Dispatch from the Okavango Delta: My biggest fear

‘Aren’t you afraid?’ I have received this question many times ever since I started crossing the Okavango Delta with mekoro (dugout canoes) in 2015. But, I do not really remember answering it with any ounce of second thought. All the time, it was met by a half-smile, half-laugh coupled with an emphatic “No!” But sometimes, I have responded with a question, “What should I be afraid of?”

Many people who inquired about my fears wondered if I am not afraid of: drowning in the water, tumbled up by territorial hippos, eaten by large crocodiles, stomped down by elephants, mauled by lions, gored by buffaloes, bored into by river leeches and stung by the ‘chicken-sized’ mosquitoes. I genuinely never thought much about these dangers. To me they are just normal dangers like riding a vehicle, flying an aircraft, walking through the city or even eating – people die from eating everyday.