As I explained in my first article, during our stay on the Naankuse reserve, it was possible to decide to do another program. There were a number of proposals and you have to register in advance. Indeed, the Naankuse reserve has other sites in different parts of Namibia, and it is possible for volunteers to leave for several weeks at one of them.
I was interested in two programs, and I hesitated a lot before choosing one. There was TimBila, their most recent reserve, which dates back to 2019, where they’re doing reintegration and research on many animals. There was also Kanaan, a desert where there’s a lot of research on the surrounding animals. I finally chose Kanaan, because I’ve never been to the desert before, but also because the missions carried out at TimBila seemed to be similar to those I had already carried out at Naankuse. This program lasted a week, and we were supposed to leave on a Wednesday. In this article, I describe all the activities carried out throughout the week in Kanaan. I tried to summarize at best, however I preferred to do this article in one time, so it will be a little longer than the others.
So the next Wednesday we woke up early to go to Kanaan. We left at 7:00 and we were six volunteers. David and Zuzka, a couple from the Czech Republic, Paula a Spanish, Lauryn a Swiss, and Karin a Dutch. We went through Windhoek and I was surprised by the poverty in that city. I knew it was not very rich, but I still thought that this city would be more luxurious, as it is the capital of Namibia.
We then passed on roads without concrete, with sand and pebbles. We drove four hours and then we stopped at "Neuras", another site of Naankuse. We ate our lunch there and then we left. We switched cars, and drove three hours with Peter, one of Kanaan’s handlers. As the roads were with stones, it made the car vibrate so much that at the end of the journey I had tinnitus! There were also climbs that were then chained with big descents, so we jumped on our seats and it gave a bit of the feel of an amusement park.
When we arrived, we were impressed by the landscape. This place was really beautiful and we were lost in the middle of nowhere, isolated from the rest of the world! We had a beautiful house at our disposal in the middle of the desert and a small pool. There were even three meerkats walking around the house, playing with us! We settled down, we each had a room with its own bathroom. We had some free time and then we had dinner. It was served by women who worked in the kitchen. We were able to meet François (even if he has a French name, he doesn’t speak a word about it!) and Zané, who also work in Kanaan. They were both 22 but were surprisingly very mature! They had already planned to get married and have children!
The next day, we made a march to discover the desert. Peter gave us records with descriptions of each of the different animals present in the desert. There was a picture of the animal, its footprint, and its excrement. We also had at our disposal a small camera indicating landmarks where to go, and the cards described the places to find and photograph at these landmarks.
It was more of a game than a mission! We were separated into two teams, and we had to take a picture of the paw prints, the feces, and the marks on the camera we found. The first landmark was a fox terrier, another was a tree next to an ancient river. To help us differentiate the prints and feces of the different animals, there was their size indicated on the cards, as well as a small rule. It was very tiring because we walked for three hours, and the sun started pounding pretty hard. It was essential to have each one his own bottle of water.
In the afternoon, we did the «Camera traps». We were retrieving SD cards from multiple cameras, set up all over the desert to photograph passing animals, and we were exchanging them with new unused cards, in the same way as the "data entry" at the Naankuse Reserve. It was rather long and tiring, because we stopped at each camera and had to walk a lot.
On the way back, we passed a cage and Peter took his binoculars to check if it was empty. They were actually trying to catch a cheetah and put a GPS collar on it, because it already had an old collar that didn’t work anymore and nobody knew where it came from. This necklace must have been put on by another reserve from which this cheetah came, before coming to this desert. To lure him into the cage, Peter had put something brilliant in it, because it intrigues the cheetahs and they come to see what it is. If you put in meat, it can attract foxes or jackals, which is not of any interest to Kanaan researchers. It was also necessary to stay away from the cage so that the cheetah did not smell us, otherwise it could stop circulating in this area. The cage was empty, however we saw a small scorpion! There were plenty of holes in the ground, in which the scorpions took refuge.
At the end of the day, we watched the sunset from a dune, it was really beautiful. We then went back for dinner, and we had a lot of discussions with the other five volunteers, including the different presidents who ran each of our countries, and their policies. It was really interesting to have direct testimonies, and each country was very different!
That night, I fell asleep quietly, but I woke up in the middle of the night and I was sick all night long! I spent my time vomiting, probably from food intoxication (and not from covid!), but what was strange was that we had not eaten anything unusual (except when I tasted oryx meat!). The meals offered were always rather similar to those we eat in Europe, and I was really the only one who was sick!
The next day I still felt bad, but I absolutely wanted to do the missions of the day. So we did camera traps again in the morning, and in the afternoon we climbed a hill! It wasn’t full of sand like the dunes, but full of rocks and some cactus. It was also quite dangerous at times, we really had to be careful where we set foot. Once we got to the top, we were very tired and we had to drink a lot of water. The view was very nice and we took some nice pictures, but I was tired and I didn’t feel very fit, so I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked. This hiking lasted two hours, and in the end I was really fed up. Going down the hill and walking to the car became a real ordeal. When we got home, I was able to rest a bit, and I felt better but I didn’t eat much.
Subsequently, we also carried out maintenance and construction of fence. We had gloves and pliers available, and we had to fix fences that were broken and that separated the road from the desert, so that the cars couldn’t go through the Kanaan Desert Reserve without permission. This mission required quite a bit of physical strength, as it required twisting wire with pliers to hold the fence to the poles. I didn’t feel that I was very helpful, because it was Peter and David who did almost everything. This mission was not very exciting, and I wanted to return quickly!
In the afternoon, we filed and observed the photos collected during the camera traps on a computer. In the same way as during the HPS tracking data entry, you had to scroll through the photos and sort the animals by breed, creating folders on the computer. It was interesting but especially surprising to see that there were so many animals in this desert, because we never saw them during the day, except some oryx and some foxes. These cameras take pictures when they detect a movement, so there were a lot of pictures where you just saw the leaves of the trees moving because of the wind, or the birds that were passing by. We took turns sorting all these photos, it was really long to do because there were several hundred. This allowed researchers in the Kanaan Desert to learn more about the wildlife that made up the desert, such as its traffic zones, territory, habits, etc… We saw on the photos of the different SD cards a lot of oryx and springbok, a lot of birds, some foxes and jackals, a group of spotted hyenas and a leopard.
In the evening we all dined together, and since it was Zuzka’s birthday, Zané had prepared a great cake for her! All the staff members sang «Happy birthday» in Afrikaans!
We also made a game counting, we were in a car and we had to count the animals we saw, and indicate where they were. We then wrote all this information in a table on a sheet. We saw a vulture, oryx, foxes, springboks and jackals. I did not quite understand whether it was a game or a mission to help researchers, but I admit that I did not really appreciate it. It was rather boring, for two hours we watched the desert, and we always saw the same animals. However the other volunteers seemed to like it.
In the afternoon, however, we did a rather exciting activity: we repaired a water pump, which drew water underground at a depth of more than 60 meters! This water pump was then connected directly to a pipe that brought the water to a water trough that had been built for animals. It looked like a kind of mill, because there was a mechanism that used the force of the wind to pump out the water.
First we had to hoist a kind of iron rope over the mechanism, which allowed us to hang the big pipes over the hole to pump the water. We then tied this iron rope to the car that David was driving, so that we could gently lower the pipe into the hole.
So we had to build a pipe by tying it to the iron rope, backing up the car. Once the pipe was well installed, we had to screw it to the pipe from below with a large clamp, then we lowered it into the hole by moving the car towards us. Then we had to assemble another pipe again and attach it to the one below. We repeated this procedure several dozen times, it was long but there was a lot of staff to help us, and there was a very good atmosphere.
Once all the pipes were installed, we activated the mechanism so that it would turn with the wind. After fifteen minutes of waiting (the time that the water travels the 60 meters of depth!) we finally saw the water coming out of the pipe. We had a feeling of victory when we saw that we had succeeded, it was satisfying!
For the rest of the week, we continued to retrieve SD cards from the trapping cameras, and we also installed new ones. We were also able to make nest observations. Indeed, the breeds of birds present in Kanaan have the particularity of living between groups, and to build very large nests in the trees with plenty of ducts. They are sometimes so big that the branch of the tree on which they built their nest breaks and falls! We also saw some oryx skulls on the ground, and Peter explained to us the history of Namibia and showed us a cave where aborigines used to live.
One morning, we woke up early to have breakfast on a dune and watch the sunrise, it was beautiful and we took very nice pictures, but it was very cold ! We also did the cactus plantation next to the house. While trying to dig, Peter shovelled too deep and opened a pipe that supplied us with water! So we had to fix it!
At the end of the week, we did sand board in the evening. We had a board, and we had to slide down a dune onto the sand. I had done snow boarding last year, and I found it quite similar. We all had big falls but it was very fun!
In the evening after dinner we had a night drive. In the same way as the Rhino ranger mission in the Naankuse Reserve, we were driving out at night, with a big projector to light the animals. Apart from a few foxes, we really didn’t see anything. However, we stopped in the middle of the desert to observe the stars. There were none of our lights on, and yet thanks to the stars and the Milky Way, we could see the whole landscape around us. It was so quiet, the atmosphere was really peaceful, and the view with the dunes and the milky way was magical.
The last night we had a “Braii”, a barbecue with all the members from Kanaan, as well as the members from Neuras who came for two days. We had a lot of discussion and it was very interesting. There was an English woman who explained to us why Brexit was a huge mistake, and that it was a problem because young people never took part in the votes when they were the main ones concerned.
I also had a lot of discussions with Zané, and she explained to me that she used to work in ambulances in Windhoek, and that she had seen some really horrible things. There were a lot of gangs and account settings, and if the caregivers saved someone that a gang wanted to kill, they could become the new target of that gang. She told me that the worst part was the kids, and that she had to save a mother who had been shot by the father in front of their traumatized little girl. She didn’t even want to be touched by a man anymore. There were also people who refused to be treated by certain caregivers because of their beliefs, for example if they had tattoos. They were capable to let themselves die for this reason! Moreover, Zané regularly trains in combat with François, she is even able to bite him!
After eating, we played alcohol! Indeed, all the members of the association were very young, and had to be around 25 years old. We had a good laugh and went to bed late.
The next day we returned to the Naankuse Reserve. I was really sad to leave Peter, Zané and François, but I admit I was bored during most of the missions, so I was still looking forward to the departure! During that week I learned a lot, Peter explained to us how animals survived in the desert, the history of Namibia, and we did really different missions from the Naankuse reserve. However, even though the scenery was beautiful and the people were super nice, this week was long, tiring and repetitive for me. I would have preferred to stay only four days, because a whole week seemed far too long. I was especially disappointed not to have seen many animals, apart from the oryx, and not having felt like I was really helping, I felt like a spectator. I regretted a little that I did not choose to do TimBila instead, because I think the activities at TimBila would have been more enjoyable, even if Kanaan was a unique experience. However, I certainly did not regret to make all these beautiful encounters and to contemplate these wonderful landscapes!
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