In plane sight

I have truly slipped into the bush rhythm, waking today alert at 4.59am. It’s already light here by that time as northern Mozambique really should be on the same timezone as Kenya/Tanzania, not South Africa. Maputo is further west and as the capital it de facto dictates these sorts of things. Mozambique is a minor variation on China where far western China is on the same timezone as Big Brother Beijing, despite the fact you can hop across the border to Kyrgyzstan from there and have to amend your watch by five hours. It must get light at 1am and dark at 2pm in Urumqi. With that in mind I can deal with 5am sun here.

I had been dreaming I was plonked on stage at an event, alongside David Attenborough, the CEO of our charity and an unidentified elderly dignitary, to talk about my experiences in conservation. It felt slightly daunting and luckily I woke up as I was put on the spot. It was good to avoid witnessing the car crash moment.

Excitement after we drove over to the office. Wim had been out in the plane very early and returned (pictured flying over as we drank coffee on the deck) with news of a pride of thirteen lions on a sandbank nearby. It momentarily provided a distraction from the mind-numbingly dull sole source procurement process I’m embroiled in with the UK office. I am blaming HMRC for new scrutiny they’re imposing on charities to put us through the mill for a laugh. Why not impose more bureaucracy on the non-profit sector whilst handily avoiding the irony of ‘prominent’ Brexiteers abandoning the UK to live in Monaco as a tax dodge? You couldn’t make it up. Well, you could, but it would be a third rate crime novel featuring an odious cast of tycoons.

The day has been somewhat overcast and very muggy, with sheets of sweat clinging to our skin. After a hot evening, I jumped into the shower at which time the wind whipped up in a very sudden fashion, with parts of the tent (a sort of fixed thing on a concrete platform with a stone bathroom out the back) flailing around in all directions. Now I’m under the mosquito net and it’s ballooning around very dramatically. It feels like a music video from the 1990s, potentially with Kylie Minogue writhing around on the pillows. In her bubblegum pop phase, not her Michael Hutchence bad girl phase.