Chimps and hippos and crocs, yangu!

Part II - Mutinondo
***Please read Part I, the post below this one, first.***

We stayed for three nights at Chimfunshi, then from Chingola we took a bus to Kapiri Mposhi, because it has the best rest area food in Zambia. Mmm, shwarmas. From Kapiri Mposhi, we were trying to find a ride north to Serenje, about 4 hours away. Hitching is the norm in rural Zambia as not everyone can afford a car, and most drivers will happily pick up hitch hikers to help pay for petrol. One memorable moment sticks out when we asked the only white guy there, in his 40's and driving a nice SUV, where he was going. He said "The other way" without knowing our destination, then blunty told Chris, "I don't pick up people like you." As if we were obnoxious homeless beggars. We ended up getting a fast, comfortable ride with an American-educated Zimbabwean working for the Swedish embassy in Lusaka. Best of all, he wouldn't take our money. "This is my good deed," he said. "Some time, I may be the one on the side of the road needing a ride, and then you can repay me." Chris replied that the best we'd be able to offer him was a ride on the back of our bicycles.


After spending the night at the Peace Corps house in Central province, we traveled to Mutinondo Wilderness Area. The first night, we shared a fire and traded travel tips with an older couple (she was South African, he was from Switzerland) who were living out of their SUV and traveling through Southern Africa.


Mutinondo is several thousands of gorgeous, protected acres, cut by the Mutinondo River and several waterfalls and many small rocky, mountains. The older British couple who run it say they've seen evidence of lions, and they see leopards quite often. In this over-poached, deforested country that is Zambia, that's really amazing. There's a camping area with running water, real hot showers, and clean, longdrop toilets - really, it was hardly camping because we have lesser accomodations and call it 'home.' There's also kilometers of different trails to explore. We mostly stuck to the trails that followed the river, because it was hot, and we'd jump in and swim anytime we found a suitable area. Below the third waterfall, 4 kilometers from our camp, there was a calm pool to swim in. To get there, we had to slip in through the trees and swim hard with the current to avoid being slammed into a large rock. I took off my glasses, reducing the world to a blur, because I've already almost ruined them once when they fell off during a rainstorm on our road, which turns into a fast-moving, deep stream with heavy rainfall. Luckily, Chris found them only minutes before a large truck came barreling by.




Chris and I got out into the calm part of the water and were standing on a rock, when I looked into the reeds around the edge of the river. There was a greenish tan curve slightly above water level, and a pair of glinting eyes on either side staring straight back at me, identical to Willow's eyes shining in the dark. It began to move slowly in our direction. I screamed "CROCODILE" to Chris, then realized I couldn't swim against the current to get back to shore, hysterical at this point and almost in tears. Chris spun around to look, and felt a moment of panic when he couldn't see it, thinking it had submerged itself underwater. He calmly asked me if I could still see it. "Yes, it's there," I screamed, pointing. He then realized that the crocodile I was seeing was actually a thick piece of sideways grass, moving slightly in the current, glinting symmetrically. He tried calming me down, but I still insisted on getting out of the water. I know what they look like, I saw one at a national park in South Africa. And without my glasses to define the blur I was seeing, it still looked very real to me.


They have about ten horses at Mutinondo, so Chris and I were able to go on a morning trail ride. I rode a couple times a week in the U.S. and Chris was learning, but this was our first time being on a horse, or even seeing a horse, in a whole year, since we've been in Zambia.


We just found out the medical staff wants us to go to Lusaka to get a H1N1 vaccination, so we won't be going back to the village as expected. We're going to Zanzibar (island off the coast of Tanzania) in early February, so unfortunately it looks like we'll travel to Lusaka, be in the village for less than a week, then leave for a week and a half in Zanzibar.

Chimps and hippos and crocs, yangu!

PART I - Chimfunshi

A quick highlight of recent events in the village:

• A spitting cobra blinded one of our hens, to eat the eggs she was sitting on. We thought the venom actually ate away at her eyes, and we weren't sure if she was going to recover. Some of our neighbors put milk in her eyes, the indigenous cure. A blind chicken probably wouldn't survive free-range grazing, so we slaughtered her and ate the meat with our host family.
  


• 97% of the village are away farming beans (the main cash crop) in the bush, living in temporary stick houses until late March. Most people come back into the village on Sunday for church. Shortly before we left, three houses by the road were broken into and all their belongings were stolen.
  
  

We just returned from an amazing vacation. First, we went to Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage http://www.chimfunshi.org.za/ in the Copperbelt, near Chingola. It was a 12-hour overnight bus ride from Kasama. The orphanage started in 1983 when a British couple with a cattle farm were given a sick, orphaned chimp to nurse back to health. Chimps aren't indigenous to Zambia, but they are to the Democratic Republic of Congo (the border is only kilometers from Chingola) and Tanzania. Due to the fighting in the Congo, chimps, their cousins bonobos, and gorillas are all at high risk. People kill them for bush meat, to use as fetishes in witchcraft, or for pets.

The orphanage now cares for over 120 chimpanzees of all ages. Most chimps live in family groups in four very spacious enclosures. Twice a day, they enter cages in an attached building to be fed, and so that the handlers can check on their well-being. The younger chimps and "the bachelors" are housed right by the founder's, Sheila Siddle's, house.

One of my favorite chimps was an older female named Milla. She was rescued from a bar in West Africa, where she'd imitate the patrons and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Because she was a pet, she learned many mannerisms from people. She was in a cage, because the other chimps picked on her, and she learned how to escape from the electric-fenced enclosure. When we approached her cage, she'd lay her right hand over her heart, the traditional way of greeting. She'd also point hopefully out her cage at the house where her meals were prepared, and at the guava tree. She also carried around a square of blanket that she'd carefully arrange into a bed wherever she moved. Her caretaker said that a few times, when she escaped, she'd draw water from the borehole and use keys to open the locked food storage room.

<--Milla




We were able to observe a couple of feedings. They're fed local fruit, vegetables, and protein-fortified nshima. The caretakers will carefully throw food so that every chimp gets some, and the chimps will hurry to collect it and carry it in their arms to a spot by themseves to eat.

<-- Chimp collecting bush oranges

The younger ones love to play. They'll somersault around, and playfully hit to provoke the other chimp to chase it. The older chimps are very tolerant of the younger ones, and even older ones that aren't related will gently tickle the babies.

The most amazing part of our trip was the opportunity to go on a morning bush walk with four chimps from the orphanage and a caretaker. The chimps would immediately climb up onto our arms or on our shoulders when we walked, even Cindy, who was half of Chris' size.

<-- Sims (on Chris) and Deedee playing on their human jungle gym

They'd hold our hands and delight in being swung. The youngest one, Dominic, about four-years old, was very mischevious and would suddenly jump onto you from a nearby tree. Cindy was a notorious camera thief, so most of the pictures were taken by the caretaker, Dominic's namesake. While the younger chimps would scurry up trees, Cindy stayed right by us, holding our hands. She was casually eating some small green berries from a bush nearby, and gave me some.

<-- From left to right: Cindy, Dominic, and Carla

<-- Dominic the human and I swinging Dominic the chimp.

The wildlife orphanage also has a dozen African grey parrots, some vervet monkeys, and a hippo. The hippo's name was Billy and she was found as a days-old baby next to her dead mother. She's now full-size and wanders free over the marshy plain by the Siddles' house. She comes to the house every day to get a bottle of milk. Hippos are actually some of the most dangerous animals in Africa, so the Siddles have gates and barricades all around their house and yard to keep themselves and visitors safe from any accidental harm she could inflict.

<-- The founder, Sheila Siddle, feeding Billy her daily bottle.

<-- Chris and Jacko, a young vervet monkey