I have spent the last week or so stroking egos of various sizes. (Sheesh – just another day in the Smit family you say...? No – hunters, hunters, hunters!) We had some Namibian hunter friends of Dad's up to do some problem animal control work in our area whom I had to set up camp for and cater for. (Problem Animal Control (PAC) is where animals who are a menace to the disadvantages local communities (such as aggressive crocodiles), or who are badly injured for example, are put on a list for humane culling by professional hunters. This type of hunting is not for trophies and all the skins/meat etc goes to the local communities.) I then had some clients from Europe to show around the mine in my Dad’s absence.
My last week has been as follows:
Saturday – Pick up hired goods from hire company for hunt in torrential rain. Complain. Dry out. Plan journey for Sunday.
Sunday – Wake up at 5, pack truck, manoeuvre tarpaulin over truck with maximum struggle and minimum success, pack to go. Wait. Wait some more. Told hunters are delayed. Complain more.
Monday – Wake up at 5, hit the road to go and set up camp 3 hours away, have fight with tarpaulin mid-journey, tarpaulin wins. Have allergic reaction to some chemical/powder (results similar to battery acid I tell you) that was on tarpaulin when we had the fight... face maroons, lips swell, can’t wash face as cooler-box with water packed at the bottom of the pile on the back of truck. Reach the council 2 hours away, see tap outside, sprint to wash face, water brown, close mouth to avoid cholera, viciously wipe off brown water with shirt, forget shirt was fighting with tarpaulin too, process repeats itself. Complain more loudly. Arrive at camp (beautiful!), mood improves as amazing Nyatana workers (from the passing out parade fame!) put up tents and refuse to let me help. 40 degrees though, face still burning. Check out the ablutions. Ablutions consist of a long-drop toilet (basically a deep hole in the ground which would be covered up after use) enclosed by a little room made of reeds. Then there was a little stand with a toilet seat on the top balanced (poorly) over the hole. A very tall stand I may add – upon testing my feet didn’t reach the ground and I was terrified some accident would befall me and I would have to be rescued from the loo-hole covered in you-know-what so I gave that a miss. Yikes! The shower room was also made of reeds gathered from the river and consisted of a bucket on a rope slung over a tree with a shower nozzle and tap sticking out the side. Best shower ever as you can see the sky! The Nyatana guys did a wonderful job of a little thatched kitchen are along with a table all made from branches, reeds and thatch. Very homely! 1pm, camp set-up finished, wait for hunters to arrive, 4pm, wait for hunters to arrive. 7pm, wait for hunters to arrive. 10pm stop waiting for hunters to arrive, go to bed. Sharing tent with 2 menfolk so try to undress under sheet, manage to get hundreds of thorns hitch-hiking on my jeans stuck on my sheet. Complain a bit more.
Tuesday – Hunters arrive at 1am! Ignore and sleep through. Wake up at half four to get the fire going for hunters’ coffee. Camp now has 17 men including Nyatana workers... and me. Hunters wake up and suddenly realise that there is a WOMAN in camp! OH. MY. GOD. Pack the trucks and go home – a woman! For God’s sake! All 7 hunters’ noses massively out of joint. They had cleary planned five days of no showering, eating no vegetables, wearing dirty sock, swearing, spitting, drinking and generally acting like animals and here I was spoiling all of it! Much stomping of tantrummy feet! Tried to ignore cross hunter looks (made worse by the way they were gripping their guns!) and had a look at what food they bought with them so I could plan some meals. (As our lodges are still being built they brought all their own food/tents etc.) What a mistake. No offence to all you organised men out there (all 4 of you) but MEN CANNOT PACK. I was faced with a box the size of a suitcase with chilli sauce and spices and braai spice alone, then a small box with some baked beans, rice and some rusks, 4800 beers and about 300 lamb chops. That’s it! Loo paper clearly wasn’t a priority but then again they packed NO vegetables, maybe that’s why. And nothing to cook in. Maybe they expected me to cook Neanderthal style with a stick over a fire? Turns out that was not far from the truth in the end. Hunters went out after coffee tracking an injured elephant for the whole day during which I tried to concoct 10 different ways to cook lamb chops over the next 5 days. Thrilling. Got bored of that. Read a bit in the tent. Inside tent temperature reached about 1148 degrees, gave up when book got too soggy from sweat to read. Went for a walk. Turned back after 3 and a quarter minutes due to impending heatstroke. Tried some fruit growing on a bush. Didn’t die. Thought about how I couldn’t WAIT to cook over a nice hot fire! Hunters get back all buoyed full of huntery testosterone after a successful hunt, bellowing for dinner. Well what a feast I prepared... lamb chops, rice and beans... wow, I was so proud! Knew I would have to retire early in shame. Not before telling the rudest jokes I knew round the fire over drinks which broke the ‘woman-in-camp’ ice and lightest the atmosphere considerably! Tried to shower avoiding the gaoss in the reeds, funnily enough positioned almost perfectly round my rude bits. AMAZING shower, looking up at the stars, nice breeze with bush-smells floating in, cicada sounds. Made up for everything.
Wednesday – (STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT HUNTING!) Go to see how the elephants are skinned and how the meat is distributed to the local communities. More serious mood now. Worried I might shame myself by bursting into oestrogen-fuelled tears at the sight of the fallen ellies. Was actually fine, the hunt was done very quickly humanely and the fact that the communities were benefiting (some haven’t eaten meat for more than a year) made it a lot easier to bear, circle of life and all that. They were very respectful and followed their traditional rights and blessings every bit was put to use. The female was a very old lady who had stepped on a landmine a year or so before so her foot was half-blown off and pretty rotten. This meant she wasn’t able to get her food the normal way so was raiding villagers’ crops (their only source of food) which was much easier! She was also apparently VERY cheeky because of the pain she was in and was attacking local villagers on a daily basis, including children. The skinning began and I was incredibly impressed by the skill of the locals. I won’t go into too much detail as I know this is a touchy subject for many but it was actually a very natural thing to watch, something these tribes would have been doing for centuries. Moving on, spent hot 5 hours waiting for the meat to be distributed correctly then returned with the hunters to the camp for lunch. Temperatures are pushing 2000 degrees surely. Cook lunch over the fire (lamb chops – how did you guess?). Am so thoroughly sunburnt and the fire is bellowing heat at me like some kind of volcanic furnace. I can tell you the fire was not that bloody hot at 4.30am when I was trying to boil water quickly! The hairs are singing off my forearms and I am so burnt and hot and purple in the face that I can’t actually figure out whether it is the sun or the fire that is singeing my little arm hairs to white little curly balls! Serve lunch then begin immediately on dinner for later so I can return to the mine that afternoon. Bolognese made with braai spice, salt and vinegar spice and chutney due to absence of any other bolognesy-type ingredients... yum I know!! Get into the car and for the first time in 3 days see my face which is plum-coloured by now. I am furious with myself for letting myself get my face burned but it calms down after an hour or so of driving with the window open and is actually now just a mauvish colour. Whack on the ipod and speed all the way to the mine singing at the top of my lungs, scaring cyclists and cattle on the side of the road. Arrive at the mine 2 hours later hoarse, burnt to a crisp and FILTHY with Damien wondering what the hell I have been doing with myself and whether I chased down the elephants with my bare hands! Find out Zack has malaria (better now!) so have last minute rush trying to arrange someone else in town to help me ferry clients around tomorrow. Sleep like a baby under my lovely mozzi net and thorn-less sheets. Snore thoroughly.
Thursday – Drive 2 hours to home in Harare. Unpack. Go back out to do grocery shopping for clients for the next day or so. Catering again – YAY! Make sure there are NO lamb chops on the menu. Rush home, shower, pick up clients for dinner. Have lovely dinner at Amanzi Restaurant and managed to keep my eyes open all night (with great effort). Dropped them all off and got home to pack for the next night at the quarry. Still sunburnt.
Friday – Pick up clients at 7.30Aam. Drive 2 hours to the mine. Making conversation considerable difficult as only 2 speak English and the rest just talk to themselves in Portuguese. Try to keep yawning to a minimum (once every 3 minutes). Nod and smile at all the talk about how big the one client’s house is, the fact that it has an elevator, the fact that he has saved $100K for each of his kids to do what they like with, as well as a flat each. Start wondering what I would do with $100 grand. Stop after a few minutes due to depression brought on by thoughts of what one could be doing rather than listening to ‘look how rich I am stories’. (OK, and I am a teensy bit jealous of the elevator...)
Arrive at quarry, feed and water clients. Realise they are drinking beer at a rate far faster than my little stash of beer will allow. Panic. They get a tour of the quarry and seem happy enough. Go and pick up our entertainment for the evening. We have an incredible traditional dance group that perform for us from our local junior school. I squash 18 children and 4 adults (yes really!) into the back of my truck and drive at snail’s pace up to our camp where they will perform later. Pick up clients and take them up to the camp. Dancers go done very well. I certainly get goose-bumps. They are all dressed in traditional gear, the boys on the drums and with headgear with feathers in, the girls with shakers on their legs. It really was stunning and what a professional performance! Was very proud! Cooked (again) and sat round the fire yo-yoing between the fridge and thirsty clients and left at the end of the evening to go and sleep down at the quarry. Alan, who was helping me transport the clients slept on the roof-rack of our Patrol under the stars which thoroughly amused the clients! Fell into bed. Still sunburnt.
Saturday – Cook breakfast. (Complain under my breath.) Swear I will not cook a morsel for anyone for at least a month. Hurry clients into car so we can rush them to the airport in Harare. Another 2 hour drive. MORE money talk. Try to stop clients taking pictures of every local we see on the road and a couple of government officials we pass on the road! Drop clients at airport, heave a sigh of relief and whizz out of the airport carpark only to scratch my Dad’s car on the side of the ticket booth in my haste to escape. Fight the urge to cry. Drive slowly home. Unpack. Crawl into bed for a sleep. Still sunburnt.
ANYWAY! I am much rested now and feeling more spritely. Looking forward to the Christmas period. Damien and I are going to spend a few days in Victoria Falls and we are all off to Lake Kariba for five days over New Year so that will be great. The quarry will close from the 19th of Dec to the 11th of Jan so will be lovely to have Damien around! Will give you another update before then I’m sure. Take care everyone! And please send news.x Oh, and id I mention we now have a crocodile in our swimming pool. Don't ask.
PS: I have added some photos of the passing out parade - I was having trouble uploading last month. One of the guys marching, one of the play about arresting poachers, one of the river, and some cow legs!
DAMIEN’S LATEST:
I’ve slipped in to African life pretty easily so far which has been a nice surprise, I’m going to be based at the mine until after Xmas which is not a bad thing as my role is slowly starting to get more interesting.
Not sure if you got my last update but I’m now in charge of getting the community projects up and running again, these projects are run through a trust fund and the money can only be invested in to projects that will generate income for the community or something that is for the good of the community (they were stopped during the political trouble last year), some of the projects are:
· Setting up the quarry medical centre for the workers and expecting or new mothers.
· Brick making project – the bricks are bought by the mine off the community at a small profit, they can also sell the bricks to surrounding businesses
· Gum tree seedlings – We cultivate the seedlings and donate them to the community to plant, once they have grown to a certain level we purchase the trees from the community as the wood is strong and is used for putting the granite blocks on when trucking it across the country
· Organising the refurbishment and building of the workers compound
· Ensuring the recent donation of mosquito nets are distributed to the workers and their families that live in the local community
It’s not all been work though, the weekends have been fairly social as there is usually something going in Harare or there is some sort of BBQ/party to attend.
· Setting up the quarry medical centre for the workers and expecting or new mothers.
· Brick making project – the bricks are bought by the mine off the community at a small profit, they can also sell the bricks to surrounding businesses
· Gum tree seedlings – We cultivate the seedlings and donate them to the community to plant, once they have grown to a certain level we purchase the trees from the community as the wood is strong and is used for putting the granite blocks on when trucking it across the country
· Organising the refurbishment and building of the workers compound
· Ensuring the recent donation of mosquito nets are distributed to the workers and their families that live in the local community
It’s not all been work though, the weekends have been fairly social as there is usually something going in Harare or there is some sort of BBQ/party to attend.
We went to a gun fair a couple of weeks ago, where you could shoot anything from a 500 rifle to a hunting bow and arrow, I opted to play safe and had a go shooting a 9mm pistol, you got 8 bullets to shoot at 4 targets, of which 1 was moving. Now I took in to account my level of experience with fire arms and also made it clear to guys running the stall that this was the first time shooting a pistol but I still don’t think it softened the embarrassment of Celia going after me and completely beating my score or the fact that 12 year old boy who went after her also kicked my backside (what a man Damo, what a man).
I’ve actually learnt to drive within the space of 2 weeks and I’m now the designated beer-fetcher from the local bottle store, which is an experience in itself I tell you! There are about 3 buildings in this one settlement and they still make sure one of them sells alcohol!
I’ve found a local football team in Harare to start getting involved in and went along to watch them on Saturday playing in their 5th cup final of this year, so the danger signs should have been blaringly obvious but surely the standard in Zimbabwe wasn’t going to be too high? I couldn’t have been more wrong as the team has 1 ex-international, 4 ex-Zimbabwean premier league players and also a player who came back to Zim after playing with Luton Town for a couple of seasons. They were pretty good to say the least and fortunately for me they have a B team so there still might be hope...
The only big issue is that our shipping was supposed to have arrived about 3 weeks ago, so either all our belongings are sitting at the bottom of the ocean or there are a few locals who now have an extensive DVD collection and are running around in some very camp white canvass trainers...
No comments:
Post a Comment