Volunteering in the Naboisho conservancy 4 weeks july-august 2018

[khakialahari]

I have to say probably in my favourite 5 photos of 7,000 is this. All photos are by my girlfriend by the way. 

[khakialahari]

13 minutes ago, Tom Kellie said:

~ @khakialahari

 

The warm luminosity in the lion images above is lovely.

 

I strive for that, but typically fall short.

 

Thank you for posting such fine lion images.

 

Tom K.

It is very strange getting compliments from people on this site who I admire so much. I really am blessed. I do a Fulham fc podcast and write on a fulham site similar to this and it seems to be only abuse hurled at one and another. Once again the comradery and support here is so nice and it just makes you want to do it all again. So I suppose you have given me no option!!! Another bloody safari!!!! Manipulative so and so's

[Tom Kellie]

Just now, khakialahari said:

Once again the comradery and support here is so nice and it just makes you want to do it all again. So I suppose you have given me no option!!! Another bloody safari!!!! Manipulative so and so's

 

~ @khakialahari

 

“Enablers R Us”

 

After reading your comment above regarding another safari, I said to myself:

 

“Our work here is done”.

 

BTW: It's easy to understand why the goofy lion visage above is your favorite. 

 

A tip of the chapeau to your talented girlfriend for the excellent image.

 

Tom K.

[khakialahari]

The other group of voluteers witnessed the hunting dogs hunting although there was no action. I believe this is the last the wild dogs were seen

[khakialahari]

13 hours ago, wilddog said:

I have to say I am curious about your avatar and wondering if it featured in your trip.

 

Time will tell.

I'm very sorry to say that this was my picture before my trip. I am obsessed with the Ratel, unfortunately there were no sightings. 

[khakialahari]

masters of mayhem and the Houdini are amazing documentaries. Please watch if you haven't. 

[khakialahari]

honey badgers are the best animal ever

[wilddog]

Next time perhaps?

[Amylovescritters]

Honey badgers are the best... And they don’t give a @#$*!

[khakialahari]

I"m sorry I have not been keeping this rolling. Life gets in the way sometimes. I have so much to add but it is not always easy to do so. I do a football podcast that I've been on for every game since my last post, and I fix heating problems for a living. I cannot justify writing this when customers are huddled around a hot water bottle. ***t gets cold, I get busy. I can't pretend that I wouldn't rather post updates but keeping people warm is important to me too. On the way home from this sighting everyone was happy. I finally plastered my hand to the team, "did you see that blacksmith plover"... hahaha, apparently just me. As the trip grew, the understanding with my fellow volunteers grew. I will take this point to really bring up some of the best and worst of the situation. 

 

When many people all come together safari is a bitch!!! Even simplifying it to mammals it is still difficult. I completely understand people wanting their own vehicle, guide and direction. We were on a big cat conservation "mission". Now I will now lay my cards on the table. I've done weeks of charity work before and I've come to the conclusion that its a pat on the back system. The money donated is worth more than the token gesture you are part of. Money spent on viewing animals in africa is worth more than anything!!!!  We would drive for four hours and see nothing. That's the bush right? unfortunately, some people do not agree. I love seeing any animal, a five striped skink is as beautiful as anything. A grey capped social weaver, black bellied bustard, f**k  everything I've never seen before is amazing...Unfortunately on a big cat conservation trip you meet the saviours of big cats......... people who only care about cats!!! Ive never met a cat that survives off what they are interested in only. I never will always enjoy the beauty of what i see when someone tells me it has to purr.  but budget dictates. For those that dont enjoy birds, i feel sorry for you. You cant love what the world has to offer if you disregard it!! Im scared of spiders, but i wouldn't pretend they arent important and fascinating. In my first week i asked myself the question: why do humans kull, everything, but not question the sustainability of humanity? for me that is the biggest problem!!

Edited January 23, 2019 by khakialahari

[pault]

Haven’t found time to get very far through this - just up to your first night in the bush- but I have to say what a great start getting picked up by the wrong driver at the airport and spending the night in a freezing women’s dorm. I guess the wild dogs first drive are a bit noteworthy too.

 

Love it and looking forward to reading the rest. 

[khakialahari]

Thanks @pault. I feel I have massively plagerised your style. If you saw a duck on a pond I would be riveted!! The common consensus is that safaris are addictive. Well it’s certainly true. Why we have to travel to see the world as it should be, and that even that is threatened is so frightening. What the hell have we done to this world? 

[pault]

On 1/26/2019 at 3:20 AM, khakialahari said:

Thanks @pault. I feel I have massively plagerised your style. If you saw a duck on a pond I would be riveted!! The common consensus is that safaris are addictive. Well it’s certainly true. Why we have to travel to see the world as it should be, and that even that is threatened is so frightening. What the hell have we done to this world? 

 

Ha! I would not call it plagiarism! Actually your style reminded me a bit of @Super LEEDS who hasn’t been spotted for a while. 

 

 

[khakialahari]

So i apologise for the delay and my various rants in the mean time. I have found writing this trip report one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. Ive been travelling before and tell a good tale or two but i honestly feel like I'm back out there writing this. I was on such a roll. After the most amazing lion experience that night we went back for our usual good feed. All the food was lovely throughout. Its always served buffet with vegetarian options available. This isn't steak or anything fancy but a nice bolognese bulked out with lentils was common, fish possibly one a week, pasta, it was nothing to write home about but was usually very good and there was always enough. In the first two weeks we had some rather unfortunate arguments over the food. Never between those eating the food but it would be wrong of me to not say that some (one) of our group ended up being a bit of a nightmare. Throughout our trip there was conflict between the volunteers. If you have sat in a vehicle with another person I'm certain the frustrations and feelings of not only having no control of nature and what you may see or not is torture (if we do this, if we leave that...) as when making your own decision its easy to live with your own mistakes. I can blame myself and curse myself but when you feel someone sat two seats away made a bad decision that wasn't bad at the time but ended up being so is hard to take. As a plumber who hasn't trained an apprentice from scratch, in my training of the people I'm trying to teach, I never let them do anything difficult or dangerous. This is the best way for them to learn, and its how i learnt as i was sent out on my own completely clueless. I would always rather do it myself. I am happy to do whatever it takes to put right. If I personally have done wrong, I can get to grips with that and know that I need to put my mistake right. But it is a lot harder to forgive someone for a mistake that i would probably have made?!?! Does that make sense? If i chose to miss a leopard and honey badger fight out of coincidence i would never forgive myself. But if someone else did, i would be polite but resent it in a way i could never forgive? And I would still resent myself for not being stronger and demanding what if on my own i probably would never have demanded? It is easier to sit in a traffic jam your short cut got you in, than the idiot who put you in it? Even if you would have put yourself in it? This amazing experience of four weeks volunteering for very little money really tested me in many ways and those used to a privately guided safari would probably really struggle with. I struggled on my first safari without having anything to compare it to. But struggle is the wrong word. It was a joy from start to finish and if your expectations start at zero, just seeing a bloody fish eagle, secretary bird, nile monitor, hyenas, eland, giraffe, i mean absolutely anything is a joy. I spent a month in africa, and with being told we couldn't go to a good sighting because too many high flying guests were there, to sitting on my hands and not being able to take photos of a bird i wanted to see, to sitting 11 in a vehicle trying to enjoy sightings, I asked myself, after reading and viewing all of the trip reports on this site,,,, would i rather be anywhere else? No

[khakialahari]

I really need to talk about the spanish couple we were so lucky to go with. Miguel and Carmen, I have spelt their names wrong but i honestly feel they will always have a part of my heart with them and i hope they think the same, unlikely but we really did get along well. after three days miguel asked how many safari's i had been on. I told him none and his jaw dropped. He translated everything i said to her but i think she understood some. I am quite easy to predict, I'm always joking. We spent two amazing weeks with them. They have been on over 30 african safari's and been to south america many times. Their knowledge and skill in photography was incredible. I have to say my girlfriend and my trip would have been a shadow of what we actually enjoyed without them. I actually taught them many things, and they told me i should be a guide. They had more patience than a nun, and whilst teaching me missing pieces, spent time helping everyone who asked them a question everything they knew. They did this to people i got along with, but found immediately frustrating, with such patience that i honestly could never possess. They told me to quit my job and become a guide, (my absolute dream), they helped and cared for every single person they met. They in essence told people that 2+2 = 4 fifty times and didn't get frustrated when they didn't get it. They spent hours teaching my girlfriend how to use her camera, and they literally transformed her photography, that hen told the person next to mrs khaki, what they had just told her within metres, exactly the same thing without any sense of frustration. We spent two weeks on the volunteering, and two days in the mara national park with this amazing couple. Just stunning people who could teach a pumba (foolish one) french. there are many more funny, lighthearted stories to come, i have a lot and I'm sorry I've lost momentum.

[khakialahari]

so Friday, not a day to relish, your duties end. 

[khakialahari]

I'm sorry i keep dragging this on without animals and without safari but I've got to the point that this is my story, and this is a story I'm telling. Should i miss bits out of my story? well i could, but it wouldn't be the story or journey i went on. If you don't want to hear what I'm saying? that hurts me but its probably best you don't read. I don't want to waste anyones time. There is a whole load of lion poop in the rest of this. I will try and post another bit of actual safari gold tonight...

Edited February 5, 2019 by khakialahari

[kittykat23uk]

10 hours ago, khakialahari said:

Throughout our trip there was conflict between the volunteers. If you have sat in a vehicle with another person I'm certain the frustrations and feelings of not only having no control of nature and what you may see or not is torture (if we do this, if we leave that...) as when making your own decision its easy to live with your own mistakes.

 

To be honest you can get this in any group situation even on a small private safari! It's obviously harder if you are with the same person over an extended period of time!!

 

and with being told we couldn't go to a good sighting because too many high flying guests were there.

 

Did it happen often that you were on game drives and unable to attend a sighting purely because you weren't one of the high flying guests? That would really bug me. I mean I can understand if you can't go to a sighting because you are doing volunteer work elsewhere on the reserve but just because other guest from swanky lodges are there sounds pretty poor.  We were lucky in Somkhanda in that we were the only group in the reserve so never had that problem. 

 

Really enjoying your report, please don't miss anything out, its all of great interest to me!

[Feliz]

Yes, please keep posting, your story is really interesting.  Having volunteered on holiday before (in South America) I know it has it's pros and cons and is a very different from being a paying guest

[lmonmm]

@khakialahari  Interesting- on the other hand, when I did a Rhino Research volunteer stint at Ol Pejeta, our very first day we were part of a darting/treating experience of an injured rhino. And this was because we were part of the research group- no tourists were involved. We got to be part of the whole search, follow, find (with a helicopter though not us), dart, treat and reawaken event. It was quite thrilling. I will never forget when they gave him the reverse shot and how all the techs/vets ran as he woke up. No one wanted to be near him. If I recall, it was a black rhino, who can be ornery on a good day. You just never know what's going to happen on a given day when you are in Africa- tourist or volunteer. I do absolutely look forward to more of your experiences so please, keep them coming

[khakialahari]

Sorry for yet another delay. After a great meal and buzzing from the lion sighting we woke up to Friday morning. This day entailed “grass monitoring”. It is as boring as it sounds and for me completely flawed. We drove out to a specified area, measured from one point, and counted the bare areas of grass/dirt from a fixed point. To try and make this understandable you had a start point, and measured the areas with no grass over 20cm on 0 axis, 120, and 360. I’ve made up the angles as I have forgot but you measured it on three angles from a centre mark. Any ground with over 20cm of dirt has to be taken and added. It’s a good idea. I can’t help but say clearly flawed. On our first run a couple of rangers/military Kenyan army strolled over. I had been told that camouflage clothing was strictly for the army in Africa, and my favourite Spanish man (Miguel) was sporting a rather nice camouflage jacket. Turns out these friendly rangers couldn’t have cared less but seeing Miguel changing clothes so quickly was comedy gold. 

[khakialahari]

After measuring the dirt we went back to camp. This exercise is to let the directors know which areas are over grazed, in good health etc... I think picking the same area each week clearly allows for corruption and fudging of figures. Go to a remote area, wow so much grass, sometimes we would go to a dust bowl outside the park... what a surprise... it was a dust bowl. 

[khakialahari]

The rangers were lovely and we had a good laugh counting blades of grass in front of them. 

[khakialahari]

When back at camp we had a lot of down time. Volleyball was the name of the game. We started a great competition. I am a dickhead it’s turns out. The first high ball I smashed with all my might, straight into to face of the beautiful face of the lovely young Spanish girls face. That moment you gently pat the person you have wounded is always awkward. Thankfully I didn’t smash the ball again, and I was forgiven. Other alpha males who didn’t break noses were not so lucky. I drive for 4-5 hours a day. I can be angry at times. But I’m never angry. If I cut you up and you want to kill me and I apologise, everything is forgiven. I drive so much I don’t even consider it as a problem. Shit happens. 

[khakialahari]

I am sleeping in a canvas tent, and I kid you not hyenas are sniffing around me every night. So I will now ask the question??? At what point does living it rough, and fly camping compare to being poor and being exposed? Because it’s the same thing in essence. But the complete opposite in the other