By Kristina Eaton, '04
Funding: Ledyard Canoe Club
I ate snake this winter. Black mamba. It's one of the most deadly snakes in the world, and we found one under our beds in the guide tent. George Storm '04 and I ventured into the bush of South Africa winter term of our junior year as safety boaters and whitewater raft guides for Zingela Safaris on the Tugela River. I didn't actually think snakes would be inhabiting the same sleeping space that I did, but when the temperature is close to 100 degrees and humid, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. It was looking for shade. And we were looking to avoid poisonous snake bites in the night. So after it refused to vacate the premises, we shot it with a pellet gun, skinned it, sold the fat to a Zulu witch doctor, and sautéed it with garlic and onion over a fire. Tasted just like chicken.
Between December 28th and March 1st, I got to kayak every single day, whether with clients or just playing around in the surf waves near camp. We used to think we were lucky to have Hartlands rapid so close to Dartmouth - try having a surf wave right off of your front yard! The man we worked for has three kids whom he employs as guides. I don't know how happy his 20-year-old daughter is to be living in a bush camp with a family of adventure guides, but his sons are in heaven living two hours inland of the Indian Ocean on the banks of the Tugela River. I don't think any of us particularly enjoyed manually pumping up every single raft in the morning before breakfast, though. You can buy pumps that hook onto a car battery, but our boss didn't seem to think that was necessary. After all, he had the manpower of seven college-age guides.
While it was really beneficial to work alongside guides equipped with teaching styles from another country, it was a relief to have Ledyard experience as a guide and an instructor. I had to laugh watching another guide give safety talks to clients. People come rafting for one day and are expected to learn five hundred river signals, but this guide taught signals for redistributing weight when a raft gets caught on a rock and had a different signal for each area of the boat! Meanwhile, George and I quickly transformed Ledyard's kayaking safety talks into South African river rafting safety talks. Always introduced by our boss as "the Americans who couldn't speak English due to our 'thick accents,'" to date I think we are still the only guides who can remember which color strip on the lifejackets correlates to which size!
George's career as a South African river guide extraordinaire was cut short after a freak accident in the shorebreak of the Indian Ocean near Durban, and I will say that river guiding when you can't move your arm is not much fun. Caught in the shore break while trying to surf his kayak past it into the meatier waves, he was flipped over and dragged up onto the beach in a few very gnarly seconds. Another guide reached out to "help" him by grabbing his arm and pulling him up just as another wave retreated back into the ocean and pulled him down with it. Needless to say, it was less than perfect timing for a dislocated shoulder.
Our tans have been fully covered up ever since we got back to Dartmouth's coldest winter ever, but we both have battle scars to show off, which luckily requires revealing some of that tan skin every once in a while. My memories of South Africa will remain: the wonderful people, amazing food, and spectacular scenery. And the black mamba. If you're ever looking to guide for a rafting company down there, Mark Calverley would certainly love to have you and is more than happy to pay you...in beer!
Cohaereamus,
Kristina Eaton '04
