Animals and village life.

2014/2015 saw a few animal attacks within and around the village of Bennde-Mutale.  Now we always experience wild animals within the village boundaries especially in September and October when the bush is so dry and you can see 100 meters through it.  Every year lion will come through a hole in the Kruger national park fence, sometimes where a dry river bed meets the bottom of a fence,  more often though where humans have passed through on their way to or from Zimbabwe to see friends or relatives on one side of the Limpopo or other.

The lion come and take cows or donkeys  as unfortunately most livestock have 'the clangers'. A terrible infliction where by livestock have continuous ringing in their ears.  Most cows, donkeys and goats have this affliction and  the only remedy is to undergo surgery to remove damn bells around their necks. When the lion come through, these animals are easy to spot or hear for the lion, I call it 'meals on bells'. Sometimes the lion hang around and nature conservation come and try to shoot it, but more often than not they don't, the lion take themselves back in to the park. A new scheme is in place to deal with problem animals, which I'll write about in due course.

I once disturbed a pride of 13 lions on my way home the local bush pub at Pafuri River Camp. Fortunately this time I was driving my trusty Landrover and not walking, which i often did through the bush at night. Another time there were 2 lions behind the pub just relaxing at night under a bush not 10 meters from where 8 people were relaxing, the local manager with 2 trusty stones in hand, ran screaming at them and the lions buggered off into the bush.  Needless to say some of the guests were wary of walking to their chalets!

Elephant come through as well at least a couple of times a year, walking across the Limpopo or straight through the KNP fence.  They come and eat the lovely crops which are lined up nicely, though not before wondering around trying to find THE tastiest maize cob.  Sometimes these elephant are from the KNP, sometimes they are from Zimbabwe.  If they are from the KNP I always hope they get back in.  If they are from Zimbabwe they are not wanted in the KNP, as they can be more aggressive, especially to humans, so again I hope they find their way home.  More often than not when elephant are in the area they destroy a number of peoples crops unwittingly, its not as if they think 'ah ha let me tap dance on these fine crops' this, obviously, would be very annoying.

Generally the elephants are shot for being problem animals, harsh, yes, though it is part of life in the rural bush.  Locals battle with enough environmental problems/changes as it is, most years crops fail due to changes in the rain pattern, when we do have good rains and crops grow the last thing you need is an elephant trampling around.

When elephant are shot, not one bit of the elephant meat is wasted, all the meat is used by the locals which provides them with much need meat for a month or so.  As news breaks that an elephant has been shot you see villages running with buckets and knives into the bush to find the elephant. When you see them running towards you for the first time when you are out for a stroll in the bush , you generally have to change your shorts, as it can be quiet a sight!  More so when it happens on their way back as they are covered in blood carrying bloody knives and buckets of meat.  Luckily I know I'm too skinny for anything

Seeing an adult elephant butchered in an hour is a sight not for the faint hearted. Locals will play a game of 'King of the castle' to stake their claim at first, but then it is generally shared out fairly evenly.

Sometimes the locals aren't so lucky, last year a lady from the village was trampled to death by an elephant whilst she was foraging for food...'toe jam' is one of the terms for this....not so nice.

Another local was attacked by a leopard whilst collecting Marula fruits for beer not 100 meters from his house.  His friends after a few minutes managed to scare this young male leopard off,  Nature conservation came along to put this animal down, but unfortunately they shot the wrong leopard, they had shot a larger leopard!

Another incident which happen towards the end of last year was where a tourist to the area was gored by a buffalo, after being choppered to hospital and many months in ICU he survived.

Life in the bush can be tough, you never can be sure what will happen or when it will happen, maybe nothing will ever happen to you.  The incidences above are quite rare and generally happen when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Many locals forage for food, however their traditional areas are diminishing all the time as fences are put up and they have to put themselves in closer proximity to wild animals, as they has happened in the past.

Condemn them if you want but it is just part of life in the area and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

I was going to write about poaching in our area, alas I think this will have to come another time!

The Internet, Bennde style

Continuing on with my 2015 slogan of embracing technology and using it to the capacity of my abilities, which I have not fully embraced YET! 

There are always small difficulties to overcome. 

Take the internet, fantastic, we have access here in Bennde-Mutale and therefore have the same access as someone in an office in Brazil. However at the moment the way we able to access that technology is very different and the end results are therefore quite different. Your attitude to the internet in general and how you utilize it has to be in the correct place.  I realise my attitude to how I went about using this technology was completely backwards even considering the following.

Here in Bennde we can only get cell phone reception (the only way to get internet) in certain places (within a 40Km radius), and within those certain places you get better signal for phone and better signal for internet (from Edge to HSDPA) and on top of this you have 2 or 3 different carriers which have better reception in each of these certain places.  Then you have to consider the weather, because on overcast days, other areas will work whereas your usual areas wont, again depending on which carrier you use. 

The culmination of this is general frustration which isn’t helped because you are usually sat in your car next the road at the ‘Cell Phone spot’ in 30’c+ heat, open to anybody to come and say hello, ask you for something, and yes disturb your work, research or concentration.  Some of you may be thinking, yeah stop your moaning………not moaning I’m just trying to paint a picture here of how we access the net, while you most likely sit and read this on an office pc, a tablet at home on the sofa or your phone on the toilet. I’m lucky, I can’t moan, I have a smart phone to access emails etc, I can create a Wi-Fi spot for my laptop and sit in my car.  For 99% of the villagers they don’t have any of this……..anyway I digress…

Frustration, time wasted and expense can be the results of how we access the internet here.  The expense comes in by having to use 2 carriers, I generally use 1 gb per month which costs 150 Rand (15$ 10£) per carrier so 300 rand a month, for 2 gb at poor to intermittent quality. An expense a local villager cannot afford.

If you are lucky you have built your house in a ‘Cell phone area’ and can get reception in your kitchen or bedroom, maybe if you put it, ‘there….right there, you see the door frame just on top you can get 2 bars if no clouds’.  This again depends on your carrier, which most people have 2 of.  Sometimes in peoples gardens you’ll see a sock hanging from a bush or a piece of wire from a tree, these are placed in strategic places where you put your  phone and get  1 bar maybe 2; enough anyway to send and receive a ‘please call me’. 

I am lucky again in this respect, I can occasionally, weather dependant, get 1 bar on one carrier, this is enough to sometimes get my emails, as I get an intermittent edge signal.  You may be wondering why don’t you get an external aerial?  Yep done that, no help and cost money.  I’m willing to buy something to boost the signal, but not until I see it working at my house for a month or so. Otherwise it is a waste of money paying for service or help when you live 200km away from a service place and they charge you 3 rand per Km for a visit or installation.

Until the area gets a tower for mobile signal or I get some cash for satellite internet, which is expensive and not always reliable the only other solution is to have a better way of harnessing the internet and getting the most from it.  This may be by connecting to people who you share interests and passions with.  Sharing in something which is more rewarding than an easy superficial ‘Like’ on Facebook.

Again I am lucky I have access to the internet and to such things as Facebook where I can harness the goodwill of people, but think for a minute of the secondary school child whose ‘homework’ is to research a historical figure or to find some information on Rhino statistics.  So many ‘latest’ text books and teachers rely on access to the internet to supplement school work.  Students have no such access and thus fail their homework assignment again and again, then they fail the whole year.  Yes, this is a problem for teachers and the dept. of Education to rectify but for the students it is a problem of now.  

The internet is a wondrous thing and a powerful force for change but let’s not forget that not everybody has it and for many millions if not billions of people it is still a great barrier to education and even an unknown.

The solution, there isn’t a perfect one however  this year I am endeavouring on building a ‘Digital Learning Centre’ with up to 10 laptops (safer as you can hide them from thieves).   This may sound quite straight forward but it brings with it so many other small problems, electricity being the biggest one!!

Anyway, I will keep you posted on the progress and if you are interested in helping out by researching small funds for such an endeavour or by donating old or refurbished laptops then please let me know.

I will do my best to embrace this technology and to keep people informed for the long term benefit of the community.