life, the universe, and donna

Zimbabwe Travelogue Index

Sunday, Sept 16th

I almost had the date wrong for this entry, since my laptop is still on Vancouver time… and it’s 2 minutes to midnight there. Oops.

It’s hard to keep up with this journaling thing. Mostly, I’m so bloody exhausted by the end of the day that it’s much easier to simply sit and stare at the telly than to pull out the laptop and do something useful. But, it’s Sunday morning (our day off), and we’d all decided to sleep in til 10… and I found myself up at 8:30, so nows as good a time as any, right? This whole getting up with the sun thing is evidently ruining my good sleeping in habits.

On the 12th, we went into Hwange National Park proper. This is strictly regulated, and even when we’re working, we have to pay to get in (this is, of course, already paid via our volunteer fees — but it’s $20 US each, which is probably the most I’ve seen anything cost here so far). With us were two park rangers, Simian and Mandja (Mandja is actually an intern from a university in Gweru, and a total tease). The work for the day was measuring the water flow from several of the pumps.

Since during the dry season, there’s virtually no natural water in Hwange, there are instead a series of pumps and artificial water pans. These are each manned by two people who live at the pumps throughout the entire dry season (9-10 months). They come out every 2 weeks or so, but other than that… it’s two weeks with only each other for company (aside from the occasional group like us), and not a lot to do every day. I think I’d go mad after the second day or so.

Measuring the water flow is a rather inexact science, and I can’t help but think that it totally wouldn’t cut it at home as far as accuracy … but at the same time, it gets the general idea across. Using a bucket, one person holds it under the flow for 5 seconds. Then we measure what was in the bucket. This is repeated 5 times in total. Then we do it for 10 seconds, 5 times. Theoretically, we’re also supposed to measure for 15 seconds, but for the two that we were actually able to measure, the flow was too fast and the bucket not big enough.

Most of the pans we stopped at weren’t working. Or the place where we’d normally measure from was underwater. Of the 7 or 8 that we stopped at, only 2 could be measured.

Theoretically, we would also have been able to measure from Dopi pan, but a herd of elephants got there first. So, Kailos attempted to scare them off by driving up and revving the engine at them. Most of them scattered, except for one bull who stood his ground… flapping his ears menacingly at us. Rather than irritate him further, we left. Hell hath no fury like an elephant scorned. I couldn’t help but think he was saying to us, “I can take you, man. I can totally take you.”

Incidentally, I’ve decided to retire the phrase “hung like a horse”. The term is now “hung like an elephant”. Seriously, when they decide to show off… they REALLY show off.

Pass along the message, eh?

Yesterday, we did a game drive through Hwange Nat Park. Think of the stereotypical white tourists sitting in the back of a truck driving around all day looking at animals and you’d be pretty close. Still? It’s pretty damn cool.

By far, the most common animal we come across is antelope of a variety of species, followed closely by elephants. There really are a zillion elephants around, and the number of pictures I’ve taken of them shows it. I’m really, really regretting the lack of a telephoto lens. I’m really hoping that some of the ones I’ve taken with the digital zoom turn out all right.

We also spotted a pair of lionesses lazing about under a tree. They’re honestly quite lovely. I immediately forgot everything I knew about cats and asked why one of them was hanging her mouth open. Of course — cats have extra scent glands in their mouths and use that to smell. Probably us. (No surprise — my feet have never smelled so bad in my entire life. But that’s another story.)

We had lunch at a water hole that has a large platform where you can go and sit in the shade and watch the animals. It’s a pretty cool spot, and has a few resident animals — three crocodiles, and a pod of hippos.

Hippos are pretty cool animals. The first time we showed up they were actually out of the water, which is sort of rare. They do get up every night and go foraging, but during the day they tend to wallow about in the water. When we arrived on the second day, it tooks us a while to find them… they’re basically just big mud puddles that blink.

On … oh, Thursday or Friday or something like that, we stopped off at the old persons home where the puppies live. Turns out, they’ve all got putsy flies. This is far more disgusting than it sounds. Some background…

All of our laundry is done for us. The washing facilities are a bit primitive, and we all know not to give over anything terribly vital. Everything is then steam ironed on a particularly high setting. As you might guess, the majority of my clothes don’t deal well with this and come back looking a bit… erm… bad. Unfortunately, my brand new shirt from MEC that the Marmot bought me for my birthday eventually had to go in… my half-assed handwashing job just didn’t quite cut it. And sure enough, it came back with a small hole ironed into the sleeve. Curses. It’s not even my birthday yet, and I’ve already trashed my birthday present. Oh well, I knew the risks. And if I roll up the sleeves, you can’t see it.

But, it’s worth the ruined clothes, because the reason for ironing is putsy flies. They lay eggs in wet laundry, and when the eggs hatch, they burrow into your skin and grow into delightful little wormy maggots in there. Sounds disgusting, right? Not NEARLY as disgusting as seeing it.

Yep, the puppies have them. LOTS of them. They’re reasonably easy to get out — you just squeeze the skin around it, and a maggot pops out, which you can then easily pinch off with a bit of tissue. The big ones are particularly disgusting, and actually leave a hole behind where once a worm lived. I am very, very glad that I brought along a good supply of latex gloves and iodine. We’ve been playing vet with the puppies every few days.

They’re pretty good about it, only whimpering when we remove them from particularly painful spots — Goose had a freaking huge one on his tail, and it’s not like there’s much to his tail as it is. Ugh.

I’m going to stop writing about these now, as breakfast is in twenty minutes and I need to stop thinking about it before I make myself sick. But I kid you not — if I ever get something like this, I’d suggest starting by knocking me out, because I will be having the biggest hissy fit you’ve ever seen. It will not be pretty. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Or perhaps just kill me, because what’s the point of going on living after having one of those vile little things UNDER YOUR SKIN?

A ruined shirt doesn’t seem so bad as compared to that.