Tackling a new job during summer vacation can be quite overwhelming. Whether involving a high-powered internship or a hectic post waiting tables, work during vacation is rarely a picnic. But what made sophomore Matt Maraynes nervous this summer was not an imposing boss, computer problems or angry customers. The problems Maraynes faced were larger -- and much hungrier.
By sheer chance and some lucky connections, Maraynes had the opportunity to spend two and a half weeks on the Shamwari Game Reserve in rural South Africa, where he experienced much of the same hands-on training that wildlife rangers undergo.
Maraynes, originally from Chappaqua, New York, had his experiences -- along with those of two other college-age students and a group of rangers -- filmed for an Animal Planet reality show. "Shamwari: A Wild Life," which premiered in September, followed everyday life on the reserve.
Maraynes jumped at the opportunity to participate. "My aunt is a [public relations] person for the Discovery Channel, and one day in June, I got a call from her saying that a friend of hers who runs a production company on a game reserve in South Africa wanted college students who love animals," he said.
The reserve itself has special meaning for Maraynes, who plans to major in history and environmental studies.
"It is not a natural environment, [but it is] completely reestablished as an ecosystem from farmland," he said. "It was cool to go there and see a working conservation success story."
For Maraynes, the experience of seeing conservation carried out, even on a small scale, was a welcome departure from the facts and figures about environment and population found in textbooks.
"The coolest part was how unscientific it was; the way these rangers do it is intuition, instinct, experience," he said. "It was a really cool way of looking at the environment, something people should use a lot more."
Maraynes recalls sleeping with a baby elephant that needed to be fed every three hours, and bottle-feeding a baby giraffe. But his experiences were certainly not all quite so tame. He and his fellow students were granted a great deal of responsibility, and with it came some frightening experiences.
"I came face to face with a very aggressive, full-grown, male elephant. He decided whether or not he wanted to pummel us," he said. "[And] the producer surprised us by letting us take part in a routine operation on a lion from a routine game reserve."
But through it all, Maraynes said that he maintained his cool. For him, the experienced rangers with whom he was paired proved to be crucial in allaying many concerns he might otherwise have had, and he praised the close-knit community at the reserve.
"It was a remote, small community of people who spend their whole lives together, a tight family community," he said. "The rangers stuck out in my mind as really fascinating people. They seem so tough and so cool, with a Crocodile Dundee aura -- calm and cool in the face of dangerous situations. They were incredibly ... passionate about what they do."
And to Maraynes, there is truly nothing like seeing animals the rest of us know only through photos, statues and stuffed hides in museums.
"When I was two feet from a lion, I was staring at something that has been designed for millions of years to see you as dinner," he said. "It's certainly an interesting experience, more humbling than [frightening]."
The addition of cameras added another element to the mix, but Maraynes explained that they had little effect on his behavior. "Personally, I found them to be kind of secondary," he said. "I was so excited that I forgot there was a camera there. I'd say the stupid things I normally say and only then realize that there was a camera."
Beyond this, Maraynes made a connection between the animals he encountered and those he might study here at Tufts.
"There's a sort of intimacy that comes from being in contact with [the animals] every day, [making] it a much more intensely emotional practice," he said. "Data collection is secondary to raw beauty."
Maraynes, who said his experience left him awestruck, marveled at the striking difference between the lives of those he met on the reserve and that of his own.
"On the last night, we were talking around a fire at the wrap party. I just remember thinking that there are people out there who have completely different lives than us. They have a lot more patient lifestyles, dedicated to savoring what's around them rather than pushing themselves forward," he said. "I stayed in for a few weeks after I got back, just reading, laying around because I didn't like a lot of the same things."
Back on the Hill, the Jumbo who stared down real elephants and lions will never forget the sense of wonder he felt seeing the big creatures up close, as Animal Planet's cameras captured it all on tape.
"I feel like the luckiest person," Maraynes said. "I did these things that people who go to school their whole lives don't get to do."
