Lions in the Night

Greetings from Zambia!

We have been trying to learn Nyanja for “Hello and Thank You” which is “Bwangi... Something” and “Zcombi Ncomo” and have failed so miserably one time we were told “Madams – it might be good for you just to say “Hello and Thank you”.

Our home away from home is a strongly constructed grass reed and timber hut, approximately 8m by 5m, with a steeply pitched roof. It is the house Anna and Steve Tolan lived in for three years whilst constructing the Chipembele Centre and then until their own stone house was completed. Our Bush House has a polished concrete floor, solid timber doors and every 3 feet is a rectangular fly-wire window providing a panoramic view of Chipembele campus grounds. The gauze windows also mean that the Bush House is open to all the breezes – making it pleasant to be inside in the hottest part of the day; it is currently, at mid afternoon, only 29 degrees Celsius inside! We feel so privileged to be staying here! We have a glimpse view of the Luangwa down the gully near our back door, where we sit early morning to have our first cuppa’s and the lily and nile cabbage growing on Chipembele Lake catches the golden morning sun. Nice way to start the day. 

Our little house is safe and secure so when we hear the Lions roaring each night, though wide eyed with wonder and smiling from pleasure - we are not frightened as we are quite safe inside.

We briefly wrote about the night when Lion were roaring on and off all night, this continued night after night this week. Following a long, hot and dusty Friday in Mfuwe we returned home to our idyllic bush house to hot showers. Thanks to Moses and Richarb who heat the water over an open fire, climb 10 metal steps and pour the water into a 44 gallon drum, which is plumbed into the shower. Just the ticket after a long and hot dusty day … bliss! Hot water in the bush. We asked Richarb for the fire to be left burning so we could bake potatoes in their jackets in the hot coals for dinner.

It was fully dark so head torch on and bowl of ‘tatties in hand Jude stepped out the 3 metres to the fire. Squatting down and scrapping coals in preparation, every sense at tune…. from out-there in the darkness came the deep, unmistakable territorial call of Lion. Deeply – “Whaarr, uuugh, uuugh , uuugh. Whaarr, uuugh, uuugh , uuugh”. It’s amazing how one can hold one’s nerve, having watched innumerable documentaries and read books understanding that Lion are not likely to leap on you from over a kilometer away while you are tending a fire… Regardless of that knowledge, torch in hand Kaye was watching Jude’s back, and sweeping the torch beam from left to right in case that roaring was just the left-flank!

Back inside the discussion was whether we really wanted the potatoes for dinner…

For the next half hour, the Lion called intermittently – but always still, a good kilometer away. So the potatoes, cooked themselves untended. Brave potatoes. Finally retrieved with the help of Kaye’s light ‘guard’, they were delicious for their garnish of our courage,– albeit a little blackened from the coals.

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An Aside…

During the week we once more tackled the mountain of Uniforms… we are disseminating them all this week as we visit the schools to meet the Cholongololo and Conservation Club members to prepare for our World Environment Day Community Event on June 5.

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Picnic!

On Saturday, Jude worked up at the centre (which is powered by solar) on our notebook, in the morning on the artwork for the commemorative 10 year celebration banner in readiness to send off to the printer in Lusaka. Kaye, confident now having driven the Landy to town and back on Thursday, drove to Mfuwe to pick up Brooke Mundey – a friend of Rochelle’s staying with her for a few weeks. Brooke is a former predator keeper at Australia Zoo, very switched on conservationist and, like most Aussies easy going and fun to be with! It was Brooke’s first visit to Chipembele Centre so Kaye gave her a tour of the centre and campus as Jude finished up her graphics design work. The three of us packed up a picnic and thermos and set off for a nearby salt-spring. A particularly pretty place surrounded by forest. It was lovely being in the bush, self-sufficient, making sandwiches and drinking coffee - watch a flock of 40 or more beautiful crowned crane picking over the shallows in the nearby dambo. 

Kaye went on a small sortie of her own on foot across the plain while Brooke photographed Crowned Crane and Jude photographed bright orange and black beetles. A galloping giraffe frightened the life out of Kaye as she heard it coming – and imagined buffalo! Until appearing out of the bush, towering above her, the giraffe ran on past in the forest. We took Brooke back to Mfuwe in the late afternoon, pausing briefly to see Ground Hornbill, impala and squirrels.

More Lions in the Night

Saturday night following a spectacular ‘sundowners’ we were just showering when Steve came tearing up to our front door in the Landy telling us he and the men had found the Lion! Half dressed just after a shower Jude threw on a pair of trousers under her sarong and our wits scattered from the sudden news - we managed to grab the camera (but forgot Kaye’s you-beaut special red filter night predator viewing torch!) before roaring off into the night to visit the lions. Wow! How lucky were we? About half a kilometer on the Malama Road, in the long grass, a male and female were resting alone.

Ah! This now made sense of the nightly roaring – “Hey, Honey! Wanna do the shakey shakey thing?” “Yes! Yes! Yes!”. Lions mate every half hour for days, it takes a lot of energy and a LOT of resting between bouts and… a lot of yelling apparently. Right then though, they were totally still,  silent and unconcerned at our presence, presumably because they were utterly shagged…

We spent five minutes watching them doing nothing, took multiple blurry photos (see proof right) - then came on back home. After dinner – the roaring set up again, then moments later the most god-awful screaming and trumpeting rent the night, as we presume, an elephant accidently found the Lion in the night. This sound is primordial, a roaring-scream-growl-trumpet. Amazing.

We awoke once more suddenly in the night to the same unearthly Elephant sounds – we were however, safe in our Bush House, under our Mozzie nets, tucked up in our beds. We drifted back to sleep to the sound of the tinkling of Bell frogs as the night settled once more…

Another wondrous African day and night.

Waves of love from the Luangwa…

Jude and Kaye

PS: Every day is punctuated by Beautiful Betty moments…