Practice Runs and Girly Shrieks

Greetings from Zambia,

Well, life here is not the typical holiday... sitting about sipping pina colada’s with little umbrellas, eating biscuits and watching the world go by. But it sure is interesting!

Yosefe Basic School 

Our friend, the Founder and Co-Director of
Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust, Anna Tolan
Puts her "Hand Up for Conservation!"

We have been in to 6 schools, some twice to visit the 11 clubs and talked to 100’s of children about World Environment Day celebrations for our 4 June Community Event – making up the “Hands Up for Conservation!” signs, and meeting all the Club Patrons and Head Teachers. Some schools are over two hours away down twisting rutted roads, encroached by grass and buffalo bean; which we learned is a nasty filament seed that if disturbed by passing vehicles releases spore that on skin contact drive you mad with itching! Luckily, through diligent window winding and Kaye’s immaculate driving by avoiding hitting the vines we have not had to live with that particular local fun-time.

It has been fun and also frustrating at times. Arranging things in Africa – is well, not quite… like arranging things back home. Sometimes a firm arrangement turns out to have been more fluid than you previously thought. Other times – like on Wednesday – the class was all waiting for us, and Kaye and I having done one activity at Kakumbi Basic School, delivered a letter and picked up some supplies then drove home the 45 minutes to Chipembele with the paint and cards – while the class and Rochelle the Conservation Education Outreach in Schools Manager, wondered where we were! It was a misunderstanding – and we are sorry the children from Chiwawatala Basic School Conservation Club missed out on the activity!

Why We Are Here...

Elephant at far left with snare wound. 

On one day as we drove into Mfuwe we were happy to see a relaxed small elephant family, until Kaye spotted one of the younger members, perhaps a 15 year old with a very nasty snare wound quarter of the way up her trunk. It had healed “open’ so one nostril is permanently open and exposed at this point. 

Wire snares and poaching are a major threat to wildlife lives and wellbeing. This particular elephant seems to have adapted and was dust bathing, and using her trunk despite the wound and the obvious nerve damage the stricture had caused.  This kind of encounter is sobering though and puts a colour on the rest of your day/week/year. If she can bear to live with it, we can bear to witness it and try to do something about it for others of her kind. This is why we are here doing what we do.

Open Day Preparations

At home we have been working feverishly to get all ready for the big Open Day. We are expecting anywhere from 20 to 200! There are 110 invited guests who have confirmed attendance, anyway! We are catering on the day for the 110. A challenge for Kaye’s chefing skills – cooking two hot dishes – a vegetarian and meat option, plus rice and Nshima (the local Mealie maize) over open fires. The ordering and storage logistics have been interesting. We have two gas freezers (that double as fridges but tend to freeze anyway) cooler boxes and lots of fresh produce that came in a week early via a great company operating out of Lusaka called Valley Lodgestics – who ‘pick’ orders from wholesalers and supermarkets for delivery to the many tourist lodges and other community based organisations like Chipembele. Local produce has been purchased wherever possible to assist local businesses. One of the event sponsors Flatdogs Camp (an hours drive away) has kindly allowed us to store the more delicate vegetables and fruit in their walk in fridge. Whew! Thanks Flatties!


Practice Runs!

On Thursday twelve young people selected by the Conservation Club Patrons from Grade 8 to 9 came to Chipembele to practice their “job” for Saturday. They are to be “guides” in the Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre. Jude welcomed them from the truck at 9:45 and following biscuits and cordial we had classes and practice runs for the various “stations” in the centre they will be responsible for. There is the “Who came down to the water to drink today?” exhibit outside the centre – made for Chipembele by previous volunteers Michael and Alison. It is a beautifully crafted concrete and blue painted ‘river’ with various realistic footprints of local wildlife stamped from carved woodblocks and painted black in the concrete. The two boys responsible for this exhibit are funny and fabulous – we are worried people will not be able to get away to look at anything else so thorough and engaging are they!

Chipembele team work, refurbishing the "Who Came down to the water to drink today?" exhibit.
From Left to Right: Richarb, Jude, Moses, Rodgers and Victor.

The Classroom and Library each have their “guides” and they talk through what happens in each room. In the interpretive room, three exhibits – “Animals- Skulls, bones and scat” Trees – seeds, wood and habitat” and “Conservation – poaching and anti-poaching” are each ‘guided’ by knowledgeable young people. Many of the children and young people here do not interact with Muzungu’s (White people) often – Anna Tolan of course, Rochelle and occasional visitors. So this will be a really big thing for them to undertake with many Muzungu guests coming on the day. They are all fabulous – the hardest thing to learn was to initiate the conversation. We practiced this part  “Hello, My name is Sunday, from Such and Such School” often and in the end each was confident and stepped forward.  A boy and girl from each school paired up in a Team (The same team names used in class – Leopard, Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo and Zebra) and they worked together in their pairs to come up with what they would say about their area or exhibit. Then we practiced it a few times and refined it all a bit. It was a great day and by the end they were all confident and relaxed with it. Serendipitously, we had guests visit Anna and Steve today and they also kindly came and entered into the spirit of the practice – so the “guides” got to practice 5 times all up with various people wandering in and out of rooms. They did a great job! We know they will be superb on the day and do their schools and Conservation Clubs proud. They will also represent their clubs in a Senior Quiz in front of the gathered guests. The prizes are terrific! But won’t tell you yet ‘cos that would ruin the surprise!

Giraffes

You know how, in the city – where you hardly ever see a Volkswagon Beatle car anymore… when you see one, you end up seeing half a dozen? Well here – that happens with Giraffes. We do not see them everyday – and only ever on the drives from and to Mfuwe. But on Wednesday we were astounded – it appeared that behind every bush, tree and corner was a Giraffe! We suspect there was a Giraffe Convention on in the Lupande Game Management Area! Groups of 8 or 9 which is a big herd (or for the fancier collective nouns… ‘journey’ or ‘elegance’), families of 3 or 4. All seemed intent on heading to the same area. We wondered what the convention might have been about. What do Giraffes talk about in large gatherings? Spots? Neck Ache? How hard it is to get clothes when you are so tall? How all the good leaves seem to be taken by elephants standing on their hind legs these days?

Girly Shrieks

No sure exactly why this has started to happen suddenly – but calm collected and living life in the bush has gone hand in hand… well, almost! Tell us, what would you do when…

You open the wardrobe (half dressed of course) and a spider the size of the bottom of a coke can leaps (yes LEAPS!) out and lands on your chest? Well, Jude found out the hard way, and was astonished to discover that she CAN “Girly Shriek”. Mortified by the loss of dignity and the overt ‘stereo-type’ that this sound and the attendant dance that followed she was determined to never repeat the vocal and physical exercise for anything under the size of breadbox.

Unfortunately, she forgot to tell her brain this new information. The following day, a T-shirt came with its own live frog label. Down the back, on the skin… another ‘Girly Shriek’. Kaye, being made of altogether more ‘manly’ stuff thought this was hilarious until… trying to rescue a praying mantis the size of a baseball bat from inside the bush house before we used the can of “Doom” to kill the malarial mosquitoes – let out a… Girly Shriek when the praying mantis suddenly turned on her, mandibles gnashing and front legs waving!  So we are, in theory – calm in the face of lion, elephant, hippo – but critters that fling themselves at you or decide they are part of your clothes get the “Girly Shriek” treatment whether we want to or not! Please, don’t tell anyone!

Actually, we are not as calm as we like to think we are about lion… One night this week we were, as is a nightly occurrence sitting down at the Chitenge overlooking the river to watch the sunset and drink the obligatory African sundowners… After the sun fully set we were still sitting in the dark, chatting – having moved our chairs a discrete distance from Anna and Steve to have our smokes. From about 500 metres or so away – in the bush came the unmistakable lion call, the deep … “Whaarr, uuugh, uuugh , uuugh. Whaarr, uuugh, uuugh , uuugh”. Trying to look nonchalant about this we crabwalked our chairs the metre and a half sideways to sit up close with Anna and Steve… Hoping they wouldn’t notice. Crabwalking plastic chairs, juggling drinks with fags hanging out of our mouths in a nonchalant manner… makes a LOT of noise! Anna and Steve just laughed at us. At LEAST we didn’t let out ‘Girly Shrieks’!

So another week zooms by – and the big Open Day is almost upon us. Only one more ‘sundowners’ and we are “on!” Wish us luck! Still much to do – but it is coming together and we are confident we have all done as much as we can to make the celebration of Chipembele’s 10^th Birthday a great success. If you would like to make a “10^th Birthday Gift” contribution towards Chipembele’s programmes or projects, please visit: http://www.justgiving.com/10-for-10-Cheer-Squad-2011

Thanks if you do! No worries if you don’t… you know we’ll ask another time anyway …

Waves and Love from the Luangwa.

Jude and Kaye

PS: Kaye drove the ten tonne truck today to help drop the kids back to their various schools. Steve drove it to the “tar’ road and Kaye took it from there! Whooo Hooo! What a hoot. She thought “If only my Mother could see me now…”

PS2: The resident baboon troop came through yesterday. The Bush house is a beautiful “hide”. Here the Alpha male sits relax in the morning sun…