Scorpions, and Spiders, and Snakes, Oh, My!

I have arrived safely at Southern African Wildlife college. My luggage, however, has not. I've decided that my suitcase is cursed. Not me, not traveling, but that particular suitcase. It's the same one that got lost for four days when I went to Rome. And, just like in Rome, they promised they'd deliver it to the college the very next day. Also, just like in Rome, they failed. I learned my lesson the first time and packed a change of clothes and bare essentials in my carry-on, so I'm not completely up shit creek, but it's still annoying having only two days' worth of clothes for an indefinite amount of time, and not being able to use this weekend before the college officially opens to get everything all unpacked and settled in. Maybe I'm just bad at traveling. I like being in different places, but traveling, getting there, and all the crap along with it, sucks hardcore.

Anyway, aside from all that crap, I think I'm gonna like it here. The drive to the college was beautiful, passing mountains and going into savannah. The college is right on a game preserve, so there's tons of wildlife here. Already, I've seen baboons, impala, and an elephant. There are quite a few birds here as well. Unfortunately, there are also many rodents, some of which have taken up residence in my house. I live in a thatched roof cottage, which is actually rather cute and I'd enjoy it if it weren't so infested. I mean, really, what rude house guests these rodents are! They eat my food, they poop all over the place, and they make freaky scampering noises in the roof all day. It's the poop that gets to me. I seriously wouldn't give a damn if they lived here if they were house-trained. It's like, “Okay, I'll leave out some bread for you and let you stay in my predator-free household, but you mustn't poop on the furniture or counters, and try not to play your music too loud when I have guests over. I'll even do your dishes for you.” We really could get along quite nicely if these rodents would just cooperate. But I guess they're not the reasoning type.

The college itself is quaint, the people I've met so far all seem nice, and I feel like I'm going to learn a lot and also contribute a lot working at the library here. Work officially starts on Monday, but I've gotten a basic tour of the grounds and a run-down of my responsibilities and what projects the library has in store for it. The library is very much a work-in-progress, because it just recently re-opened after being closed for a bit over a year, so updating all the resources and organizing everything in a useful way is going to be pretty prevalent in my workload. We'll see how it all goes.

As the title suggests, there's a bit of creepy-crawly going on here. My first night here I nearly had a scorpion as a bedfellow, which kind of freaked me out, and I was glad just to wake up alive the next morning. Hmm... scorpion bedfellow... sounds like it should be the name of a heavy metal band or something. I hereby copyright/trademark/patent the name “Scorpion Bedfellow” and all its derivatives. If anyone I know is ever part of any project and they use a similar name, I better get free stuff out of it! ;)

There are a lot of spiders here. Most of them won't kill you, but some of them still deal a pretty nasty bite. I need to read up on which ones I can safely ignore and which ones I need to call the game ranger down to remove. There are also some incredibly rare spiders that live in this area, and it's illegal to harm them because they're endangered species, so if I find one of those in my room, there's a whole slew of regulations involved as to who is allowed to remove it, how they're allowed to remove it, and where they're allowed to remove it to. I've got a lot of reading to do. Don't want to go breaking any laws and contributing to the extinction of a species now, do I?

I haven't seen any snakes yet, but I've been told there are a few potentially deadly ones living in this area, so the best thing to do upon encountering any kind of snake at all is to back away slowly and call in a game ranger. Fortunately, they're not too hard to find around here, because this college's purpose is to train people who want to become game rangers (and other wildlife conservation specialists).

So, my boss, Sunel, and her husband Gawie, who both live and work at the college, had me over for a braai, which is a traditional South African barbeque. They cooked steak over a wood fire inside a brick oven/grill/chimney thing outside and made braai sandwiches to go with it (which is basically cheese, tomato, & onion cooked on the braai grill inside bread). It was all really good. And normally I'm not a steak person, but they cook it differently and use different spices here, so I actually really enjoyed it. After wine and dessert, we chatted and watched soaps in their living room. They're just as terrible here as they are in the U.S. However, they're in Afrikaans, and sub-titled in English, so I actually started to pick up a couple of words by the end of it. Sunel said she'd speak Afrikaans to me every day while I'm here so that I can learn it. She also said that the other staff people and the students who speak Shan'gaan are all really happy whenever someone else wants to learn their language, so I should ask anyone I get friendly with to start using Shan'gaan words with me here and there. I'd love to come out of Africa knowing a couple of other languages, even just a basic grasp. Here's hopin'.

Anyway, it's just about bed-time, and I've got one of two things to look forward to tomorrow: either my luggage will arrive and I'll finally be able to unpack, or I'll go with Sunel and Gawie on a game drive in Kruger. Seeing lots of exotic animals...finally wearing different clothes...either one is acceptable to me.