All coming together

Sunday was great, because not only did I get to go on a fantastic game drive (pictures, soon, I promise...I took a ton of them), but my luggage showed up as well! So I got to see loads of animals up close and personal, most of which cooperated with me and posed for the camera, and I got to change my clothes. I also managed to get online for the first time in maybe three days (I'm such an internet junkie...you have no idea how hard it is for me not to be connected...even in a place like this...it's terrible, I know). So, all in all, a good day.

Today (Monday) was my first day of work. The students don't start showing up until next week, so this first week at the library is to get as much organized and useful as possible. I'm somehow still not quite over jet-lag, because I couldn't sleep last night until far too late, and I had to wake up early for work this morning. Mandatory tea-time at 10:00 though really helped me not to be a zombie the whole time I was working. There's an optional tea-time at 13:00 that I skipped, because I'm just not used to that many breaks in a day, but next time I might go. I'm not much of a regular tea person, but they had this herbal stuff I'd never heard of before, and it was actually pretty good. I'll remember what it's actually called eventually, but the name of it means “red bush” in Afrikaans...or something like that.

After work I went on a walk around the perimeter of the college (an electric fence keeps the animals out of the buildings), and took pictures of the African sunset and wildlife through the wires. I saw two male impala fighting today. They ran at each other with their heads down, horns forward, and crashed together. I could hear them as I saw them butt heads. They both stopped and looked at me as I walked by, but continued to fight each other, probably over a girl (I saw some other impala nearby), when they realized I wasn't a threat. After my walk I went for a quick swim and showered. Now I'm just waiting until it's late enough that it's a reasonable hour in the States for me to go online and call people. Now that the library is operational, WiFi is up 24/7. However, when the library closes, you have to go outside to use it. Needless to say, being a warm body outside the library with a light-emitting source is bound to attract all manner of insect. So, I'm probably just going to do the bare minimum communication with people so that I don't get eaten alive.

The following is a bunch of boring library stuff that you should not feel obligated to read, but I feel obligated to write, because I'll need to refer to it later when I'm writing up my report on this whole experience for class credit. (Although, if you happen to be one of my fellow library students/librarian friends, then, by all means, read on.)

Most of today I spent cataloging a collection of wildlife management books from a series put out by the World Wildlife Fund. This library is very small, and anything out of the ordinary gets its own classification. Series, conference proceedings, coursework books, etc., all have their own little sections and their own way of writing call numbers. I invented the call number system for the books I was cataloging today. I used a combination of letters to represent publisher, title, and copy. The collection was big enough that it needed its own section. So, the first thing I did was to choose the letters WWF to begin the call number, because that tells me who the author/publisher is and what section the book will be in. Then I used the first three or four letters of the first word in the title to make up the next part of the call number (three is the standard, however, if there are two distinct titles in the series which would have the same call number, I expanded it to four). Finally, I used c. and a number to represent individual books which were duplicates. For example, the call number for the third copy of a book entitled “Human conflict management manual” would be:

WWF-Hum c.3

Although I did add subject headings to the record, classification by subject is not necessary for this collection, because students using these books generally know precisely which book they need, and therefore giving a call number related to the title rather than the subject makes it easier for both students and librarians to find. This collection of materials is unique from the rest of the library materials in that having as many copies as possible of a book is desirable, because they use these books to teach classes with, and students all come in from the same class needing to take out the books, so we have to provide them with as many resources as possible.

Now, anyone who knows anything about going to college in the U.S. will be scratching their heads, saying something like, “But that's what the bookstore is for; the library never has textbooks.” because we've all been ripped off by the campus bookstore, overpaying for a new edition that you can't sell back because next year they'll pull the same thing on whoever's coming in after you. It's not like that here. At least, not at this college library. The college itself is small enough, and the focus is more on hands-on conservation activities than it is classroom learning, that a bookstore isn't necessary here, and would actually get in the way. The college is situated on a game preserve, which means that the land immediately outside the college's property is protected. This limits the amount of building and expansion that can happen, because then the college would be encroaching on the territory of the wildlife. I'm not even going to get into the irony that would be there if a college dedicated to wildlife conservation went and destroyed habitats in order to build a bigger campus. Oh, wait, I just did.

I'll stop boring all of you now with my library mumbo-jumbo, at least until next time, when I talk about expectations of the users, budget, and maybe even community outreach projects. Fascinating, I know!

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.

Arrival in Africa

I'm here! Huzzah!

Next time I fly, though, I want to be sedated. Seriously.

The two-hour connector to D. C. wasn't that bad, despite being a bit bumpy. Then the plane ride to Africa was split into two parts. We flew across to Dakar, which took roughly six hours, and then the people going to Johannesburg had to stay on board as other passengers came and went for about an hour. That's when I started to feel sick. I realized they were pumping some sort of chemical cleanser into the air system of the plane because I could see the white coming out of the vents and it smelled funny. The next eight hours were pure misery. I felt so queasy it was all I could do to remember to breathe and not throw up. I nibbled on the bread from my airline meals (three in all, which wouldn't have been half bad had I been able to keep them down). Eventually I started feeling better and the kid next to me, Lazarel something was his name, asked me to be his opponent in Chess. I wasn't half-bad, considering I only vaguely even know the rules of chess. I even won once. I also did a bit of reading and failed miserably at every attempt to sleep on the plane. I'm not usually anti-child, but there were far too many sick/screaming children onboard for me to feel entirely comfortable. That's what happens when you fly coach, though. Meh.

Finally we landed, I get through immigration and customs without any problems, claim my baggage and find out that one of my checked pieces of luggage was torn open in transit. I was too hot and tired to give a damn at the moment, but tomorrow I'm going to go back to the airline with the ripped bag and see if they can't pay me to replace it.

Anyway, my host family for the week, Henti, his wife Bronwen and their two-year-old daughter Victoria, came to pick me up at the airport and took me out to get food. Chicken burgers with pineapple and some weird sauce, and a citrus drink from a fruit whose name I don't remember...it was delicious. Particularly because I was on solid ground and could eat without feeling sick to my stomach. After that a shower was had, because after over 24 hours of straight traveling (from the time I left my house in the States to when I got to my host family's home), I was in dire need of one. And now that I've given you all a basic run-down of my journey, it's time to sleep. Tomorrow my hosts are going to show me around town so I've got to be well-rested.