One thing I took away with me was the heightened awareness of getting cuts, and the fact that I’ve taken for granted the sanitized environment I am in, the lack of a need to test for HIVs.
Testing for hiv together before entering a relationship.
Having / testing for children before getting married
Back when my main conceptions of elephants were that they were ‘interesting’ and ‘cute’. Now I’ve lost one of my sandals, and I’ve added ‘terrifying’
When I first heard the lady at the border telling me that hippos were one of her biggest fears, I thought that was almost amusing, because it was such a foreign concept to me. Similarly when I heard the guide telling us that the local woman over at that boat was very scared of elephants. Now that I’ve had this encounter, my mind flits back to how it raised it’s trunks and lifted its enormous body, and brief charging after the rocks were thrown, I remember my heart thumping furiously, strands of regret swept through my mind. The tour shouldn’t have happened today, it did because I pushed for it, but the initial cancellation must have been a warning sign, and now I may be one of the tourists that perished in the wilderness of Africa. Melodramatic as it sounds, I was honestly terrified. If it had charged at me, maybe if there wasn’t a river hindering its crossing, it’s game over for me.
Botsang, our mokoro guide, shared with us the time he was a guide for an American tourist for 21 days in the delta. On night 11, he was woken up by the loud roars of lions; the ground trembled from its volume. With the other guide, he grabbed a rifle and headlights, shone and spotted the lions 10m away. They shot one; the other fled. The next morning, they found the lions’ tracks just outside of their tents.
I love the colours in this series of pictures.
Freedom!
crew!
Housing
Botsang, 30 years old, built this house made out of reed grass, sand and mud found in the Okavango Delta himself. It keeps him cool in the summer heat. He uses the solar panels to charge his cell phone. Sadly, 2 weeks ago, his wife was cooking and a fire broke out. This is his temporary home; it took him about 4 days to build it. He’s starting to build a new, bigger one now.
time was away and somewhere else 