And for fun, I can be found...

…hunting jackal, herding sheep on horseback, or reading by candlelight. Because of a major power crisis in South Africa - thanks to poor government planning, scandal, fraud - the country has adopted "load shedding," whereby the power is purposefully and systematically shut off throughout the country. Each city has a different “blackout schedule,” expected to last for at least two to three more years. Here in Richmond, we are plunged into darkness every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6pm – 9pm. Each day around 5:45, Beth and I prepare the candles, and then spend the next few hours reading by candlelight, watching DVDs until our laptop batteries die, or venturing to the only restaurant in town with a generator, usually accompanied by several other locals waiting it out. Although it sounds amusing, it gets pretty irritating, and I often find myself wanting to scream “Get your shit together South Africa!”

Beth and I have befriended Hannes (or more accurately he has befriended us) a retired, burly Afrikaner who watches out for us. A former farmer and teacher, his children have moved away, and he now spends his days doing the occasional odd job and his nights hunting jackal. Apparently, the jackal is the biggest predator of lamb (adorably cute and defenseless baby sheep) and a major threat to a farmer’s herd, so Hannes is hired by the farmers to do to provide the obvious solution – kill them off. And although I’ve always been an animal lover and staunchly opposed to hunting, I was immediately intrigued by Hannes’ creepy, late night task, and figured the jackal would be killed whether I was there or not. So, I convinced Hannes to take me along. He picked me up after dark in his combination bakkie/hummer, painted camouflage (in browns and reds, though, to blend into the desert landscape), stopping first at the petrol station to get some snacks (he got the snacks, I stayed in the truck to make sure nobody stole his shot gun – seriously). We then drove nearly 45 minutes out and turned off the main dirt road onto a nondescript dirt track, into complete darkness. After driving a while, Hannes stopped and placed a “caller” a few meters away, removed the roof of the truck, and got into a massive, lifted seat in the back, shotgun and spotlight in hand. The caller emits various noises, all loud and high-pitched; there is a male jackal call, a female jackal mating call, three lamb-in-distress calls, and some high pitched cat-sounding noise. And then, we waited in silence. The whole time, Hannes was scanning his light across the landscape, trying to identify the animals surrounding us solely by the reflection of their eyes. And so I sat, in total silence and total darkness, looking at a sky full of stars, the reflection of thousands of eyes and the calls of animals carried by the wind – sheep, springbok, gemsbok, steenbok, cows, tortoises, rock rabbits. A couple hours in, we caught one jackal, which Hannes spotted and shot dead from about 200 meters away. At one point, as we were driving to a new spot, I was confused and surprised to see the lights of a town in the distance ahead, and I asked Hannes what town that was. He laughed in that way people do when I show my colors as an ignorant American city girl, and told me that the lights were not a town, but rather the reflection of thousands of sheep’s eyes. Holy shit, I thought, that’s a lot of sheep.

And to round out my farm girl experience (I need some overalls), Beth and I just came back from a weekend “at the farm.” Since we arrived, one of the local farmers, Hendricks, has been inviting us to his massive sheep farm nearly 70 kilometers outside of Richmond. So, last Friday night, just as the power went off, Beth and I escaped town for the weekend. The farm was lovely, the TV and good food (lamb chops and leg of lamb) even better, but the best part was herding sheep on horseback. In my second attempt atop a horse, this one a white beauty named Lulu, we rode with several farm workers for nearly three hours into the veld, tracking down and herding a group of sheep across the landscape. Once the work was done, we went even further out on horseback and saw a herd of zebras, dozens of impala and gemsbok. I’ve decided, however, that I’m just not a horse person. I never quite feel steady, especially when climbing up and down steep hills of loose rocks, it scared the hell out of me when Lulu started to run (completely ignoring me when I yanked hard on her reins), and my butt always hurts like hell when it’s over (as I write this, I keep shifting positions to alleviate the aching). But, then again, a little pain or terror never killed anyone, and the game viewing and scenery was incredible, and, admittedly, even cooler on horseback.