The goods had to be transported from Chiz HQ to a certain point on the road to Tundazi Base, by lorry, deposited at this point, enabling the lorry to return to Chiz HQ. From this point, the goods had to be driven 1.5hrs on an even rougher, steeper track by Cruiser and my landrover. We undertook two ferry trips each to get everyone and all the goods to base camp. From base camp, the goods were ferried by foot, by the Rangers, the Fencing Team and the Radio Communications Team and they climbed the extremely steep 700m to the top of Tundazi. This “ferrying” started in the afternoon of the first day we reached base camp, and started again at 0500hrs the following day.

On the next day, some of the Rangers undertook this climb 4 times, also having to carry up water – and water had to be brought from Chiz HQ to the Base camp in the back of a pickup on a punishing track. It was an incredible effort by all concerned. The views are absolutely fantastic.

I extend my great appreciation to Area Manager Samson Chibaya for his outstanding support towards The Tashinga Initiative’s project. The Barrett Fencing Team put in the most incredible effort, without a break in searing heat – the project would not have been completed without this huge effort from them! Chris Packenham of Security Communications provided first-class implementation for Parks.

• Vulanduli: is enjoying water being pumped up from the Gorge 580m below using solar energy, and into the tank, providing running water to the Rangers stationed there. Also being provided with renewed vigour is a solar energy system for lights, radio communications, battery charging, and computers if available, cellphone charging.

• Tashinga: is enjoying an enhanced solar water system, with extra panels and enlarged security fence. The solar energy system has been upgraded, providing power for lights, radio communications, battery charging, computers, VSAT, cellphone charging. Matusadona Primary School has an extra handbasin for the pupils.

• Sanyati West: finally, after substantial challenges, both solar water and solar energy systems are in good order: the thatching of the roof of the dwelling housing the solar energy inverter is completed, and the energy system is protected from the rains for the forseeable future.

After having installed a new pump, with housing, tank and base, it has been finally ascertained that an elephant (possibly the one that is now denied playing with his electric fencing strand due to our new system there), pushed and buckled the water tank, causing the tankbase plate to crack and the tank to fall through the middle of the stand. This is now rebuilt, and re-established and water fills the tank each day, providing water in the taps at the dwellings.

• Changachirere: the float switch at the tank at this Field Station has been repaired, and the solar energy system upgraded, providing the Field Rangers there with lighting, radio communications, battery charging, and cell-phone charging facility.

I had spent many days in the wilderness with Paul, the Ecologist, tracking the lone lion of the Gwembe Valley. At Hogwe, crossing the bridge was in bad shape, part of the main road to the Park, partly impassable. Large volumes of water had carried Harudziva River crossing away. The Area manager and his Senior Wildlife Officers were deeply worried; 4×4 visiting campers would experience difficulties in paying a visit to Matusadona National Park, part of the beautiful soul of Africa.

I had seen rain, I had seen sunshine, a happy little handsome soul of Africa and this time it was to be a Thunderstorm in Hogwe, promising without doubt.

Dark clouds gathered above Hogwe and upstream Masuka with a threat, flashes of lightning illuminated the sky and thunder was bolting and rolling in the south, due our location. Large drops like boulders of rain began falling. On my bare skin, I felt like being hit by grains of coarse salt, Cape Fig Tree started shaking, I felt it, I heart it, thunder lightning that exploded like hand-grenade leaving me perplexed, I heard a confused elephant scream, with appeal and baboons barked with my regret. Trees whistled and whistled again, then the sound grew into a large sound, like the taking-off of a helicopter, as the wind blew stronger and stronger. In a couple of minutes, Hogwe River had already flooded with waves, carrying logs, animal carcasses, sand, leaves and foam, flowing at a supersonic speed. Hogwe was rising steadily.

I fell in love with the smell of the rain carried by the strong wind, fear and excitement, that was the game.

I had worked with “vePara” Mbozi, a local ranger from a nearby community. He remained very calm, very calm and shamefaced whenever he sensed such danger….real danger, really. Looking back, over my shoulder our eyes glancing in each other, I saw Mbozi wearing a forced smile to bury the anger and fear in him as we walked to the camp where Paul was busy with the uprooted dome tents.

I recall a memorable day I was in the company of Lynne, Gabriel the electrician and always smiling Rhino Safari Camp’s Boat Captain, Funny Boy, at Sanyati West Camp. The polypipe of the sunk water pump had bites from a resident crocodile. No water was coming up to the camp. Solar power systems had gone down at Sanyati, Changas, and Tashinga after a heavy storm. The polypipe deserved a bite as it had not received permission to find a place in water for its purpose from Nyaminyami – the River God of the Tonga people. I was swallowed into deep thoughts of that moment, until suddenly the storm fine-tuned me back to remind me that I had someone near me. It was Mbozi.

The storm grew louder and louder. In Msambakaruma, Nebiri, Mola, Mayovhe and Negande, it had carried away the Tonga styled pole and dagga upstaired huts. In Kariba, some roofs were carried away. This could happen after an unjustifiable couple of years before or soon after a different New Year. That’s what they said.

I felt cold and left with no energy. The thunder crashed and vibrated in and about the escarpment. A yellow red lightning struck in the mopane trees and surprisingly, one burst, and engulfed in a large blue flame, then gradually put off by rain. I could smell rain, charcoal smoke and the smell of well-managed soils of the escarpment. Some shots of lightning struck and struck due north of Hogwe. In just a few gorges walking due west from Hogwe, was Ume River, impregnated with debris, waves of large volumes of water from small rivers, like Harudziva, Hogwe, Masuka and Kajokoto. These rivers became a greater force in Ume, that by event reached Lake Kariba in full force. It carried everything.

Grass, water, plants and animals remained, to continue with life as if nothing had happened. Fire could come in the dry season and invade some small patches of the Valley Floor – burning all diseases, viruses, pest, innocent creatures and small game.

Fork-tailed drongos fly above a dark cloud of smoke, catching grasshoppers. This soon initiated new grass shooting and grazers coming to enjoy the palatable leaves. There was life.

Have I ever written anything about Buffalo? But they have always been there, stalked by Lions of Matusadona. Breeding well….staring at you, mouthful portions of grass in mouth….

I appeal to those privileged to have a chance in writing out to the world their passion for wildlife, to write responsibly. I am on a journey with you and wish this journey to change your lives.

The battle for wildlife welfare continues with all forms of attacks – be it by the smell of a gun power, projects or education.

The next morning, there were sunshine, wet and cool soils. I could smell fresh African air of the escarpment marking the Valley. Hyaenas crunching up bones at vulture restaurant. In rural communities, vultures were not sighted at all, Hyaena being the missing link in these areas.

Seeds from grass and plants drop. Ants carry them. Plants and animals depend on other species for survival. Ground hornbill tiptoe with less grace than ballet dancer! Yellow billed oxpeckers feeding on ticks on Buffalo and Rhino, all scattered in Matusadona National Park. The vegetation is green and colourful. So amazing!

Had I known, time to go home will come after episodes of adventure. Waiting for our uplift vehicle, I remember Sekuru Chiomwera Siahumelu “Mr Zambezi” as most people know him. He was Tonga, working as a gardener at Staff Cottages. When bitten by a scorpion, Sekuru “Zambezi” could come and also bite on the bitten spot and you could not swell or feel the bitter pain. He was raised from the Gwembe Valley, in the times when they never knew neither salt nor sugar. They only knew the sweetness of honey and bee’s bites, the smoked “lubanje” (Cannabis sativa) and it made him strong. He was an old age friend of mine. He speaks sadly about the building of Lake Kariba in the 50’s, he was a small boy, when the Government of Rhodesia asked them to move out of the Valley floor. Animals died as the Lake level rose. The great job of a well spoken hero, Rupert Fothergill began. Serving all animals from drowning in the rising Lake to safer zones.

By 1999, Sekuru “Zambezi” had retired from National Parks. Still alive and strong, in Mola, five wives and thirty-something children, but just and just still gifted with a passionate conservation ethic on common. Sekuru ‘Zambezi” had seen love, grew up in war and other experiences. There were days of hunger, drought spells and heavy rains, in some cases. Thunderstorm and the unpredictable “Binga Wave” in Lake Kariba, but hid dedication to our sacred land of all races and tribes grew with age, each representing unnoticeable blessings in the wilderness.

The lights still shine
Twinkling in the African darkness
Spreading their wings
Like stars they are
Good morning urbanization

Dark the clouds are
With little like no fresh air
Only heavy scent penetrates our little world
Industrial gases spiraling up into blue skies
Good afternoon urban life

Cry my beloved acquatic life
For your home is invaded
By sewerage and waste
All the way from Town
Cry Tilapia Breams!

Cry my beloved house sparrow
Cry my beloved mousebird
For the bins are filled empty
The tenant’s food is cooked to the stomach
Nothing left to skirmish on

Rolling dust roads go
From one street to one avenue
With noise and disturbance
That breeds no peace in nature
The soul of a healthy community
Gone in pillage
Born out of a desire home
Exhausted the environment remains

At sunset night clubs illuminate
Pounding like hammer mills
Filled with plastic music
Little prostitutes fly in their high heels like paradise flycatchers
With diseases and viruses to spread
All roofs polluted and contaminated
With cigarette smoke and death
Goodbye ghetto life
Goodbye rising costs for declining resources

Happily I stroll
Along vegetation created before man
To my promised land
Our land of fund and adventure
Goodbye town life

To a quiet Matusadona I go
To stay with the pride of lions
A privileged garden of screaming hyaenas
That giggle and laugh at their restaurants
A land that keeps thy heart thumping
Leopard cat walking
Like beauty queens
Deodorizing the Gwembe Valley
With pungent “leo” scent
Never be affordable
Even on the Indian man’s retail shop

Hippo grunt in the pans
Sacred ibis hunting along the lakeshore
Baboon chant
Celebrating a new Tashinga

For each day unfolds with new initiatives
Initiatives of a well-managed habitat
Where our brothers and sisters play
Hide and seek with impalas
Goodbye expensive life

To the graveyard of Tonga
I go
Now turned into beautiful grazing grounds
Like small football pitch ground they seem
Where Zebras take opportunities
To play like donkeys in rugby jerseys
Only to beautify Africa’s soul
The little heart of the unknown land

Goodbye Ghetto life
A life that left me
With no memories of the buffaloes
That graze along Shenga river
Ground hornbills tip toeing
In less grace than ballet dancers
Wild dogs criss cross in hunt
The unimaginable Starvation Island
And island blessed with their meals
Safe from angry villagers
A life of sight catching events
Yellow billed oxpeckers feeding
On ticks stuck on buffalo rhino and hippos
Goodbye goodbye gold panners

For you I shall not cry
But wonder for my brothers and sisters
As I hide under Colophospermum Mopane
Gazing to a rising African sun
Admiring the Kariba sunset
That took my soul away yesterday
A thief of my heart
Kariba sunset
My darling
Goodbye electricity and water bills

A world of all races
Where lions roar lackadaisically
Baboons saluting a new day with a bark
Easterly fresh air blow
Catching up our souls
With excitement and fund
Goodbye for good deforestation

In crescendo I shall sing
A song with the lilac breasted rollers call
A song known to fish eagles
Serenades of great notes to the spirits
A song to keep crocodiles heads high
A voice that call Nyaminyami River God
To rise to protect
Adorable waters of Lake Kariba
And calm down the Binga Wave
As tourist pour like rain thunder
To rejoice in our land
The Land of the Tonga people
The Gova’s prosperity
Whose land was swallowed
By the whistling and rising Zambezi waters
That moulded my love
Goodbye noisy cars

Streams of rivers flow
From Matuzviadonha in songs
That grow louder into meandering rivers
Louder than Tonga drums I hear
Drums clear and communicating
To the grandchildren of the Gova
A birth of caring offspring
Born in tsetse territories
But bravely I raise my black palm
To wave goodbye
Goodbye to town life
Goodbye for good

Given specific timeframes in respect of this funding disbursement, the site visits had to be undertaken during the rainy season. We were very pleased to be able to reach and return from Mkanga Field Station in the Chewore without any difficulties, except for a couple of slithery moments on the wet and muddy access road from Nyakisikana Gate. Crossing the tributary of the Sapi River, where that high-level bridge has been washed away completely, passed without any difficulty as barely one inch of water was in the riverbed, despite much rain in the area. Several of the high-level bridges that span smaller rivers flowing from the Zambezi Escarpment into the Zambezi River, had serious issues with eroded approaches. It seemed that just luck was holding these bridges in place! These need urgent attention to support the forthcoming photographic and hunting safari tourism.

The vegetation was deliciously lush, green and seemingly impenetrable.

The Ranger Community based at Mkanga gave the visitors a warm welcome and showed them around the station, especially the solar water installation provided by The Tashinga Initiative which now has to be moved to a new but nearby site , due to the existing poor quality borehole.

Visiting Kariba is always such a pleasure, as the extent of the blue-blue vistas of Lake Kariba unfold, when travelling down that old elephant path, now the main tar road to Kariba. Tourists have a revived interest in visiting Kariba, and houseboats especially are well booked, as are a few of the locally well-known safari lodges, such as Spurwing Island, Rhino Safari Camp, Musango and Gache Gache.

The availability of the clean and comfortable Parks Lodges at Kariba’s Nyanyana Camp should definitely not be overlooked! The Tashinga Initiative is looking to provide a solar water system there to ensure regular water for the Ranger community and tourists alike. The Visitors enjoyed meeting Rangers and their families from Nyanyana and Peter’s Point.

The Kariba community have engaged on a programme of conservation awareness and tourism promotion, including an effort from a young group of volunteers from Kariba’s Nyamhunga Town who are working towards a brighter future for Kariba.

The large majority of the Mana Pools Ranger community have had to move to safer heights at Marongora, away from the Zambezi River flooding, through the sporadic opening of two to four floodgates on Kariba Dam Wall. This has posed a great burden on the already strained housing, water and vehicle capacity at Marongora. We visited this Ranger community and had the privilege of chatting to them about their specific needs. The dignity held by all, despite their difficulties, impressed us.

Travelling to Chizarira National Park via Gokwe, the relatively short stretch on the Karoi-Binga road was in better condition than expected, except of course, the 4×4 track to Chizarira itself. This little 4×4 track winding its way up the side of the Chizarira escarpment, with Tundazi Mountain to the east, is a delight for 4×4’ers! Take note!. Chizarira National Park is extremely wild and beautiful, with great camping sites, with woodlands, vegetation and wildlife that is become a rare sight anywhere in Africa.

The Ranger community living there lead a very challenging existence and the lack of funding to maintain the access road, together with a lack of running water at the HQ station, one has to admire this hardy Ranger community for sticking to their post, welcoming visitors with a smile and still managing to patrol the Park. And it is most certainly an incredible wildlife area. It used to be the home of the Black Rhino, but this resident population has long since been poached.

As a result of lack of infrastructure, and therefore a lack of protection effort, how much longer can this incredible wildlife area remain relatively intact?

Now we wait patiently to hear of any positive results from our efforts! Donated funds (www.thetashingainitiative.org) go directly into the wildlife protection effort as well as towards the conservation of our most wonderful and precious natural gift of all, the trees.

Transfrontier Conservation Areas such as KAZA and ZiMoZa, encompassing the Zambezi River, and adjacent protected areas falling within Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mocambique are unique global assets.

The Tashinga Initiative is proud to be part of the effort to conserve and protect our invaluable wildlife, and as always, seeks your support!

Please also visit:
www.conservationzambezi.org
www.africanwildlifeconservationfund.org

Your support in laying down the foundations for a reasonable day-to-day lifestyle for remotely based Rangers and families is urgently sought through an Adopt-a-Station strategy, and the pleasure of seeing these Ranger communities enhanced in their homes and workplace bringing lasting fulfilment to the Donor.

Write to lynne@thetashingainitiative.org – thank you!

The solar installations by The Tashinga Initiative (www.thetashingainitiative.org) have sustained two lightning strikes since 2007, despite lightning arrestors, so perhaps we are lucky, given Matusadona is recorded as having one of the highest lightning strike rates in the world – fierce, massive and direct. The first was at Vulanduli Field Station, situated on the edge of the escarpment, when the lightning split open the wall of the house, moved boulders, gouged a gash in the earth, felled a tree or more, emptied the water tank of water and blew the solar pump! Sadly funding constraints leave the Rangers at this station without their solar water system. This year, new plans for ultra-major lightning conductors and the replacement of this pump are underway.

On Saturday, we recovered the burnt out remains of the solar water installation control box at Tashinga HQ. But the pump is perfect and awaits our return, possibly this coming weekend.

After dodging Lake Kariba storms on Saturday, Sunday was eventually perfect for our work to continue, the clouds burning away, to rest on the edges of Lake Kariba, and building into monstrously high, powerfully-charged puffy white towers of 50,000 and more. Matusadona lies to the south, green and blue hills, incredibly beautiful at this time of the year. We drove around Rhino Island or the old Elephant Point, enjoying the white clouds from precipitation resting on the low hills of the Matusadona range, the green-green panicum repens grass, and the 3 little lion cubs that Gabriel at first thought may have been warthogs, such was the thickness of the vegetation. This confusion was very quickly dispelled when Magnificent Lioness walked by, followed by two well-maned lions walking side-by-side!

I am not sure I have ever seen such magnificent wild specimens – not a blemish on their coats, in tip-top condition! (www.rhinosafaricamp.com). By this time the work programme was calling as the blustery stormy weather was easing and we set off in the speedboat.

To the east, Changachirere’s inverter needed attention. The Rangers were away at Fothergill Island, successfully rescuing an elephant that had fallen into a disused septic tank. Sweating profusely in the little radio room, all was repaired and full energy restored – such an important function for these remotely based Rangers.

I have a photo of Author Emmanuel Roy Mafuka smiling. He is presently based at Sanyati West: the toughest Parks Field Station in the country, lying in the northeast corner of Matusadona, on the shoreline and just in the base of the escarpment hills. The Rangers have a special name for it “DB”. Visit them and ask them!

We brought the speedboat into the shallow waters of a small bay immediately to the east of Sanyati West Field Sation – at1300hrs-ish, with two elephants about 200m away, and The Tashinga Initiative team. We clambered up a rocky, slate cliffside, to the thick bush of the old, unoccupied campsite. We walked along a very windy bush path, almost overgrown with rainy season vegetation, and up to the Field Station dwellings. Such incredible views, what a place this is!

The Tashinga Initiative is looking for further grants to restore this station, which boasts incredible views, a TTI solar energy installation for radio transmission and battery charging, some lighting, and a solar water system.

Mr Crocodile had found the only tiny 1m piece of polypipe associated with the solar water pump and has punctured it with his most awesome set of teeth. So The Tashinga Initiative team will return very soon to attend to the matter. In the meantime, Emmanuel and his colleague Ranger must walk down hill and up hill to collect water in their rustic containers for their daily needs. The Deltec batteries installed in 2007 at Tashinga, and moved to Sanyati West are still delivering what they should!

Those thunderclouds were now covering ¾ of the sky, and the thunder started to roll. We had done what we could and needed to return to Kariba as soon as possible whilst the lake was deliciously smooth. Please write to me with any queries: lynne@thetashingainitiative.org – thanks!

It is in my memory as a child as I developed a godly friendship with Julie Taylor. She was my first unconditional teacher in helping me speak English. My mother, Shupi, had not gone to school as she was raised from a financially disadvantaged family, but could interpret Julie’s words as they were. We had extended our relationship to nature, our natural television set, (as a TV set was too expensive to possess in those days), and to watching antisocial bullying behaviour of male baboons. “The baboon can’t behave and adopt good manners”, Julie could say. Baboons always seemed to have bad manners, unlike black rhino, elephant and hippo.

I had weavered a garment of thought for that time, today and tomorrow, observing life and try to understand the world which is still invaded by ever growing peer pressure in many respects, let alone that for material possessions. However, Nature is always existing in silence and some rare species are getting into extinction.

Africa is resource rich.

Baboons are a carefree species in respect of family planning. Have you ever seen a female baboon without a baby on her back? Come to Africa, come to Zimbabwe and if you don’t come to Matusadona, you may never enjoy nature in solitude and respect it.

Amongst the 13% of Zimbabwean soils set aside by the Government for National Parks therein is a handsome 1,400sq km of Matusadona on the southern shore of Lake Kariba. Ume River marking the western boundary of the park and Sanyati demarcating the eastern side. According to my little knowledge I stick to that the Tonga people were the first to inhabit the Zambezi Valley, the Gwembe Valley, which today I refer to as the Tongaland, a land of nature, of challenge and excitement.

Once upon a time, there was a lone lion in Tashinga. To us Field Rangers, it displayed unusual behaviour. It drew everyone’s attention – Paul, the ecologist wanted to make a detailed research on it. I was a general hand, knowing little except what I had always observed. I didn’t want to be nothing, neither be something nor anybody but myself. We followed it quietly, helped by its spoor and signs of its presence in its area, which we shared. Little did I know I was going through free education in animal behaviour.

Weary and tired after travelling long distances, we sat and watched a Loxodonta Africana bull tearing some Mopane branches, pulling up great tufts of grass and knocking down Commiphora trees. It was a lesson to me, son of Mafuka, a me who knew nothing. I felt this was not happening to every plant in the Valley of Nagana Tsetse Flies. It was modification and enrichment of the habitat.

Each and every day passed with episodes of possible danger, always exciting. When the wind changed its direction, the elephant screamed a blood curdling shriek that could have secured some accolades or rewards.

We crossed small rivers, drank untold spring water and slept in the open at night, under old and torn mosquito nets. In amongst those bushes you could see carnivores. These would have inevitable clashes of interests, characterised by odd lifestyles, large or small in size, nocturnal or diurnal, perhaps solitary or perhaps social.

Cheetahs walk like indolent beauty contest queens at Miss World Contest, their small heads seemingly unproportional with the rest of their colourful bodies. To avoid competition, they hunt during the day, giving the rest of the darktimes to nature’s King Panthera leo and other nocturnal mammals – like the Smallspotted Genet cat G. genetta, and Leopard Panthera p. pardus

Seeing is believing.

I discovered that I ate sadza and beans from a plate in my hard hands but leopard’s food was mobile, always running until pounced and heavily knocked down like John Cena does in the WWE wrestling ring.

We had picked up the spoor of our lion.

It is very difficult to establish the intentions of its owner from the lion’s footprint. It led us through the Jesse bushes, to open Mopane woodland, then onto part of the lakeshore and allowed us to cross the Jenje River, and see Hippo communities, as we were very close to the lake.

The bushes showed signs of Stone Age human inhabitation. Broken dagga pots, corner poles of huts and possible graveyards, now turned into antelope grazing grounds.

This connects me with Tonga drums that I hear faintly from Mola rural area to the west… they practise cleansing ceremonies, burial of their beloved ones or unveiling of tombstones of their ancestors. Their culture never dies. It is modified by effort of the environment and time. They drink homebrewed beer (brewed over one day or seven days), sing, dance, and marry young decent girls, valuing uncomplicated marriages and respect for women. That’s where gender equality illuminates like fire from a gas refrigerator burner – a blue and efficient flame used to chill and preserve food. That’s why the inhabitants of the Gwembe Valley had lived a symbiotic life. Grabbing meat from lions’ kills in their early days, they hunted and gathered in largely Mopane scrub and woodlands, consisting of Combretum species and Terminalias.

Had cheetahs not been introduced from the Lowveld of Zimbabwe into Matusadona, our tracking could have been made easy, since we were equipped with no modern tracking devices.

A man will never die many times before his actual death with hunger or danger in the wilderness. We made Cream of Tatar from ripe Baobab Adansonia Digitata fruits, have energy, improve our digestive system that had us constipated due to too much sadza and beans. This was our breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then once again we continue our patrol, following our adult bull elephant seemingly scouting for another Elephant Clan to challenge for a date – to gain mating rights and leadership.

I was walking in the tracks of our ancestors.

Tracking was no easy way from the dangers of other wild animals. We had camped in the home or territory of Cheetahs. One male Cheetah had died without resistance: some friends of the same species had entered the territory of other cheetahs resulting in a brutal attack. I trembled as I heard cracking of his bones as attackers tore mouthfuls of skin from their enemy. It was like a year-long civil battle though it had only lasted for two hours. I wondered if this could have been the cause of a drop in Cheetah population in the rocky mountains demarcating the Gwembe Valley and the Matuzviadonha escarpment.

There, I see, is desperate need for special trained scientists, conservationists, and donations towards spearheading of Cheetah’s survival. We must bear in mind on every necessary aspect of Cheetah survival into the next century, before they are in extinction.

I had witnessed such violence every night we pitched up in their territory.

My body had changed. Since my first day in the Gwembe Valley, fresh from the Tashinga village, with the scent of “Geisha” Bathsoap and deodorants from affordable Chinese retail outlets, I left my body and soul being part of the Bundu. Smelling fish, elephant, butterfly, lavender croton and a watchful selfguard to the bitter but necessary bites from the Tsetse Fly of the now Zambezi Valley.

It is in my poor memory that I can’t remember how long it took us to be able to be blessed with harmless chances of long years observing Nature in its silence. My God is good, blessing me with a memorable moment of watching of the ritual courtship, the chase and kill for survival game, how young Lions are brought to the world of wildlife and how the hunting lessons are instilled in young ones….. rest and hunt for survival.

Those were images. Unimagined memories.

Had it been one day our fellow sons of the soil put into an unforgettable accident danger that would be heralded on modern communication means? They could be a contributing factor in understanding the pre-existence of these roars echoed since a million years ago until today by the king of beasts, the Panthera Leo. I had developed a relationship, a friendship that allowed me to identify Lions by scars on their body, the condition of its tail, any missing tip of the tail from a previous fight, missing teeth from fighting for survival of a preyed zebra, the King of Kick boxer of the untamed African jungle. Lions are very social cats.

On Ambush Duty, I witnessed signal calls of initiating the mating game. Moving cat walking around the male to give him her scent. Everlasting dedicated mating intervals per initiated chances in a remarkable and appreciated reproduction. They are trying to bring a successional change that could reach an unpredicted climax.

Lions will be lions and baboons will be baboons.

One day, in the middle of a hot Kariba afternoon, sitting under a cooling shade of a Julbernadia globiflora, a broad species dominant in the deciduous lowland of Matuzviadonha, I saw a lioness come to drink water. Was it the one we were tracking? No, it was a different promising future mother. It took a few minutes to flip up some small volumes of perennial spring water – their water, our water, we used to make tea in good mornings and home made bread, meals, bathing and drinking water for the next journey or just a day. A real day. It was a life’s experience.

The Kariba sunset came and faded into a fearful night, a night full of threatening sounds. This could keep any cowards alert, awake all night long, until the next morning that would allow us to walk again in the tracks and signs of our land, a land from our Tonga ancestors.

Your visit to (Matuzviadonha) Matusadona National Park, to the Land of the Tonga, and the King of the Beasts, should happen quite soon. Get in touch with lynne@thetashingainitiative.org

At Tashinga HQ, the football field lies at the edge of Lake Kariba, and the sun sets over the water directly on the western side of the football field. Sometimes the game comes to a halt due to the fact that an elephant chooses to continue its browsing near the field, or perhaps chooses to cross over the field at precisely the moment that the players are gathering there. There is a general scattering, and after a little while, the elephant moves one, and the game recommences. The dust gathers in a cloud above the players, and the fans are other Parks staff, family members, women and children and more recently, visiting 4×4 campers.

The men wear an assortment of attire, sometimes donated by visitors to the Park, or one team plays shirt-less. The sight of it all, especially if wildlife is close by, is very provocative to those who love football, and an insight to the Ranger’s heart, his love for sport, for competition and most of all for achievement. The elephants too have watched these Rangers play for years now, and form part of the spectator gathering….

Tourism to the Zambezi Valley is suddenly, and dramatically on the increase, all of which will benefit our Parks. But The Tashinga Initiative recognizes that the Zambezi Valley Parks system requires major philanthropic donor funding inputs to restore to appropriate and acceptable levels, the infrastructure, including solar water and energy provision, Ranger equipment, vehicles, training and then the work of protecting our wildlife can begin in earnest. Please take a moment in amidst our World Cup Fever to consider the plight of our wildlife and how you could support The Tashinga Initiative!

With thanks!
Lynne
www.thetashingainitiative.org

Some of the roads in our remoter Parks have not had attention for many years and so the time has finally arrived where Parks Rangers have to stop their vehicle, get out, and walk, as the road is no longer there, but only washed gullies and dongas.

The Tashinga Initiative is spending time specifically to source funds for this purpose through its USA Foundation http://www.thetashingainitiative.org/Pages/donate.html

Importantly, this need would provide income for men from local communities as well as providing the all-important access to Parks personnel, of course, not forgetting 4×4 adventurers and those tourists who simply want to reach their National Parks Lodge or National Parks camping destinations safely. The reward at the end of the journey is always fantastic, of this there is never a doubt, and once travelled to destinations in the Zambezi Valley, such as Zambezi, Victoria Falls, Matusadona and Mana Pools, always to return.