Dry water - Tammie Matson

Aged fifteen, Tammie Matson travelled to Zimbabwe with her father. That journey changed her forever. On her return to Australia, Tammie turned her life upside-down in order to find a way to build a future for herself in Africa. During her next visit, a year spent in Zimbabwe, Tammie played with a semi-tame cheetah, got taught the meaning of respect by elephants, dealt with poachers, saw a witchdoctor strike fear into his victims' hearts and took on a class of students - many twice her age - without a day's training. After being held at gun point by the war vets in her friends' home in Zimbabwe, Tammie moved north to Namibia and settled in Etosha National Park, where she worked as a researcher from 2000 on. In that harsh, dry, devastatingly beautiful land, Tammie braved the language barrier, the male-dominated society, and the physical hardships to create a life for herself.