2014 Diary: Day 18 - Exit, pursued by a Bear

Goodbye Sendelingsdrift! The team finally departed our favourite trans-frontier National Park amid sunshine and cloudy skies. This mixture of light and dramatically rugged mountains provided a grand scene for our exit. In fact, the beauty was way too intense to be photographed! Our final order of business in this region was to once more visit the Johan Hein School in Kuboes. Here we had an official hand over of some school equipment (pens, pencils, erasers, bags, etc – Thank you Council for Geoscience, may you always remember the less fortunate and continue to strive in upliftment and development).

Top: View of Kuboes, Bottom: Nick explaining Kate's groundwater poster and Tshimane performing an official hand over of the poster and school supplies to Mr de Wet

 As mentioned in earlier posts, groundwater is essential to the survival of much of these communities, however is rather poorly understood. Information on groundwater stems from years of natural understanding, however with factors such as climate change and the changing in the intensity of weather patterns, it would be highly beneficial for these communities to be informed on these factors. This may potentially aid in sustainability and avoid vulnerability of the largely herding community.  With this in mind, one of our expert hydrogeologists, and fellow Richtersveld mapping geologist class of 2009, Miss Kate Robey produced an immaculate poster highlighting groundwater and its relationship with the surrounding geology. These posters were really welcomed and received by a senior staff member, Mr de Wet. It is envisioned that this simple gesture of information sharing may spark the hunt toward understanding a changing climate and how we might have to evolve as consequence to it. This also ended the Richtersveld Science Week! During this time we managed to have a townhall meeting in Eksteenfontein, also meeting/workshop with the local educators; school lecture in Kuboes and once more meeting/workshop with the educators. We were also fortunate to create several information posters and hand over some stationary and teaching aids. This is a minor step toward something we hope could grow into a larger outreach programme. Once more, if there are any suggestions, comments or if you would like to be involved, please do not hesitate to contact us (tdhansay@geoscience.org.za).