You know those work days where nothing goes right, but nothing goes wrong either? One of those days where all your meetings get cancelled and at first you are relieved, but then you kind of bored, and after you refresh BuzzFeed for the fifth time, you just wish you could go home early?

Today was like that, we showed up, we tried, but we accomplished nothing.

8a: cold, slightly rainy, leave house in Land Rover bundled in blankets 

8:45a: arrive at game reserve, realize that the power is out of one of the fences, but do not have tools to fix, drive to workshop, get tools, drive back.

9a: send volunteers to walk along the fence and figure out if any wires are touching. Turns out problem was actually at the beginning of the fence, so volunteers went for a nice cold, pointless walk that turned rainy. 

9:15a: one of the rangers mentions that today would be a great day to stay in and watch “Supernatural”

10a: try to install a new lock on the fence, but had wrong drill to drill through metal, try for way too long and give up, remember to pick up other volunteers 

11a: drive through horrible misty rain trying to find cheetah. The cheetah and her Cubs are on the move and just don’t want to be found. Find a jackal that could care less.

12p: Land Rover stalls, won’t start again, good time to have lunch. 

12:15p: strangely, Land Rover still won’t start, vehicle does not know that lunch break is over. Try to get someone on the radio to help us. 

12:30p: after repeating “it’s quite urgent” we finally get someone to get the mechanic, who is new and doesn’t really know his way around the reserve yet. After many instructions in Afrikaans that sound a bit like “you know the highway? Follow that, turn right at the tree, find the big buffalo, shake its hand, ask for the password to Moria and then take ten steps to your left” the mechanic is on his way.

1:20p: held has arrived! Vehicle needs more help than currently possible, get towed back to the lodge. 

2p: at lodge, no extra vehicles, sitting around waiting for someone to come up with a plan

2:30p: borrow car, drive home 

3p: give up on day entirely 

7:30p: make baked potatoes for dinner which makes everyone cranky cause they take too long, eat in silence wishing we had something to say.

Happy Hump Day everyone !

Even in the bush you can have “one of those days”