Chapter 8

Late afternoon sunlight slanted across the clearing as I finished securing the lock on the small equipment shed. A few birds chattered in the acacia trees, and somewhere close, the rustle of small hooves in the underbrush meant the impala herd was on the move again. The camp had settled into its usual rhythm — the ebb and flow of work, maintenance, and the eternal business of keeping dust out of gear.

I turned toward the kitchen area, thinking of tea or something cold, and found Thandiwe perched on one of the benches, her long legs stretched out, notebook in her lap. She looked up with a faint smile and nudged a second mug toward me.

“Rooibos,” she said. “Figured you might need it.”

“Always,” I said, gratefully taking the seat beside her. “You’re psychic.”

“Just practical,” she said with a shrug. “It’s that hour of the day when everything slows down. Good time to take stock.”

I sipped, then nodded. “You’ve been here a while, Thandi. You ever think about leaving?”

She laughed quietly. “You’re asking a Botswana girl if she wants to escape the Delta?”

“I guess that came out wrong.”

“No, no,” she said, waving it off. “I get it. We all wonder what’s on the other side of the river, sometimes.”

I turned the mug in my hands, feeling the warmth sink into my fingers. “I’ve been thinking about staying. For good, I mean. After my contract ends.”

Her head turned, eyes sharpening just a little. “You serious?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t feel like I’m passing through anymore. The work fits. The land fits. I’ve spent most of my life trying to find the right pace, and somehow it’s here.”

Thandiwe didn’t say anything right away. She was the kind of person who let silence do half the talking.

“I don’t have the kind of pull to make anything official,” she said after a moment. “But I can keep my ears open. Sometimes something opens up at the university. Or the parks board. And Dr. Ellington — he’s got people in his orbit.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “I don’t want to start making noise just yet, but I want to know what’s possible.”

She gave me a sideways glance. “Not just the work, is it?”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

Thandiwe just smiled into her cup. “I didn’t say anything.”

I didn’t answer. We sat for a while longer, watching the sky begin to shift colors as the sun made its lazy descent toward the trees.

Later that night, alone in my tent with the crickets humming and the lantern casting soft shadows against the canvas, I thought about what she hadn’t said.

She wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t just the work. Bliss was part of this equation. Even if I didn’t yet know what the outcome would be, I couldn’t deny that her presence here — the idea of her — had fused itself to the idea of this place. The land and the girl. The work and the what-if.

I found myself staring at my notebook, an open page where I’d been sketching out a few ideas for long-term projects — curriculum plans, field study outlines, partnerships with local schools. They weren’t fantasies anymore. They felt like blueprints.

I thought about Bessie. If anyone had the kind of clout to help, it was her. She knew everyone. She was respected and connected in ways that could shift things with a few well-placed conversations.

But I didn’t pick up the phone. Not yet.

Part of me wanted to talk to her about Bliss too—to say the words out loud, to try to make sense of what I was feeling and where it was all headed. It just didn’t feel like the time. The thing with Bliss ... it wasn’t ready to be shared. Well, okay, maybe with Arthur—but he was a strange exception. But otherwise, not even with someone I trusted as much as Bessie. Not until I knew what it was myself.

So, I closed the notebook, turned down the lantern, and let the night take over.

A couple of weeks had passed. Two more student groups had come and gone. And now, Bliss’s group was due back tomorrow.

This group was the most focused and the most ambitious of them all, and every one of us knew that. I could feel the rhythm of the camp shift in anticipation, like the pause before the first rains — not quite visible, but unmistakable in the air. Joseph was running final checks on the vehicles, Thandiwe was sorting camp supplies, and I was reviewing the planned activities like a man planning a tactical campaign. Everything was ready.

More importantly, I was ready.

The time span following my return from Gaborone had done me good. The solitude, the clean horizon lines, the early mornings pacing the mopane edge of the camp — all of it had cleared my head. I’d come back from that two-week stretch feeling scattered, off-balance. But clarity had returned. I had a plan now. And for the first time in quite a while, I didn’t feel like I was drifting.

I’d even begun sketching out a draft proposal to submit to Dr. Ellington — a longer-term teaching post, some collaborative field research. A way to plant roots here, where the air smelled like dust and growth, and the birdsong carried across the floodplains like a benediction.

Of course, the plan wasn’t just about the job.

Bliss’s face had lived in my mind with unshakable precision these past weeks — the clarity of her questions, the way her mouth curled slightly before she smiled, that thoughtful pause before she spoke. When she stepped into my office that day, sat across from me like it was the most natural thing in the world ... something shifted. Not just admiration. Something deeper. Not romantic yet, not spoken — but undeniably alive.

And that was where it had to stay. For now.

I’d done the math. By the time the program ended in a couple of months, Bliss would no longer be a student. I would no longer be her professor. If feelings remained — if circumstances aligned — then maybe. But not before. Not a day before.

Until then, I had work to do.

I spent the afternoon tightening up field activity notes, reshuffling the group rotations. This second visit to the Delta would involve more independent research. Less handholding, more field autonomy. Bliss’s group had chosen a challenging topic: the ecological effects of predator-prey dynamics in semi-enclosed habitats. It was ambitious, and honestly, a little outside the scope of what most undergraduates attempted. But if anyone could manage it, it was Bliss and her friends.

That night after dinner, I walked the camp perimeter, listening to the whoop of hyenas out past the reed beds. It grounded me. This was the space I belonged to. The space I wanted to belong to — long term.

And tomorrow, they’d be here again. Bliss would be here again.

I’d play it cool, professional, the way I always had. But there was no denying the quiet current underneath. A sense of something approaching — not just the students, not just the next assignment.

Something else entirely.

By late morning, the vehicles came into view — two white university Land Cruisers trailing a plume of dust down the narrow track that cut through the thorn scrub. I stood just outside the mess tent with Joseph and Thandiwe, watching their approach with a strange flutter of something close to nerves.

Joseph grinned. “They look more confident this time. Like they know what they’re in for.”

I nodded, but my eyes were scanning the second vehicle, wondering where she might be seated. Then I caught myself. Focus. Be present.