We should�ve never left Baboon Camp

Thalefang Charles | Friday August 12, 2016 16:17

 

We are at a point of no return – a small riverside gate at Mbiroba Camp in Seronga. Our mekoro (dug-out canoes) are all loaded up. Ready to go.  The team makes a circle holding hands and Leshego ‘Rich’ Motswai, one of the polers, leads us in a prayer.

I steal a glance at all the team members who are about to embark on this journey for the first time.  Bowed heads, eyes shut, and intensely focused, they really take this prayer seriously.  They have all confessed their nervous excitement, but at this prayer moment, it appears the excitement has died out and they are cloaked in nervousness.  It is not a very pretty sight. It gives me a fright.  Will they make it?

After the prayer I shout, “Let’s do this!” to resuscitate their excitement before they go through the small gate into their small mekoro – their only transport for the next 14 days. Everyone gets on board and polers raise their poles, called ngashi, to start sailing through the river. There are seven Bayei polers, from Seronga.

“Everyone ready?” I shout out again.

They all give me the thumbs up and that is when I ask my poler, the legendary Seitsanye ‘Sea Company’ Boitumelo (the man they sometimes call ‘The GPS of the Okavango’), “A reye Sea.”

Without wasting any minute he pushes his long ngashi hard on the river floor and the mokoro thrusts forward.  Other polers follow through. We are off.

“See you in Maun,” the small crowd that came to bid us farewell at Mbiroba cheers on the team.

Mekoro (plural for mokoro)surge forward. There are 16 of us spread in seven mekoro.  Leading mekoro is the expedition leader, yours truly and lead poler, Sea Company.  Motswai is with the film crew, Donald Sejo and David Moilwe. Behind them on position three on Gabonamang GB Kgetho’s mokoro is poet Lesego Leshie Lovesong Nchunga riding with guitarist Monaga Stiger Sola Molefi. Rapper Kelebogile HT Mabua is being poled by Mothophi Kgosiekae on position four. Photographer Pako Lesejane is with Ngoma Ketshwailwe while Alex Paullin is with Otisitswe Mothibi at five and six respectively – these are not new here.  At the back is the tough Leilamang Snaps Kgetho with third member of the film crew Joe Sebina – perhaps the most worried person on the trip.

I make a note in my journal, “Okavango, please be nice, they are scared of you, but they would really love to meet you.”

Ten days after going through the Point of No Return at Mbiroba Camp in Seronga, we are at Baboon Camp and it is rest day.

It has been nine nights of sleeping in the wilderness with lullabies of lion roars and hippo calls, long days of poling through the thick papyrus along the elephant and hippo trails, poster card sunrises and sunsets, more hippos and elephant sightings, rice and beans, sometimes with fish.

No one needs help pitching up their tents.  They have found a home in the wilderness.  Nerves have settled down. Everyone is even comfortable with letting out air that is a result of too much beans, including our diva-like poet who is the only woman in the team. The Okavango Delta has charmed them. They start to speak about themselves and the Delta with a whole new perspective. It is heartwarming listening to them talk.

Another note in my journal: “Leshie talks about the intimacy of this place like it is a human being. Maybe it is poet thing, but there is no more scared talk of hippos and elephants. I think the Delta has finally won their hearts. They are in love with the wilderness. Congratulations Okavango”.

Stiger and Sea Company compete to crack our ribs with hilarious stories.

Laughter around the campfire gets little louder and confessions from Day One come out. They have overcome clumsy wildlife encounters.

Sebina confesses that he has never been more connected to God. He tells the team that he believe the first dry days, when we could not meet hippos, were probably due to his prayers. 

Sebina is a Mokgatla from Bokaa who throws in the words ‘Mokgatla’ and ‘Kgabo’ in every sentence especially when he is happy.  Today he has just returned from a bushwalk – tracking lions on foot and the ‘mokgatlas’ and ‘kgabos’ have multiplied in his sentences.

Leshie asks the team not leave Baboon Camp despite not having spoken to her family and friends in four days because of our communications problem.

She has successfully disconnected from the world and is now connected to the Okavango Delta.

Fourteen days after Point of No Return, we reach the confluence of the Thamalakane and Boro Rivers in Maun.

It is a bittersweet moment. Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) has organised a welcome reception in our honour. The team members are in their khaki shirts and sun hats.

They look tired, somewhat confused and they keep drifting into awkward silences.  But we keep on with the hearty flashbacks of jokes and sayings from the journey thus far, that can only be understood by us.

We are completely transformed from the scared newbies that walked through the Point of No Return at Seronga.

Our polers disappear into the sepia colours of sunset as they leave via the Thamalakane River to go and park the mekoro that carried us through the Okavango Delta for the past 14 days.  My eyes get wet. I remember Leshie’s words, “We should never have left Baboon Camp!”

We should not have.