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Twitching

Olstein and our guide, Amy.

The thing about Olstein is that he is not only a twitcher. He is a Twitcher. His tally of individual bird species seen in his 6 months in South Africa stands at over 250. He can tell you not only what he saw but where exactly in South Africa he saw it. So when he hands me a pair of binoculars as we head out for a guided walk on the Lebombo hills of Northern KwaZulu it is not a casual gesture. It is akin to being handed a Bible by the earnest friend who invites you to church. In fact, I realise, walking with Olstein visits upon me the exact sensation I spent my earnest years visiting upon others whilst in the University Christian Union. It is like visiting church and standing next to a fervent Charismatic when you yourself are “just interested”.

“Look! Over there!” he exclaims.

“Where?” I look in the direction of his pointed finger.

“There – it is a blurdy blurdy blur [substitute some South African bird] !”

“Really?” I lift my binoculars to my eyes and singularly fail to locate with them the distant speck I can see with my naked eye. I wave the bino’s in ever decreasing circles in the hope of stumbling upon the speck.

“Oh – its gone. Did you see it?”

“Yes,” I lie, feeling very much like some cousin that has had to repeat grade 1.

Our guide, Amy, is very impressed with Olstein.

Amy is something of an eccentric. We discovered her through the hotel when we said we wanted to go walking. She has lived in the African hamlet of Ubombo for 2 years and grows bonsai trees, collects fossils, writes (“I’m not yet published”) and paints. The only other white people in the village are the owner of the hotel we are using (with an improbably posh house complete with swimming pool and satellite dish – looking decidedly out of place next to the shacks just meters away) and some local land-owners (“I’m allowed in their house when I pay the rent”). She leads us along the animal tracks of the hills, through small settlements and undergrowth. Children wave, smile, and ask for money. We wave, smile, and tell them no way.


She does not seem entirely sure of the way. At one point our route leads to the entrance of a kraal (the collection of huts that comprise a dwelling – with several family members living together). “I’m not sure we can go through here,” she says, not entirely necessarily given the fencing and barbed wire. She leads us back the way we came.

Afterwards we go back to her house for tea and she shows us fossils. Here at least, I can trump Olstein on nature. I ask whether something is an “ammonite” before he does. It is the only fossil I have heard off. Luckily, it is.

Last year's Protea

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