. Eventually I found out it was Vivian’s 4th birthday. Yesterday Vivian turned up to class an hour late looking like she had been on a three day birthday bender. She was looking groggy and disoriented. She was wearing a ski jacket and boots which was very odd considering it was 100 degrees F outside. Her face was covered in dirt and her very crusty clothes hadn’t been changed for at least three days. In her little fist she was clutching a high caliber bullet – the type that is used to bring down big game. If she had been 15 years older, my suspicions would have been “I just woke up after three days of drinking and drugs and found my lover shot dead next to me.” However, considering she is 4 years old and her mother just had a new baby last week, I’m guessing her mother is a little overwhelmed right now and poor Vivian isn’t getting much sleep either with the new baby crying. Goodness only knows where she got the bullet, but she didn’t fuss when I insisted she hand it over to me. I put it up on a high shelf where the kiddies can’t get to it. The classroom is about 100 feet from the leopard enclosure. Sometimes we can see Rex the leopard up in his tree from our windows. He just hangs there in the branches looking like a big stuffed animal. Of course he is enclosed with an electric fence, so maybe that’s why he doesn’t look too frightening. Leopards are dangerous predators. So I wasn’t too surprised when the children jumped up last week, went to the windows and yelled “Leopard”. I went to have a look, but I couldn’t see Rex in his tree. The kids insisted and kept pointing. I know there are also free roaming leopards on the farm, but they are pretty stealthy and wouldn’t come so close to the houses. Yet the kids just kept insisting and dragged me outside. There, about 20 feet from the kindergarten, they pointed out leopard prints in the sand. Now, I wouldn’t know a leopard print from a dog’s print so maybe they were pulling my leg. Still, I could console myself that little Denzel (who would holding my hand and looking up at me all worried with his big brown eyes) would make much easier prey than big old me. Not that I was really planning on throwing Denzel to the leopard. In all reality, the leopard (if it was indeed a leopard and not a figment of the kids’ imagination) would certainly go for a chicken first.