ABSTRACT
Here, at Africa’s southern tip, a cold front has moved in from the Antarctic. It announces its arrival with gale-force winds and walls of rain that you see long before they hit you and about which you can do very little. The baboons pay the rain and the wind almost no heed other than to turn their backs, hunching over while they forage. Their human observers, on the other hand, are frozen over water-proofed data loggers, undecided whether to brave it out or to call it quits and head home to stand in front of a heater. It’s odd that this should be the first memory that pops up after all this time because, between fronts, the southern Cape is beautiful in July; it’s a winter-rainfall region and the greenery and carpets of flowers make one forget the hot, dry, sere days of the summer to come. Nevertheless, the cold and the rain remind us of our reasons for being here.
