There was that time I slept out with the lions while working at a wildlife farm in Namibia, and something bit my face in the middle of the night, making my nose swell to twice its normal size.

Now, these sleep outs were fairly common at this farm and a privilege that us volunteers enjoyed on a regular basis (who wouldn't want to spoon a lion at night?). So when night came a bunch of us dragged our sleeping bags and matresses out into the enclosures where the young lions roamed, and we settled down for the night. The ting about lions that have grown up amongst humans is that they can become quite cuddly. Awesome, right? Well, less so in the middle of the night when you are pushed off of your thin matress for the twentieth time and end up roling around on the dirt ground, because the lions believe that, being a murderous meat eating predator and all, they get some kind of special priority when choosing sleeping place and who's gonna go straight for the matress then? Yeah, I swear, we could have taken twenty matresses with us each and with four lions realising they are indeed the king of beasts, we were bound to wake up on the ground evey single time. Those babies sure push you around!

Nevertheless, of course the situation was to die for, and so there we were sleeping with a lion in each arm (having the blood circulations completely cut off because, hey they are some big ass animals). Then I suddently found myself being woken up in the middle of the night from feeling an intense pain in the middle of my face. Now that's weird, right? Well, so I thought, and feeling my face I realised that the pain came from my nose which had swollen to something like twice its' original size and had gone partly numb, partly aching like crazy.

In my confused drowsiness I concluded that, hey, this is not normal and being out in the middle of the African bush and all, I might have been bitten by something really poisonous, so I definitely need someone who knows what they're dealing with to look at this! Yeah, that was my logic in the middle of the night, to get up and go wake up someone with expertice because my face hurt and my nose was swollen. Heck, for all I knew, I was surrounded by all kinds of creatures that could kill me, although I had never heard of them. This was the African bush, after all.

So I got up and walked in my pyjamas and slippers through the bush for about fifteen minutes or so in the dark to get back to the volunteer village. Because walking through the bush by myself, where snakes and other silly stuff roam in the middle of the night, was not at all dangerous compared to the pain I felt in my nose, oh no.

Unfortunately in the dark I could not find the cabin where our volunteer team leader was staying, so I instead ventures right into another cabin, thinking I had found it, and started trying to wake up the guy sleeping by speaking Danish to him (our team leader was Danish too). Now, that was bound to cause some confusion, and to be honest I am quite impressed that the guy didn't freak out when he woke up in the middle of the night to suddently find someone standing in the middle of his room trying to communicate with him in a language he didn't understand. The guy, once fully awake, was really nice though and helped me find the right cabin. When I finally woke up the right guy he concluded that it was probably nothing serious and I just needed to take a painkiller. So yes, I walked through the bush by myself at night and woke up several people only to learn to calm the **** down and not get all caught up about something unknown biting my face. Guess I had yet to learn the way of the African bush life!

Once that had been settled, I decided to venture back to the enclosure because now that I knew I was not going to die or have ny nose fall right off my face, like heck I was going to miss the rest of my sleep out with the lions! Ignoring the soring pain in my face, I fell back asleep in the middle of the African bush with a lions in each arm. This time I did not wake up on the ground the next morning though (that's some serious progress, right there!). Instead I woke up with four lions...on me. Blood circulation? Que?

I had only to enjoy the rest of the day while our project manager (who had heard from our team leader what had happened that night) assured me that it was probably just a spider or a scorpion that had bit my face. Just a spider or a scorpion. Because Africa.

Duma and I waking up together after our sleep out.

There was that time I slept out with cheetahs while working on the farm in Namibia. I remember thinking, when I lay in my sleeping bag with the cheetahs in my arms under the open sky, that this was the most stars I had ever seen on a night sky. I was struggling to keep my eyes open, because although I was really tired I didn't want to go to sleep because the night sky looked so beautiful. Ind the end I didn't have a choice though, and the cheetahs kept me so warm that I soon after fell deep asleep.

I was dreaming about god-knows-what when suddently the dream started to change. I heard a drilling sound which became louder and louder, and my mind formed an image of a contruction site and workers drilling away at the concrete. Then I felt moisture on my face which distured the image even more, waking me up. I felt the cold wind on my face and just a moment of confusion, before I realised what was happening.

I remember muttering "Duma...", and patting the grown cheetah who was bending over me, licking my face and purring so loudly it made my head vibrate. Then Duma, the cheetah, my favourite of the pack lay down against me again and we both went back to sleep.

There was that time we decided that a little game of "Fear Factor" was just the most appropriate way of spending an afternoon off from our volunteer work.

There was a few challenges to pass. First up was consuming a plate's worth of giraf poo, mokey puke, and other nasty stuff, and flush it down with a nice drink of rotten eggs, sour milk, bugs, and you name it. This was a group task that some really seemed to enjoy (no kidding), but I have to say I struggled quite a bit with this one. Bonus info: Giraf poo is really dry and feels surprisingly like eating grass. Yum.

Second challenge was wandering into the baboon enclosures - a challenge I passed on since I had already been attacked by the baboons five times during my stay, and had come to be quite nervous around them because of it. But perhaps it was just prudent for me to accept that baboons really don't like me.

The final challenge was much more my style; We had to run through an enclosure of 28 untamed cheetahs while carrying a large chuck of raw meat. Then climb over the fence (which may or may not have been electric at the time - for some reason they wouldn't answer that question when we asked). As I generally do much better with felines than primates, I volunteered to carry the meat. To upt the game, I thought carrying it om my stomach under my shirt, thus covering myself in the juices was appropriate. Now, that was more my kind of game. Sadly we never had to fight off a bunch of aggressive carnivores to protect our precious meat (hmm...why was I upset about that again?), as the cheetahs kept at a fair distance at all times. Guess they lost interest as soon as they notices they were outnumbered.

There was that time in Namibia, which was one of many, where I went bush walking with the animals. I can't honestly remember if this was a chore or a privilege awarted (which really says something about the work we did there!), but animal walks were frequent at this place and they would usually go something like this:

1) Getting out the Land Rover, opening the back cage to let in the (insert big ass animals here).

2) Put fingers through the metal bars of the back cage, step onto the sides of the car and then hold on for dear life while the driver takes off at 100 km p/h through sandy roads out in to the bush!

3) Car stops, you get off, animals are let out, project manager goes "okay, now you walk this way, then that way, then this way, then down to the waterhole, and we'll pick ya up at 11, okay, see ya later!".

Guess we had no choise but to walk then!

There was that time, sheer routine by then, really, when I was on cheetah feeding duty. This was quite the experience when we went out to feed the wild cheetahs in the large enclosures far outside the farm. In practice this meant attaching an open trailer to a rover, putting buckets of raw meat onto the trailer, then shuff a bunch of volunteers onto the trailer, give them a couple of sticks, and drive into the enclosure. Once inside, the volunteers had to balance their feet between all the buckets of meet, the rover going across the bumpiest of roads (because there wasn't really a road at all), while trying to fend off 28 wild aggressivly intrucive cheetahs with the sticks (agressive being a very modest choise of adjective here!). All the while two of the volunteers would try to toss the chunks of meat to the cheetahs one by one, attempting to ensure they would all get a piece. This was quite the artistic show, to be frank!

There was that time I was on lion feeding duty. This was nothing like cheetah feeding duty, but that does not necessarily mean it was any less dramatic. Lion feeding duty could mean one of two things: feeding the big lions that lived in the large enclosures outside of the farm, or feeding the ...ehm, a little less big lions that lived in the enclosures just around the farm. The biggest lions we didn't go in with, so feeding them meant tossing large chunks of meat over the fence at them, while praying they wouldn't jump the fence and break out in anticipation before the meat reached them!

The lions that lived closest to the farm, we did go in with. Quite frequently, in fact. I for one tended to spend the majority of my afternoons off dozing off in the lap of the lazy younger males (that were still bigger than Great Dane dogs!). For feeding time, we would take buckets with chunks of raw meat with us into the enclosures (the buckets were meant to conceal the meat, to keep the lions from going balistic at the sight of raw meat), and the lions would run up onto platforms that had been built for them, then wait for you to throw meat at them (assuming you were fast enought for them not to lose patience with you and go get it themselves, that is!). Or at least that's how it was supposed to go down. Sometimes it didn't. Because lions.

One day I was on feeding duty, the farm owners grown son came around and wanted to feed the lions with us. Now, this guy was something of an African Steve Irwin who had grown up on the farm around lions and other animals, so his...let's call them "methods of feeding"...were a bit off from the routine we had been taught. Since he couldn't feed all of the lions on his own, one of the volunteer guys and I still had to accompany him inside the enclosure. But apparently buckets to conceal the meat are for wuzzies, so what he did instead was to just grab the chunk of meat (which probably weighed the same as a big dog!) and swung it over his shoulders, then walked straight into the enclosure where the lions came rushing toward him. This meant we had to follow quickly, so I grabbed a large piece of meat so heavy I could barely keep if above my face, and then followed straight after him. The lions, of course, came straight for him, but apparently his devil-may-care, strong-guy-attitude and firm voice was enough for the first lion to go "fair enough, you win, mate", and then turn straight to me. Following his example, I deepened my voice to give my best firm "NO!", but somehow my tiny frame and squeeking voice did not seem quite as convincing to massive lions in front of me. I am quite sure I saw something in his eyes along the lines of "oh well, I can take you down, for sure!" in the moment right before he got up on his hind legs and knocked my to the ground, snapping the meat right out of my arms! Guess I lost that battle.

There was that time while working on the farm in Namibia when we had to do a day of removing weed around the fences. It was raining season, and then when the tall dry grass became wet, it would continously clash against the fences, putting out the electricity. Now, that really wasn't desirable, as the baboons in particular always had fun trying to escape their enclosures. The solution was to drig up the weed with roots. In practice this meant to dive our bear hands deep into the dirt ground and pull up the roots. No biggie, right? Unfortunately roots aren't the only things that dwell below the ground surface. In one scoop I pulled out not only roots, but something round resembling a spiral. Puzzled I held it in my hand and started poking it with a stick (because yes, that's how brilliant I was at that moment). The "spiral" unfolded and I realised I was indeed holding a live scorpion that, to be honest seemed pretty cranky to be woken up from its beauty sleep!

Fortunately my instinct took over and Scorpie was let to the ground to wander into the wilderness to create a new nest and live happily ever after...well, not really, I'm pretty sure someone janked a metal pole into him soon after. But I like the former image better.

There was that time I decided to spend Christmas in Namibia away from my family. This was a really strange experience for me, because 35 degrees celcius is not exaclty what I associate with Christmas. To yank up my Christmas spirit, I took to walking around putting a Christmas hat on every animal that didn't seem to mind, then snapping holiday pictures for my family back home to see. This really only worked with the cheetahs and the lions, since all the other animals would have either eaten the hat or run away with it, but being quite a cat person to begin with, the sat well with me.

Spending Christmas in Namibia also brought along nativity play, a fellow volunteer who dressed up ad Santa, and a fairly unusal Christmas tree substitute (which, to be fair, was also made of wood), but with a little green pint and some decorations, I'm sure no one really noticed!

There was that time we were on tree house look-out duty in the middle of the Namibian bush. It was partly a task of couting game to get an idea of the activity in the busk, partly walking the cheetahs to let them slowly acclimatize to life in the wild. For us this meant sitting in a tree house hovering about ten metres off the ground, noting down which game we saw, while keeping an eye on the cheetahs playing below us. Sounds like a cozy job, right? We were meant to stay as quite as possible, to avoid scaring off the game, but occasionally we did leave the tree house to get up close with some of the wildlife living in the bush. The meercats were particularly curious of us.

We ofte spent several hours just sitting in the tree house, enjoying the view of the bush and the game. Every now and then, the cheetahs would go off chasing a springbok or two, giving us front row tickets to view them in action! A bit more terrifying for us though, was when suddenly, out of the blue, while we were sitting in the tree house, looking out, a giant snake came sliding across the ground towards the tree house! With the cheetahs resting on the left side of the tree house and the snake coming up on the right side, our heads were racing to figure out what to do. We weren't equipped to defend the cheetahs from a giant snake, and help was miles away, although we did have a radio. To our luck though, the snake slid into a hole in the ground and disapparead, about five metres before encountering the cheetahs! Such luck!

By the time we were picked up by the rest of the crew in the afternoon, the snake was nowhere to be found. So buch life goes on...