Hopkinton and Bow High Schools (New Hampshire, USA) – African Field Ecology and Culture course, July 2015

In this first course jointly run by Nature Guide Training and Original Wisdom we worked closely with the teachers from New Hampshire and tried many new things, all of which were resoundingly successful and will make it more difficult to choose which ones to do next time. The Nature Guide Training team of Lee, Diana, Kersey and Acima shared responsibilities for our regular activities at Djuma Research Camp in the Sabi Sands; these activities included game drives, astronomy and human history field lectures, intensive study in track and sign identification and interpretation, and bush walks where we had some exciting explorations with little things and encounters with big things, and students were even able to test themselves as beginners in trailing. We also introduced many new activities to the group, including the reassembly of the skeleton from a huge white rhino bull that had been poached far to the north in another reserve last November, and had run south before expiring in the bush just south of Vuyatela Lodge – an enlightening and sobering experience for all.

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We took our regular (but exciting) day trip to Elephant Whispers (read the blog post here) where students were able to get up-close and personal with “tame” African elephants. This experience was directly followed by a scenic drive through the mountains, stopping for some hiking, birding, souvenir bartering, and photography at God’s Window, Graskop (with lunch at Harry’s Pancakes!), Bourke’s Luck Potholes, and the Three Rondawels overlook.

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We also completed our usual exciting, hands-on classes with Jens Reissig on snake handling and bush first-aid and CPR (read the blog post here). Students received a qualification in First Aid and also received a certificate from Ultimate Reptiles in Snake Handling.

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We did many, many game drives where the students were able to observe wildlife doing their natural behaviors in their native habitats, and related the behaviors to the ecology of the area, the competition between individuals and between species, and to ways that the community of wildlife and the human community could improve their relationships (read the blog post here). Additional activities we tried included a modified “sit spot” where we asked students to get comfortable in the bush and sit, paying attention to the sights, sounds, and smells of the bush around them – and to how they felt during this process (were they uncomfortable or nervous sitting in the dust, or were they so comfortable that they almost fall asleep?) (read the blog post here). We drew attention to the vocalizations that birds, like the oxpecker and chin-spot batis, and even other animals such as dwarf mongoose and impala can make that alert us to the presence of potential hazards (like predators!) – and how this is not a phenomenon unique to Africa and they can use it back home with North American species. The sit-spot was modified because we also asked them to think about answers to a question while they were out – in a normal sit-spot students are advised to let thoughts pass through their minds and focus only on their awareness. The question they were asked to answer was related to the most different components of the course. These two components were the addition of a local student, Mhlavasi Shikhati, on scholarship for the full three weeks of the course with us, and a major focus on mapping and spatial thinking (read the blog post here).

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In fact, we spent two days at Mhlavasi’s high school, Acorns to Oaks, where we installed over one-million dollars’ worth of ESRI’s ArcGIS software (donated by ESRI South Africa) and our students interacted with 30 of the Acorns to Oaks students to teach them the basics of how to use it (read the blog post here). These workshops were led by Hopkinton High School science teacher Scott Semmens, Bow High School math teacher Marcel Duhaime, Bow High School science teacher Drew Groves, and facilitated by Kersey Lawrence of Original Wisdom, Mike & Candice Grover of Activating Africa, and Acorns to Oaks teachers Eva Gardner and Newton Jange, and their Principal, Mr. Rama. It was exciting to participate in these workshops and watch students zooming in and out on satellite images of their houses and schools and sharing information about the different ways in which they lived, 8000 miles apart. Even the “glitches” were turned into learning opportunities, such as when the wifi couldn’t handle the number of computers online, we took the opportunity to do an experiential exercise using our bodies as lines of latitude and longitude to visualize how coordinates are located, and even shared some dance moves – lasting friendships were formed.

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We were again fortunate to have Jurie Moolman, the owner of Djuma and a board member of the Buffelshoek Trust come and speak with our students. Jurie always provides deep insights into evolving Africa with his stories about his personal experiences as a white South African fighting on the side of black and colored people for equality during the Apartheid era.

Mike Grover also came to speak with us one afternoon, about his personal experiences as the former ecologist of the Sabi Sands, and his college education in Wildlife Management that had left him unprepared for the challenges he would face as a conservationist in trying to meet the needs of the human and wildlife communities and bring their goals closer together – this led to the formation of his organization, Activating Africa. He spoke of the problems of rhino poaching and how many facets there are to the problem that most people are completely unaware of, and he spoke of controversial solutions he has proposed – including allowing communities to raise rhinos and farm the horn sustainably alongside their cattle. He spoke of drought and soil degradation, and how he is part of a long-term holistic management education program in the communities to raise the quality of their grazing land by moving cattle in a way that mimics the movements of large buffalo herds on the landscape and allows grasses time to recover. He also spoke about how his education in GIS, was of great benefit to him, both in obtaining his job and in doing his work as an ecologist, and continues to benefit him in his own company. Mike and his wife, Candice, have been working with the local communities through Activating Africa and the Buffelshoek trust to “uplift” the communities by encouraging entrepreneurship and developing hands-on workshops where people can experience what it is like to formulate a business plan and carry through with it to build a good and reliable income. These types of relationships and opportunities help everyone to minimize conflict between the reserves inside the fence, and the communities outside the fence. Mike and Candice have been an invaluable addition to our programs with their keen insights and connections with the local communities and we hope to continue our relationship with them in the years to come.

Also, through Mike, students were able to participate in real data collection that will contribute to science for the international cat conservation group, Panthera. They recorded the locations and identities of carnivores that we saw daily (read the blog post here) on the Panthera laptop in their GIS database. The students also designed their own research project involving camera traps, where they hypothesized that different species of animals would be photographed during the day versus during the night (read the blog post here). In addition to extensive journaling and photo documentation of their actives, students completed a vey cool mapping exercise of tracks at various intersections on the reserve. They identified the tracks and then decided whether or not they wanted to map them temporally, by species, or in some other way. We feel like this activity, combined with camera traps and repeated on a regular basis, would be a good way to learn tracks and track aging, and to see what animals live and move in particular habitats at different times of the day and night, over time at the reserve.

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Adult participants in the program, Holly Charron and Kelly Smith, with experience in social work and special education, facilitated bonding activities (like making a home-made apple pie!) and a group dynamics session that helped students to express their frustrations about living in close quarters for over 20 days with other students, and to realize how their own actions might affect the experience for another person – and what they could and could not do to change those actions and make the experience even more awesome for everyone. For almost all of the students participating in the course, this was their first experience away from home for such a long time, a first time in another country, and certainly a first time in the bush of Africa. While conditions were not as primitive as expected (we had proper beds and linens in small dorm-style rooms, electricity, hot showers, flush toilets, running water, a chef and a scullery, and laundry done for us once a week), it is still an adjustment for anyone to get used to the hectic pace of camp-life while on an educational course and still find time to journal, shower, socialize, and carve out some much-needed personal space.

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Other activities students participated in included a trip to the local community on Mandela Day (read the blog post here) to work with the local people picking up rubbish on their community center sports fields and then competing in a friendly game of soccer. It was Mandela’s dying wish that once a year, people of all skin colors would unite to do something good for the human community for 67 minutes. One of the most rewarding aspects of this year’s Mandela Day activity was that it was initiated from the local community members of Dixie, who we had worked with last year on Mandela Day to pick up roadside rubbish, and this year the community had asked us to come back and work alongside them again. While students shared this community experience, Lee took Charlie “Pothos” Perakis, a retired family doctor on the program, and Sandy Willmore, a visiting school teacher and native skills practitioner from Ohio, to see a local Sangoma, or witch doctor. The Sangoma showed them her medicinals collection and “threw the bones” for them.

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On a more “modern” note, the group followed the activities of the Djuma-Cam, the longest running continuous live-feed camera in the world, and the movements of National Geographic’s WildEarth team as they filmed their game drives, live, every morning and every evening for 3 hours at a time. The WildEarth broadcasters became of somewhat celebrity status with the young ladies in our group, and you can read a hilarious blog post about the opposing viewpoints of the male and female course participants here.

As previously stated, game drives ran throughout the course. The first couple of days started slowly, with an occasional white rhinoceros or a small group of Cape buffalo dugga boys, lots of birds, antelope, and some tree identification (read the blog post here). By the fourth game drive (only the second full day in camp), though, we were viewing 4 out of the Big 5 within a space of a few hours, and got all 5 within the day (read the blog post here). The day started by viewing a huge breeding herd of buffalo go to drink at one of the dams, followed by a game of hide-and-seek with the resident female leopard, Karula, then a surprise encounter with three sleeping rhinoceros, and then a meeting with the pride of Styx lions and the Matimba male coalition – the Styx cubs playing around their mothers and aunties while the male swaggered around scent marking on magic guarri bushes and roaring to declare that this was their territory. Later that evening the students all saw elephants, a breeding herd with some big bulls following – and after checking off all of the Big Five we relaxed into enjoying creatures like the beautiful lilac-breasted roller, dwarf mongoose, and the ever-abundant antelope species. Game continued to pump throughout the rest of the course, including a very exciting opportunity to view cheetah (read the blog post here) – the first student group to see one this year! On one night drive, the group was able to sit amongst a coalition of five mature male lions and listen to them roaring around the vehicle at top volume – a very primal experience, indeed!

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As always, our course culminated in a CyberTracker Track and Sign Identification and Interpretation Evaluation. Even as novice trackers, many students were able to achieve a level in the evaluation. Even those that did not achieve a level were happy with their performance; after all, they all achieved 50% or more after only being in the country for 20 days, with all new species and no previous experience with African animals or tracking – we all considered it “well done”. Students learned about their own process of figuring out tracks, and many of them remarked on how second-guessing their instincts and logical deductions actually decreased their score. We encouraged them to use these processing lessons in other areas of their lives while working towards any area of expertise: work hard, be patient, stay positive, trust your instincts, and use what you know to help figure out what you don’t know. We look forward to seeing the group in September in the USA and seeing who has been doing some tracking, on either the inner or the outer landscape.

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