Helping a Village!!

Zambese Delta Safaris focuses on the conservation of habitat… animals, flora, and most importantly, people!!

They recently discovered that there was an area at the edge of their concession that was in limbo…. C-11 thought that C-12 owned it and C-12 thought that C-11 owned it!! It actually was part of the Coutada 11 (Zambese Delta Safaris) property.

They also discovered that there was a village in the area that no one really knew anything about. As the people from ZDS approached them, they were told a story of an old Cape Buffalo that was getting too close to the village and was threatening the people of the village.

This is the sort of thing that ZDS does best…..so they sent out a team (us, our guide Ben, and two trackers named Tasco and Jorge) to find this problem buffalo, kill it, and turn it into meat for the village.

When we drove into the village, Ben commented that they possibly had never seen a white woman before. That was an interesting thought.

We stopped at the local school, and it was fun to see the classroom….

….with the blackboard with yesterday’s math problem….

The girls wore interesting expressions….

…while the boys stood in the standard, defiant pose…

I have found that this defiance lessens if you smile and wave. Even the oldest will smile and wave back.

Two of the young men offered to show us where the buffalo often stayed, so we took off walking! The young men would stop every so often and point to where we were headed….

We passed a number of wells as we walked….

None of them had any safety measures, and who knows how deep they were.

Jorge and one of the helpers climbed to the top of a termite mound to get a better view….

Yes, it was over 10 feet tall!!

Apparently, Black Mambas like these mounds as well, so you are always vigilant when you are around them.

This was my scene for much of the trip…..

Yes, they are carrying firearms. Remember that this is a 1000+ pound animal that can turn you into goo at a moment’s notice.

You can see that I stay behind everyone else!!

Because of recent rains, the grass was quite tall, and at one point I found myself with this view….

I was only out of their sight-line for a few seconds, but it seemed MUCH longer. Needless to say, I hurried to catch up!!

We never found the buffalo, and the tracks indicated that it had moved into the neighboring Concession, meaning that the ZDS guys couldn’t do anything about it.

HOWEVER, when we were walking back to the village, the trackers started talking excitedly, finally telling us that the buffalo had crossed over our path AFTER we had walked past. Who knows how close he was with no one knowing that he was there.

As another example of the work of ZDS, while we were there, another village reported that there were 10 elephants in their village, destroying the crops and generally wreaking havoc. Mark Haldane jumped into one of the small helicopters and “pushed” them out of the village and escorted them several miles away.

At ZDS, human life and welfare always come first!!

So ended our adventure in the forest areas of C-11….. tomorrow we head to the floodplain.

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!