THE GOOD AND THE BAD
The month of July has proved to have some exceedingly good things happen for the hippos as well as sadly some not so good things happen to us.
To start on a positive note my talk in London on the night of July 12th at the Royal Geographic Society, Ondaatje theatre, was I believe very well received. Over two hundred people attended the event and many of them who spoke to me afterwards told me that the talk had taught them a lot about these wonderful animals. As well, quite a few people stressed how I had inspired them with my dedication. One lady said the photos of the hippos resting by the crocodiles would remain in her memory for her lifetime, and everyone helped the hippos by attending the event.
Sales of merchandise and donations also helped the evening be a success for the Turgwe Hippo Trust. We hope soon, to either sell our old Land Rover and with the proceeds from the sale and the talk get another four-by-four, preferably a Suzuki Jeep, which is easier for me to handle alone, or recondition the Land Rover’s engine. We have to wait to find out what is happening on the market here for vehicles; before we know which direction we are going to take.
The venue was really congenial and the staff members of the Royal Geographic Society were all most helpful. A special thank you is due to Denise Prior, Toby and Nick.
I also thank with all my heart the following, Henry Hallward for introducing me, Mike and Penny, Mark, Maya, the Michael’s and Jenny. A big thank you to Suzie Marsh for her superb Hippo “Bob” sculpture, which was not a piggy bank but a hippo bank.
Also thanks are due to Alice Egoyan and her mother who came all the way from California, Bob Van den Berg and Marjo coming over from Holland, and Raman, Karen and Timur Berent from the Ukraine. As well as to all the hippo supporters/foster parents and the extended Whittall/Hingston families, who all helped to make the evening a success.
It was actually incredible that anything occurred at all, as six weeks before the event our laptop crashed, as did Penny’s in the UK. So trying to organize it all from the bush is never easy, but without the communication system, things were really difficult to say the least. Our only neighbours 16kms away, the Whittall family normally have electricity but they, like most of Zimbabwe, have been having daily power cuts for up to ten hours a day. We are not dependant on electricity, having a small generator but without the laptop we could not climb the 200 foot kopje to communicate with the outside world, using the mobile phone. Driving over to Humani we would find daily power cuts, yet through perseverance all happened and thankfully was a success.
The time spent in the UK was short due to us both having left Hippo Haven for the first time together for longer than three nights since the people invaded this Wildlife Conservancy back in 2000.
I did not want to leave the hippos and the other animals without one of us being here for too long. As it was we were only away for eight nights. London was as always for me fantastic. For a lady who lives in the bush but who also appreciates culture, conversation, and gets very excited on entering Selfridges! it was just wonderful. Jean-Roger managed to meet up with his mother and one sister for the first time since the problems began here.I was exceedingly thankful to come home and find the animals, home and surroundings all ok. Sadly though that did not last!
We came home to the shock of supermarkets and shops without food. Literally no dairy produce or meat, (I am vegetarian but my cats are not!) no milk, limited vegetables, even no toiletries, as in soaps etc. Whole shelves full of just one produce, others empty. In Harare after visiting five supermarkets we managed to buy bread rolls to last us the next couple of weeks, but you were only allowed so many per supermarket. Here in Chiredzi there is no bread, or basics, whatsoever.
Fortunately we always buy for our provisions to last for at least three weeks. Living as we do 120kms from Chiredzi it has always been the way we shop. Of late we have been crossing the border to go into South Africa every two or three months, for two maximum three nights and then buy provisions and Trust essentials. So within a week of coming home we went off to South Africa to stock up with tinned cat food, basics for ourselves, and Trust essentials.
We came home to problems! The two game scouts that help us here informed us that the local “war veteran” Robert Mamungaere, the guy who moved into the house about one kilometer from Hippo Haven bringing in over 100 people to this area, had been aggressive towards them. He and nine other men had stopped them when they were patrolling looking for wire snares, telling them that they could no longer patrol anywhere where we have patrolled for the last six years.
He said he would be arriving at our home the next day (when they informed him we would be back) that he would be bringing a large contingent of youth brigade and that the people would tell us to stop patrolling and removing the wire snares that kill the animals. That if we did not then they would evict us from our home.
As the scouts are employed by the nearby safari camp, whose wildlife is being killed daily by these people, the scouts mentioned this to him. He said that his argument is with us. It is mainly his people who are the ones poaching and putting the snares, and we are upsetting them. We have been told this by other people, and on several occasions Mokore or Humani have managed to arrest poachers in this area, and they are always living here and under his jurisdiction.
So on arriving home late and tired on that evening we were told that the next day we could expect a mob of people. We spent a restless night but in the morning a note was delivered telling us that Mamungaere’s sister had died, and he would come at a later date! So supposedly a reprieve.
Three days later, late afternoon Sunday 29th, I climb up the kopje to send emails. On arriving at the top I can hear on the other side of the kopje men chanting and sticks being bashed together. I realize that this must be the mob.
It is a dreadful feeling when you are isolated as we are to hear a group of people shouting, and know that sooner rather than later they are going to be on our doorstep. We have no security fencing as our home is a bush home, we have no glass on our windows just mosquito mesh, and we have never designed our property against a human onslaught with security in mind. This is supposedly a wildlife conservancy and we had never in the past had any problems from unwelcome human visitors.
As I reached the house, the chanting intensified but this time our name was being repeated over and over again, and from the sound of the voices there were at least forty people if not more. We went straight on to the Conservancy radio to ask for back up. This was organized by the Conservancy’s security man but to bring in support unit police is not a quick event, it can take a few hours.
The Mokore Safari camp’s security officer also went to find police in the nearby reserve. In the meantime one of the property owners kindly contacted the French Embassy on Jean-Roger’s behalf, as they are keen to know exactly what happens to any of their citizens.
While all this was going on, the two game scouts came back from their patrol and we stationed them at the front of our home to make a run for the river if need be and get help if things got ugly. Jean-Roger told me that if the mob came in and started attacking him I was not in anyway to intervene but just to report it on the radio. As always Roger Whittall came on the radio for us (as he has twice helped us and once I believe saved Jean’s life.) He suggested that we left our property and came over to him. Jean told him this was out of the question as we were not prepared to leave the house and animals and also the people were on the only road going out, and Jean did not want our only road worthy vehicle wrecked.
The worst was waiting for them to arrive, hearing the chanting and knowing that it was not the beautiful soulful sound of Africa which I adore, but instead was a bunch of people who do not like us stopping them poach and kill the animals. Fear is always at its worse when you are not in the middle of the action, but on the periphery waiting.
Eventually at dusk around twenty men came into the property, marching and putting their hands up in the air in the fist salute. Jean moved out to greet them while I stood inside the living room with the radio on full alert. The guy in the lead saluted Jean so Jean saluted back! It would have been surreal if it had not been so real. Then to my horror as they began speaking I realized they were drunk! Drunken people can be totally unpredictable.
For the next hour and a half Jean talked to them. At times they got noisy. Once, one of the ring leaders went behind Jean, but one of his mates called him forward and at all times when they got noisy I would switch the radio on so that others in the Conservancy could hear what was happening. My heart was in my mouth as had they attacked Jean who was unarmed, I do not know if I would have been able to stay in the house, and just report it over the radio. I very much doubt I could have, and yet Jean had been insistent that it was what I was supposed to do.
Basically it turned out that they had been stirred up to come to us, that the beer had made them feel more courageous, and they were hoping for a fight, which is the last thing we wanted. Jean explained that we do not harass the people in their homes. All we do is remove the snares that we, or the scouts find. That the wildlife belongs to the Government and National Parks, and that they do not want the wildlife killed. Some of the men, when realizing there was nothing exciting happening moved away, and the ones that were left continued to talk but without any violence just shouting every now and then. Roger drove in near the end of it all and having checked we were fine managed to offer a lift to some of the people, and then the few that were left went away.
Within an hour of them leaving the supervisor from Mokore arrived with two policemen who intended spending the night with us. Three and a half hours after that, the Conservancy security officer arrived with a further five armed support unit, who also spent the night with us. We gave everyone food and provided fuel, which is hard to find, to the security officer.
The following morning they went to see Mamungaere, and he told them he knew nothing about the incident. We later found out that he actually organized it!
During all of this the large herd of elephants of up to forty-five animals has been living with us, literally in the hippos island and the riverine below our home, and browsing around our house for quite some time now.
Just the other day I counted 29 in the river just below our house in full daylight. Although all animals have a healthy respect for noisy people and crowds, and will get away from them, the elephants tend to browse in small groups. One group in one area, another nearby but say perhaps on the other side of a small forest, or rocky outcrop. People walking in-between such a large family herd could easily be hurt, and then the elephants will get the blame for only trying to protect their own kind. This is after all a Wildlife Conservancy and walking without caution is asking for a problem. Trying to explain any of that to people who are actually intent on harassing you, and doing it on purpose to upset your day, is out of the question and one is just knocking ones head on a wall.So in between trying to get on with our lives, myself working non-stop on a feature article, about the hippos for BBC Wildlife magazine, working on hippo correspondence, trying to spend time with the hippos studying them, and also patrol their area for snares, we have had this nonsense to put up with.
It is not good for one’s nerves, and when one has just been in a country like England, where one has the usual daily problems but where people that we met were so kind, courteous and helpful, it is very sad to come home to people behaving in such a way.
Then we wonder whether we are mad to stick it out, especially as it affects one’s health and mind. Yet what keeps me going is Jean coming home with the post, and finding a letter from an American man, saying some very kind things like: Thanks again for having the good fortune of being born!!! The world needs more of you guys!!!!!! When I read something like that, at first I cry, and then it boosts me up again and makes the problems here feel less serious. His letter is not the only one I have had. My files are full of such notes from people who keep me going with their words of encouragement.
Some of them then help the Trust by supporting a hippo through fostering it, or sometimes making a donation. This man then goes on to quote a naturalist and writer by the name of Annie Dillard who said: “The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart.” Christian I have never met you, but thank you so much for that letter; it could not have come at a better time.
The other thing that completely builds me up again and makes me realize why I am here are the animals. Watching that herd of elephants the other day going about their lives just a little distance away from me.
Watching one young bull elephant approach the hippos who had been happily sleeping on the sandbank by Bob’s weir pool, and shaking his head about and chasing them all back into the water. Claiming their nice spot for himself to just walk through and make a point!
Hearing last night a lion roaring twice not far from our home.
Going this morning to the hippos and finding Robin the bull mating Blackface, and Marius the youngest calf in the group playing with Five, Blackface’s young male calf.
Then going over to the Mokore River, where the other Turgwe Hippos have moved to and finding a new bull with them. I think he possibly could be Mvura, a male that was born by our home in January 1999 and left here a few years ago. He is a small bull and resembles Happy, the bull that was in this area at that time, and he definitely recognizes my voice.
I have to spend some time there to find out who he is, to see him on land and check for identification scars. It is good to watch the four new calves growing, three of them at the Mokore River and one here at home.
At this moment with the people around us definitely up to something I would rather stay closer to home over the next few days, as I have a sick goat and a sick pussycat. The hippos here are on heat, so it is good to see how many times they are mated during one day, and details such as that.
The BBC article will be on sale in the UK by the end of August. I am honoured to have been asked to write a feature about these hippos for such a magazine.
I have mentioned some of the new behaviour that I have witnessed in the last 17 years of studying them and hopefully people will learn some more about these amazing animals.Here at home we seem to be ending up with all the young males in Bob’s old weir pool. next to the house. That group at this moment has three male calves who have all been weaned. Instead of being chased away from the family and disappearing from this area as has happened in the past, these three have been moved into the pool next to our house. One is Bobin, the son of Odile, the second is Chubby, the son of Surprise and the last is Zen, the younger son of Mystery. All three were born in 2004.
Tembia, the young bull has not come back to this area and remains with one female Abe and their daughter Tsakus, up at the Majekwe weir pool four miles upstream from here. I have not been able to visit him as the entire elephant herd are using that riverine frontage every day to feed and so to walk up there is a bit dangerous.
Our Land Rover is off the road so we cannot drive up there, so I have to just get reports from scouts in that area at present but I know that the three hippos are there and all are in good health.
On a snaring basis we are still finding around 100 snares each month in this small area we patrol. Sadly the poachers managed to kill two animals recently that we do know about. One was a waterbuck bull that was found lying, dying in a small sand river. He had an arrow wedged in his neck. On examining him we realized that he was beyond help and so Jean-Roger put him out of his misery. Then a couple of days ago a female kudu was found dead in a snare literally five hundred meters from the house where Mamungaere lives. The scouts set an ambush but the poacher did not come back. So often animals are killed and the meat is not even taken away by the poacher, as they have so many snares all over the areas and they do not daily check on them all.
Rhinos have been having a very bad time and two black rhinos were poached and killed only for their horns over Easter. Both were on our neighbours property and one of them was a mother. Fortunately for her calf it was found two days later. The calf was totally undernourished and only about six weeks of age. Little Jimmy was brought back to Anne Whittall to nurse and she has done an admirable job. He is now in good health and running around in her garden. Yet he is but another victim of the poaching war. He is now human imprinted and his future is going to be a pretty big question mark as well, but at least he is alive.
So with the bad things there are some good ones and basically is that not what life is all about?
I thank everyone who is reading this newsletter and I hope that you realize that it is the people like you who keep me focused and give me the moral courage to continue when the odds at times seem very much stacked against us.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe August 11th 2007
