Bush claustrophobia
Early April - Zakouma.
I’m driving down the road I’ve driven hundreds of times. I know the bumps, the holes, the curves… It’s about a 45 minute drive to the Zakouma HQ where I will do e-mails and admin for the morning. Suddenly and weirdly a claustrophobia hits me. In this wide, open, empty space I feel strangely confined and limited. I have to stop to catch my breath and reassure myself. It’s a feeling I don’t know when being in Africa. But then again, I’ve never been so far away for such a long time doing the same thing for days, weeks, months.
I mean - claustrophobia is weird in this habitat...
Present time - Dutch Caribbean.
It’s the middle of the afternoon and I wake up on my beach bed beside the pool of our private house - not to say villa. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep but it doesn’t matter. I have no obligations, no teas to host, no staff to see, no fridges to top up, no radios to listen to. I can go to the beach, or don’t go to the beach. Eat what I want, when I want. There is limitless electricity, water and internet… I’m free and it’s strange and it’s fabulous.
It’s a stark contrast: just over a week ago we left Chad and if it wasn’t for the thousands of photos (and the dreams and the memories) it’s like it never happened. The world is so different in the Western, connected world I almost forget places like Zakouma, and even Zakouma, exist! It feels both like a lifetime and a day ago that I arrived to Zakouma in november last year. I never left the park until last week.
Maximum intensity
The Camp Nomade season is a short and intense one, it’s all systems go for four months of guests. The plane that picks up the departing guests, brings the new ones. Including building and breaking down, that’s about six months of non-stop work. While living in a tent with no electricity, no internet and bathing with half a bucket a day.
And then there is the heat.
It’s hot.
It’s hot from day one and it’s something you adjust to and it’s really not that bad but there is something criminal about the intensity with which everything just piles up on you the last month. In the last month, everything exponentially increases: from mid march to mid april, temperatures increase with about 5 degrees at mid day (from 42 to 46, 47...) leaving even less room for getting behind on your water intake. At the same time, the game density around the camp is so high I wanted to go out and take photos. Every day! And also, it’s the time that all of us in camp get just a little bit more tired and edgy.
Save the best for last - last group & staff minutes before departing from a soaking wet Camp Nomade... ❤️
The last weeks (without guests) are spent in Zakouma HQ: packing, wrapping, driving and organising. Both physically (tents, mattrasses, tables, chairs, linen, pots, pans, solar panels, tent poles…) and administration (bed nights, revenues, invoices…). One of the great things of being in Zakouma HQ is the underground hide and the Elephants that come to drink. From the waterholes, and from the hosepipe!
Typical late afternoon activity!
In the passed week I have taken a little bit of time to process. Process images (both on screen and in my mind). And so far, the more I dig, the more I find! There are undiscovered photographs - blindly imported onto the overflowing laptop. There are at least 20 quelea videos, unseen. Until now. Because in the next weeks, I’ll be rediscovering Zakouma all over…
IRIS
