As I approach the end of my five-and-a-half month program associated with the Limpopo Field Guiding Academy, it is time to share my thoughts about the two months of internship at Honeyguide Ranger Camp, potentially the most crucial part of my first stay in the Rainbow Nation.
Situated in the Entabeni Game Reserve, Waterberg, this particular lodge has been doing great in recent times, despite the pandemic, by focusing a lot on the local tourism market. This gave me one choice only when I arrived – be ready to drive soon and work hard, which is exactly what I wanted.
The first thing to understand, is that the work of a ranger is only 50 % composed of actually guiding guests on game drives, joining the cheetah sighting and following the elephant tracks to relocate the herd. That may be the most obvious side, and indeed what makes most guests willing to come – and come back – to the bush. The remaining 50 % is “behind the scenes” work that includes preparing drinks, helping in managing the game and the roads of the reserve, maintaining cars and then obviously help guests with whatever they will need aside from the 3 hour game drive. This is not to discourage the aspiring ranger or field guide – rather to advise everyone to get prepared to have a job that will require various skills and challenge you to grow from every perspective.
What growing also usually means, as a guide new to the industry, is to grow quickly and perhaps unexpectedly. What I mean with this, is that as good as the training can be, no one can fully prepare you to be out there on your own, with eight guests, for whom you have full responsibility, looking for dangerous animals in a mountain reserve with steep, bumpy and rocky roads.
The job of a new ranger includes the “learning by doing” component. That is what you come to understand when you approach a herd of elephants for the first time in a very dense patch of woodland, and you need to count how many of them are around before you get surrounded by the herd. It is what you understand when, after heavy summer rain, you drive your game-drive vehicle along a donga (large, deep erosion ditch) while doing fence patrol, hoping not to get stuck. Learning by practice has a funny way of initially putting one in a challenging position, but then allowing you to come out of it with strengthened confidence and gratitude for the problem you just solved.
In all the challenges faced, I need to focus on one of the most important words I would use to describe this chapter in my life, shared between the Limpopo Field Guiding Academy and Honeyguide Ranger Camp, and that is gratitude. I am grateful for the beautiful sunrises and sunsets I witnessed at Entabeni, for the sightings that I have enjoyed with my guests – ranging from baby rhinos squealing in calling their mom, to lion cubs walking alongside my game-viewer or elephants lifting their trunk to smell our vehicle. I also thank JP Meyer, Camp Manager and all the colleagues and staff at Honeyguide for introducing me to this environment, and of course the Limpopo Field Guiding Academy, with Mark Stavrakis and all the trainers and interns that have given me the knowledge to actually get out there with confidence and enthusiasm.
Gratitude is indeed the most important word in the life of a ranger. It is the same feeling that leads guests to leave to you gifts such as letters thanking the ranger for the amazing days spent together, or nice coloured drawings from kids – drawings of that rhino you showed them on game drive. This is the very reason why we do this job – to make people happy and share bush knowledge and scenery with them – so we can both feel gratitude for the time we are allowed to spend in this wilderness.
This concludes the blog series by Apprentice Field Guide, Nicholas Porcellato. Stay tuned for more insight and adventures from Limpopo Field Guiding Academy.
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