At war with ants... – by Evan

I had an interesting introduction to Matabele ants. These are fierce little things about the size of a grape (I know grapes vary in size – so do Matabele ants). Their diet consists entirely of termites, and they pour through the bush in densely packed columns to termite mounds, entering in every hole, stinging the little termites and taking them to the top of the mound where they collect them, paralysed, and then carry them home to feast on them alive. Gruesome.

On one of our walks through the bush the instructor, this time Jaco, asked for a volunteer – ‘Evan volunteers, Evan volunteers!’ Ellen chirped in gleefully – and so after being instructed to pick up one of the soldier ants, said soldier ant buried its little head into my finger and gave me an extraordinarily strong bite for such a little chap. My finger throbbed for about an hour, and I could still feel where it bit me three days later. Married life is bliss!

Another example of interactive learning was being in the tracker seat of the Landy, and being slowly driven further into the branches of a tree until you correctly identified it – a good way of learning tree types quickly (especially if it has thorns).

Learning the 30 trees we had to be able to identify for the exam, and their various uses and traditional beliefs was in fact one of the toughest parts of the course – I never imagined I would spend 50 hours of my life learning to identify various types of acacia, but it was strangely rewarding when you find you can pick out a Buffalo Thorn, and give a little lecture on its uses and the beliefs associated with it. Did you know, for example, that it’s called a Buffalo Thorn because buffalos are supposed to back into them for protection when attacked by lions? Or that, when you put the spikes on the seat so they prick Ellen she won’t talk to you for two days? Or did you know that the Flaky Bark Thorn tree can also be used to stitch up a wound? Or further, that if you put the spikes of a Flaky Bark Thorn tree on a seat two days later, so they prick Ellen again, then she won’t talk to you for another three days? Interesting, hey?