So it has been a few days that I have been posting and that is simply because the last few days after my day of was just hectic, we have been extremely busy and it does not seem to get quieter on the lodge.
I really enjoy it when it is busy even though a normal working day consist out 11 hours working the last one were not under 15. I had the most spontaneous guests ever and all were interested in what I had to say when doing any of my guide work. I did 5 bushmen walks and two dances in a weeks time and that is more than what I have done working here so I really enjoy it. The walks and dances are my desert of work. I get to build a bit more personnel relationship with my guests and do not have to be that formal. Tomorrow I have a " Be Wild" camp and cant wait for my guest to arrive but before that happens I kick my day of with helping the serving of breakfast and with no delay after that I will be presenting a bushmen walk, so tomorrow I wont waist much time at the lodge. The only sad part is that when I do the "Be Wild" I cant feed the leopards as I am at the bush camp that time and lately those two furry devils crept very deep into my heart. I seem to be more comfortable around the porcupine also lately. Unfortunately I by accident wiped my phone so I don't have to many photos of the bushmen walks and none of the dances but I will be taking more tomorrow at the camp. Tomorrow I will also take notes on the bushmen way of life so that in my next blog I can give you more information regarding lifestyle and I will try to upload more detailed photos of plants and other interesting things they use in their primitive way.
I developed a new habit lately and that is "scotch on the rocks". A double every night diluted with a little bit of water and I sleep like a baby, of coarse it takes me at least 3 hours to finish it but I really enjoy the raw taste of the whiskey (scotch).
I am also thinking about writing a book but what about I am not yet sure, more information regarding that will be coming.
The bellow of the cows are now gone and I need to play a movie on my computer so that I can just fall asleep at night .
Your author
Alexander, SLICK, Serfontein
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
Thursday, 17 March 2016
A day of
I had the privilege of getting the day of from work so I got to get up to date with all my series as well as getting in some sleep so I will be charged with energy tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don not have much to share except for the fact that I will be starting a new dream shortly and if it all goes well I will share it with you.
Best of greetings.
I had the privilege of getting the day of from work so I got to get up to date with all my series as well as getting in some sleep so I will be charged with energy tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don not have much to share except for the fact that I will be starting a new dream shortly and if it all goes well I will share it with you.
Best of greetings.
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Our little animals
Cold and cloudy
3/16/2016
This morning I woke up fresh still with sound of the calves calling their mothers.
The whole day was a cloudy one with a light drizzle every now and then on my shoulders, real English whether. For a change it was nice but yet my hart longed to the blistering African sun. It was yet an ordinary day. The animal feeding went well and for a change I had Afrikaans speaking guests with me so I could present it in my home language, which was very nice and I could do a less formal presentation but I noticed that in some way I found it difficult not use English words when giving my guests factual information. Old "Piet"; our 12 year old porcupine; showed head for the first time since Saturday and he was very eager to eat. I get to see him a lot but he tends to be shy when there are a lot of guests with me on the feeding, keeping in mind that they are actually nocturnal animals, so it is actually a privilege to see him before 10 pm. The leopards seemed hungry tonight, they were more exited than usual and for me going inside with them I have to keep in mind that they are currently in the fase of their lives where you need o look at their caracter. The male starts to mature very fast being only 11 months of age. He is called "Seun" which is an Afrikaans word meaning "boy" but I guess one of these days I will have to start calling him "Man". The leopard, especially the male, tends to become agresive as he gets older and that is due to his testoterone levels that become higher and when they go into mating season he will be very protective of his area. They still bring joy to my hart every night when I can be the one who fills their stomach and it is supringly how fast such a dangerous animal can get into your so fast. "Oterjas" our 'tame' Warthog was also acting strangely tonight and was not hersef, I guess it is the whether.
The rain turned from drizzle to almost thunder storm just after the animal feeding and a two more campers showed up. I will probably get to meet them tommorow.
I myself grabbed a bottle of ' Robertson Winery Merlot 2014' out of the bar before I dashed to my room when the boss told us that we can knock of the clock earlier. In this trade of working you need to make use of every extra minute you get of becuase tommorow can lead to a day of working 18 hours straight.
The wet whether and the only chance to enjoy red wine in room tempreture makes me long back home, but to think that the city noise will keep me up the whole night agian makes my stomach turn.
I will now send you away with a big great blessing and hope you to have a glass of proper wine and in your hand. Cheers to a great day.
3/16/2016
This morning I woke up fresh still with sound of the calves calling their mothers.
The whole day was a cloudy one with a light drizzle every now and then on my shoulders, real English whether. For a change it was nice but yet my hart longed to the blistering African sun. It was yet an ordinary day. The animal feeding went well and for a change I had Afrikaans speaking guests with me so I could present it in my home language, which was very nice and I could do a less formal presentation but I noticed that in some way I found it difficult not use English words when giving my guests factual information. Old "Piet"; our 12 year old porcupine; showed head for the first time since Saturday and he was very eager to eat. I get to see him a lot but he tends to be shy when there are a lot of guests with me on the feeding, keeping in mind that they are actually nocturnal animals, so it is actually a privilege to see him before 10 pm. The leopards seemed hungry tonight, they were more exited than usual and for me going inside with them I have to keep in mind that they are currently in the fase of their lives where you need o look at their caracter. The male starts to mature very fast being only 11 months of age. He is called "Seun" which is an Afrikaans word meaning "boy" but I guess one of these days I will have to start calling him "Man". The leopard, especially the male, tends to become agresive as he gets older and that is due to his testoterone levels that become higher and when they go into mating season he will be very protective of his area. They still bring joy to my hart every night when I can be the one who fills their stomach and it is supringly how fast such a dangerous animal can get into your so fast. "Oterjas" our 'tame' Warthog was also acting strangely tonight and was not hersef, I guess it is the whether.
The rain turned from drizzle to almost thunder storm just after the animal feeding and a two more campers showed up. I will probably get to meet them tommorow.
I myself grabbed a bottle of ' Robertson Winery Merlot 2014' out of the bar before I dashed to my room when the boss told us that we can knock of the clock earlier. In this trade of working you need to make use of every extra minute you get of becuase tommorow can lead to a day of working 18 hours straight.
The wet whether and the only chance to enjoy red wine in room tempreture makes me long back home, but to think that the city noise will keep me up the whole night agian makes my stomach turn.
I will now send you away with a big great blessing and hope you to have a glass of proper wine and in your hand. Cheers to a great day.
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
Introduction
Alex ( Alexander)
Firstly I would like to ask my readers what are their definition of a dream job. I always answer it simply by using a phrase one of my friends, whom old enough to be my father but yet he is as energetic as a teenage girl seeing her favorite boy band play live, and he said to me one day that if you do what you love then you never have to work another day. I took that phrase very seriously, perhaps more than he wanted me to, and thought to my self, you are a Namibian born and raised who still has his life ahead of him and while your still young take your chances. I finally decided to start looking for lodge work. it was not long into 2016 when I was contacted by Zelda game and guest farm offering me the job that I was dreaming about. I now work as their field guide and during the day I would oversee the general farm work, gardens for the lodge and maintenance.
The fist month was a blur, I was thrown into the deep end and had to learn to swim and sitting here today thinking about it, it was the best thing that could happen to me. Having no previous experience in tourism I simply had to rely on my salesman experience that I have to communicate with guest. Nobody has shown me how to do the animal feeding neither bushmen walk and dance and to make it worse they leave me alone in the "be wild camp" with 6 people and I had to set table for them and entertain them at the same time. I had to saddle up that horse and just ride it, and in the end it was a major success. So as the the two months and a few weeks went by I had a few walks, two dances, a few game drives and at least every evening an animal feeding. I can confidently say that I am busy staying on top.
Today is the last the day the hunting guest, Russian, will sleep here and leave tomorrow morning after breakfast. I also had two guides, ladies, who are busy passing their route for a tour that they are planning and a lovely couple, retired, that camp here. This afternoon I took the two guides for a bushmen walk and as the devil wants it, near to the end of the walk, the rain started, but HEY! you are in the bush not in town so lets enjoy this. We decide to stop the walk and start heading back to the car before the rain falls down hard. We arrived at the"Be Wild" camp, that is the starting point of the walk and also the ending, I showed them the rooms and they tipped the bushmen something for their effort. What I found interesting about these two is that with all my other guests, you as the guide, first have to eat whatever the bushmen tells them to eat, before they would even think about putting it into their mouths, but these two simply ate it before I can even properly translate what the bushmen told them. They even ate the raw "bushmen salad" that I never give to the guest to sample as it is not that good in taste but rather used in a soup or with other fruits and nuts they use.
Earlier the day me and my workers, with the boss sitting in the car, had to round up the cattle, bring them to the stall at home, and do general work on them like; treating them for ticks, sawing of the horns, castrate the calves and all the other "nitty gritty" things. We then separated the larger calves from the mothers and had to chase them to a certain camp on the farm, take the car back home and chase the cows with their bull back to another camp where the grazing is better. It took us the whole morning, walking behind cattle in the sun and plowing through the Kalahari sand to get them at their planned points. Tonight my nose is pink burnt and my arms are coco brown. It has been a long day but yet another successfully pleasing one and tonight as I hear the the night animals calling and the wind brushing the leaves in the trees, I will close my eyes and start to dream another dream as I am living the African dream job.
Firstly I would like to ask my readers what are their definition of a dream job. I always answer it simply by using a phrase one of my friends, whom old enough to be my father but yet he is as energetic as a teenage girl seeing her favorite boy band play live, and he said to me one day that if you do what you love then you never have to work another day. I took that phrase very seriously, perhaps more than he wanted me to, and thought to my self, you are a Namibian born and raised who still has his life ahead of him and while your still young take your chances. I finally decided to start looking for lodge work. it was not long into 2016 when I was contacted by Zelda game and guest farm offering me the job that I was dreaming about. I now work as their field guide and during the day I would oversee the general farm work, gardens for the lodge and maintenance.
The fist month was a blur, I was thrown into the deep end and had to learn to swim and sitting here today thinking about it, it was the best thing that could happen to me. Having no previous experience in tourism I simply had to rely on my salesman experience that I have to communicate with guest. Nobody has shown me how to do the animal feeding neither bushmen walk and dance and to make it worse they leave me alone in the "be wild camp" with 6 people and I had to set table for them and entertain them at the same time. I had to saddle up that horse and just ride it, and in the end it was a major success. So as the the two months and a few weeks went by I had a few walks, two dances, a few game drives and at least every evening an animal feeding. I can confidently say that I am busy staying on top.
Today is the last the day the hunting guest, Russian, will sleep here and leave tomorrow morning after breakfast. I also had two guides, ladies, who are busy passing their route for a tour that they are planning and a lovely couple, retired, that camp here. This afternoon I took the two guides for a bushmen walk and as the devil wants it, near to the end of the walk, the rain started, but HEY! you are in the bush not in town so lets enjoy this. We decide to stop the walk and start heading back to the car before the rain falls down hard. We arrived at the"Be Wild" camp, that is the starting point of the walk and also the ending, I showed them the rooms and they tipped the bushmen something for their effort. What I found interesting about these two is that with all my other guests, you as the guide, first have to eat whatever the bushmen tells them to eat, before they would even think about putting it into their mouths, but these two simply ate it before I can even properly translate what the bushmen told them. They even ate the raw "bushmen salad" that I never give to the guest to sample as it is not that good in taste but rather used in a soup or with other fruits and nuts they use.
Earlier the day me and my workers, with the boss sitting in the car, had to round up the cattle, bring them to the stall at home, and do general work on them like; treating them for ticks, sawing of the horns, castrate the calves and all the other "nitty gritty" things. We then separated the larger calves from the mothers and had to chase them to a certain camp on the farm, take the car back home and chase the cows with their bull back to another camp where the grazing is better. It took us the whole morning, walking behind cattle in the sun and plowing through the Kalahari sand to get them at their planned points. Tonight my nose is pink burnt and my arms are coco brown. It has been a long day but yet another successfully pleasing one and tonight as I hear the the night animals calling and the wind brushing the leaves in the trees, I will close my eyes and start to dream another dream as I am living the African dream job.
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