DAY FIVE
I FINALLY GET MY HANDS ON AN AFRICAN BRA…….(AFRICAN BBQ!)
AM
Work for today was shopping (ooh look at all the girls wanting to do volunteer work now), it was DIY shopping (ooh look at all the boys…….). We had to order all the bits and bobs for the jobs we were going to do, this took absolutely ages though. We were buying loads of stuff and my accent wasn’t helping proceedings either, I have a North West England accent, mancunian in all honesty and every now and again I vary it from monotone to mumble. Near most everyone here answers my questions with ’pardon’ or ‘say that again’ first and then provide an answer. I’m just starting to get to grips with speaking differently, I’m still struggling with people from Dumphries village though. Well to be fare, were struggling with each other. The accent is definitely the problem, they’ve learnt or picked up English with S.A dialect and then I come in and turn everything on its head for them. Then I mishear them and then everyone ends up losing their confidence in their own ability to speak English. Things are getting better though.
As well as the DIY we had other things to do including the post and some food shopping, which had me more or less cover Hazyview so I was able to have a good look around the place. One thing that did stick out is that the security guards for the money drops and collections love their machine guns. Big, automatic jobbies, I would have still had a go at getting the money but I’d only get stopped at customs anyway so it seemed pointless! I did get to see some brilliant prezzy ideas, the guys on the side of the road were carving their merchandise as we passed. I’ve got my eye on some ace metal warthogs. Bet my family are reading this thinking ’great, just what I need, a metal warthog in the living room!’ its for me though and it’s the biz.
P.M
Getting back was a bit of a rush, though a more calculated rush as Lindsay was flashed by a copper on the way into town. We were going on a ‘sun downer’ drive with about seven or eight other staff. This was as part of a night of celebrations as Charmane was leaving. She and her boyfriend are moving to a beach lodge in Mozambique. A sun downer is an
afternoon game drive, whilst having a few beers and then finding a great place to watch the sun set. It was brilliant, Carl the General Manager (whom used to be the Head Ranger) did the driving, I was luckily enough to sit in the passenger seat. The passenger seat is probably the worst seat for a game drive really but Carl really knows his onions, he also has loads of enthusiasm for the bush and he’s a good laugh. On that drive I watched two male buffalo (Dagga boys, because of the kind of mud, Dagga, they role in) have a bit of a dominance fight, these guys are weighty and when they smack horns and heads it sounds like a tree being felled, we also saw an elephant meandering about the water, giraffes, zebra and then the reserve dominant male leopard. This time he was sat on a branch about thirty feet up a completely straight trunk’d tree. This I’m told is effortless for him, he got down almost before our eyes and he didn’t make a sound and just sauntered off. When he was up the tree he was sat there with his legs dangling over either side of the branch smelling a kill which was ’miles’ away, remarkable. Another massive bonus was sitting (in the car, otherwise its plane foolish!) about ten feet from a pride of lions. T
he most organised carnivores 
in the reserve and I was lucky enough to just sit watching them for about twenty minutes. When the car started up and we drove by, one jumped up purposefully but not aggressively, while he did that another was showing its huge teeth whilst yawning. Put together, these two definitely equals a squeaky bottom! On the way back to the Brai Carl pointed out a crocodile in the river, unfortunately I missed it. All the people here see things well before me. When Lindsay pointed out the giraffes, baring in mind their size, I nearly had my head up its butt before I saw it.
The sun set was magical. It was slowly setting over the distant mountains, after the flatness of the bush it looked really special, with the silhouette of the trees in its disc. The sky lit up and then, like a stone, it dropped.
That night at the brai every was in good spirits (literally, I bought a litre of whiskey which is now a measure of whiskey) and loads of funny stories of near misses with animals and past times were being told. One ends with the morale ’beware where you choose to have a shit in the bush’. I wont go through it all but it includes some pivotal words ’pants down, lion stalking, pants up, run’. The rest I think you can work out.
I FINALLY GET MY HANDS ON AN AFRICAN BRA…….(AFRICAN BBQ!)
AM
Work for today was shopping (ooh look at all the girls wanting to do volunteer work now), it was DIY shopping (ooh look at all the boys…….). We had to order all the bits and bobs for the jobs we were going to do, this took absolutely ages though. We were buying loads of stuff and my accent wasn’t helping proceedings either, I have a North West England accent, mancunian in all honesty and every now and again I vary it from monotone to mumble. Near most everyone here answers my questions with ’pardon’ or ‘say that again’ first and then provide an answer. I’m just starting to get to grips with speaking differently, I’m still struggling with people from Dumphries village though. Well to be fare, were struggling with each other. The accent is definitely the problem, they’ve learnt or picked up English with S.A dialect and then I come in and turn everything on its head for them. Then I mishear them and then everyone ends up losing their confidence in their own ability to speak English. Things are getting better though.
As well as the DIY we had other things to do including the post and some food shopping, which had me more or less cover Hazyview so I was able to have a good look around the place. One thing that did stick out is that the security guards for the money drops and collections love their machine guns. Big, automatic jobbies, I would have still had a go at getting the money but I’d only get stopped at customs anyway so it seemed pointless! I did get to see some brilliant prezzy ideas, the guys on the side of the road were carving their merchandise as we passed. I’ve got my eye on some ace metal warthogs. Bet my family are reading this thinking ’great, just what I need, a metal warthog in the living room!’ its for me though and it’s the biz.
P.M
Getting back was a bit of a rush, though a more calculated rush as Lindsay was flashed by a copper on the way into town. We were going on a ‘sun downer’ drive with about seven or eight other staff. This was as part of a night of celebrations as Charmane was leaving. She and her boyfriend are moving to a beach lodge in Mozambique. A sun downer is an
afternoon game drive, whilst having a few beers and then finding a great place to watch the sun set. It was brilliant, Carl the General Manager (whom used to be the Head Ranger) did the driving, I was luckily enough to sit in the passenger seat. The passenger seat is probably the worst seat for a game drive really but Carl really knows his onions, he also has loads of enthusiasm for the bush and he’s a good laugh. On that drive I watched two male buffalo (Dagga boys, because of the kind of mud, Dagga, they role in) have a bit of a dominance fight, these guys are weighty and when they smack horns and heads it sounds like a tree being felled, we also saw an elephant meandering about the water, giraffes, zebra and then the reserve dominant male leopard. This time he was sat on a branch about thirty feet up a completely straight trunk’d tree. This I’m told is effortless for him, he got down almost before our eyes and he didn’t make a sound and just sauntered off. When he was up the tree he was sat there with his legs dangling over either side of the branch smelling a kill which was ’miles’ away, remarkable. Another massive bonus was sitting (in the car, otherwise its plane foolish!) about ten feet from a pride of lions. T
he most organised carnivores 
in the reserve and I was lucky enough to just sit watching them for about twenty minutes. When the car started up and we drove by, one jumped up purposefully but not aggressively, while he did that another was showing its huge teeth whilst yawning. Put together, these two definitely equals a squeaky bottom! On the way back to the Brai Carl pointed out a crocodile in the river, unfortunately I missed it. All the people here see things well before me. When Lindsay pointed out the giraffes, baring in mind their size, I nearly had my head up its butt before I saw it.
The sun set was magical. It was slowly setting over the distant mountains, after the flatness of the bush it looked really special, with the silhouette of the trees in its disc. The sky lit up and then, like a stone, it dropped.
That night at the brai every was in good spirits (literally, I bought a litre of whiskey which is now a measure of whiskey) and loads of funny stories of near misses with animals and past times were being told. One ends with the morale ’beware where you choose to have a shit in the bush’. I wont go through it all but it includes some pivotal words ’pants down, lion stalking, pants up, run’. The rest I think you can work out.
No comments:
Post a Comment