A Makua in Mbuyuni

danielle-chipman

A Makua in Mbuyuni

Makua is a word in the Tshivenda language that refers to white people, and I spent three days in a rural South African village called Mbuyuni being primarily identified by this word. It was strange to be in a situation where my race was my defining characteristic. I have been in similar situations during my travels to Ecuador and Guatemala, but I was still struck by a sudden awareness of how being a white person in the United States often lets me ignore my skin color, which is a luxury that many Americans and South Africans don’t have. At no point in Mbuyuni did I feel that I was negatively judged by my race, though; race just seems to be something that South Africans are very accustomed to noticing and discussing. South Africans use race as a descriptor in the same casual way that we would use hair color, height or gender.

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Wildlife and People in Kruger National Park

danielle-chipman

Wildlife and People in Kruger National Park

By day three in South Africa, we were all ready to get out of the classroom and see some lions! We had just spent two days in a research camp tantalizingly close to the border of Kruger National Park, but before we could actually go into the park, we had to sit through a number of lectures on park management, South African history and human-environment relations. As it turns out, these lectures would profoundly influence my experiences in the park, but by the time we finally drove up to the entrance gate in our game drive vehicles (GDVs), I was definitely ready to stop talking and start rolling!

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A Black Tie Affair: My Birthday with African Penguins

danielle-chipman

A Black Tie Affair: My Birthday with African Penguins

By Danielle Chipman

I’ve had some great birthdays. For my twentieth birthday, I visited the Mayan ruins of Tikal in the Guatemalan jungle. On my 21st birthday, I skipped the bar scene and instead indulged in whitewater rafting and In-N-Out burgers. For my 26th birthday, I descended into a lava tube in Flagstaff. But of all my birthdays so far the 28th was my favorite. On my 28th birthday, I saw wild penguins in South Africa!

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Engaging in Global Conservation Conversations

danielle-chipman

Engaging in Global Conservation Conversations

By Danielle Chipman

Next week I’m headed to South Africa to spend two weeks in Kruger National Park, the crown jewel of South African parks. With any luck, I will get to see plenty of elephants, rhinos, and giraffes; maybe I’ll even have the chance to cower in my vehicle as a curious lion comes over to check out the tourists. But as a sustainability student who hopes to work in the international conservation field one day, my primary interest during this trip is to develop an understanding of my potential role in the preservation of these animals and their environments.

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