The safety message served its purpose, I had been warned about a specific danger and how to manage in “the unlikely event of a water landing”. More importantly, I had been given notice that I’d entered a new sphere of knowledge about which I knew very little. Over the course of a week, Matsaudi and…

the manager of Delta Camp, Lenamile Baikgodisi, provided instruction in bush literacy. Listening to them, I often thought of the people who over centuries through trial and error had created this useful body of knowledge, and I wondered what chapters had been lost to time.

After a week in the Okavango Delta, I traveled a few hours to the Tsodilo Hills, an elbow and knee of bedrock that sticks out of the Botswana sand sheet. Inhabited by humans for over a 100,000 years, the hills have been consecrated with 5000 rock paintings and a three dimensional image of a Python, believed to be one of the world’s first sculptures. These artifacts are a trace of people who lived lives with days that had a rhythm filled with actions that had a reason. What were their lives like? How did they get through the day? And again I wondered what knowledge has been lost? Perhaps there is an echo of an answer in the following images from Tsodilo Hills and fifteen tips on bush survival provided by Matsaudi and Lenamile.

1. If you find a warthog hole in the morning, do not stand in front of it. Knowing that lions have a habit of waiting outside for their morning debut, warthogs back into their holes at night. In the morning the hogs shoot like cannon balls out of their dens, breaking the legs of anyone unlucky enough to stand in the way.

2. If you surprise a leopard, do not make eye contact. It will pounce on your back for the offense. Pretend not to notice, look away and slowly move out of the area.

3. If an elephant gets a whiff of you and is feeling grumpy, he will charge or mock-charge and you must make a quick determination of his intentions. If it is a mock-charge, the animal will raise its head and flap its ears as it moves toward you. If this is the case, slowly back away. But if the elephant trumpets, lowers its head, tucks its trunk between its legs and flattens its ears, it is a real charge and you will be lashed with the trunk, gored with a tusk and stomped into chutney.

4. If an African buffalo charges, there is nothing to do but run. Old male buffalo get tired of roaming with the herd and live a sedentary and solitary retirement. If disturbed, the old male will either flee or charge. If he charges, run and climb a tree, but be sure to climb the side of the tree opposite the charging beast, since he may not stop but slam full steam into the tree.

5. If you need to improve your scent, the San people, aka Kalahari bushmen, recommend wild basil as an excellent perfume.

6. If you love a girl, go directly to her and tell her how you feel. She will say come back tomorrow. When you return the next day, she may say, “I forgot about it” and tell you to come back again tomorrow. This may go on for months, if she is too shy to tell you how she feels. You may need to send an emissary to get an answer.

7. If you urinate and it’s too hot (a sign of STD) use the wild asparagus plant, called Mabele, translated from Setswana as “tits of the goat” because of its utter like shape. Dig the root of the male plant, which is thinner and longer then the female. Chop and boil while fresh. Mix with the bark of the jackalberry tree or the feverberry tree and add wild sage. Boil together and drink for three days.

8. If you have an infected wound, use the buffalo thorn (Ziziphus Mucronata) to heal it. First, choose a leaf the size of the wound and place it over the sore. Leave it on over night. In the morning there will be a little hole. Squeeze the wound to remove the infection. Boil the root of the same tree and drink half a cup of the tea once a day, until the infection is gone.

9. If you have the flu with a fever, collect cough grass with roots attached, the leaves of the rain tree and broad leafed “Tappington” grass. Take the tops off the grass and boil all three in a big pot for one hour. Pour the hot liquid into a metal basin and breath the vapors, using a blanket to create a tent to capture the steam. Repeat once a day until the fever is broken and the sinuses are clear.

10. If you get lost in the daytime, look in palm trees for the nest of the Red Billed Buffalo Weaver, who always build on the west side of the tree. You can also take a census of termite mounds, whose tips most often lean to the northwest. Termites work only at night raising the mound with spit and sand. The sun, which travels across the northern sky in the southern hemisphere, dries the new construction more quickly on the sun-facing side bending the nest.

11. If you are caught in a lightning storm, find shelter under an umbrella thorn or the African mangosteen (Garcinia Livingstonei).

12. If you are hungry for antelope meat, dig a hole 3 meters wide and 3 meters deep. Collect branches of silver cluster, sharpen into stakes, harden in fire, dry in sand and sharpen. Line the pit with the stakes facing upwards and cover the pit with twigs and grass. Sit by the hole downwind from the prey. When the prey is on the upwind side of the trap, walk around behind them and run toward the hole.

13. If you hear the Black Plover at night, there may be predatory cats in the area. The Black Plover has only three toes and can not hold a branch, so it must nest on the ground. Baboons also give helpful warnings of predators. A “hoo” indicates the presence of humans, a cough warns of a cat and a high pitched squeak chased by a bark is a sign of a snake.

14. If you hear the Fork-tailed Drongo before sunrise, the time is 4 am. By 5:30 am the coucals start with a sound like water coming from the bottle, “glug, glug. glug”. After that it’s the fish eagles by 6 am.

15. If a bird craps on you, it’s good luck. So be happy.