Life Aboard N'doto

It’s not a walk in the woods living in a 40-year-old Land Rover. Not a cushy ride, or a temperature controlled one either. What policemen laughingly refer to as my A/C, is a intermittently working (never when it’s hot) small dash-mounted house fan with vibrant blue blades. Sometimes it spontaneously and unexpectedly comes to life, usually the moment after I have cleansed my face with a TLC Deep Cleanse 3- in-1 Cleanser, Toner, Moisturizer Facial Wipe. The resulting plume of dust sticks to my face like static on a nylon slip. After that, nothing but a Huggies Aloe Strong and Stretchy Wipe will remove the heavy layer of grime on my face.

Living in N’doto is about as far away from a spa day as one could get.  Rubber seal that once surrounded all the doors and windows has been replaced by gaps as wide as my pinkie finger. There is also a silver dollar sized hole in the floorboard near the gearbox that spews a puff of dust and smoke into the car every time we start her up. Particles of tawny colored talcum-powder-quality dust cover the seats, the bookcase, the storage bins and every other surface inside of N’doto like a coat of paint. When we wash our clothes, a significant amount of African topsoil is washed down the drain. We could avoid most of the dust if we stuck to the tar roads but we prefer the dirt, sand, or gravel tracks because they seem to take us to the most beautiful places. Like the Old Petauke Road, worth every grain of grit collected along its 180 kilometer, off road, 9-hour drive. Or where we are now, camped along the Luangwa River in Zambia one of the best riverbanks in the world to view wildlife, read, write and have a gin and tonic. Elephants abound. So much so that instead of the usual passports, cash and other documents that travelers turn in for safekeeping at reception, safes at camps along the Luangwa River are full of citrus fruit brought in by campers who forget that elephants will do anything to get at a juicy orange. Just the other night a shell-shocked novice camper fumed, “An elephant broke into our Toyota and helped himself to whatever he wanted!” They only stayed one night. I locked our oranges, and other strong smelling food in the camp bar safe but the gin and tonic remains in our fridge chilled and ready for sundowners at 5. Yes, we have a fridge! It’s 12 volt, small, and always dusty on the outside but inside, the beer, wine, veggies, cheese, meats, and juice keep cold and food stays fresh even a day or two past the use by date.

Mornings, beginning at dawn, are easy and unrushed. We don’t have much on board in the luxury department but one thing we can’t do without is good coffee so we enjoy two cups of French Press coffee with two rusks – an African hard, crunchy dunk-in-your coffee staple - apiece each morning before starting our day. Lunch is a picnic. Chips provide salty crunch.

What’s in the dashboard? Peaceful Sleep insect repellent (elephants hate it too so if we are bush camping I usually give a blast to the windows and doors before we retire), toilet paper for the nose and/or “other”, Huggies Strong and Stretchy (so many uses I can’t list them here), an old Advil bottle filled with a combination of ibuprofen and aspirin, what I call my Obama-care because it’s wrapped in a Obama for President ’08 bumper sticker, a Chinese version of Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion, sunglass and eyeglass cases, head torch, pens and pencils, a glue stick, GPS, and a camera fill in any gaps. Scott keeps a wildlife sound recorder in his cup holder; mine holds a stainless steel water bottle. We can get clean drinking water at most every camp. Usually it’s borehole water so might taste a little chalky but it is clean.

We also have a library on board. It’s filled with guidebooks, wildlife reference books, our dangerous game log books, and books we have been given (thank you Brian Block and Karl Nutt) or swapped for at various camps along the way.

In the slot inside my door, there is a poo shovel, a Southern Africa map, an Eastern and Southern Africa map, and a map of the entire continent of Africa, just in case we get super motivated to head further north than Kenya.

The front seat, kind of a bench seat really, is covered in gray pleather (plastic leather) and I’m sure at one time it provided some kind of cushioning though now it is as flat as a pancake. We let each other know its time for a break when one of us exclaims; “My ass is numb!” which is pretty frequent. The back seat isn’t really a seat at all. It’s more of a perch. We acquired it from the man who installed our second carburetor (we are now on our third.)

The seat came out of one of several old Series lll Land Rovers that lay scattered in his yard like fallen soldiers. It’s one of those L-shaped bench seats that used to go in the far back of Land Rovers for sideways sitting. But Scott found a creative way to attach it to the false floor boards behind the front passenger seat, next to the library so that we would have a super uncomfortable place for people to sit in the back. We added a few inches added to the seat and had it re-upholstered in Hoedspruit so now it is a super uncomfortable, yet more cushioned place to sit in the back. We have found that it is perfect for small African children, though those not yet potty trained are relegated to the pleather (washable) seats in front. (See No Pampers North of the Limpopo to see why.)

Giving rides to people in the bush, especially to old woman, has become a regular thing. Woman walk incredible distances carrying heavy loads, babies, and Africa on their backs. 

They rarely speak English. Since our doors are very difficult to open Scott comes around to help them out when we arrive at their villages. One African woman was so old and frail, Scott had to lift her into and out of the car. She must have been walking more than an hour in the dust and heat before we came along. Men, woman, and children sitting in the shade of a tree of her village were gobsmacked to see this tall blond haired blue-eyed shorts and t-shirt clad chauffeur pull alongside, open the passenger door and extend a hand to her as if she were royalty. There is usually applause, two claps of cupped hands and a wave of the hand before our passengers set off on another narrow path that leads to their hut. They never look back. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we are often the only vehicle to pass all day and in really remote areas, all week.  Why do we do it? Partly as a way of giving back to a continent and people that inspire us and have given us so much. Partly because we’ve never forgotten how hard it was to get transport through Africa when we did it by bush taxi in 2005. We vowed that if we ever had our own vehicle in Africa we would give rides, so we are.

We have established a routine when arriving in camp. I get behind the wheel and park N‘doto so that we can enjoy sunrise from inside the rooftop tent and so the table and chairs can be convenient to the back door (panty), yet situated in an aesthetically pleasing way.

When she is exactly where I want her, Scott gets behind the wheel and moves her to a spot that is level. He flips open the tent, attaches the ladder and fly, unfolds the table and chairs and pours himself a gin and tonic, which is always well deserved after a day of rough driving in Africa. I wipe down the table that has acquired the obligatory layer of dust, move the tables and chairs to a slightly more pleasing spot and spread out a small white tablecloth (kept white by using the local diaper cleaning soap. Don’t knock it. It’s gentle on the hands yet does the trick on tough stains!) Then we enjoy the sunset while I cook dinner over our single burner propane stove. This is always a highly enjoyable time of day. We are relaxed over sundowners, I love cooking in the bush and Scott seems to enjoy watching me cook in the bush.

We talk about where we might go next, or how we will get to Karl and Mandy’s wedding in South Africa in October, or if and when we should attempt to climb Kilimanjaro. Showers or liberal use of Huggies Aloe Strong and Stretchys fit in sometime between arrival and bedtime. Sometimes we sit around a campfire chatting to other overlanders or sometimes there is a camp bar where we go for conviviality. “Let’s be convivial,” I’ll say, or “This place looks convivial. Let’s have a beer.” The other day, at Eureka Camp outside of Lusaka, we ran into a hyper convivial couple from Portland Oregon. “Don’t I know you?” I asked when the woman threw a wide, enthusiastic smile in my direction. Serendipity seems to rain on us when we travel in Africa and we are always running into people we’ve met before so I thought we had met in Hoedspruit, or on the Kariba Ferry, or somewhere sometime over the last five and a half months. “We were on Amazing Race!” she said. No wonder she has that reality show perkiness, I thought. They didn’t make it to the end of the race but they fell in love with Malawi while on competing on the show so they returned to Africa, this time on an overland truck.

We rise and fall with the sun so bedtime comes early. We sleep great. Almost every morning Scott says, “I never sleep so well as I do in Africa.” His ability to sleep so soundly in the wilds of Africa can frustrate me at times. Like the other night when we had to bush camp along the Old Petauke Road because we had not reached our destination before the setting sun. One thing is for sure. It is not safe to drive after dark in Africa. Anyway, we had just passed a small herd of agitated elephants and another smaller herd sleeping; the sun was about to set and it was time to pull over. We drove into the bush, far from the track and away from any village. Scott quickly flipped the tent out and installed the ladder. We skipped the table and chairs and stove and opted for a bed picnic. It wasn’t long before the first hippo bellowed and the elephants began to rumble and trumpet. A hyena whooped in the distance. Though we couldn’t see in the dark, something big was right there in the bushes below our tent. Because we have heard too many stories lately of elephants overturning cars, we discussed an exit strategy. We left the doors unlocked and the key in the ignition so if we had to, we could make a quick getaway. We ate quietly. Scott had a gin and tonic, then another. I was tempted to join him. It had been a long, hard, hot day of driving and bush taxi service but I didn’t think dulling our senses when there were ellies about would be a good idea. “Don’t you think we should keep our wits about us – that we should be alert?”

“That’s just what the world needs. More Lerts!” Scott said taking a sip of Gilbert’s Gin (Not a mistype. Not Gilbeys, Not Gordons. Certainly not Tanqueray which we ran out of long ago, but Gilbert’s, bottled on Lomagundi Road in a fictional, I think, town called Stapleford South Africa and purchased with our last Rands at a shop next to the Mblizi Zambezi Lodge adjacent to the Kariba Ferry,) “That’s not what I meant by keep your wits,” I said surrendering.

Scott slept through the night, like a good baby. I got maybe two hours. There was no moon that night so I couldn’t see what was going bump in the night but each time I heard a rustle or a heavy footfall I would peer out the front screen then rotate around and peer out the back, all night long like a spin dial on a board game. “Who’s out there?” I whispered to myself straining my eyes to see what looked like a hulk of an elephant but moved like a hippo.

“I never sleep so well as I do in Africa!” said Scott at sunrise.

“Sheesh! You missed it all!” I said with exasperation.

“What did I miss?”

“I don’t know! But there was lots of it!”

It is nearly 6p.m. and the Gilbert’s is waiting. Elephants are beginning to head down to the river while hippos are beginning their slow meander up the banks for a night of grazing. There is a soft breeze, which is a welcome relief from the dry Zambian heat. We miss everyone at home, that’s for sure. But we so enjoy this lifestyle.

We have plenty of canned tuna, Peaceful Sleep, optimism, and curiosity on board so, for now, we’ll keep going. Maybe there are people further north who would like a lift in an old Landy named N’doto.

Scott and Tris

South Luangwa

Zambia

No Pampers North of The Limpopo

Scott and I love Greek Salad. We have been lucky to find all the ingredients, even Feta Cheese, at most South African markets such as Pik ‘n Pay or Spar, and we even found a tub of Danish Feta in a Kruger Park mini mart. But as we drove out of South Africa and into Botswana, we wondered if there would be any Feta north of the Limpopo.  We finished our last Greek Salad before crossing the Limpopo River and bid farewell to Feta Cheese and Calamata olives, and hello to Tris and Scott’s Bush Taxi Service.

In 2005, when we traveled from Casablanca to Cape Town, we traveled the continent mostly by bush taxi. Throughout Africa we stood along the sides of dusty roads overheated and hopeful for a lift. With our right arms extended at a forty-five degree angle we waved our hands, palm side down, in the international “please stop” fashion at any passing mode of transport. Every vehicle we encountered (granted, there weren’t many on our route), zoomed by, windows rolled up to keep the cool air inside and nary a glance from the driver our direction. In ten months of travel only one white person ever stopped to give us a lift. He really had no choice. Scott was practically carrying me down the road and the lift was to the hospital where I was to be admitted for malaria treatment. Anyway, we never forgot how difficult it was to get from point A to point B and we vowed that if we were ever lucky enough to have our own vehicle in Africa, we would offer free transport to those in need. Since arriving in Botswana, we have had many opportunities to do so.

Our first passenger was a woman trying to get to the next town to visit her sick brother in hospital. After exchanging hellos and names she sat quietly staring at the road in front of us. After a time she began to laugh. “Something is funny?” I asked from my spot next to her in the middle seat straddling the gear stick.

“It is not common for white people to pick up a black person on the road in Africa!” she said with bemusement.

“Evidentially, it’s not common for white people to pick up white people either!” I said.

A week later we passed a woman dressed in heels, a straight skirt, ivory blazer, and matching hat; somewhat like Africa’s version of a Mary Kay Saleswoman still eager to earn a pink Cadillac. We slowed and reversed to offer her a ride. She accepted with a radiant smile. In perfect English she greeted us with dressed-for-success enthusiasm. Joyce was on her way home to the next town 35 kilometers away. I asked about her family and if she worked. “Yes! I am self-employed,” she answered. “In fact, I would like you to join my company.” And she told us about how she sold vitamins for a company called Golden and that if I started selling vitamins too, rather buying them from her and re-selling, we could both make money. “Please join my company!” she said again.

“Uh, unfortunately we are headed to Zimbabwe so, logistically, I don’t think it would work. But thank you for the offer.” She accepted that cheerfully and fell silent, staring at the road in front of us. After ten minutes she said, “You know, I think you will have many blessings.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “it is not common for a black person to be sitting in a white person’s car getting a lift. If people could see me they would say ‘Eish! What is that woman doing with those white people?’ So,” she finished with a confident nod, “because you have stopped for me, I think you will have many blessings.” When we reached the center of her village (a crossroads) she climbed out of N’doto and thanked us saying, “Sharp, very sharp!” which is a Batswana expression meaning ‘very good.’ Then she crossed the road and joined a group of woman waiting for lifts in the opposite direction. As we drove away I looked back to see her smiling broadly and telling the story of how she got a lift from two white people in an old Landy.

My blessings came all too soon. Twenty kilometers down the road a group of two women, three children, and a man, stood along the road. There was no village in sight and the area was heavily populated with elephants and other wild animals. When the man saw that we were foreigners, his arm fell by his side, as he did not expect us to stop.

“Do you think we have room for all of them?” Scott asked taking his foot off the gas.

“Sure!” and we stopped and reversed. It turned out that only one woman and her two children, aged 1 and 3 needed a lift. “Oh, then we can all sit in front,” I said. “I’ll hold the little girl on my lap.” Again, I straddled the gear stick. The baby boy was soon sound asleep in his mother’s arms, a Mona Lisa smile played on his lips and around his eyes while he slept. What is he dreaming about, I thought. Elephants? Monkeys?  Food? As we drove I tried to engage the little girl on my lap. Her mother told me that her name was Fuchsia. She smelled sweet, like a flower, so that made sense. “Aren’t you beautiful!” I said looking down at her little face. Each time I said something she nodded exactly twice, always looking me directly in the eyes taking my strange words seriously. But she never made a sound. Ah, what an angel, I thought. After a while her lids grew heavy and she stopped staring into my eyes and fell fast asleep. It felt so cozy to cradle a youngster in my arms. Scott looked at me and smiled knowing that I was happy as a clam. Fuchsia, bundled up in too many clothes as African children always are no matter how hot the day, was becoming warm in my arms. Too warm. She was in the deepest sleep I have ever seen. Why is it that a sleeping body is so much heavier than a waking one? My arm was going numb. Now she was as heavy as an eight year old. I shifted position and let her head drop onto Scott’s arm, hoping she would wake up. No luck. It was as if she was in a coma. I was beginning to sweat. Then, without warning, my lap became super heated. And damp. Then soaking wet. It was coming from Fuchsia or more precisely, Fuchsia’s bottom. “Uh oh,” I whispered to Scott. “No Pampers north of the Limpopo.”

When we reached the town where the woman lived with her husband and two children, I handed Fuchsia to her mother and indicated that Fuchsia had had an accident by pointing to my sopping wet jeans. The mother chuckled, as embarrassed moms whose babies pee on people who give them a lift do and she let me change into dry clothes in her home.

The good news is, while there might not be Pampers disposable diapers north of The Limpopo, there is Feta. There’s also a “Wet Wipes” type product, which I used with vigor on the middle seat of N’doto. But we have become bad people. Every time there is an off odor in the car we blame it on a little girl named Fuchsia.

Teresa O'Kane

Kasane, Botswana

Want to know more about our bush taxi experiences over ten months Casablanca to Cape Town?
Safari Jema, A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town
http://tinyurl.com/mxwuwb9

The Potato Truck

     Getting from The Gambia back into Senegal was a challenge, one that reminded me what it is about Africa that makes me cry, laugh, despair and hope. We waited hours, asked many drivers, even bribed an official but could not get a ride into Senegal. Finally, a man transporting hundreds of pounds of potatoes to market in Senegal let us pay him a considerable sum to ride with his cargo.

     In a vehicle that was once a small truck but was now made up from parts of several other vehicles, he crammed all his potatoes and sixteen people. Like sardines. My husband lay on his back atop a mountain of potatoes like an upside down crab, his knees to his chest and his arms seeming to hold up the potato laden roof sagging only inches above him. Another man thinking he had found the sweet spot on the roof fell off and the roof suddenly bowed a bit less.

     I sat in the front seat, my arms across the shoulders and out the windows of the driver and the passenger next to me. My job was to hold both doors shut for the four-hour journey. The man next to me taught me a few words of Wolof and I taught him some words in English such as “spuds” and “overcapacity” and “unsafe.” There was no reverse gear so when we had to turn around (to pick up the man who had fallen off) we all had to de-wedge ourselves from the truck and help push the vehicle around. And we must have come in the back door to Senegal. We never did see a border post.

     The next day we made our way to the local police station in Tambacounda so that we could get a stamp in our passports making us official. After we had tea with the policeman he wrote in our passports in French the date and, “seen passing through Tambacounda.”

Beaucoup Oeufs

     While lying in bed one morning in Madagascar’s capital city Antananarivo trying to pronounce Antananarivo and scratching my various mosquito bites, I discovered a small hard lump on the bottom of my foot. Very small, but we had learned after seven months in Africa that little things could turn into something big so off we went to the clinic, which turned out to be a maternity hospital. This will become significant later. Through pantomime and our very minimal French I bared my sole to the doctor and tout suite she had me up on the gurney in her office/operating room. An attending nurse smeared my foot with betadine and the doctor placed the business end of her scalpel over the lump. I pantomimed "Ow! This will hurt! No anesthesia first? Numb the foot, s’il vous plait! Me no likey pain." The doctor pantomimed back, "We don't normally do that here; I’ll cut slowly and see how much it hurts. It's just a sharp knife, you big sissy!"

     While charades are being played between the hospital staff and me, Scott is flitting around the doctor and my foot, trying to be helpful while cheerfully proclaiming, "Maybe it's a maggot!" He said this in English though so they ignored him - until he brought out the camera. Then they were all smiles, pantomiming that copies be sent and becoming very cheerful. So everyone was cheerful but me. The doctor began to cut and all I could think about is the scene from Gone With the Wind when the Confederate soldier who is on the table about to have a leg amputated yells, "Don't cut! Don't cut!" while Scarlet looks on in horror. I think I even whispered, "Don't cut!" but I said this in English and my head was buried in the gurney table pillow so everyone ignored me.

     Camera clicking away, doctor cutting away, me looking away, when suddenly the doctor shouts " Voila!" Scott aimed the camera and said with anticipation, "Is it a maggot? La maggot?" The doctor, smiling for her close up said, "Non! Beau coups oeufs!" Which for you non-francophone types like me, means “lots of eggs.” My Mom always said what a good host I was but this was ridiculous.
“Eggs? In my foot?” I asked with horror. "Je deteste oeufs! Unless they're over easy with bacon on toast."
The doctor and nurse pantomimed a little insect drilling a whole in my foot and laying her eggs. I could tell it was their most interesting delivery of the day.

     I most likely acquired the stowaways in rural Madagascar or more likely in the garden of Karen Blixen’s home outside Nairobi in Kenya where pregnant insects like to live I guess. It's a lovely place and if I were a creepy bug I'd live there too.

     Making the most of my oeuf extraction, I thought it would be best to recover on a tropical isle. We flew to Ile Sainte Marie 25 miles off the NE coast of the Madagascar mainland and transferred by dug out canoe to an even smaller outer island, Ile aux Natte. The tiny island had a small troop of ruffed lemurs that are black and white with a very long black bushy tail and a white beard ala Uncle Remus. They leap from tree to tree looking like energetic koala bears. It was mating season though and of the six lemurs on the island there is only one female so there was a lot of yelling and screaming and crying going on when a suitor was rejected. The female was very particular and when her current mate fought off another male making advances, a big verbal fight ensued and the rejected lemur, I swear, cried while the winner gleefully groomed the tail of the female. We could hear them all the time, and see them most of the time, from the balcony of our simple bungalow on stilts over the Indian Ocean. We stayed longer than planned but we were enticed by the turquoise blue sea, the blindingly white sand, and the love struck lemurs. Ok, the real reason we stayed was because it took us awhile to adequately sample all twenty of proprietor Pierre's homemade flavored rums. Punch Coco was the hands down favorite.

     My foot was good as new after a week, sadly still size 9. We our left tropical paradise and made our way inland via bush taxi to visit some of the seventeen national parks and take a canoe trip in the south. We had to do this mostly by bush taxi because rebels blew up train track over much of the country in 2000. Africa is not easy to get around but it’s people, flora and fauna make it well worth the trouble. Just make sure you keep your shoes on.