How To Braai

Grilling in southern Africa is serious business as evidenced by many humorous road signs advertising the life altering greatness of meat. "Ostrich: lean, tasty, red meat." "When it comes to health, bring on the biltong." Or simply, "hot and meat." In fact, grilling has its own culture here. First off, instead of a grill, it's called a braai both in noun and verb. Second, a true proper braai starts early and burns hot all day, keeping the company amongst friends and family. People party at home, at lodges, even on the side of a country road. The party only ends when the last coals have cooled. 

Cooking on the grill/braai is a huge past time for Mark, and one he had to put on hold while living in Brazil since our apartment building wanted no part in building fires. So when he arrived to Windhoek, six weeks after I got here, he joyfully kicked me to the curb and took over the cooking.  It didn't help that my first attempts at grilling ended in embarrassment.  I mean, in the past I have successfully grilled, but here, the logistics of big metal boxes and drawers confounded me. One time I tried placing charcoal briquettes in the top box, but they all fell through the bottom. I walked away covered in soot, and no dinner to show for it. Another time I made a cute pyramid of coals and lit them on fire in the bottom drawer. They burned, but didn't emit enough heat. My filets rubberized by the time I figured out the drawer was actually to collect ash refuse.

Google didn't help either- no blogs or Youtube or Wikihow had a decent "how to guide" for setting up the braai. I enlisted the help of my dad via email. Reading between the lines, I could feel him laughing at me as he suggested I just "ring the neighbor's doorbell and ask." Well that's all good and fine when you don't have 2 hungry kids on a school night. Or that everyone has 8 foot tall, electrified and barb wired walls with roving security. It didn't exactly make me feel ready to show up unannounced (though since my arrival, I have met some very cool neighbors.) Finally, after a few more trial and errors, I figured out how to braai. I can make mean fire. With wood- which is how a true southern African does it. 

Turns out, several of my newly arrived American friends were in the same position: in possession of a really cool braai, but no idea on how to use it. I happily passed on my knowledge, and ultimately decided to document this process for anyone who felt as clueless as I did. 

To create a wood powered braai, you need:

- Grate. Either a large one that covers the entirety of the braai, or a handled mini grill that you can sandwich meat in between. 

 - Wood. The grocery stores sell perfectly portioned 10kg bags of split wood. Pick up two or more bags to keep yourself fit, and save face from ever running out of wood. Your guests will relentlessly tease if you do.

- Newspaper or kindling. Fire starters are a popular option too. They come in various shapes, reek of gas and leave oily residue everywhere, especially if you are clumsy like me. 

- A metal poker. For poking. Ok, and for stoking the lit firewood and encouraging kids to make the sparks fly.

- A metal rake. For raking. You have to be able to scoot the coals over and spread them across the grilling area.

- Fire resistant gloves. Not required, but dead handy.

- Time. Maybe 90 minutes to get a decent fire ready to grill. Oh yeah, and meat. 

Schlink braai, behind our house.

Arnhem Cave Bat Adventure

Sure, the dark was darker than dark. Sure, the potent scent of ammonia made my eyes water and the dusty guano covered the ground making the rocks slippery to hike on. Of course, the 50 foot long section of low clearance made my innards churn, and the cave humidity + 27C (80F) underground made my sweaty skin extra grubby and itchy. And those blasted bats, thousands and thousands of flying mammals, darted through the cave disrupting my calm demeanor. They dodged heads and flashlights, eager to get away me as I was them.  Yet, I persisted.

For a long time I wanted to visit Arnhem Cave, a place thought to be the longest cave in Namibia at 4.2km, according to the polo shirt our guide wore. I imagined the educational glee we'd all experience, and the exhilaration facing my fear of flying creatures head on. Claustrophobia was also a factor, but I refused to even acknowledge it. I signed us up for a 9:00am tour, and we took off on a 90 minute drive involving 3 major turns to get there: onto the highway, onto the county road, and into the camp's entrance. We arrived to Arnhem Resort and Cave in plenty of time to be told our tour would be delayed by a half hour; plenty of time to go into denial! 

With indemnity forms for death and injury signed, we met our fellow hikers. Two of whom were Czech veterinarians here to collect test tubes of bat poop and a few bats close enough to bag (and tag). The vets were conducting an investigation on white-nose-disease, a fungal infection that infects only bats that hibernate. I was unaware that bats hibernate at all. The infection has been on the rise in recent years and has hit Europe's (the United States as well) bat population hard. They spoke very little English but had a translator on board who also carried the biggest camera lens I have ever seen. It was fantastic to see people so excited about caving, I couldn't help but to soak up their enthusiasm. Good thing I did, because almost immediately, one of our flashlights ran out of batteries. I suppressed the urge of an impending heart attack and continued on, using my phone's flashlight (at 50%) to guide the way. 

Margo and I hiked down, hand in hand. Mark and Deets were ahead of us, and the rest followed behind with their fancy lab equipment. Our guide told us this cave was once a cash boon for exporting guano to the United States for making explosives. He pointed out various bat species that were clinging to the ceilings and showed us mummified porcupine remains. Air circulation is quite stagnant inside the cave, so corpses do not decompose at a normal rate.

I am certain he said a myriad of other interesting facts, but I missed quite a bit. I mostly concentrated on keeping Margo distracted from my inner turmoil. At one point the cave split into two: the right was reserved for people who enjoyed walking through underground water and the left side for the rest of us. We continued on, where the smells of ammonia went from a whiff to full on saturation. Margo asked at this point why we needed flashlights in the cave and we proceeded to turn off all the flashlights for educational purposes. "Yeah, I guess it's dark," was her unimpressed remark. 

Beyond our guide, I spied a rapidly narrowing passage that dropped almost straight down and overhead was the saturation point of bats. The ceiling was literally moving. The group crowded together when one of the veterinarians produced a radio that picked up sonar, and we could hear the bat's tiny "voices" crackling through the speakers. He filled his tubes with guano which looked like innocuous, mushy Grape Nuts, and bagged a few live specimens. He held one up to show all of us the bat's tiny mouth filled with tiny yellow teeth before tucking him away. The vets were obviously in their element, so we left them to play while we headed back to the surface. I all but ran with Margo, in the lead. Fifteen minutes later we saw the light and I was safe again. While we waited for the rest of the group to return, I basked in the brilliant sunlight, grateful for my mental rebirth while I dripped ammonia laden sweat all over the place. 

In total we spent about 30-40 minutes in the cave which was more than plenty. Sometimes guests book tours for three hours and it makes me wonder about health ramifications of breathing in the pungent air- especially for the guides who conduct tours up to twice a day, 7 days a week.  I asked the guide if he knew of anyone contracting histoplasmosis, (a fungal lung infection contacted by inhaling microscopic particles of bat or bird poop) and he just looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. I guess it's gauche to speak of such atrocities.  

Arriving back to the lodge, the kids were legitimately hungry and begged for food. Before any of that could go down, we had to change clothes and wash hands. The clothes were tightly bagged, but I could still smell the off gassed ammonia, or at least I imagined I could. We wolfed down PBJs and made an anticlimactic return to Windhoek. Overall, I am thrilled we went despite the danger, the stink, the dark, the flying animals.  It was cool to try something different, and I will encourage anyone who's remotely interested to see bats to give it a go. If anything, perhaps cave dwelling builds character? 

The inviting foot path- though not far, would have taken us at least an hour to arrive.

Going down.

Grabbing his specimen. All that sandy stuff: poop.

A low hanging bat.

A victorious Margo, first out of the cave.