Tenda

Tent.

This morning at around 6.30am I found myself unexpectedly on a chair in the space in front of the big tent, wearing a shirt borrowed from our ambassador. The producer of the footage had coerced me into appearing on camera, to issue forth pearls of wisdom about conservation in Mozambique. Hidden from view was a sweat rag, an essential accessory when on the spot in the hot season sun, even before 7am.

The documentary makers then headed off, and camp was relatively quiet. Wim, the Conservancy Manager, and I got to work on a multitude of pressing things, although most of it was spent with connectivity issues and lots of whirring and crashing.

The tent in the forefront is home for the next few weeks. I unpacked at lunchtime, but the temperatures inside were creating a heady mix, and I headed back to the office before I crashed out on the bed.

I was supposed to do my risk assessment before travelling here, but I didn’t prioritise it. After years of being exposed to them in various ways, I believe I genuinely loathe risk assessments. They don’t advance human society; they are an administrative tactic to help powerful insurance and legal firms make money, and they push us ever further into an arse-covering society governed by legislation and blame. People use their guile, experience and skills in the cornucopia of dangerous situations they find themselves in. Not even the most inept among us has ever referred to a risk assessment to remind themselves to ‘keep calm’ in a hostage situation or to drink water on a hot day. If you have ever been diagnosed with malaria and used your risk assessment to remind yourself to ‘seek treatment for malaria’, then please come forward and I will stand corrected.

I should have included a section entitled ‘health-related issues caused by administrative processes’ on mine.

During some further evening battles with the laptop before I gladly retreated to the offline tent, I was accompanied by a cacophony of snorting. I think a family of warthogs had scurried past the office.