Lions and Sharks and Penguins, Oh My!
Well the day is finally here – I’m off to South Africa! I could not be more excited. I’ve been ready and packed since last night, woke up before my alarm and even planned my breakfast out beforehand. Also, not to freak anyone out who knows me, but you can actually see the tops of my irises right now (that’s how you know I’m excited). Craziness. Of course, I’m also wearing my lucky Captain Planet shirt. Gotta have that!
Over the course of this trip I’ll be exploring Cape Town, Johannesburg and Kruger National Park. Up until the 8th will be tourist stuff in Cape Town since a group of four others and myself wanted to come to South Africa early. We’ll be exploring the city, going to the beach, hiking and wine tasting. Oh and did I mention we’ll be visiting some native penguins and swimming with Great White Sharks?! In a cage of course, but oh my goodness, it’s going to be so much fun.
Then we’ll be heading toward Johannesburg where the program will actually start and shortly after we’ll be flying to Kruger National Park. The objectives of the trip (on paper) are two-fold, one is to develop a sustainable water system to foster some water security in one of the villages we’ll be staying in. The other is to study the policies and complexities that are inherent in the wildlife economy. For those who don’t know, this is far more complex than “poachers are bad and we have to stop them”. For example, in South Africa, many of the locals there believe that there are too many elephants there because they’re destroying their crops! Perhaps I will go into more detail on a later post but this will involve doing some research, engaging with some stakeholders, and attempting to create some insights or solutions to the problem. Oh, and we’ll essentially be going on safaris nearly every day while in the national park so expect to see some sweet pics of up close lions, elephants, kudzu, giraffes and hopefully some meerkats along the way!
Well, that’s all I have time for this morning! I hope to update this as frequently as I can to both share my experiences with everyone who is interested as well as to cement my memories with words and pictures. See ya!