Recent content by steve

One or two things to add. When I'm headed out in the bush in Africa, I'm a bit cagey with strangers about where exactly I'm headed. Folks often ask and I usually say things like 'oh, up north, probably towards so-and-so' even though I know exactly where I'm headed. Strangers don't need to...

Some pictures then. The unfortunate zebra snake we killed. Hey, their venom is both neurotoxic and necrotizing - get bit and count on yearly visits to the doctor to scrape out dead tissue, like forever. One of the many times I got hauled out of bed in the middle of the night - these guys...

Well, I'll risk overstaying my welcome for one more story. Call it 'The Chief, Dharma, and the Girl who Wasn't Sick'. For my first field season I got a little money, enough to rent a pickup and be out there for a couple of months. I spent time living at We-Run-Away's village, but I also...

Thanks, Matt. Well, after anthropology school I was looking for a field site, but my colleagues have scoured the world pretty well for un-studied groups. It's so bad in some places that I have friends who literally wait in line to ask questions of their group (in australia) because the...

Then I'll risk a picture. Behold my baby, unloaded for use as an ambulance. Poor woman in the back - she was sick so I was taking her to the hospital but she'd never been in a truck before. Made her sick to her stomach. Alas, the river in the background was rain-swollen and treacherous but...

Although it might be prudent, I've never carried a firearm living in Africa. I favor edged weapons personally and I always know where my bush knife is (nice k-bar machete) but a gun just never seemed necessary. African cities tend to have a bit of crime (or more than a bit - Joberg is...

This is gonna sound way cooler than it actually is, but I spend about half my time living with a tribe in a remote region in namibia. Getting there takes about 500 miles of road, 100 miles of dirt/gravel, then 20-100 miles of 'none of the above'. I needed a truck that'd haul enough food...