Dangerous days in Zimbabwe!
Sadly, as I type, February 15th, 2002, the news is not the best. Thankfully, at this moment, seventeen of the Turgwe Hippos are fine, with only Cheeky missing, but I am sure she has gone off to have a new calf. The bad news is that due to the present climate of terror and lawlessness within our country, things here in this Wildlife Conservancy are not peaceful.
When I last wrote to you, I spoke about the problems with the so-called war veterans who live one kilometre away from us, on land that they have invaded. They, or their friends, also cut our telephone line and for over two and a half weeks we were without communications. For the last two weeks, I have been finding the tracks of one man on a regular basis, sometimes two men, only about eight-hundred meters from our home and the Turgwe River. He has been going into thick bush and up into the rocky hills behind our home. He is probably the one responsible for killing the python and the tortoise but up until recently we had never seen him. All we knew was that he was poaching.
Then, about ten days ago I was on my regular patrol in those rocky hills with Jean-Roger, as he had some time to accompany me. We patrolled the usual places and then took a rest, sitting on a small rock. On looking up we saw a man and his dog approaching. As we saw him, he saw us and he began running in the opposite direction. If a man who is walking in the bush, on land without any road, runs, there is only one thing he is up to and that is no good. We gave chase and he dropped his machete and his two water containers. As these men can run far faster than either Jean-Roger or I, we stopped chasing him, but confiscated his machete and water. For the next week, I found his tracks and then a place where he was obviously camping, as there were the remains of his fire and some peanut shells.
Then, on 13th February I found his tracks and one other man's literally 300 meters away from the hippos in their pool. I have forgotten to mention Jean-Roger has just completed a four-day short duration work in the pool. We have had absolutely no rain for weeks and it has been so hot that all the hippos once more had no water to submerge in, and were back living in the bushes on the island adjacent to the pool. Jean did a temporary clearing of approximately 70 feet long by 40 feet wide by about four feet in depth. The hippos moved back in the night he finished this small job.
We are waiting to see if the rains have really finished (as it is early for such an event). If no more rain falls then Jean-Roger will clear the entire pool over a three week period. Yesterday, Valentine's day, we went for our three weekly shop to the nearest village of Chiredzi- a one and three quarter hour journey one way, 120kms from here. We came home by 3.30pm and I immediately went off to the hippos. They are only a five-minute walk from our home, Hippo Haven. I then decided to walk upstream just to check if the wavy foot tracks were back. I found not only his tracks but three others as well. They were fresh, so I followed them upstream. At one of the hippos' most regular exit points from the river, these poachers had put three huge wire snares, obviously to trap one of the hippos. As it was getting near dark I only had time to check around for about ten minutes but found no other snares. I took the evidence home to Jean-Roger.
All last night I worried, so early this morning before first light we got up. We left home at dawn and went back to the snared place. The tracks of two men were already there. We followed them and found seven more snares in the immediate vicinity, all laid the previous day; at least eight of the ten snares we had found were on regular hippo routes! I decided that we should once more go back into the little rocky hills as I felt that was where these men had been heading and maybe we would find more snares. As we walked, the tension mounted. We found no more snares. Then we took a short break by some long grass to catch our breath and to try and lighten some of the strain of searching every tree and bush as we walked. Then I noticed a movement. Coming towards us were two men, one carrying a huge bow and arrows, the other just an empty white sack. As they would have walked on to us, we decided the best action would be to stand up and see what happened.
As we stood up, the taller man- whose description is now engraved on my mind- took aim with his bow and arrow at my husband. So I started to scream! Jean-Roger stood perfectly still and I screamed and screamed and screamed. The second man went as if to run away, but the one with the bow and arrow was obviously in charge and instructed him to stay. Then he aimed at Jean again so I ran at him screaming like a banshee, he turned away and bent down and grabbed a rock and hurled it at me, but he missed! Then Jean and I both started shouting and the two men moved off at a fast pace and we let them go, as by now the adrenaline was beginning to slow down. We came home and I went off immediately to check Bob and the others. 17 hippos were happily lying in their water, oblivious to the drama being played out not too far from their water home.
The problem is the next few weeks. The country awaits elections; the media overseas is reporting accurately what is happening here. Until the elections are over, the violence etc. is probably going to continue. We were told by the chairman of this conservancy once we had phoned him this morning to report the incident to the police as attempted murder. This we have duly done. Yet nobody is really listening to white people these days and so many poor black people are actually being killed or badly beaten that our encounter today is mild compared to what is happening around our once peaceful country.Yet two things could happen. He and his accomplices may decide to move to an area where they have less hassle from people like us, who remove their snares and are not afraid of them. Or they may ambush us at any time during the day, who knows.
So, as I write, my heart is a bit in my mouth, wondering what the next weeks will bring. I am dreadfully worried for the hippos but I cannot walk away from them now. We have stuck out the problems in this conservancy for nearly two years. Now that it could be nearly at an end with some kind of political stability, one cannot walk away.
So I have written the facts for you as a record of today's problems. I do believe that if we can all survive the next few weeks that things can only improve for the future of this country, but until then our lives have become somewhat fraught with danger. We pray for the hippos and for all the animals but we also pray for ourselves as well.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe February 15th 2002.P/S People may wonder why two persons are the only people to be patrolling an area for the safety of these Turgwe hippos. This conservancy is nearly one million acres in size and is owned by 23 different companies and/or private individuals. The owner of the one area by us has had so many problems on his land that his entire time is taken up with organising his twenty odd game scouts to patrol various parts of the land. The other owner of the land, which has these bad men on it, has had his chief game scout badly beaten up in the past and hence his own scouts are not too happy to work around our part of the lands.
So until sense has returned, we are a bit on a limb as far as support goes. The one owner is a friend of ours and he always helps us where he can, but at this moment we are all under tremendous pressure. There are not enough people to cover all problems of poaching in this conservancy. This poaching has only occurred to this extent in the previous one and a half years since the land was invaded.