Hope
Letter Photos A month has passed since I last wrote and thankfully we remain at Hippo Haven, continuing with our work for the hippos.
The troubles are far from over, in fact they are escalating in many ways, but the worst case scenario of a mob at our door did not occur. Our neighbors did have a dispute, where many squatters moved onto their land and told them they intended to burn the one family home. For once, the police defused the situation and one month later we all continue with our lives.
The future, though, is still one big question mark and nobody in this country has any idea if we all will continue to have lives here or be thrown out of the country as refugees. Or if we will be left penniless and starving as food disappears from supermarket shelves. It would be so easy to sit back and sink into depression but that is not the right attitude: one must have hope.
Daily one searches for bright spots on the dark horizon.
We are lucky we look out on space, natural beauty: wild African bush, trees galore, a river below our home, and the sound of the Turgwe Hippos serenading us on a daily basis.
Sadly, but a ten-minute walk from here, people destroy: burning trees of over forty years in age, setting fire to the grazing for the wild animals, building huts and clearing the areas of all bush and trees, choosing massive amounts to clear that are totally impossible for one family to plant a field of crops.They are forgetting the fact that this is a drought-prone area and proven impossible as an agricultural area.
The people kill anything that enters their land and elsewhere from the land they have taken over. Catapults are used for the birds that fly, bows and arrows, other weapons, or wire snares for the other animals. Dogs are used to hunt the warthogs, the bush pigs, and any unfortunate animal that can be cornered by a pack of skinny, starving dogs.
The people are told they will be given all kinds of equipment by the powers to be. Irrigation pipes and dams will be built. This in an area that can never produce water, as there is none. For over fifty years, the original owners of these lands have searched for underground water. The amounts found could not even sustain a small well. No commercial farming has ever existed in this area and yet these people believe that through some kind of miracle they can change history.
Yet I must return to Hope.
What is Hope? It is twofold.
First, it is a young hippo calf born to Cheeky in February of this year. I believe at this moment that Hope is a female, but am not one hundred percent sure. She was born when we still had hope for Zimbabwe to return to peaceful days. She is now very much alive and well by the side of her mother and yet things have not improved for this country.
So we continue to believe in her name.
Secondly, Hope is within the human spirit: when one literally latches on to good moments, be they only a matter of seconds in a day, and cherishes those seconds.
These are some of the positive things that have occurred in the last month.
Cheeky visited the hippos' pool on several occasions with young Hope. Both are well, but still not living permanently with the others as the pool is too small.
Naf Naf, the son of Arthur warthog, came home to our house one evening shortly after the events of the shooting incident. He has a slight limp in his one back leg, but otherwise is fine.
We continued patrolling, and found and removed a further forty snares in a period of only eight days: 40 animals saved from an awful death. Then, both of our neighbors, on separate occasions, managed to offer us the assistance of their game scouts to help us patrol this area. On the one occasion, Jean-Roger accompanied them for three hours, afterwards sending them upstream from our home to check an area we had not covered for over two weeks.
The men found a snare line. (An area where snares have been set on bushes and trees in a kind of cul-de-sac where it is impossible for an animal to escape from.) Ten snares were in that one small place. As they removed them they saw a man walking towards them with a rifle. As they noticed him, he pointed his rifle at them. Since there were nine of them and only one of him, they were confident enough to arrest him before he managed to shoot.
We think it is highly likely that he is one of the two men who pointed his rifle at us. We are still waiting for the police to come and see us with regards to his arrest. It would be too much of a coincidence for there to be two men with rifles in our area.
The best news is that, at this moment, he is in jail and no longer have any shots been heard around us. We hope that he will be sentenced and put in jail for a long time. The relief of the arrest of this man is tremendous and we can only hope that the other poachers who are constantly returning to our area may be put off by this event and move somewhere else. After two weeks of there being no mob at our door, our suitcases were finally unpacked and the tension of not knowing where one stood has eased a little.
One incident of a natural kind gave us an adrenalin surge but with the joy of living in Africa and over events that can occur here. We came home at dusk from a patrol of the hippos' main grazing areas. We were aware by spoor that an elephant bull had been around our home but did not realize that said elephant was in our garden. We both walked in through the open gate, with myself heading off towards our pet goats to lock them in their tiny houses for the night (a precaution against predators).
Jean-Roger proceeded up the pathway, checking the ground. We have a three-foot long spitting cobra that lives in our garden that we do not harm, but we need to be aware of where he might be when the light is poor.
Suddenly, I hear a loud exclamation and see Jean heading towards me at speed. Behind him is one irate elephant bull.
Fortunately as Jean joined me we were close to the Trust's Land Rover and having removed his body from the elephants sight the elephant stopped, looked around and then slowly strolled out the gate, his lordly manner making it quite clear that he was the overall king of the land and how dare we encroach on his space! He left his calling card: a large mound of dung on my lawn (a great fertilizer).
This kind of thrill we can live with. In fact, that is the joy of living in wild Africa. The bull was only going about his business. He does not ask for anything other than respect of his ways.
Then in mid-April we had unexpected rains. Having hardly any rain since December, there was the scent of wet ground and the freshness of the land after the rain stopped. The sharpness of the light. Vivid green against Africa's brown soil. New shoots of grass popping up all over the place.
Burnt land was covered once more in a green carpet, hiding the ugly scars created by man. The rain healed many sores and gave one further hope.These people squatting here now have to wait longer to continue to burn the grass and destroy the land. Every second of delay in their destruction of the area brings joy.
With these events of the last month, not all is lost. We intend to work on the hippos' pool in the river by the end of April, if no more rain falls. At present, the river is once again a dirty chocolate brown and the hippos, along with their 13 crocodile neighbours, cannot be seen as clearly as before the rains. Muddy water definitely hides the sight of a crocodile.
Although Jean will use his new method of putting up a temporary wire fence at the deeper end of where he works, he still needs to be able to see in the water. If no more rain falls, the water will clear up quite quickly and then Jean will work the pool for at least a further week, to enlarge the area for the hippos.
He will not work the pool for the usual three weeks until we are sure that the poaching in this area has slowed down. We cannot afford for the hippos to return to living in the riverine bush while the pool is worked, for a long period. It would make it too easy for the poachers to hurt the hippos. Just a short duration of work is a far better idea at present.
Cheeky needs space for Hope to join the family. Surprise, another female, has also moved off to give birth to a new calf; and she too will need space within the pool. Her calf will need to live with the others but not be in danger from overcrowding. So our plans for the tomorrows of 2002 continue.
This morning, Mystery, a young mother who has had two calves, Fen and little Kuchek, was playing at the edge of the pool. I caught her on my video camera rolling around in the shallows, a beautiful sight to behold. They'll make nice last shots for the video being produced of these Turgwe Hippos. Hopefully, it will be for sale by the end of June.
Sadly, I cannot say to you that all is well in Zimbabwe and that this conservancy and its animal inhabitants are fine, but I can say we still have Hope.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. 18th April 2002.
