'Cheap Shop'

Elle is forever asking me what day it is. It's easy to lose track of time here. The days seem to drift by like clouds, ending abruptly around 6.30pm in pitch darkness. (Nightfall drops like a shutter here). With few human appointments to keep, a watch is a pretty useless here. Time here is graduated to Nature's clock. You get up with a dawn chorus of birds and fall asleep to a frog opera. The hot hours in between are a constant hum and drone of insects, some the size of a Cessna light aircraft.

The days are hotting up literally by a degree a day as the rainy season approaches. The increasing heat seems to have an incremental effect on everything here. The frogs are getting louder and the insects more aggressive. (It reminds me of the 'marching season' back home). The 'mossies' are getting worse too and I'm covered in bites by the little blood-suckers. I've stopped taking anti-malarial prophylactics on the advice of those who live and work here. Prophylactics are not an absolute guarantee against malaria and tend to mask the symptoms if you catch it, meaning you might be unaware you have it until its too late. Celebral malaria which is endemic in this region, is passed on by the dreaded 'Anopheles' mosquito and can kill you in less than 24 hours, if not treated immediately.

Has been a productive week for Elle. She darted another hyena late last night, her second in a week. A large female, she attached a GSM radio collar to it and took blood samples before slicing two chunks out of its ear for future identification purposes. We had to wait almost two hours before it came round and was able to stagger drunkenly back into the bush, by which stage I felt like passing out too. (I fear it's only a matter of time before I sit on a syringe of Zoletil tranquiliser which Elle tends to place on my car seat while she is loading her gun and I'm out hanging up the bait!)

Having earned a day off, Elle and I are heading to a safari lodge tonight for a few drinks and a meal. The lodges here are ludicrously priced on a par with Dublin but there's little choice in the way of entertainment here on the weekend. All the locals go to 'Cheap Shop', a shebeen-come-convenience store with all the allure of a cow byre and a sound system which when fully cranked, is guaranteed to loosen your teeth. Having said that, its the hottest venue in the bush on a Friday and Saturday night...quite possibly because it's the only venue. The local liquer is a form of home brew called 'Tombo' which also removes rust as well as erasing long term memory. Haven't tried it yet but if I don't get some tonic water by Tuesday, I might be tempted.

Off to jump in the river now for bath. This could be my last blog...