Ordinariness

I recently read this poem by Jaan Kaplinski in Shambala Sun.

Once I got a postcard from the Fiji Islands
with a picture of sugarcane harvest. Then I realized
that nothing at all is exotic in itself.
There is no difference between digging potatoes in our
Mutiku garden
and sugarcane harvest in Viti Levu.
Everything that is is very ordinary
or, rather, neither ordinary nor strange.
Far-off lands and foreign peoples are a dream,
a dreaming with open eyes
somebody does not wake from.
It’s the same with poetry – seen from afar
it’s something special, mysterious, festive.
No, poetry is even less
special than a sugarcane plantation or potato field.
Poetry is like sawdust coming down from under the saw
or soft yellowish shavings from a plane.
Poetry is washing hands in the evening
or a clean handkerchief that my late aunt
never forgot to put in my pocket.


Nothing in and of itself is actually exotic. Its just our relationship to those things that make them seem so. So its amazing how things we think of as extraordinary can actually become quite ordinary. After working in Kruger for some time, eventually, giraffes, elephants, wildebeest, zebra, honeybadgers, etc are no longer attractions but small pieces of your daily life. These animals that were, only a short time ago, almost mythical creatures that inspired awe in me, that I had only seen in nature videos or at the zoo are now just outside my front door, literally. Many days they are pleasant roadblocks that prevent me from getting to work - my fellow commuters. I’m not saying that life here among all these animals is now dull or boring – far from it. But it is now ordinary. Ordinary doesn’t necessarily mean boring. Quite the opposite, ordinary things are often the most exciting and satisfying – the best of all things.

The Superiority of Marine Science

I enjoy being a ecologist. Not just because I like being outside and am supposedly working towards solving some of the worlds problems. I like being an ecologist because ecologists are fun people. For the most part we get to play outside in the mud, grass, underwater, etc and get paid for it so many of us haven’t really grown up all that much. And, every now and then, we tend to drink a little bit. Its nice after a long day in the field to kick back with a beer, some wine, maybe a mixed drink and relive the day – chased by rhinos, saw cool cheetahs, etc.

Sometimes a sundowner beer to end the day turns into several beers and that makes the next day’s research a little slower. But, a few too many beers one evening after counting plants all day led to my epiphany of why marine ecology is superior to terrestrial ecology.

If you are working with a hangover counting grasses in the middle of the South African savanna, you are miserable. Your head hurts, your back hurts, you are dehydrated and all this while sweltering in 100 degree heat with no shade and no clouds. Not exactly the best hangover cure.

However, if you are a marine ecologist, you get to go SCUBA diving with your hangover, and that, my loyal readers, is a magical hangover cure. First, the cool seawater on your headache is like the best salve you can imagine – it feels like sticking your head in the refrigerator, heavenly. The weightlessness takes all your aches and pains away and after the dive you feel 100% better. (Diving also works if you had a very late night and maybe still have a little alcohol in your system. Just dries you right out. HEALTH WARING: Diving while still a little drunk can be dangerous and should be attempted only by highly trained professionals.) I guess you could just not drink the night before you have to be out in the field, but working hard and playing hard is one of the best ways to enjoy field work.

Random bits

It's rained more recently than in the past several months combined. The rain is more than welcomed as it’s been very dry the past few weeks and the bush has been looking dry and brown in spots. For the most part, our region of Kruger is still behind on rainfall for the wet season, but we must be catching up fast. Most of this recent storm was spawned by the remnants of a tropical cyclone (hurricane) that rolled through Mozambique earlier. It feels strange now to be rooting for cyclones to bring us rain since for the last several years I would have done anything in my power to prevent hurricanes from reaching my field sites in Florida. During hurricane season, I would powerlessly watch every hurricane track to see if it would come anywhere near the Florida Keys. I would have tried any juju possible to keep hurricanes away from my experiments (I had two hurricanes in two seasons of working on the reefs in Florida). Now, I relish the rain they bring.

Just thought I’d pass along a couple of happenings in the past few weeks.

- In the span of two days I almost stepped on a puff adder and a Mozambique spitting cobra while in the field. Both are beautiful snakes much better appreciated from several feet away.

- While walking to one of our field sites we almost ran into a black rhino. We were about 30m away before the guy in front saw it lying under a tree having a snooze. Black rhinos are very grumpy buggers (very endangered as their horns make great dagger handles and there are only about 350 in the whole of Kruger), and it would have made a bad end to the short day if we would have actually surprised him. Luckily we were downwind of it and it never knew we were there. On the way back to our vehicle, we got to watch it browse plants and it was never the wiser.

- We have started doing surveys at night of the herbivores that are using the different plots in our experiment. The night surveys are great as we are the only ones driving around Kruger then (the tourists have to be in at 6PM), and the bush really changes at night when the predators come out. At the end of the last survey, we followed a big male lion on the tar road for over 2km. He would stop periodically and scent mark a bush then carry on walking, and once he took far too much pleasure in rolling in a pile of buffalo poop. As he rolled he let out these purrs of ecstasy just like a house cat. At one point, we had pulled up to about 10m from him (he honestly couldn’t have cared less that we were there) and he let out a huge roar, calling to his buddies. A lion’s roar is not the MGM lion roar you see on movies. After a couple of loud growls, it builds to a crescendo of huge roars followed by several seconds of low grunting. Its so powerful that it just reverberates through your body. On still nights the roars carry for miles.