September 1st – Saturday Morning
We spent the morning looking at animal spoor. I can now (sort of) track a specific elephant by his footprints, which are much like fingerprints being rather distinct to each elephant. Being newer than most of our group, I wasn’t particularly good at picking out the exact animal, but I got reasonable adept at figuring out the general type of animal (dog, cat, antelope, etc). I even guessed the baboon track first. Go me.
I can’t imagine this will be a particularly useful skill back home, but hey, if you need to track a specific elephant through Vancouver… I’m your girl.
If he’s walking in the dust, anyway.
Afternoon
We drove into the Dete Annex (the portion of Hwange National Park that we generally work in) to do a snare sweep this afternoon.
How it works: We spread out in a line about 10 metres apart, walking forward with the “point” (aka, the guy with the rifle — in this case, Kailos) in the middle. Communication is via snapping or whistling, or some other “natural” sound, then hand signals. We try to be reasonably quiet, which is bloody difficult with all the dry leaves.
Then, onward looking for snares.
We walked in a large loop, roughly circling a nearby water pan. For the first hour or so, all we found were feathers, and I discovered a lovely thorn bush embedded in my leg. Everything in Africa is prickly. I’m pretty sure it’s natures way of saying “You really shouldn’t be walking here.” Removing the thorns then sliced open my thumb. Delightful. My legs are now a mass of cuts and scrapes. Rather like home, really.
Poachers generally set their snares near the water hole, as they know the animals must come this direction. We were warned that snare sweeping can be rather dangerous (hence the guy with the rifle), as a caught & injured animal can be quite mean. Well, I’d be mean too, if I had a snare around my leg…
Just as we were almost back to the truck, Laura found the first snare — it wasn’t armed, just a coil of wire. A few minutes later, I found a small one, likely intended to catch a “duiker” (a small antelope, pronounced “dyke-ah”)
The snare is a small wire folded into a noose shape. It’s then mounted on branches, to catch an animal walking between them. The noose tightens, and the more they fight, the more they get stuck. I found mine completely by accident — I stepped on it, and heard something metallic. Well, leaves aren’t metallic, so…
I’m pretty proud of myself – I saved a duiker!
When I returned home, I attempted to clean up my cuts. Turns out, putting rubbing alcohol on fresh cuts hurts like a bitch (yeah, I knew this already, but it was a good reminder. Ow.)
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Saturday night, we had some paying customers arrive, so we ended up eating in the unused volunteer dining room off the lounge. After dinner (the stuffed squash was absolutely amazing) we had an excellent performance by “Ingonyama Dance & Drama Group”. They’re from Dete, the local village, and are the most incredible singers. Singing such songs as “Sphuma Kude” (“We came from nowhere, you did not believe in our singing, that it would give us success. We were patient and carried on with our work . Now you are coming to us asking for help. NOW you know we can go far with our singing, and you appreciate it. People in far places now know us — and they now know Dete.”) and “Iganyana” (about the African Painted Hunting Dogs and what good hunters they are, and how human hunters learn from the dogs) and most amusing is “Mbube” – The Lion Sleeps Tonight, a traditional song. I had no idea that it had been culled from a traditional African song.
The dancing is incredible — I took several videos with my camera because the stills simply don’t get across how fantastic they are.
Ingonyama also do excellent animal impressions, from mischievous baboons to awkward ostriches, to mock-charging elephants, to giraffes, antelope, and Old Man. Old Man was hysterical, coming over and asking us all where we were from, followed with an indignant “Hmm!” after each sentence. If we asked how he was, the answer was an exuberant “Sooop-ah!”
I was happy to buy an album, and it’s fantastic. Come over and visit, and I’ll play it for you.