Campout Day 1

We started out first thing with a bush walk from one side of Imire to the other before the sun had a chance to bake the earth beneath our feet and fry our skin. We took 3 and a half hours, treading softly and observing everything from the smallest beetle tracks to the balletic silhouettes of bee eaters circling overhead. We encountered mongoose tracks, jackal paw prints and even an adder sitting quietly in its nest just inches off our path. It's only when walking amidst nature that you actually realise your place in it, how every berry and grass stem and insect all play their own vital roles in balancing an ecosystem and you are no more important.

Marupiya gave me some berries from a tree called camelfoot (so named because the leaves unsurprisingly look like a camel's foot). From the broad grin on his face, I was expecting them to be lovely and sweet but once on my tongue they were a bitter, earthy surprise. After seeing my face he chuckled, "Yeah they're disgusting aren't they?" Brilliant. Later though he gave me some chocolate berries to try - thankfully aptly named. Much better.

 chocolate berries (Vitex payos)

Tired, hungry and very hot we arrived at our camp mid morning and after a quick snack we were whisked off to learn some bush craft skills with a guide called Maurice. I was amazed at the string he taught us to make by chewing and weaving the bark of a msasa tree; it looked exactly like the string you'd buy in a ball from a post office. Next he showed us how to carve fire starting sticks and how to kindle a flames. It proved easier than I would have thought to make smoke, but extremely hard to get the wood hot enough to actually catch a spark on dried grass! Eventually with Marupiya proving to be the hero of the moment owing to a childhood of having to start fires every day in this way in order to eat and survive, we got a flame.

Afterwards we had an initiative test which we all proved to be rubbish at. The test involved having to make a pulley out of logs and ropes and lifting a large oil drum half filled with water over a rope between two trees, over which we couldn't cross as it was our 'electric fence'. It took us two hours all in all, after which we were more than ready for some beers around a campfire!

For dinner we were to cook a simple Shona dish over an open fire: sadza and cabbage relish. Maurice and Marupiya gave us instructions but were not allowed to physically help at any time, which I imagine must have been very frustrating for them watching us! Sadza gets thicker as it cooks and requires some serious arm muscle to keep stirring, resulting in us making a new disco move. Though simple, sadza and relish proved delicious and filled a hole after all the work.

That night I slept out under the stars. The moon was so brilliantly yellow and luminous it was as if someone had switched on a lighthouse up in the sky! I would like to write and say that it was the most beautiful and tranquil night I've ever had..but we were woken up at midnight by a bushbaby making its ear splitting screech for a full half hour. Sweet dreams.

Numwa School

Tuesday, 10th March

Today we visited Numwa school. Some students showed us their permaculture garden; they showed it off with such pride, explaining farming techniques and what each and every plant did and how to care for it. I helped them with the weeding and got chatting, their English being pretty immaculate for 12 and 13 year olds (tried getting any English Year 6s to have a fluent conversation in French reecently?). They all had aspirations of being pilots, engineers, lawyers or bank managers, however the sad reality in this rural area of Zimbabwe is that their permaculture lessons would most probably end up preparing them for the lives of subsistence farmers. Maymatzika was also there, a teacher at the school, and humbled us with her dedication to giving these children an education and a decent chance at life with the little resources she had.

They were amazed that I, a foreign mzungu, could speak even a handful Shona words - the local language. They taught me more, including animal names and numbers up to 10. It brought them such delight when I finally got the ten words in the right order unprompted. We chatted about quotidian things and it struck me how common some things in childhood are the world over - your favourite foods, favourite sports and games, favourite lessons at school.

Later on in the afternoon some of the children sang some songs and showed us some traditional dancing in the garden. They got us to join in at the end and it was great fun, though my two left feet now have international status.

In the jeep on the way back we reflected how humbling it had been to hear their career aspirations, dreams which the odds were stacked against them to realise. Yet they were all so happy and grateful to be given the chance to show off their school, one that reminded me in a couple of ways of the Perse; a collection of bikes piled up under a tree, science labs (though these had barely more than a chalk board and a few test tubes by way of equipment) and a large football field.

Education is so highly prized in Zim - some of the kids jog 40km to school and then back again every day barefoot in tattered uniforms, either in blazing heat or the sub-zero Zimbabwean winter mornings, carrying bottles for water to get from the pump at school, the only clean water supply that many of them have. Try getting British kids to do that to get to school in time for the bell.

A Surprise for the Students

Sunday, 8th March

First thing this morning - Sundays being our days off - I decided to do a bit of running along the dam wall. At 9am the sun was already well into the sky and beating down its warmth onto my skin and the added altitude strained my lungs (compared to a sea level Cambridge, Imire is at 1,600m or 4,800 feet). Afterwards I jumped into the dam's little reservoir; unlike the murky waters of the River Cam back home this water was pristine, though surprisingly chilly. Swimming surrounded by the African savannah was an incredible opportunity to get up close to wildlife; only my head was visible above water as I quietly breaststroked along. Fishing eagles soared overhead and swallows darted about just inches from my face. It was complete peace, a meditation almost - that is until Nyasha started chasing me when I got out and refused to give me my towel back. I can tell you, a serval's claws and teeth are a bit more than your average domestic cat's!

After lunch we were told that we had a surprise in store and were driven to Castle Kopjie. Phil (another student whom I got on extremely well with) and I had an explore around while we waited for our surprise to arrive. We found the graves of Norman and Gilly travers, the husband and wife who founded Imire back in 1950; the location was serene in the Miombo woodland and I felt moved standing there, knowing the amazing place that they had created.

Our surprise turned out to be a genet, brought along in a cage having been found in Harare. Imire had offered to take it and give a much better home than the bustling capital. Genets are beautiful creatures with bright, beady bushbaby-like eyes, a mongoose's long, slender body and a long busy tail, though they are more closely related to cats. This one was a large spotted genet - distinguished with a black tipped tail instead of a white tip in the case of small spotted genets - and shot off up the bolders as soon as the cage was opened. It was such a privilege to see the release of a wild animal back into the wild where it would have a long and happy life.

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_large-spotted_genet.html

Just another day in paradise...

Friday, 6th March

Not much to report today - it was just a revision day before our first test - although it was broken up by a mother and son giraffe (you can tell males apart from a bump on their bellies called penile buttons) giving us a display the other side of the dam as we sat and had our lunch outside. The youngster played around his mother and practised galloping - their legs are so long is almost looks like they are doing it in slow motion. It was an incredibly special moment and I felt privileged to be able to witness it during something as mundane as eating a sandwich.

CK and Shona Culture Night

Thursday, 5th March

Today's lecture was centred around geology and how it is the basis of what wildlife we see around us. To see it in real life, we climbed Castle Kopjie, a granite outcrop that has been weathered to produce enormous boulders. The view from the top was incredible as we sat and watched the African sun bid farewell to another day; it felt like you could see the whole of Zimbabwe. There were no sounds apart from the gentle wind and birdsong from the canopy below, giving the moment a breathtaking tranquillity. From our vantage point spied some eagles and rhinos, which ended up in us making a rather hasty retreat back down so they didn't cut us off from the landrover!

After our sundowners we went to nearby Numwa House, the main volunteer house, for our Shona culture night. Some of the local children from the families who lived and worked on Imire came and showed us traditional dancing. The noise from the singular drum (made from a plastic barrel), maracas and singing was tremendous and very uplifting!

After maybe 25 minutes of their performance, they got us up to join in with them; perhaps a dozen children and 20 students and volunteers. Each of them were fantastic dancers and we were all mesmerised by the lead singer, who only looked to be about 13 but would give Beyonce a run for her money with how energetically she could dance and sing so powerfully and in tune at the same time. One dance involved hopping round on one leg whilst holding hands in a circle - obviously I was caught on film as the idiot who fell over and destroyed the circle. Hugs, handshakes and High-5s were exchanged all round at the end and we were certainly ready for our supper.

We then were served a Shona meal which a lovely lady called Maymatzika had been preparing all afternoon and evening. She helps run the local women's support group which gives schoolgirls reusable sanitary packs so they can stay in school; most girls skip a week of school every month when they have their period which leads to a very high drop out rate. Imagine if the whole female population of students in the UK aged 13 and upwards skipped 25% of their education.

Maymatzika had prepared about ten different dishes (my favourites were the spinach with ground nut (peanut) butter and chicken and ground nut stew - of course with a huge helping of sadza!) I chatted to her in the kitchen before the dancing and she was exceptionally friendly and proud to explain to me what she was cooking, all in immaculate English.

Because it was Shona culture night, though, we had to do things the traditional way: men had to sit in higher places than women, so we all sat on the floor whilst the men sat on sofas. The oldest man is served first, down to the youngest man, and then the same happens with the women - meaning I was last to be served! But Maymatzika explained they always save the best cuts of meat for the youngest so it wasn't all bad... I tried to get her to serve herself before me but she was so gracious she wouldn't have any of it. We also had to say grace (palmasaroi) and clap as that is the Shona way of showing appreciation.

The food was incredible and whilst we ate Maymatzika told us some more about traditional life in Zimbabwe. For example, each family has a totem animal and it is taboo to marry into the same totem.

We went to bed with full stomachs and even fuller hearts. She is a truly inspirational lady.

Giraffe Day

Wednesday, 4th March

First thing this morning before our lecture started, we walked 10 minutes into the bush on Chiwawe side (the half of the reserve where our camp is) to witness the family of four black rhino feed, including baby Khanya! It was such a special experience to see all four rhino so close together, as usually they are solitary animals. Never before have I sat in silence for 40 minutes simply watching and being so mesmerised and unaware of the passing of time. Eventually they finished feeding and we headed back to camp to begin our lecture on biomes of Southern Africa.

In the afternoon we had an introductory tracking test, which included a monitor lizard's spoor and a 'track' that was in fact made by a blade of grass blowing in the wind, fooling us all. It seemed mind boggling how tiny details in spoors can make all the difference in distinguishing one animal from another, however Sam (one of our instructors) reassured us that it comes naturally with practice and experience.

We also had a close up encounter with a herd of giraffe by some miombo woodland (the dominant type of woodland in Zimbabwe, a mixture of msasa and mnondo trees). If not the most intelligent, they are certainly one of the most inquisitive of the African animals. They came right up to our vehicle and surrounded us, giving us a blissful half an hour or so surrounded by these awkwardly elegant but beautiful creatures.

They have dark blue-grey tongues in order to prevent sunburn, as they spend so much time with them out of their mouths, picking off leaves and twigs. The Shona word for giraffe is furira mudenga, fittingly meaning 'eating from the sky'. The social structure of giraffe is known as temporary association, in which there is no patriarch or matriarch but instead a group that regularly fluctuates in number. Though not territorial, bulls periodically move from association to association in search of mates and often end up fighting to win a female in heat. Mature males can be distinguished from females by their exposed ossicones (horns), balded by such fights which can also determine hierarchy among juveniles in a group.

Another fascinating fact about giraffe is that, despite standing up to 6 metres tall, they have the same number of vertebrae in their neck as we do: 7. They are the tallest land mammals and are the largest of the ruminants; just like cows, they spend much of their time chewing cud and metres-long strands of saliva can be seen blowing in the wind from their lips. Lovely.

Like all prey animals - though it is very rare for a fully grown giraffe to be victimised due to their size and ability to dole out vicious kicks - they do not sleep for long, around 4 hours at a time and never fully lying down. If they were to lie down, all the blood would rush to their head and cause them to pass out and eventually die. To overcome this problem when they drink, giraffe have evolved three special adaptations. Firstly, giraffe spread their legs when they drink, therefore lowering the level of the heart so the height difference between head and heart is diminished, reducing excess pressure on the brain. Secondly, there are many valves in the jugular veins leading away from the brain to prevent the backflow of blood. Lastly, a spongey tissue known as a 'wonder net' is located at the base of the brain through which arterial blood flows and is thought to control the entry of blood into the brain when the giraffe bends down, reducing an otherwise fatal pressure. In addition, the lymphatic fluid surrounding capillaries is thought to have an effect much like a G suit worn by fighter pilots; it acts as a counter-pressure to prevent rupture of capillaries. This, as well as the fact that giraffe have the thickest artery walls of any mammal, ensures that they don't bleed to death while their bodies transport blood such long distances.

To top it all off, on the way back home we saw a mating pair of Verreux Eagle Owls, the largest of the African owls and, as the name suggests, about the size of an eagle. What is hilarious about these otherwise fairly scary creatures is that their eyelids are bright pink, giving them the effect of eye shadow!

Back to Harare

Saturday, 29th February

We had agreed to leave at 7.30 in the morning, but this being Africa, we left an hour later. The unrest in town had quietened down enough for the borders to be reopened so Tom drove me back to the River Zambezi, over which I had entered Zambia. Although they had been officially shut the past two days, when I signed in my information in the obligatory 'guest book' I noticed that people had been crossing over, probably with a few extra kwacha exchanged into the pockets of the border guards.

As we drove over the customs area which spanned the length of the dam, we stopped and I got a quick photo opportunity, not least to honour the photo of my grandparents' honeymoon in the same spot several decades before.

However it was after a fond farewell to Tom that it became clear the rest of my journey would not be plain sailing. After managing to slip past a border guard who offered to drive me personally all the way to Harare with a wink at the end of his shift, I went in search of someone who could take me to Kariba town to catch the bus. The jolly Zimbabwean lady who was sitting by the gate called over one of the mostly redundant taxi driver, a portly, smiling man whose name slips my memory.
          "Where would you like to go, Kariba?" he asked, beaming.
          "Yes please, I'm trying to catch a bus to Harare," I replied in earnest.
          "Oh no, no, no," he laughed at me. "All the buses have left already!" (It's worth mentioning that it was still before 9am, well before any meaningful western work gets off the ground on most days.) "But don't worry," he continued at seeing my panicked face, for having paid no small fee for my visas I couldn't skip merrily back across, "I can take you to a place where you can catch a lift from."
Right.

Clearly trying to ease my nerves, we bumbled along the road through the emerald bush - much denser than the Zambian side - listening to a local radio station and him asking me about my time in Zambia. Not seeming to grasp the concept that I was actually from a different continent altogether, I gave in and pretended that it had been family I had been staying with and now I was going back to an aunt in Zim. Well, not too far off the truth anyway.

Said promised place to catch a lift from turned out to be a T junction in apparently the middle of nowhere called Nyamhunga bus stop. It comprised of two dirt roads meeting at a centre with around 50 Zimbabweans sitting on the grass verge all waiting for lifts. I asked my taxi driver to help me actually catch a lift, not fancying my chances as a small white mzungu girl holding out her thumb in the middle of the road. After about an hour of waiting and discussing with locals - during which time I was trying to form some sort of Plan B which could work without having to use my phone, which wasn't working thus leaving me with no way of contacting either our friends in Harare nor the family in Siavonga - a kombi bus appeared like a mirage of a camel out of the desert. The driver said it was going to Karoi, a large town halfway between Kariba and Harare, so I found myself sat on the cup holder, squidged between the driver and another passenger and fending off memories of reading on an African travel blog back home that warned to avoid kombis whenever possible on account of their safety. 

The best way to describe a kombi is a small, outdated campervan type car in which the driver and passengers play human tetras. The aim of the game is to cram as many people inside and strap as many bags and trading goods to the roof as is possible without the van either failing to move forward, keeling over or downright exploding. Across the front and back windows are emblazoned the buses' reassuring names, usually reassuringly related to asking religious intervention for a safe journey. When asking some locals later, I found that the drivers got their fuel by lining up in the fuel queues at night and driving back and forth throughout the day to make a living. (Zimbabwe has a huge fuel shortage, meaning for the average car owner refuelling involves waiting hours in a queue that stretches back for several miles.) Whether or not these drivers ever got any sleep was questionable, however there no illicit substances popped into view this time so that was a bonus at least.

So there I was, sitting preciously on this cup holder, bombing it as the speedo climbed to over 120kmph down the bush roads with the upbeat music of wooden xylophones and djembe drums coming through the speakers. I had even made friends with the passenger next to me named Sylvester (it seemed rude not to introduce myself seeing as I was practically sitting in his lap) who happened to also be going to Harare and said he would help guide me through Karoi to find a connecting kombi. I was starting to relax and enjoy the experience, soaking up the music and sites of the bush with troops of baboons frequently scampering across the road.

Until I noticed the fuel guage. Whereas I had been impressed with the speedo at the power of the engine given its cargo, the fuel guage alarmed me. Having taken a note of where it was at the start of our journey (less than a quarter) I watched as it dropped with increasing speed towards empty. I calculated that we definitely did not have enough fuel to make the 2 hour journey down to Karoi, and this being Zimbabwe we couldn't simply stop at a petrol station; we would be stranded for potentially the whole day. Even more alarmingly, the driver also started glancing ever more frequently down at the guage; this wasn't the norm then. I started crossing fingers and toes, watching the pin fall as everyone else in the bus carried on their conversations in blissful ignorance. Then the orange light came on. Down, down the pin fell until empty. We had just passed a sign that said "KAROI: 156KM". I won't be getting to Harare tonight, I thought, more than a little panicked. And then the pin kept on falling, way down past zero. In fact we spent the remaining 90 minutes of the journey apparently with negative fuel, still zipping along at the same, if not higher, speed. We crawled into the kombi ranks in Karoi, to the driver's evident relief, after a journey that certainly defied any highway code.

The main street of Karoi which housed the huge kombi ranks was heaving with people. Kombis and larger coaches rolled up and down, trying to attract customers while drivers ran alongside, hustling me and asking where I was headed. Hawkers lined the pavement waving bunches of bananas and crisp packets and all number of people simply sat at the side, passively regarding the hubbub. My new friend Sylvester led me through the melee where a few kombis sat at the side of the road leading out of town. We chatted as we walked and it turned out he was currently on leave from being a reserve in the army - so probably not a bad friend to make.

We found a kombi heading to Harare and sat for about half an hour whilst passengers and the driver attempted to arrange bags on top tied down with ropes through the windows in a gravity-defying feat. Once again we made off through the countryside; this time I was squashed in behind several crates of Chibuku, a potent local brew. It always amused me whenever we came to a rail crossing, as despite the fact Zim has no working trains, the driver cautiously stopped and diligently looked both ways, only to then continue bombing it along the road. After another couple of hours we pulled into another town called Chinoyhi, where most of the other passengers disembarked. It became apparent however that the driver too wanted to join them and was going no further. This left me, Sylvester and three other passengers confused and rather irritated. As a compromise, one man jogged down the road a few hundred metres to where a large lorry was parked and asked if the driver was headed for Harare. He was indeed, so a portion of our bus fares were handed over by the kombi driver and the five of us crammed into his cabin, with four of us sat bent over double on his bunk bed behind his seat. This is how we spent the next two hours, with the others chatting in Shona and occassionally in English to be polite and include me, as Shona culture dictates exquisite manners. There were a couple of hiccups with the engine, which proved to be not in finest fettle as every time the driver wanted to change gear it sounded like a family of hyenas were crunching down on bones made of brittle metal; there was only one moment where the engine stopped completely and we were left coasting down the highway for a few minutes, wondering for the second time if Harare was actually on the agenda for tonight.

 

view from the lorry cab

The lorry driver was not going into Harare centre, so we jumped off on the outskirts of the city, wished each other the best and split off into different directions. By luck, Sylvester was heading to a similar area to where I needed to go so he offered to guide me there. Onto another kombi we jumped, this one belittling the others in how many people it contained as it was rushhour, with the driver's assistant hanging out of the open door shouting Harareeeee as we bombed along the streets, weaving in and out of other vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians and the odd chicken.

The centre of Harare looks very modern, much like Bridgetown, with a collection of shiny, high-rise buildings interspersed with bustling malls and markets. I marvelled at the modernity of it, a stark change from rural Zambia, my mouth watering at the assortment of fried chicken shops (I realised I hadn't eaten anything except for a slice of bread at 6.30 that morning). I ended up meeting some relatives of Sylvester in a shop in one mall, before thanking him for his genoristy and then heading off through the central park to find a taxi rank to take me to the guest house I was staying in for the night. The central park was much like Parker's Piece in Cambridge on a midsummer's day; the grass was covered with people sitting and sleeping on it, however these were not care free sun-worshippers, I realised, these were some of Harare's many homeless and it was a sober reminder of the poverty of where I was. Given the rest of this day, the taxi ride of course was not uneventful either; it turned out the driver had misheard the name of the road I had given and drove 10km in the wrong direction. I then had to borrow his phone and direct him via Google Maps, at last ending up at the guest house just after dark, safe and sound.

The whole episode was a testament to the kindness, hospitality and willingness of the Shona people to go out of their way to help you, so for that I thank all the people I met on this journey.