Bush Proverbs

Proverb Number 1:

When your forehead, travelling at 40km/h because you're at the helm of an open air landy, meets up with a large dung beetle flying at around 20km/h in the exact opposite direction - the result is a mighty collision.

This is what happended to me a couple of nights ago when I was cruising back to camp at pace to make it in time for supper. Now, you must understand that there is this long and mostly boring (in comparison to the magnificence of the rest of the concession) tarred road called Pafuri Main, upon which one must travel to get places in good time. The concession is 27,000 hectares (ie large) and so you end up using the tar as a bit of a highway. 40km/h is the absolute maximun we are allowed to drive, and for good reason. At night my right hand is armed with a serious spot light. Serious in brightness and after 1 hour of holding it up, seriously heavy too. My talented left hand then steers, changes gears and mans the radio. So allowing anyone to travel faster than 40km/h whilst doing all this would probably be down right dangerous.

So this tar road is long and fairly straight, which means that all insects for miles around the landy are attracted to the head lights and spot light. Since the rains, night drives have become more challenging for me and unpleasant for guests as we are bombarded by swarms of all sorts of insect life. Christmas beetles and little miggies are the least of our worries - it's the dung beetles that you have to watch out for. Some of these chaps grow to considerable sizes, which may be hard to appreciate until you've been smacked on the noggin by a golf ball sized one travelling at pace.

I was shining around all enthusiastically when all or a sardine - SMACK!?! - you're knocked in the head by a powerful unidentified force, you swerve violently losing control of the vehicle and your spotlight arm gets tossed high in the air, as if your scanning the moon for signs of life. What has got me?, you think as your mind searches for answers...... have I been shot in the head by a german sniper tucked away in the mopanes? No, it cant be, surely. Has Mike Tyson climbed out of the bonnet and punched me on the nose? Unlikely. Then as the pain and shock subsides and you manage to correct the course of the vehicle and stay on the road, you realise, Oh just another dung beetle.


Proverb Number 2:

When the sufficient amount of weight is placed upon a small amphibian - it shall pop like a balloon.

Unfortunately I must admit, and I'm certainly not proud of it, that I now know exactly what sound a frog makes when you drive over it on a tar road. The answer is a resounding -POP-. More than insects come to life after the rains and on this one evening last week, I heard a couple of loud popping noises whilst driving back to camp along the tar road. After ruling out the idea that my tyres might have popped it slowly dawned on me that I had flattened a few of what must have been hundreds of small frogs crossing the road - which I was trying to dodge - that evening after the rain. Someone else told me it only happens if you drive over them from head to rear, causing the air to rush backwards and finally burst them with a pop louder than you'd expect.

Proverb Number 3:

A chinaman in the bush, is like a bushman in China - it doesn't occur naturally.

I have recently had the interesting experience of having to guide 7 non-english speaking chinamen on safari. They don't quite get the standard bush routine. You wake up, have coffee and rusks and then depart on game drive until late morning when you come back for a large and tasty brunch. NOT, wake up and start devouring your 2kg barrel of noodles that you've brought along for just such an occasion before drive!?

Then after your big brunch, lunch at 2:30 is light. Salad and small dessert. It is generally not polite to ask your host 'is that it, or is there another course coming?' Well when told that no further course was coming, they each whip out another 2kg barrel of noodles. Ok so these guys enjoy noodles. I get it.

So I took them on a great evening drive to Crooks Corner, showing plenty of nice big ellies, crocs, hippos and an abundance of antelope. At sunset on the way back, one of them cracks out their cell phone and puts on Alicia Keys at full volume. Hmmmm, this is strange, I thought. Then she (her name was Cindarella) sings along dramatically, causing all the others to whip out there phones too, each with their own song blaring at the same time. Oh well, I've never seen this before, so I'll just kind of enjoy the weird experience.

At the end of their trip, I just couldn't help feeling that maybe the bush just isn't the place for them. Ahh, Chinamen - they just don't get it.