To Have and Have Not – Part 2

I guess this is kind of a follow up post on the one I wrote earlier on the gap in wealth that we see in South Africa.

We hire a group of guys in their mid 20’s to come help us with some of the manual labor on the project as well as some data collection during the field season. Most of them have kids and support their extended families of 6-7 people. They don’t have regular work and our periodic employment is often their only income as the unemployment rate in communities outside the park boundaries often reaches 50% and upwards.

I just returned from taking our work crew back to their houses outside the park in Welverdiend. Welverdiend is a township just outside of the Kruger Park boundary. It is, I imagine, what most of us think of when we think of rural Africa. Cinderblock and stick houses. Log fences for animals. Cattle with their ribs showing. But they do have a school, clinic, soccer field, and some small shops. Wisani, our crew leader who is quite well spoken and intelligent despite what I can imagine is little schooling, was quizzing me on the price of plane tickets to and from America, the cost of renting our truck for our field work, the price of basic staples in America, etc. There was general amazement amongst the crew as to how much money much of the things I take for granted actually cost. For example, a round trip plane ticket from America to South Africa costs approximately $2000 or 14000 South Africa Rand. Wisani can feed his whole family of 6 for about $45 or 300 South African Rand a month. So for the price of my plane ticket to South Africa to chase zebra around the savanna, I could feed three families of 6 in South Africa for a year. Makes you realize that we have the monetary means to end hunger in pretty much every corner of the globe if we only had the motivation.

Lovin’ the Mud

There is definitely a love-hate relationship with rain. I love the rain because it makes temperatures down right bearable, makes the plants grow, and generally makes me happy. There is nothing like a good storm to cleanse the soul and make you feel like part of the earth. The hate part of the relationship comes with the lack of work that gets done after a good rain. Mud is the enemy here because few of the roads are paved and after a good rain many of the roads are impassable, at least in critical places. As I’ve written about previously, rain and mud lead to adventuresome field work http://underwater-superhero.blogspot.com/2007/04/muddin-south-african-style-when-you-are.html. Being a wetter year so far this year, it seems that we will lose our fair share of field work to rain and the muck it leaves behind. So its no surprise the first mud-vehicle interaction this year was a doozie. Last week we were out for a night survey on some of our plots farthest from camp. We do night surveys so that we can compare the distribution of herbivores on our experimental plots during the day and night – we see quiet a few elephants during the night and few during the day. Plus, we see all sorts of cool creatures like porcupines, civets, genets, and African wild cats.

Anyway, we were down on the Marheya string of plots and I decide try to make it through a section of the fire break that usually gives us problems after the rain. I don’t know why I tried to go through because I almost always avoid it even if it hasn’t rained for weeks. But I did, and predictably, we got stuck. Not just throw-it-in-4-wheel-drive-and-power-out stuck, I mean STUCK. So there we are at night, out of cell phone range, no where near a paved road, and horribly stuck in the mud – without a rifle to guard against the night time critters. My first thought after looking at the tires was “We are sleeping in the bush tonight.” But, determined not to sleep in the bush, three of us pushed while the fourth rocked the truck back and forth. We put down logs, stones, grass, anything to get some traction for the tires. For the first few minutes, it was more like a little bit of pushing and lots of looking around for that leopard that was going to appear out of nowhere. After 15 minutes of no progress in getting unstuck, it was all pushing and no looking. We lost sandals in the mud, got pummeled by thorns, and generally looked like tar babies…but after about 30 minutes the truck spun free (I fell face first into the mud) and we celebrated with a gin and tonic and by using all the drinking water we had to wash Kruger off our bodies. We spent the rest of the night driving around looking for lions, having fun, and staying on paved roads.

This is the South Africa that I am used to. The temperature is slowly creeping towards 40 today – that’s Celsius or 104 F. Luckily field work wasn’t of the essence today so I have spent the day reading in the shade, sitting in the pool, and now working on my computer in our little office which now has a portable AC unit. Grated that it is still 85 in here with the AC cranking full blast, but at least its not 104. It makes writing possible because my brain just doesn’t function when it gets this hot. And it pretty much has to function now as I’m churning through job application after application. Yes, it is the academic job season now. All the universities are teasing us with descriptions of fantastic biology and ecology jobs with our names on them. Just like the Christmas season except the academic job season leaves you feeling hollow and disappointed. Well, maybe Christmas leaves you feeling like that too, but that’s a different post. So I’ve spent the last several weeks either in the field repairing damage to our fences from that damnable rhino or writing about the many wonderful experiments I would do at University X if they would only give me the chance and hire me. So far its been a hard process as I’m not the best at selling myself. But it has made me slow down and think about what I want to accomplish in science and how I want to accomplish it.

Field work has been rather routine lately. That is except for the day that my fellow post-doc on the project chased after a rhino. No I don’t have that backwards the rhino didn’t chase him, he chased after the rhino. We were walking out to one of our sites which is a 3km walk into the bush off the fire break road when we cross paths with a male white rhino. Now the set of experiments that we were walking to has been terrorized by a rhino of late with the rhino practically flattening some of our fences. I have been close to throwing in the towel on this site as it is a pain to get to and maintenance has been far greater there than at other places, but we have persisted so far. Anyway, the post-doc sees the rhino, chambers a round into his rifle, and proceeds to run at the rhino screaming and clapping his hands. I think the rhino was even more surprised by this than I was and he tucked tail and ran away from this crazy two-legged creature running at him. I stayed behind wondering what I was going to say to this guy’s girlfriend when the rhino decided that he didn’t like being chased by this puny person. Luckily the rhino went his separate way and my friend returned from the chase and concluded that “Maybe that will scare him off.” I think it probably just pissed him off and he went and took it out on our fences. Oh well.

To Have and Have not

Allison and I spent the weekend in Johannesburg (Jo’burg to the locals) at a wedding of some of our friends. It was a nice break from being in Kruger and good to have a little dose of “civilization”. But a little civilization goes a long way. After a little time out of touch, it is actually kind of annoying to be back around the hustle and bustle of a city. A little bit of traffic is more than a little annoying after being sans traffic for even a little while. However, even if it does make me sound like a yuppie, it is nice being able to get a good double espresso.

But the one thing that always leaves a lasting impression on me when I leave Kruger and drive around the South African countryside is the huge gap between the have’s and have-not’s in this country. Is it wider than in the U.S.? Probably not on average with all the billionaire CEO’s we have in the U.S. inflating their company’s stock prices to pad their portfolios while their minimum wage workers struggle to afford health care. But the number of people in abject poverty in South Africa is huge. Contrast that with the shiny Mercedes zipping through Jo’burg and the skyscrapers that are the telltale signs of the moneyed class and you get a huge chasm between the top and bottom of the economic ladder.

One of the things that started me thinking about South Africa and poverty was a conversation I had with one of the wildlife guides here. Mattwell is a black African that grew up not far outside the park boundaries. While we were sitting around one evening just talking about everyday things a weaver (a small bird the size of a sparrow) flew onto the porch. It got disoriented by the porch lights and bounced off the walls a few times before I shooed it back out into the dark night. I turned to Mattwell and remarked about the beautiful plumage of the weavers and he responded “That’s meat”. I gave him a quizzical look and shook my head not understanding. He continued by saying that to people in the village where he grew up that bird would be meat, a meal. A bird no bigger than a house sparrow would be caught for food - I was incredulous. He then listed a litany of animals that people in his village would eat such as genets which are beautiful house cat-sized creatures with leopard-like coats and long tails. It was just one of those soul-crushing moments to realize how poor people must be to eat a sparrow. How can nature withstand the billions of people in such poverty that they are forced to eat monkeys, genets, and songbirds – the microfauna of our forests – for protein? It is hard for us First World citizens to imagine such desperation and desolation. But how do we get someone who eats a sparrow for food to care about the impact that such desperate behavior has on the surrounding ecosystems when those of us that don’t have nearly this level of worry won’t change our behavior to affect the planet in a positive way?

At every turn humanity tries to separate the pieces of nature that make a balanced system - the “balance of nature”. It happens everywhere you look. Abduction of the worlds primary productivity (people must eat, sure, but must we eat so much beef and send so much never-read junk mail that Amazonia disappears), rampant use of water (habitual washing of cars comes to mind), mixing and matching of the worlds species – removing some from here, taking some from there, adding more from wherever. We are the most destructive species, and we might even be the cause of our own extinction which I’m sure would be a novelty in the history of evolution. Yet, we do little about it. Many of us do nothing because we don’t know. Some do nothing in spite of knowing. And few actually do something because we do know and because we know we have to do it. Unfortunately the few that do something must deal with the many that do nothing. For most people who don’t worry about environmental issues like how much soap we put down the drain or how much water we use in a day, the problems of everyday life are much greater than these issues. I don’t mean problems that we may worry about like the monthly on our SUV or that our gym membership is about to expire. What I mean is the problems that don’t allow many people to think about what we are doing to our world - the problems of living or dying. How do I feed my family? Where is my next paycheck coming from? How do I keep my family from dying from the heat or the cold? How can I possibly support this next child my wife is having? These are the problems that are foremost in billions of people’s minds. How can those of us that worry about the former possibly preach to those worrying about the latter about saving the environment? Would I really care if a salamander was going extinct or if sea level might rise in 50 years if I couldn’t feed my family? Probably not. So how do we get people in that situation to care about the world we live in? We try to make their world better. It seems to me that the environmental crisis begins, in part, with social issues. Many people might care a great deal more about the health of our planet if their own problems were less of a burden. Gandhi said the greatest injustice was poverty. If we can help solve this great injustice, we may go a long way towards saving our planet.

Here comes the rain again

The thing about this part of South Africa is that Spring and Fall usually last, oh, about a day. There seems to be little lag between the dry coolness of the Dry Season and the crushing heat of the Wet Season. Mother Nature flips the switch and you have brain-baking heat. Last year this time we were already boiling here in Satara with days consistently over 100 degrees and no rain is sight from the supposed Wet Season. In fact it rained all of once between when we got here in early September and the end of November last year.

This year couldn’t be more different. After being here a week, we have had two days of sunshine and only one day where it hit 104. Every other day has been blissfully cool and rainy. I’m even wearing a fleece. While the rain means cool days and nights, it also brings the savanna alive and that means green grass, flowers, and bugs. Lots of bugs. Last night I was awakened by a gigantic moth bouncing pinball-like around our tent. After a short chase around the tent, I chucked it out into the cool night and laid back down to be sung to sleep by the frogs - the other little critters that the rain brings out. Just outside the fence behind our tent is a pan (a depression in the savanna that collects water) where animals, especially elephants, congregate to drink. It’s also where the frogs put on their show. Every night after the rosy sunset fades over the Acacia trees the frogs start their chorus. There must be hundreds of them, and from only a few hundred meters away the chorus is deafening. You could only just barely hear the hyenas calling last night over the frogs. No matter the stress of the day, it is such a soothing, peaceful night to be sung to sleep by frogs.

Back to Africa

After 32 hours in airplanes and airports, a sleepless night in Johannesburg, and a 7 hour drive to Kruger, we are almost back home – at least the only home we really know right now. Tomorrow we will arrive in Satara after taking care of the last few details at Scientific Services in Skukuza (90km south of our tent in Satara). It feels strange that this national park feels like home. I’ve found myself chomping at the bit to be back in Satara, back to our tent, the animals, the lions roaring at night, and the friends we made here last year.

Jet lag is still with me as every little hurdle and problem that comes up in the first day or two is overly frustrating and brings anger that is disproportionate to the size of the problem. At this point in every long overseas research trip when small problems meet overwhelming jet lag, I ask myself “Why the hell do I really want to do this work? Why don’t I have a desk job somewhere?” But soon jet lag will disappear and the joyful part of being in the field and being around animals will take over – sooner rather than later hopefully. Thankfully, the weather has been kind and it has been blissfully cool with some nice early season rain.

Back in the U.S. and A.

Well I’ve been back in the U.S. since May 1. Sorry that I didn’t post again before I left South Africa or haven’t posted since. It’s been kind of a whirlwind spending time in Kansas, Connecticut, and Arkansas with little time to settle into one place and develop a routine. Getting used to living in the U.S. again has also been a challenge. Granted I was only away for 8 months, but that is long enough to gradually lose your acclimatization to a place that you’ve lived in for all 30 years of your life.

My first stop back in the States was Memphis International Airport. With my miniscule bits of African contraband safely through customs, I stepped back onto American soil (or tile as it were since I was still in the airport) and headed for the nearest airport bar to grab a beer and ease the jetlag. The first thing I noticed was how LOUD everything was. My God we are a loud country! Not that South Africa is a place of solace and peace. They have crazy shopping malls just like the rest of the industrialized world. But for some reason, this small American airport seemed like the heart of Pandemonium. I don’t know if I had been desensitized to noise by living in a tent away from most of civilization or if I was just tired from traveling for almost two days straight. But I do know that those three hours in the Memphis airport are some of the loudest of my existence.