9/19/17 Zimbabwe

We had an early wake-up call this morning (5:30) so we could go to visit the village and school while the sun was not so hot.  It is very hot and dry here.  After breakfast, we jumped into the Nissan trucks and drove for about 15 minutes until we could transfer to our small bus.  We stopped at the ranger station to pick up the village supplies and school supplies that we had left there.  We drove for about 45 minutes to a village that has 520 homesteads or between 4000-6000.  Just before getting to the village, Vimbai stopped at a small store (Maano-Maano) to buy milk for our tea.  Each homestead is a family group of some kind.  This family had the totem of the impala.  Vimbai had given each of us a totem name tag to wear.  I had Masibanda (Ma for female and sibanda for lion) and Dave had Dube (zebra).  We had to ask the villagers what our African names meant as Vimbai wouldn't tell us.  The village was made up of a number of houses, a store house, indoor and outdoor kitchens, an indoor dining room in case of rain, individual sleeping houses, corrals, a chicken coop, etc.  The children move to their own communal houses - one for boys and one for girls - when they are 10.  Younger children sleep with their parents.  The women of the household came out to greet us with a song.  One of the young women was carrying a very cute 2-year old boy.  I tried to get him to smile by showing him my dog finger puppet, but he seemed quite shy so I put it away.  There was a 15 year old girl in the group and apparently she did not go to school today as her shoes were broken and are at the cobblers.  Later we learned that many of the children go to school barefoot so we think she just wanted to stay home to see us.  The eldest daughter of this household showed us around the compound.  She showed us her sleeping quarters.  She had a bed, but she said many people slept on mats on the floor.  The walls are made of blocks made from cement mixed with river sand and then stuccoed.  The outside was painted orange and the inside was mostly painted white to maximize the light inside the hut.  The roof was thatched.  The floors (for those houses that did not have pounded dirt floors) were made of termite mound soil mixed with cow dung.  She had to pay 2 goats to have her floor done.  A goat is worth $40 and cows are worth $600.  They use the cows for milk and not meat.  The cows are their bank account.  They also keep chickens (for eggs) and three roosters.  We went into the indoor kitchen and they had some things cooking over the fire.  They use mopane wood for firewood because it produces less smoke than other woods.  The kitchen was a circular building.  They make them this way so that if an evil spirit comes in, it has no corner to hide in and therefore the food is safe to eat.  The headman of this household has the impala totem.  His brother is the head man of the whole village.  He has a wife, 5 children and 6 grandchildren.  We shared tea and cookies with the ladies and Mr. Impala and his youngest son, Shalom, who is 24 and studying to be a guide.  We also shared our mopane worms, which were cooked with tomatoes and onions.  I passed as I didn’t want to upset my stomach.  Dave said that were strong tasting.  We talked about the roles of men and women and also about marriages.  They wanted to know if the men had to pay a dowry when we got married.  When we were ready to leave, we unloaded all of the goods that we picked up at the grocery store yesterday onto a mat on the ground.  I think they were very happy with what we had brought them.  We had handshakes and hugs all around and boarded the bus - the women all sang and danced following our bus out of the compound.

Our next stop was the school.  We were greeted by the headmistress, who explained that she had 24 teachers for 834 children.  The first grade class we popped into had 53 students!  I just can’t imagine!!  The children all greeted us in English - “Good morning, visitors” and then performed a song for us - “One, two, buckle my shoe”.  They were all very cute.  Our next visit was to a 4th grade classroom where we sat with the children on their benches.  I had three boys who were curious about where we lived, how we got here, had we seen tall mountains, and what did we eat.  Two of the boys said their favorite subject was mathematics so I gave them high fives and told them that was what I taught.  I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up: policeman, pilot, and soldier.  They spoke English very well and did a nice job reading.  We went back to the staff room to present our gifts to the headmistress.  She will distribute them where they are needed most.  She said she would add my books to the small library they have at the school.  Grand Circle Foundation, which is the parent company of Overseas Adventure Travel, recently donated 30 computers to the school.  Each class gets two 30 minute sessions per week in the computer room.  The kids are taught word processing and spreadsheets.  They cannot afford to have internet service at the school as it costs $92 per month.  Each student is supposed to pay $15 per term, but many of the parents cannot afford that much so they are always short of money.

I just heard an elephant trumpeting not too far away.  Juanita just came in and said that while we were out this morning they had a mysterious visitor.  Someone had taken bites out of an apple they had in the tent and there were some kleenexes strewn around.  Juanita started looking around and couldn’t see anything, but when she looked under the bed, she saw a pair of eyes looking back at her.  It turned out that their visitor was a tree squirrel.  Greg was in the shower so Juanita opened the door and started jumping on the bed and yelling.  Greg came out to help and they finally got him to go out the door.  There is always something exciting going on!  I just took a picture of a plated lizard sitting by the birdbath.  He was about 8 inches long, but they can get to be 2 1/2 feet.

Today’s lecture is on polygamy.  I am going to try to type while we are listening instead of writing it down and transcribing after as I seem to be getting behind on the blog.  Mafuka is doing the talking today.  He is 76 and married to 3 wives at the moment.  He had 4 but divorced one.  He had 10 children with the 3 wives, 21 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and 1 daughter with the divorced wife.  If you get married in a church, you can have one wife.  African custom says you can marry any number of wives.  You must pay the bride price or dowry for each one.  He pays in installments of cows.  He has not finished paying for all of his wives.  You are expected to have children in a year or two.  Children are valued.  If a woman cannot have children she is no good.  She may however ask her sister to have children with the man - she becomes the second wife.  The first wife must approve of the ensuing wives.  The other wives are submissive to the first wife.  They have to live in harmony as a team.  Children are all brothers and sisters even if they have different mothers.  The mothers treat all of the children as their own.  He considers himself a lucky man.  His wife initiated the polygamy.  He thinks she wanted the company while he is gone as guides work for 3 months and then get 3 weeks off with an additional month off each year.  HIs grandfather had 15 wives and his father had only one.  The wife called her cousin to come and stay with them.  She persuaded him to take the cousin as a second wife.  His second wife had two children.  His third wife was not related - a nurse at a local hospital.  He chose this one.  He was a bit apprehensive about introducing her to the other wives.  There was no problem.  They became very good friends.  He chose a 4th wife, but that was a mistake.  She didn’t respect the other wives.  They were quarreling.  Eventually his sisters and aunts came to his home and they said if you want a happy marriage, you have to get rid of your new wife.  Each wife has her own hut and kitchen.  Meals are prepared separately, but they eat all together.  Each of the wives prepares a plate for the husband so you have to be very careful.  You eat from each plate, just a little bit, until you are full.  You don't have to rich to be a polygamous man.  It is better, however, to be in a rural area where you can grow your own food.  He has 90 acres.  He grows tobacco (a cash crop) and maize, sunflowers, peanuts, cabbages, carrots, beets, tomatoes, onions, squash, cucumbers, etc.  He sells the surplus to send the children to school.  They have many hands to work the fields so they don’t have to hire.  The first wife keeps the roster about who he sleeps with each night.  He is a Shauna and 55% of that tribe are polygamists.  Most of the younger generation are not for polygamy, but the new trend is that 90% of the new generation have mistresses, but the wife doesn’t know about the others (or at least they pretend not to know).  They are fine as long as they are supported.  There is a saying - Don’t try to climb a mountain to look for baboons for if you do, you may find them.  Ages of his wives are from 49 to 68.  His oldest son has a mistress with 3 children, but his wife doesn't know.  There is some competition.  Each wife wants to be the best in terms of food, clothing for the husbands, etc.  If he passes away, the wives will stay together unless they want to get remarried, then they will move out.  The last born boy becomes the owner of the 90 acres.  If a woman becomes divorced they go home and will be taken in by their families.  to divorce a wife, you give her 10 cents and say I divorced you.  The coin is a token of the divorce.  You still have to support the minor children.  

After tea and the talk on polygamy, we went for our afternoon game drive.  Abiot stopped next to an abandoned termite mound, which had big holes in it.  He said it was probably inhabited by mongooses now, but if not them, snakes (certainly not at the same time).  We saw a white-browed sparrow weaver bird, a red-billed hornbill, some warthogs, impalas, lots of guinea fowl (so lovely with their blue heads), and some great large baobab trees.  The guinea fowl here are numerous.  Their main predators are eagles and leopards.  We stopped at the lodge veranda on the national park and looking down spotted a rock hydras,  He looks like a large rodent, but Abiot says he is closely related to the elephant despite his small size.  Down in the valley at the waterhole, we saw five zebras, a saddle-backed stork, and a warthog.  On our way again, we stopped at a hammerlock nest that had been abandoned.  Abiot said an owl has taken it over and is nesting with some chicks.  She did not show herself when we were there.  We saw some baboons up on the ridge.  They were turning over rocks and hunting for scorpions to eat.  Apparently they know the trick to not get stung as they eat them.  We saw a huge flock of red-billed quitter birds.  They are very small, but travel in groups numbering in the hundreds to thousands.  They can land in a wheat field and decimate it is a matter of hours.  Dan spotted a small croc in the river.  We spotted a slender mongoose running away (he is so much bigger than the dwarf mongoose and very much smaller than the white-tailed mongoose.  The slender mongoose usually travels alone or at the most in pairs.  Even though he is small, he can take on a snake that is 4 to 5 feet long.  We stopped to watch 28 elephants getting a drink at a natural spring.  They are so large, yet graceful at the same time.  In case I haven’t mentioned it before, a group of warthogs is called a sounder and a group of mongooses is called a business or a mob.  Our last stop was to watch a group of baboons.  One of the larger ones was chasing one of the smaller ones.  He was being very aggressive and the younger one was screeching.  I’m not sure what he did wrong, but he was certainly being disciplined quite hard.  

When we got back to camp, we were given our customary wet facecloths to get the dust from our faces and arms.  I must say this is the dustiest and driest of all the camps.  The ride is also very bumpy in places - a great African massage.  We came back in time for dinner.  After dinner, Spencer, one of the dining attendants, gave a demonstration on carving vegetable ivory.  He is very talented.  He takes the fruit of the palm trees, takes the outer husk off and then carves the nut vegetable ivory).  He carved an elephant and a giraffe.  It only took him about 10 to 15 minutes.  I may buy one to hang on our Christmas tree.

9/18/17 Kashawe Camp Zimbabwe

We took the land rovers to the airstrip where we boarded our small bush plane.  We landed in Livingstone and took a small bus to the border with Zimbabwe.  We picked up another bus on the other side of the border.  There was some confusion at the border point and the clerk asked for all of our passports at once.  She went away from the window to process them and took a very long time.  At one point I looked over and she was at a window on the other side processing people who were entering Zambia.  Finally she came back to our window and handed all the passports to me.  I carried them through to another checkpoint where I had to surrender them again.  This time was quite quick, however, as he was just making sure that all of them got stamped.  I counted as he checked them to make sure I got them all back and was happy to surrender them to Vimbai so she could return each one to its owner.  She would have been the one to do all of this, but she was helping to get our luggage onto the new bus.  Each duffel bag had to be put into a large black garbage bag to protect it as we were driving through coal country.  We stopped at the hotel in Victoria Falls to pick up our school packages we had left there at the beginning of the trip.  We also went into the lobby for a half hour to use wi-fi and to meet the fellow who is going to make tee shits for those who want to purchase them.  We then stopped at the grocery store and picked up lots of items to take to the village.  We bought many pounds of flour, a case of cooking oil, candles, brown sugar, etc.  We were then on our way to our new camp.  We stopped in Hwange to pick up one of our driver guides and give him a ride into camp.  We then drove through a coal mining area.  There were many coal fires burning and the air was quite smoky.  I was glad we were in a bus with closed windows.  We drive go the park entrance (Hwange National Park) and transferred to land rovers.  Our driver/guides were Abiot and Mafuka.  The drive there was quite bumpy and dusty.  This is the driest place we have been.  Eventually we got to Kashawe Camp.  Our tent had two twin beds side by side and a bathroom with included a shower stall, sink, and toilet.  There was also a front porch with two chairs.  The camp is on a hillside looking down into a valley with a waterhole.  The small gift shop was stuffed with items made by the workers of the camps and their families.  We went for a walk around the camp after tea.  We stopped by a hole that had been freshly dug and Mafuka said it was made by an aardvark last night.  We came out of the trail next to the land rovers and had our sundowner next to another ridge.  On the way back to camp, we spotted a lone giraffe (this is called a corp according to Abiot).  We saw a large group of guinea fowl roost in a tree for the night.  I tried to take a photo, but there wasn't enough light for my camera.  It would have been a lovely picture as the tree was backlit in a pink glow from the sunset.  I hope that someone else got the shot.  On the way home, we saw a night jar bird in the road.  We have to wake up early tomorrow (5:30) in order to get to the village we are visiting before it is too hot.  We will also visit St. Mary's Primary school tomorrow.

9/17/17 Zambia

I don't know what I ate, but I was sick all night.  I opted to stay behind this morning and slept while the rest of the group went for a boat ride on the river.  Dave reported that they saw three pods of hippos and managed to wake them up as they went past both ways.  They saw lots of birds and several crocs.  As they were landing the boat, they spotted a green snake on the shore.  We will have to look it up when we get home as no one was familiar with it.  Dave thought it might be a rear-fanged one by the shape of his head.  I skipped lunch - just had a 1/2 piece of toast with water.  I didn't want to take any chances.  After siesta time, we brought our chitenges (cloth) to the lounge area where we were shown how to wrap and wear them as skirts.  If a woman is unmarried, she wears it below her belly button, and if she is married, she wears it above.  Dave joked that because of the senior age and lengthy marriages of some of the women on this trip, we should wear them just under the chest - that got a laugh.  We then learned how to fold the same piece of material (about 2 yards) to make a variety of head coverings.  We then made peanut butter by using a wooden pestle and mortar to pound the nuts some of the guys bought in the market.  I didn't chance a taste, but everyone said it was very good.  No oils or salt were added.  One of the ladies at the camp showed us how to play nsolo (a strategy game using pebbles and a board with a series of hollows to hold the stones.  I will have to look it up at home to see if we can make one for the grands.  We went for another boat ride in the evening.  We again saw hippos and crocs along with some waterfowl.  I was still not feeling 100%, but better than this morning.  I ate quite a bland dinner - some polenta and butternut squash.  Unfortunately, I did not dare to have some of Vicki's birthday cake.  It looks wonderful, but I am going to be careful until I feel much better.

9/16/17 Zambia

Not too much noise last night.  I would have read longer, but there were hundreds of little gnats that were attracted to my book light.  They were so small that they could get through the tiny holes in the mosquito netting - very annoying.  I heard a hyena in the distance and some hippos closer by, but that was it.  After breakfast, we hopped on the bush trucks and our first stop was to a tree with small round fruit.  Neddy called it a wooly caper bush.  The fruit is poisonous and the bushmen used to put the juice from it on their arrows and spears to kill animals during the hunts.  Last night we saw the sausage tree, but we stopped again as Dave and Kitty did not go on the afternoon drive.  During the light of day, we could see some large red flowers on it.  When the flower falls off, the fruit appears.  Neddy also talked about the scrambled egg tree - the roots are boiled by the local people and that solution is said to cure malaria and help with stomach problems.  It is also said to help with aborting an unwanted child.  We also stopped to see a large malura tree.  The fruit of this tree is used to make a liqueur.  It is a favorite of the elephants.  We stopped to watch some birds - the Scalow turaco, green with red on its wings and the green-backed bulbul.  We spotted a Defasa waterbuck - he is only found in and around Kafue National Park.  We then stopped to see an elephant under the palm trees.  He was shaking the tree and then eating the palm fruits that dropped to the ground.  Another elephant came along and helped himself to the fruit and at first, I thought there was going to be trouble, but the first one just allowed the second one to enjoy himself.  I truly think the second elephant was the same bully that charged at us last night - he was still a bit grumpy.  

Driving along, we saw what looked like a nest on the trunk of a palm tree.  As we got closer, we could see that it was an epiphyte - the leopard orchid, yellow flower with black spots.  They have different types of termite mounds here as well as the ones we are used to except not as large.  The ones we haven’t seen before look like large hillocks - some are covered with grasses and trees are growing out of it.  These large mounds are inhabited by micro termites - rather ironic.  The smaller conical ones shaped from grains of dirt and sand are inhabited by the snorted termites.  We saw a good sized herd of impalas and Neddy informed us that the proper term is a rank or a leap of impala.  We then saw a group of impalas and pukus together - they seemed to be sharing the same grassy area with no problems.  The pukus whistle when they are disturbed by something and when they sense danger, they voice a series of whistles to warn the rest of the animals to flee.  We then saw the white-fronted bee eaters.  They were having a jolly old time flitting here and there.  They were very colorful and fun to watch.  They next in holes in the ground.  We passed some water berry trees.  Neddy said the berries are sweet and enjoyed by the local people.  

We stopped to take photos of a Marshall’s eagle.  He was perched at the top of a tree and seemed to be posing for us.  He was a magnificent bird. Quite large with very sturdy legs.  He has a very strong beak and can take down a small impala or a baby warthog.  We stopped to take photos of a candelabra tree.  It looks like a very tall cactus, but it is a tree.  We heard the song of a bird we had not heard before.  Neddy said it was a honey guide, but we were not able to spot it.  Neddy kept stopping to look at tracks in the road. He saw leopard, lion and hyena tracks.  We went off-road to attempt to find any of them, but were not successful. The tsetse flies were beginning to be pesky. I had put Deet on earlier so I put my fly net on.  Neddy hopped out and lit the elephant dung located in the can hanging on the back of the truck. Juanita got bit on the face when one of them got under her head net and John got a bite on his leg when one flew up his pants leg.  There is a lot of tall grass, bushes, brush, trees and large termite mounds in the area - plenty of hiding places.  Also the color of the grasses match large cat colors so they could have been close by and we would not have noticed them unless they moved.  We stopped by the water and took pictures of a yellow-billed stork (white body) and an open-billed stork (black body).  Just down from there we spotted a pair of Egyptian geese with a number of small goslings swimming in a row - adult, babies, adult.  It was cute.  We saw another lilac breasted roller, but it was back-lit so the colors weren't as vibrant.  We saw an African darter drying his wings while standing on a rock in the water.  He must be related to our cormorant.  Neddy said they also have cormorants here.  We saw a Goliath heron and another darter.  We drove past a field of brown granite rocks.  From a distance they looked like petrified elephants - very rounded.  We stopped for tea and a loo with a view (there were large granite boulders to hide behind here). I tried to take a photo of the many dragonflies buzzing around.  I also took a photo of hippo tracks in the mud.   When we were leaving our break area, we stopped to look at the white bird guano on the boulders.  Neddy pointed out the brown mud below that.  It is from the male hippo.  He waves his tail like a propeller while he poops, flinging it every which way.  Female hippos have a firmer stool - rather like an elephant’s, but smaller.  Hippos can travel up to 10 km a night to graze.  They use the scent from these dung markings to find their way back to the river.  They tend to follow the same paths so eventually a path is worn through the grass - hippo highways.  These highways turn to gullies during the rainy season.  We spotted a warthog in the brush.  I took a video of him scraping against small trees - trying to rid himself of the parasites most probably.  We stopped so that Neddy could use his binoculars to scan the brush.  When asked what he was looking at, he replied and ALT (animal-like thing).  We all had a good laugh.  Just as we were returning to camp, we spotted some warthogs.  Neddy said they are comfortable coming into camp.  The mom is named Lulu.  There is a male, Prince, from last year’s litter.  She had 4 in the litter, but 3 were killed by a leopard.  There is one survivor from this year’s litter, a cute little female named Stella.  She was very funny - when they came out onto the road, she ran very fast to get back into the brush.  We had brunch when we got back: eggs to order, veggie pasta, salad, homemade bread, bacon.  I hope I don’t weigh 300 pounds when we get back. We are eating well, but don’t get a lot of exercise except for the rocking back and forth in the truck.  Vimbai said we could power walk from tent 1 to 9.  She also said not to run lest a leopard think we were prey.  We are now having siesta time.  At 3:00 we will have a ranger come to talk to us about the poaching problem - then one of the guides will talk about Zambia during high tea.  After tea, we will have our afternoon/evening game drive and then come back to camp for dinner.

A man named, Michael, from the Department of Parks and Wildlife came to speak to our group.  His department used to be privately managed, but was prone to bribe and corruption.  It is now run by the government.  There are over 220 square km. in Kafue National Park North where we are.  He and his compatriots are in charge of protecting this large tract.  His job is to arrest poachers, anyone without a valid license to be in the park, or anyone starting a fire.  There are fires here, but they are controlled burns done by the park rangers to keep down the brush in certain areas.  Twenty days per month, they have a group of rangers who go into the bush to search for poachers.  They use GPS to mark areas where it looks like some suspicious activity has been taking place.  Generally the poachers are looking to kill lions and leopards for their skins or elephants for their tusks.  If they catch a poacher, the first offense is 5-7 years of jail time.  Sometimes they catch subsistence poachers.  These are locals who come into the park for impalas to feed their families.  Their penalty is to pay a fine or do 6 months in jail.  There are also people who set snares.  They are the most difficult to find, but cause a lot of damage as they do not target certain animals, but catch whatever happens to spring the snare.  They also catch people who are fishing illegally - those who use nets or who suffocate the fish using lactose acid from certain trees.  The department uses informants in local villages.  This method is quite effective, but the informants have to be careful to not let anyone know they are doing this service as it could be very dangerous for them to be “found out”.  Michael said he catches about 1 to 5 poachers per month, but more of them are subsistence rather than commercial poachers.  The Chinese seem to be the biggest buyers of illegal ivory.  

On our game drive, we saw some more white backed vultures.  We stopped to look at a knob horned acacia tree.  The knobs and thorns prevent animals from browsing on the tree bark and branches.  Everywhere you look, you can see scrambled egg trees in bloom.  There yellow blossoms really stand out as most of the trees do not have there leaves yet.  Here it is very early Spring.  We saw a Western banded snake eagle, but he flew away before I could a close up - I did get a far away picture.  We saw another sausage tree and spotted a wattled lap wing sitting on a branch.  We saw some more impalas and pukus and lots of guinea fowl with their speckled backs and blue heads.  We passed an area where there were lots of holes in the raised ground.  These are the nest of the white-breasted bee eater.  It looked like a bird condo.  I think I got a picture of one in his hole.  We stopped by the water and saw 3 hippos.  By this time it was getting quite dark and we could hear two lions roaring to each other.  When we drive in the dark, the guide uses a spotlight to see if he can see eyes in the bush.  We saw a common dyka and then just the eyes of two genets and a civet.  We also saw another white-tailed mongoose moving away from us.  As we were driving back to camp we saw a scrub hare and her baby on the road.  At first, we though the baby was dead as it was not moving, but the poor little thing was just scared and afraid to move.  Eventually, it did move and we were able to continue on our way back to camp where dinner was waiting for us. 

9/15/17 Lufupa Camp Zambia

We left the Delta this morning after breakfast.  On our way to the airstrip in the land rovers, we stopped to take pictures of a tesessebe antelope (the second fastest land mammal - the cheetah being first).  So today was a long day of traveling: land rover to bush plane to small bus to small boat across the Zambesi river to small bus to very small bush plane to land rover.  After we crossed the river into Zambia, we were surrounded by men trying to sell us copper bracelets or small carved wooden animals.  That must be a hard way to make a living.  No one on our bus made a purchase.  The unemployment rate in Zambia is 60%.  On our bus ride to the airport, we passed a few villages.  Some of the houses were made of block with tin roofs, but others were small mud huts with conical thatched roofs.  We saw a number of children walking along the side of the road.  They were all in uniform and school had just let out.  The bus stopped at a market before we got to the airport.  We were each given a small slip of paper with an African word written on it.  Our mission was to find the item and purchase it (Vimbai gave us each 1 or 2 dollars for this purpose) in the 20 minutes she allowed us.  Dave and I stuck together even though we had different items to purchase.  I asked a woman at one of the stalls and she called out to a young man who obviously knew how to read and he was a great help.  He was joined by a boy who tagged along, but we finally got our items.  Dave purchased peanuts and I bought a colorful piece of cloth.  We will have a cultural night while we are here and our items will come into play on that day.  I wish we had more time to explore the market.  I saw a variety of things being sold: hardware items, used clothing, beans, produce, live chickens, dried fish, flour, sugar, cloth, shoes, etc.  We saw someone getting her hair braided in one little booth.  It was a colorful venue with a bustling atmosphere - great fun!  As we were standing by the bus admiring some dried beans, Mike asked a woman what the packaged white rocks were.  She indicated that you were to eat them.  She popped some small pieces in her mouth and chewed them.  Mike mimed that he would like to try it so he broke off a small piece and puts it in his mouth.  He said it was quite soft.  Meanwhile, the woman was cracking up as this was the mud that is iron-rich that pregnant women eat!  The camp here is lovely - a very large lounge/dining area with a large deck right on the river.  The camp is actually located at the point where the Lufupa and Kafue rivers meet and continue on to become the Kafue River.  Our accommodations are wonderful.  We are in a family unit so we have a front porch overlooking the river.  The rest of the tent is screened with a king-sized bed, open closet, a toilet room, a shower and a room at the back with two twin beds.  We were very hot when we got here as we put on long pants and long sleeved shirts this morning knowing we were traveling to Zambia.  They have tsetse flies here and I certainly do not want to be bitten.  We have loaded up our pocket with applications of Deet and we intend to be very careful while we are here.  We had a half hour to stow our gear and then we met up for a late afternoon game drive.  Dave opted to take a nap and he was feeling very tired.  The guide of our truck was Neddy.  We will switch to the other guide, John, tomorrow afternoon.  John explained the rules of the game drive, which were basically the same as in the other camps.  Instead of a loo with a view however, he said the ask the guide to stop if we “needed to raise the water table”.  The first thing we stopped to see was a tree with small bright yellow flowers - It is called a scrambled egg tree.  Not far from there, we spotted a tree with long pods hanging from the branches.  He called this one a sausage tree.  They use this tree to make dug-out canoes.  I just you can walk into the bush and get a visual breakfast - although they are missing a toast tree.  We saw some pukus and a black headed heron.  We also saw some kudus, elephants, storks, ibis, and a white tailed mongoose.  We saw our daily ration of impalas, a scrub hare, and a common dyka.  We also learned that there can be up to 30,000 gallons of water in a baobab tree.  Mothers in the bush would bathe their new babies in the water of this tree for seven days to ensure a long and healthy life for their child.

9/14/17 Delta

We heard an hyena last night and a hippo, otherwise the night was quiet.  I had the camera ready to record but I was never fast enough.  I did record some of the night sounds and this morning some of the sounds we wake up to.  Hopefully they will be audible when I play them back.  Greg and Juanita heard what they thought was a very noisy bird outside of their tent this morning only to discover upon searching for it that it was an irate tree squirrel chattering away with a sound that was like someone laughing.  After breakfast this morning, we split again into two groups and changed drivers.  Today we had Jacks as our guide.  Our group got to go the the water first.  We all got into dugout canoes in pairs and a guide (ours was named Wax) poled us down the channel.  It was quite shallow - there may have been two or three feet of water in the deepest part.  We skirted close to the reeds and sedges.  There were many white pond lilies in bloom and an occasional blue one - very pretty.  There were also some very small yellow flowers call yellow water pistols.  Wax had Dave pick one.  It had a very long tube-like stem and a sac near the flower that was filled with water.  When you squeeze the sac, water would squirt out of the flower.  We saw lots of dragon and damsel flies (damsels fold their wings and dragons don’t) flitting here and there.  It was very tranquil on the water.  There was a current, but it was not a fast one.  At one point, we could see and hear buffalo.  I took a video, but because I was sitting so low in the water, I think I only caught the splashing noises they made as they ran away when they spotted us.  A little further along, we heard the hippos.  Wax pulled into the reeds and said we could stand up to take a photo.  They were a bit far away (and after yesterday, I was happy to be that distance from them), but it was fun to see and hear them.  They eventually drifted off.  Was and the other guides decided to turn around at that point so as to not come closer to the hippos.  On the way back, I mentioned that I was surprised to not come across any frogs as it seemed like the perfect habitat for them.  Wax pulled up close to the reeds and pointed out a tiny 1 - 1.5 inch frog sitting on the reed.  They are called painted reed frogs.  The first one we saw was white and later he pointed out a brown one.  They are the same frog - they have the ability to change color.  I still can’t believe he had the eyesight to spot such a tiny creature!  We came back to shore and had morning tea and the other group joined us.  They were going out on the canoes next.  I made Jacks turn around so I could get a picture of his backside to add to my collection of animal backsides - some of them move away so quickly that the only picture you get of them is when they are running or walking away.  After the second group got on their way, we left for our game drive.  We saw a tawny eagle and a little bee eater right away and then we stopped to take photos of a lilac breasted roller and a white-backed vulture.      We stopped again because we could see and hear a bunch of baboons.  One male was very vocal and seemed to be chasing after a female with a monkey clinging to her belly - there was a lot of chasing and vocalization going on.  He also charged a smaller male and chased him off.  The large male chased the female into the top of the tree and we heard some shrieking, but we waited until we could see her again and saw that the baby was okay.  Our next stop was for a swallow-tail bee eater and as we were watching him, a marsh harrier hawk flew by overhead.  We saw another fish eagle and a spotted turtle dove.  At our next stop, we saw a sunbird and a fork-tailed drugal.  We saw a small black and white bird called a chat and several yellow-billed kites.  Jacks then parked the truck and had us get out for a little bush walk.  We stopped at an evergreen tree (they don’t look anything like ours).  Jacks explained that the bark of the evergreen along with the dried sage and dried elephant dung was used by the bushmen to start a fire.  We stopped to take pictures of the red-billed Francolin and Jacks told us that there are two other Francolins (the Swanson’s with a red throat and the crested).  We stopped by the large termite mound and Jacks told us a few more interesting facts about the termites.  The queen lays about 150,000 eggs per day.  Scientists have studied them and found that it takes five years for a termite mound to achieve the size of a soccer ball so using that statistic, Taps estimate of this mounds age (70-80 years) were fall far short.  It is certainly a very, very old mound.  Just before we crossed the wooden bridge, we spotted another fish eagle posing on the limb of a big dead tree.  We got some lovely shots of him.  As we were nearing camp, we could see that a small troop of baboons were trying to get into the recycling area.  

We came back to the camp for brunch and siesta time.  At 3:30 we will have tea and a lecture about the Okavanga Delta by Jacks, one of the driver-guides.  The river source for the delta starts in the Angola highlands and then is joined by another river in Namibia.  They flow into Botswana where the delta is formed.  The water that starts in Angola may take six months to reach the delta near our camp.  Five percent of the water along the way is lost due to evaporation or usage.  There has been talk of building a dam in Namibia, which would be a terrible threat to the flora and fauna of the delta, but at the moment it is only a threat and not a reality.  Other threats to the area are global warming, pesticides, and invasive weeds.

After the lecture we had our afternoon game drive.  We started off by spotting two vultures.  Our guide spotted hyena tracks in the sand of the road, but he was not around.  He stopped at one point and asked us to identify what looked like antelope horns, but we were looking at it wrong - it was a pair of warthog tusks from a large male.  He picked up some scat by the side of the road.  It was bigger than deer or impala scat, so I guessed waterbuck, but it turned out to be giraffe poo.  We saw seven kudus and then stopped by the waterhole to watch hippos performing what might have been a mating ritual.  He was putting on a wonderful performance for her, vocalizing and opening his mouth to almost 180 degrees.  She didn’t seem to be as impressed as we were.  It was wonderful to just sit in the truck and watch the show, but eventually we had to leave to meet up with the other group for our sundowner ritual (drinks and watching the beautiful red African sunset).  We then went back in the dark to the lodge for dinner.  The America’s Got Talent show was better on our part this time.  I had another haiku:  

Delta game drives in

Kalahari Ferraris

Led by Taps and Jacks.

Greg put on a juggling act and the rest of us did “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”.

9/13/17 Delta

Last night after dinner as the driver-guide was walking us to our tents, we saw a huge elephant right next to our cabin.  If we had walked onto the porch, Dave could have slapped him on the hindquarters.  Jacks told the others waiting for him on the main boardwalk to move out of the way and then he made some noise and clapped his hands to get the elephant to move.  He was quite large, but very deftly walked over the boardwalk and not on it (they frequently have to make repairs when the elephants step on the boardwalks).  As we were getting ready for bed, we could hear the hippos calling (mostly grunting) down by the river.  They did this periodically most of the night as every time I woke up, I could hear them.  They were also being vocal this morning when we woke up.  Several of the others heard the lions roaring around 2:30, but I must have been in a deep sleep cycle and did not hear them.  I was ready first so I sat on a porch chair and enjoyed the morning air.  A black and white bird with a very long tail perched himself on the top of a small tree next to the tent.  I found out later that it was a magpie shrike.  I also found out that the resident bat in the lounge area is a long-eared fruit bat.

We were treated to a beautiful African sunrise - not quite as spectacular as the sunset, but lovely in its own way.  After breakfast, we headed out for an all-day game drive.  It was chilly this morning, but I decided to suffer for a short while as I knew that when the sun rose high enough, I would be melting.  We kept the same driver as yesterday, Taps, but rotated seats so Dave and I were in the front instead of the back. Our first sighting this morning was of a red lechwe.  We then saw a number of waterbucks and zebras.  Taps was driving fast along the sandy road (some places are very deep) and he called our vehicle a Kalahari Ferrari.  We then stopped next to a tree that had a large hammercock nest.  This nest was very interesting as there is a hole in the side as an entrance.  The top of the nest is frequently used as a roosting place for the Egyptian goose (sounds like a bird condo to me).  Taps told us that the hammercock uses anything it can find to make its nest - sticks, grass, paper, plastic bags, etc.  Taps told the story of when he was a young boy, he came out the door and saw that a new pair of underwear of his had blown off the line in the breeze.  While he was watching a hammercock swooped down and stole it.  When his mom asked him where his new undies were, he said that a bird stole them.  Of course, she did not believe him and he got in trouble (sounds like the dog ate my homework line).  We saw some baboons - some with babies on their backs again.  The babies are so funny - they ride around on the backs for a while and then jump off to the ground, then back to their mom’s backs.  We stopped by the river and saw a huge pod of hippos.  We stayed there for quite a bit and just watched.  They kept putting their heads up and watching us.  There were a lot more open hard sandy areas where we were driving this morning.  Taps said these are large salt licks and the elephants like to come here to root out the salt.  They sometimes make deep holes while doing this and when the rains come, they can expand over time to make a new waterhole.  We then stopped to see an hyena den and an aardvark burrow, but no one was home in either case.  We saw a female lion.  She had recently given birth, but the cubs were pretty well camouflaged in the bushes.  We could just see glimpses of them.  Taps said they are about a week old and still a bit wobbly on their feet.  We went back to the river and saw an African fish eagle, a Rufus-bellied heron, and a saddle-billed stork.  We saw some Southern common reed bucks in the water.  They had a black spot on each side of their faces.  Taps said it was a pre-orbital gland.  A little further on, we spotted a great white egret and a little egret very close to each other.  As we drove along, we came upon a red-billed Francolin (also known as a spare fowl).  Then we finally saw a large crocodile (about 7 feet).  He was sitting beside the water with his mouth open (just a heat exchange, not being aggressive).  I got a good picture of his teeth.  He must have been full as nearby we saw a green-backed heron and a squacco heron.  We also saw a common red-back (deer) and a blacksmith lapwing (bird).  We also saw some wattled cranes (they are on the endangered list).  They are very tall with lovely coloring.  We saw a very large nest at the end of a branch - it seemed ungainly.  It is a communal nest for red-billed buffalo weavers.  So everyone comes to Africa to see the Big Five: buffalo, elephant, rhino, lion, and leopard.  We just saw one of the Small Five: red-billed buffalo weaver, elephant shrew, rhino beetle, ant lion, and leopard tortoise.  Taps said there is also the Ugly Five: Blue Wildebeest, baboons, vultures, Maribou stork, and the warthog.  Taps also included his cousins on this list as a joke.  We have seen all of them except for Taps’s cousins.  We also saw a female leopard.  Taps said they have named her, Tsebe, which means torn ear.  We took more pictures of the carmine bee eater - such a lovely red against the branches of the trees.  We saw some more of our bird friends, blacksmith lapwing, the hammercock, and a hada ibis, a new one for us.  We spotted a water monitor about 2 feet long.  He was really moving so I didn’t get his picture.  We saw a beautiful bird called the coppery-tailed coucal - he was a bright copper color and very striking when in flight.  Our next sighting was of a brown snake eagle sitting in a tree.  We then spotted a Bateleur eagle in flight - way too far away for a photo, but really cool to see.  Our next sighting was of an African jacana (also known as the Jesus bird as it looks like he is walking on water).  He was copper colored with a white head.  We spent some time watching a pied kingfisher.  He looked like a helicopter as he would fly up and hover over the water before diving down to get (or not get if he was unlucky) a fish.  He did this a number of times and it was great fun watching him.  I think he had a 40% success rate for the time we were watching.  We drove through watery areas - some were a bit muddy, but one was quite deep and we called it an African carwash - Taps liked that.  As we neared our lunch spot to meet up with the others, we saw a number of large acacia trees (they are also known as the umbrella thorn tree).  I love how they flatten out and are so wide.  They do make a great shade tree.  We came across a few Southern ground hornbills.  They are so much larger than the other hornbills, you would not think they were related at all.  They are about the size of a tom turkey.  We saw some elephants, one of whom was not happy to see us getting close and he charged at us with his large ears flapping.  Since he was a lot bigger than us, we backed up quickly.  We then saw some knob-billed ducks.  We came around a corner and saw the blue wildebeests and zebras together under a rain tree and just behind them, a good-sized herd of impalas (McDonalds of the bush).  I took a picture of a very pregnant zebra.  Taps said that she will give birth in the rainy season as the food supply with be more abundant then.  There were also about 5 warthogs nearby, but they ran when we got close.  We came across a different type of acacia with yellow leaves called a knob thorn acacia.

We stopped for lunch and a bush loo break.  Everything was delicious as usual.  The setting could not have been more perfect.  We were facing the river, where we could see some waterfowl like the wood sandpiper.  There were some hippos in the water and elephants behind them in the distance.  When I looked to the right, I could see some elephants getting a drink and when I looked to the left, I could see three giraffes bending down to get drinks.  It was an amazing place!  As we were driving away, we saw some bones in the water near the edge.  We stopped to take a photo.  Taps said an elephant had died here of natural causes and the crocs were responsible for stripping the flesh off his bones. They called the wildlife department to come out and take the tusks so that they could not be poached.  Speaking of tusks, we have seen a number of tuskless or one tusked elephants.  Apparently, this is a genetic trait.  On our way back to camp, we saw and Egyptian goose, great white pelicans, a gray heron, and a yellow-billed stork.  We passed a good sized herd of impalas (the locals call them the McDonalds of the bush).  We stopped by a bush called a purple pen weed.  It had a great smell - quite herblike.  We spotted a hippo in the bush and as we got closer we could see that it was injured.  It had what looked like scratches on its side (perhaps from a lion) and there was some blood coming from his mouth.  Taps said that he was hiding in the bush to let his injuries heal because if he were to go into the water, there are some small fish that would eat at the wound and prevent it from scabbing over.  At first we thought he might be dead, but we could see his body rising and falling slightly from his respiration.  Taps drove a little closer and the hippo leaped up and came towards us.  We backed the land rover up very quickly!  Taps drove around the bushes to get a better view, but the hippo didn’t want us there either and charged the vehicle with a roar.  His mouth was open and he certainly had a lot of very large molars.  It came as such a surprise that ho one got a video - we just wanted to get out of his way as fast as possible!  That was enough of charging animals for me for the day!!!

After that excitement and when our heartbeats returned to normal, we continued our game drive.  We saw an open-billed stork and a red-billed hornbill (the natives call it a flying chili pepper).  Apparently this is the bird depicted in The Lion King - Azu.  They call the yellow-billed hornbill a flying banana.  Our last sightings of the day were of a juvenile saddle-billed stork and a long-toed lapwing.

We came back to camp for high tea and siesta time.  I was sitting writing the blog in the lounge.  Greg decided to go back to him tent for him camera and when he came back with Mike, they said there was a large elephant eating grass next to the path near their tents.  They took some pictures and Dan took a video from his porch.  Poor Kitty was stuck in her tent as the elephant had her penned in.  We had to wait for some of the staff to come to the lounge area to alert them of the predicament.  They finally were able to get him to move and then they had to remove a large branch that the elephant had torn down and left on the boardwalk.  Vimbai had already started her talk on her home country of Zimbabwe when Kitty was finally able to get out of her tent and join us.