What on earth?!

What on earth?! (12)

Observation of “mechanical miracles” are not very frequent. I have already presented you with the 3-wheeled tractor seen at the Chaco Province in Argentina (https://bushsnob.com/2022/10/07/what-on-earth-1/).

A few years back I travelled to Tajikistan a few times to supervise a project dealing with the veterinary services of that country. The work included travel to the countryside to see the veterinary outposts but also many meetings, most of which took place in the capital Dushanbe, a nice and safe city.

I used to walk a lot along the beautifully treed avenues of Dushanbe, trying to observe and understand the culture of the place as it was my first time in a country of Central Asia. While in one of my walks in the evening, I heard a loud noise coming from an engine being revved, showing some firing issues.

Through blue smoke I saw the culprit, a lorry clearly used for carrying garbage that was being started and moving down the street. Soon the smoke cleared and I could better observe the situation.

The vehicle had its bonnet open! I stopped to watch and saw someone (a mechanic I imagine) working on its engine while the lorry moved down the road somehow as I do not think its driver could see where he was going!

Luckily for the other motorists, the moving repair did not go on for a very long while and soon the lorry stopped and more conventional mechanical work took place!

What on earth?! (11)

A few years ago, I travelled to Zambia to backstop an emergency project that responded to one of the floods that hit part of that country. One of the consequences of this event was an expected increase in the prevalence of animal and plant diseases.

Evans Blue (EB) is one of the stains used to check the integrity of the cell membrane under the microscope. Normal cells keep the dye out, but it stains dead ones blue, indicating some pathology present and therefore a disease.

Fifty grammes of EB was about USD 250.00 (depending on the supplier). It is considered an expensive dye as blue is not an easy colour to find in nature.

So, when inspecting some of the purchases the project had done, I was rather surprised to find a bottle of 500g of the dye, produced in Zambia as, usually, EB is purchased from international chemical suppliers!

I believe that it was a rip-off from the local supplier that took advantage from the lack of knowledge of the client!

The rather large (and fake) Evans Blue bottle (left) and a true bottle on the right. The pen is for scale purposes.

What on earth?! (10)

This section of my blog deals with unusual finds, the majority concern with observations from the roads and streets we frequent that are mostly located in Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Italy.

I am well aware when, a long while ago, we were all politically incorrect for today standards. Driving was a man affair and, when there was a careless manoeuvre by a car, expressions like “woman driving!” or “what do you expect from a lady driver” to name two of the polite ones that were proffered!

Time passed and women had demonstrated that they are at least equal to men, and this includes driving a car (probably there are no F1 women champions because they cannot be bothered doing it!).

So, it was quite refreshing to see that nowadays women recognize themselves as drivers and even take advantage of their old “bad reputation” to advertise their presence and, probably, take advantage of it!

I spotted this car with the sign “ATTENTION! Lady driver” in Rome.

I keep thinking if the dent happened before or after the sign was placed!

What on earth?! (9)

Driving on Zimbabwean roads is full of surprises and there will be a few more entries under What on earth?! that are related to roads and streets in Zimbabwe!

Re-treading used tires is no longer common, probably because of safety regulations so people have found other uses for them. As far as Zimbabwe goes, door mats and sandals are the most common. Strips of tire rubber are also useful to hold car suspension parts in an emergency (and often permanently!) and there are many other uses, I am sure.

We overtook this pick-up (I should say bakkie) loaded with a very ingenious way of re-using old tires. I would like to sit on one to see how comfy they are!

What on earth?! (8)

I must confess that until recently I was ignorant of the details of hair extensions (due to reasons that are apparent if you follow this blog!) and I was surprised to find out that hair extensions similarly to wine and other products can be marketed based on provenance! The following sign in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe provided my first insight into the, clearly more complex than I expected, business of hair extensions. I did not know that hair from various countries would be on offer until we came across this sign offering them to the ladies in Bulawayo.

This complexity was even further evident when a few days later we came across the below headline indicating that just like in other products, once in a while a bad batch appears with potentially adverse consequences for the end user!

I did not followed-up the issue further so I am unable to tell you in which way hair can be “harmful” and why this happened with Brazilian and not with hair from another origin!

What on earth?! (7)

There is no doubt in my mind that Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe is one of the best places we have visited. Despite having the “Big five”, you are allowed to walk and animals are everywhere, including your campsite. Among several close encounters, we vividly remember the time a buffalo bull was killed by lions a few metres from the entrance to our bungalow posing some problems to our planned movements!

Despite this, we were not prepared to have an elephant welcoming comittee outside the reception!

It was also curious to see that the pachiderms in Mana Pools are exempt from the majority of the rules as can be seen below:

But, who can argue with them?

What on earth?! (6)

A few years back I bought a bottle of alcohol and it was only when it got finished a few days ago that I discovered its interesting label.

The following are three of the most common definitions of the word “contrite” that are available on line:

WordReference.com: filled with, or showing, a sense of guilt and the desire to make up for some wrongdoing.

Merriam-Webster: feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for improper or objectionable behavior, actions, etc.

Cambridge dictionary: feeling very sorry and guilty for something bad that you have done.

I wonder about the origin of such name… and I am pleased to know that the name has not affected its business as the company is still going strong, from its start in 1997!

What on earth?! (5)

When living in Mozambique we drove a couple of times to Swaziland (from 2018 renamed Eswatini) to spend time in its national parks. Among these, we visited the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary where we spent some time walking as there are no dangerous animals, except crocodiles as the following sign warns.

Checking the waters edge, we did find a couple of large crocodiles and another sign that was rather confusing.

Usually wildlife has right of way but to prohibit members of the plant kingdom is baffling! I wish to believe that there is a missing line in the sign that should have said “Removal of …”

After this surprise, I Googled for a definition of the word wildlife and what I found both in the Oxford and Webster online dictionaries was very similar: “Animals, birds, insects, etc. that are wild and live in a natural environment” and “living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated” respectively! So, it seems that plants and trees are not part of wildlife!

But things do not end here! In 2020, Carly Cowell (1) of the Kew Gardens highlighted our inability to recognise plants as wildlife known as “plant blindness” and discussed the consequences of this for the conservation of the plant kingdom!

Interestingly, confusion between members of the animal kingdom also seems to exist as this sign from Hwange National Park shows:

I believe that the intention was to repace the word “mammals” for “animals” to make the message clearer to all visitors of the potential negative impact of such practice!

(1) See: https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/plant-blindness-conservation-implications#:~:text=When%20you%20hear%20the%20word,but%20it%20also%20incorporates%20plants.

What on earth?! (2b)

The theme of the security companies continues and here is a brief post.

Searching for pictures for this section of the blog I found this photograph I took in 2015 in a street of Edinburgh during my son´s graduation.

This company has no name. However, apart from being effective, it offers it offers companionship and fun!

What on earth?! (2a)

A short post to add two more security companies with imaginative names we spotted recently.

I like their motto: “Lost Control Is Our Business, to secure human lives and their properties”!

At first I read “Backbone” and found the name quite appropriate but then I realized that I had missed an “l”! Their motto: “We are eyes and your ears” is also interesting!