Good morning world! We’re baaaa-aack...! How nice it is to be writing to you from AFRICA! I am sitting writing this under an open thatched rondavel on my Dad’s quarry in Mutoko (about 2 hours out of Harare) with a breeze blowing through and the sounds of the quarry in the background and the smell of dust and engine oil in the air. Yum!

We have been here a week now and settling into the heat and the new pace of life. The flight was sooooo long! 7 hours to Abu Dhabi, 3 hour stop-over, 8 hours to Joburg, 5 hour stop-over then 2 hours to Zim. We were extremely lucky with our luggage as we were about 20kg overweight between us and we weren’t charged by either airline. No delays, nothing! However, I did wake up on my first morning in Zim feeling like death and ended up at the doctors in the afternoon. Tonsillitis and ear infection on my first day! God really does have a sense of humour...

Anyway we are up and running now and have been based on the quarry since Monday while we do the finishing touches on the final prospectus before we start approaching potential contacts to start selling our carbon credits. Nyatana (our project site) is about 2 hours from here so it is a good base for us to commute back and forward as we need to. It is also set up with email and a generator etc so is far more comfortable in the meantime. I will be taking our first trip down to Nyatana tomorrow. We have a number of locals doing a 2 week course on anti-poaching, tracking and bush skills in preparation for them joining our team of Forest Rangers. I will be dropping some food out there for them for the duration. We will be having a passing out parade on the 30th of October where we will invite all of the local officials and some key environmental specialists to celebrate their ‘graduation’. This will probably entail a spit-roast of some sort (probably goat!) and lots of beer! We want to get everyone involved from the start so everyone feels part of the project. Big party African-style! (“Dindindi....!”) : )

For the next couple of months, we are staying in some beautiful lodges my Dad built on the top of a kopje behind his quarry. They have a fantastic view and we have started a vegetable and herb garden here to try and be as self-sufficient as possible. It is proving difficult as the goats eat all the herbs and the monkeys eat all the veggies and fruit! My Dad has planted an orchard at the back of our camp (mangos, guavas, mulberries, apples, limes and a cashew nut tree!) and it has been monkey heaven! I don’t hold much hope for my new little veggie garden... I also bought a hanging basket of flowers for outside our lodge and they lasted 1 day before being noshed by locusts! Sheesh...

Damien is helping out on the quarry temporarily until we start getting some money in from the credits which will enable us to start on many of the projects that are on pause at Nyatana while waiting for funds. He has taken to quarry life like a fish in water (or should I say like a baboon in a tree...?)! His working day starts at 7am and he walks the 6km (+/-4 miles) from our lodges to the actual quarry offices every morning leaving at 5.45am! He is trying to keep fit but all of the local quarry workers are outraged because I drive down at about 8am and they think I am refusing to drop him and making him walk!!! That is hardly the way things work in the Shona culture...! Ha ha! Otherwise he is really getting stuck in and getting filthy which is a great start. He is attacking this all with such gusto – it is great to watch. It is pretty hot here – about 35 degrees at the moment but it is already baking by 7am. Their working day is planned accordingly and so they start at 7am and have lunch at 11am then finish at 4.30pm which is weird but nice as we have more free time at night. It is also pretty dusty and LOUD with all the blasting and machinery around so has taken getting used to. However, once everything shuts down at 4.30pm and we go back up to our camp it is so lovely and quiet and calm and at night we are surrounded by cricket and cicada sounds and pookie’s (bush-babies’) calls . We have a spectacular view from there and we sit outside cooling down with beers until it’s dark, then cook on our fire at night and sit round the fire for ages talking and feeling very lucky!!

I have attached some pics of our camp and Damien’s “office” and the quarry and will send some more dusty news after I have been to Nyatana. In the meantime will be keeping my eyes out for a meerkat...