Okavango Journal Day 15
Two years ago, on my first Delta crossing, I asked Gobonamang Kgetho a question that I thought was fairly straight forward: When did you start poling?
Gobonamang, or GB as people more often call him, looked at me like I was asking an extraordinarily stupid question. Like I might follow up with when did you start eating? Or when did you start breathing? After a pause, he answered me, with a patience that I have since come to expect from him. Also with typical brevity. Just two words: very young.
The Ba’Yei people arrived in the Delta some 350 year ago. They brought with them a piece of technology that would transform the region– the mokoro, a flat bottomed, streamlined canoe that could travel quickly and function in shallow water. It was the perfect vehicle for the Delta, with its narrow channels and oscillating floods.
It’s also the perfect vehicle for our research. We can load a mokoro up with a lot of gear (600kg), and up to three people. There’s no motor, so we can approach animals quietly; if we were to attempt this transect in motor boats, I have no doubt that we would see only a small percentage of the animals that we do.
To say that the Ba’Yei members of our team are indispensable would be a gross understatement. They provide an expertise in navigation that allows us to find the right route — very likely the only navigable route- across the Delta. They bring with them the kind of deep knowledge about animal life that can only be learned from a lifetime of observation and learning. They facilitate dialogue with fishermen and village elders and the poling community.
Last year seven Ba’Yei left their lives and their families behind to help lead an epic 120 day expedition, from the highlands of Angola more than a thousand kilometres away, down to the Delta, past Maun to the salt pans of the Kalahari. It was an exhausting odyssey. We spent more time pulling and paddling boats than we did poling them. There were biting ants and angry bees and capsizes and unmapped rapids. There were frosty mornings and long dry afternoons and cold, desolate evenings. They all spent four months of their lives as conservation ambassadors, bringing a message to communities that the successes in Botswana could be echoed in Angola.
I’m honoured to be finishing another transect with my Ba’Yei friends: Gobonamang Kgetho, Water Setlabosha, Topho Retiyo, Leillamang Kgetho, Motiemang Xhikabora and the newest addition to the team, Nkeletang Moshupa. Every day I learn something from them, and I’m sure tomorrow will be no exception.
#Okavango16 is a National Geographic expedition to survey the biodiversity of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. You can follow along on Twitter and Instagram, and on our website — IntoTheOkavango.org
