Nolholo, Day 42: Killing Rats From the Back of a Moving Zebra
A cold wind blew all night, and continues now into the day. The sun works hard to break through a thick layer of clouds, but my fingers slowly stiffen nonetheless from working on the patio in the wind all morning.
Work goes well today; I complete a leadership and project planning training for the natural resources committee, drawing heavily on my COLE experiences for the discussions around personal leadership and creating highly-functioning teams. As I do so, I wonder how well any of this will translate into this culture.
When 5:30 rolls around, Andrew and I dash off to target practice. We pretty much suck. Alagu has rigged up a nice target, post-holed into the ground maybe 30 feet away. Andrew gets it several times. I only hit it once, but it’s a solid hit that holds. I struggle to keep all their advice in mind - keep your eye on the target, rest the arrow on your bow hand, pull straight back, pull harder! The arrows are all of varying lengths and weights, making it difficult to really adjust between shots. I’m exhausted after 40 minutes. Being a Hadza is hard.
But it's worth it for the spectacle we create. The staff loves to see the wazungu (foreigners) in archery practice. Half of them set up a grandstand on some piles of chain link, the other half of the guys want to try their own hand at it. When Andrew and I tire, Alagu sends us off with additional bows and arrows and tells us to come back tomorrow. We're not ready for moving targets yet, but Andrew and I have agreed that our goal is to be able to kill rats from the back of a moving zebra.
I take a fantastic shower, then turn in for dinner. It’s just the four of us, as Laly and Buddy went into Arusha for meetings. Kelly makes black bean burger to supplement the mashed potatoes, vegetables and tenderloin that Maksi has made. We giggle a lot, the others grumble a little about having to get up at 5:45 for game counts and to catch a ride into town for Wildlife Clubs. At the end of the night though, we are satisfied and happy. It's good to have big goals, I think later, so long as I remember to get to them one day at a time.
