We are nearing the end.

I can hardly believe that in just a bit over a week from now, it will all be over. We will leave Pridelands and our lives in tents in the bush to travel to Joburg and back into “civilisation”.
Some of us will still have some days/weeks vacation, which they spend in Southern Africa, some will go back home to study or to find or start new jobs. I will, of course, go to Zimbabwe where I will finally get the chance to drive from Victoria Fall to Chizarira National Park all by myself. An opportunity to enjoy nature without group, without restrictions. 

It is strange, but lately I more and more felt the need to be out there on my own. Just me and nature. And the only opportunity I had to do that was when I was in Hoedspruit a little over a week ago.
Yes, I got sick again. I wasn’t feeling well and spent a few days in camp not really doing anything at all. After a few days, I decided to go to the doctor once more. As it turned out, my throat infection still wasn’t gone and had started to play up again. So I got new medicine and the advice to stay out of camp for a few days.
This time, I decided to follow doctor’s orders immediately. So I arranged for a place to stay, went to camp to get some stuff and went back to stay in Hoedspruit for 4 nights, until Monday the 18th. It was a good decision. This time, when I got back to camp, I didn’t feel like there is still something not quite ok and I stopped coughing, so finally all is well.

But with yet another 6 for 7 days lost, I decided I will not do the assessments. Catching up all I’ve missed would have taken me a lot of time, the assessments starting less than a week after I came back and I don’t want to miss enjoying nature. So when I got back in camp, I told Craig (our trainer) and he fully agreed that the opportunity to “live” nature as much as possible is more important than to study and not enjoy the wild.
So from that moment on, I tried to enjoy every minute outdoors even more than before. And there were a couple of drives where I got confirmation that my decision was right. Like when we went out with just a few students, because the rest needed/wanted to learn, and we had this amazing Leopard sighting of a female with two young feeding on a kill in a tree. Or the time where, again, a lot of the group needed the time to study, and we came across Lagerhta, a lone lioness that lives and hunts much like a leopard. Looking into her eyes was an experience I will never forget and I would have missed it if I had tried to catch up for the assessments.
There is a disadvantage though. I have more time than the others to go out, but I’m not allowed to. Ecotraining rules are that no student is to leave camp (other than in cases of sickness or emergencies) for the whole 55 days of the training. Which means I can not go out by myself and am not even allowed to go out with some of the backups or with Morris, the tracker here in camp who is a bit of a tracker-legend and with whom I would love to go on a walk.

So by now, I’m longing more and more for the moment I can go out just by myself with the freedom to sit and walk where I want, when I want.

The extra time I have on my hands is spent with studying (even though I am not doing assessments, I still want to learn as much as possible), reading some books with stories from rangers from the early days, working on some photographs and reflecting on some of the topics I’ve come across during my time here and which I find interesting enough to take a closer look at. 
For example the project from Michael Stone, a guide and dreamer from Hoedspruit who developed a steel fireplace which does not smoke, is very economic on firewood and enables baking of bread (the main source of food in many of the poorer villages in Southern Africa) in a very short time compared to the traditional ways. He also set up a program for the usage of the coals from these fires for fertilisation by enriching them with human urine and having them crushed by spreading them in the entrance of Kraals where livestock will trample them. An amazing sustainable procedure which is perfect for the poor communities.
And of course I still help my fellow students where possible.

In between, I enjoy the unbelievable moments at the waterhole, when Ellis, Buffalo, Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest or Impala come to drink. Lots of moments for good photographs.
And for talks with wonderful people, like the young Tsundzukani Hlongwane. Tsundzukani is a young man from a small village who works as a tracker for Ecotraining. When he was young, he was one of the boys who might have ended as a poacher, because that was more or less what his friends did. Only when they wanted to go hunt animals in the Kruger Park did Tsundzukani draw the line and started listening to is father, who was a ranger in Kruger. From there, he has made it his cause to teach young children about wildlife and the need to conserve it. He took them out on trips and frequently sat with them to teach them about the beauty and the importance.
When he had to leave his village because he started to work for Ecotraining, he dedicated land owned by his family (about 3 hectares) to the village community, but they must keep teaching the children about wildlife. Believe me, meeting people like Tsundzukani and having time to talk with him is priceless.

All in all, I have mixed feelings at the moment. Looking forward to the moment I can go my own way, but also dreading the moment this will all be over.
One thing is certain. Africa is a place I will return to.