antipodes

The Okavango Delta is formed by a river that has nowhere to go. The water that forms the Delta once flowed to the sea, but a fault in the earth’s crust is raising the floor of the Kalahari, blocking its path. As a result, the frustrated river has lost its snaky shape and has become a bloom of water which transforms 18,000 square kilometers of desert into lagoons and shallow seas of grass that surround islands of savannah.

Well above the water African Fish Eagles in white feathered hoods watch from the trees, Green Pigeons with breasts as chartreuse as a spring shoot get fat on.. sycamore figs and… Saddle-billed Storks sail on wide wings that audibly push the air aside. Both birds have a view of water lilies, deceptive flowers which define the tranquility of the surface and deny the presence of hippopotami. Tons of ill -tempered meat which levitate just below the lily pads, the hippos rise and make calls that Paul Theroux aptly describes as blasts on a tuba played under water. But these comic calls are deadly serious warnings. Male hippos are extremely aggressive about territory and will kill any male hippo, including babies that come too near. As a result female hippos that give birth to males must leave the pod and raise the young male in isolation, hiding under the floating grass and living on the edges for three years. If the baby is a girl, the mother stays with her pod. Back on the quiet surface the lily pads are deep green and they fill with water and silvery light. The bloom of the Lily is white or violet, a strange shade that seems to be from the invisible part of the spectrum. Surprisingly, the reverse side of the pads are deep vermillion. Looking up through the water from the hippos point of view, the pads look like deoxygenated blood cells floating in sky blue plasma. From the bow of a mokoro, a hand hewn boat that is poled through the shallows, the Okavango looks like a doubled world. Gliding silently in the Okavango is like drifting between parallel mirrors that touch at the horizon… confusing up with down delightfully. I spent a few days riding in a mokoro, sketch book in lap, drawing the Delta as it passed by.
“August 11, 2009: Botswana, Okavango Delta, Crane and Waterbug.” Pencil on Paper, 9″x12″.“August 9, 2009: Botswana, Okavango Delta, Grass Snake and Skull.” Pencil on Paper, 9″x12″. “August 11, 2009: Botswana, Okavango Delta, Water Lily.” Pencil on Paper, 9″x12″.“August 7, 2009: Botswana, Okavango Delta, Vervet Monkey.” Pencil on Paper, 9″x12″. “August 9, 2009: Botswana, Okavango Delta, Red Lechwe.” Pencil on Paper, 12″x16″. Sometimes Matsaudi Noga, my guide and companion while in the Okavango, would pole us through the grass to one of the protected islands of the Moremi Game Preserve to take a walk. On the soft sandy shore the islands are green and shady. But only a few steps in, the island becomes open savannah fit for grazing wart hogs. Dry conditions, sandy soil and…marauding elephants, which trample and tear at the plants, favor grasses and keep larger trees well spaced. As a result, the gestures of trees are often silhouetted against a simple ground. Line and flat shape are more pronounced than volume and shading. And rhythm is more apparent than equilibrium.One wonders what role the landscape played in forming the visual traditions of African people, whose art is distinguished by clear contour, strong shape and rhythm. The Delta is wild and to visit it is to travel back in time to the world before human ascendance. But the primacy of the landscape is an illusion. This is a national park, managed well by the government of Botswana. It is tempting to think of this place as a primal landscape—a cauldron of life that bubbles and boils on its own, assuring renewal. But it’s not. Its wildness and isolation only emphasize the fact that humankind now manages the entire surface of the earth. Every scrap. There are no redemptive Edens left. There are only parcels of wild space that are dependent on managers for upkeep. But maybe it’s incorrect to think of ourselves as the managers of landscape, since this suggests some sort of hierarchy in which people live separately, somehow above it all. Instead, maybe our actions within the land have become so critical to the maintenance of the ecosystem, that it is more correct to say that we are intertwined with landscape as never before in human history. And our fate and the fate of the Okavango are one and the same.