Occasionally at our farm we spot these noisy creatures in the garden. Of course, they are difficult to spot if not to hear!
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A very loud, large and colourful cicade!
Spot the beast 19
Back to Africa for a while while I develop another story from “Out of Africa”. Poor internet connection and farm work… are attempting against my productivity.
This is not a difficult “Spot the Beast” but I thought it is a nice situation to challenge your power of observation. I would be worried if you cannot find it within the first 10 seconds…
Here it is:
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I hope you agree with me that she was not only beautiful but well placed to see what was happening!
A few more pictures of her:
Puma?
Puma, Puma concolor, are usually quiet and therefore they can live with humans undetected as solitary predators feeding on medium sized and large mammals such as deer and agouti but also on smaller prey such as snakes, hares and rats.
Puma are the most adaptable of all wild cats in the world and inhabit many climates: boreal, tropical, desert and rainforests and they are equally at home in lowlands or mountains. Shy and suspicious of humans they are rarely seen.
Our farm in the Yungas of Salta is home to wild cat (Oncifelis geoffroyi), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), jaguarundi (Herpailurus yaguarondi) and puma[1]. Luckily, there are still wild areas where these animals can dwell and the agriculture frontier is not yet here so no many incidents with livestock predation occurs.
Although we have never seen a jaguarundi or an ocelot, we have seen a skull of what we believed belongs to the latter.
Ocelot skull.
A few years back the family (while the Bushsnob worked away in Bolivia) bumped on an adult puma that crossed the road in front of them about one km from our farm while driving at night.
As you can imagine, after such a find our farm went up in our estimation, as, at the time the cat was observed, we were not sure about being able to return to Africa.
Aware of our exciting animal neighbours, checking all footprints we see is the norm. Although most of what we see belong to the various domestic dogs that are kept by our neighbours, occasionally we find some that clearly belong to felines, particularly after it rains.
It did rain on the night of 12 to 13 Feb 17 but the morning started sunny so we went for our usual walk to burn a few calories and to get our telephone signal located three km away at a place known as “The Cross” where a wooden cross remembers a past fatal accident.
Returning from the walk I stopped to photograph a butterfly and noted two footprints. They had no sign of nail marks and the larger one was 9 x 7.8 cm (foto). Our first thought was that they could belong to an ocelot. However, when we checked them in our mammal book[2], their size coincided with those of a puma although, as usual, some doubts remain.
Some of the footprints observed now and last year at the same time.
Whether they belong to what we suspect or not, it is a great pleasure to be able to walk on a road where you can find such footprints and believe that such animals are around you in the thicket, probably watching your movements!
[1] Moschione, F. N. (2014). Relevamiento de Fauna. Finca El Gallinato, La Caldera, Provincia de Salta. Informe Relevamiento 2013-2014. 55pp.
[2] Emmons, L. H. (1997). Neotropical rainforest mammals: a field guide. 2nd. Edition. 307pp.
Super moms
This post has been adapted from the Spanish original that appeared in the magazine Muy Interesante. I am grateful to the magazine for publishing the article and those readers interested in it can find it @ http://www.muyinteresante.es/naturaleza/fotos/vida-y-curiosidades-de-los-guepardos
After writing “A chase”[1]. late last year, I did research on cheetahs and found some useful information that I used to prepare “Super moms” and later I realized that I had forgotten that I had written “A chase” earlier! So now, I think that the present post follows it nicely as it offers what I hope is interesting facts on the cheetah, one of the most beautiful animals on this earth.
The vast majority of cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) live in Southern and Eastern Africa and also in some parts of Iran.
MAP OF CHEETAH DISTRIBUTION
Areas with high (red), medium (brown) and low (pale brown) population density. In pink is its original range. Map credit: Attribution: By Al Pereira puis traduit par Deliryc64 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
It is one of the great cats although it has unique characteristics that place it in its own genus describing that its claws are semi-retractile unlike other felids that can retract them totally. While the latter use their claws to climb trees and tear flesh, cheetahs’ have a grip function to favour their acceleration, similar to the sprinters’ shoes.
Young cheetah in the Nairobi National Park, Kenya.
Although its taxonomic location is being reviewed at the moment, its closest relatives are the puma (Puma concolor) and the jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi). These three species together form the Puma lineage, one of eight that make up the Felidae family.
Since its discovery in 1775 by von Schreber the population of cheetahs has declined dramatically to the present situation. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that there are 6,700 adult and young animals distributed in 29 sub-populations and it is classified as a vulnerable species.
The cheetah needs large tracts of land and is currently heavily threatened by the loss of habitat due to the advance of the agricultural and industrial frontier. In addition, unlike the leopard (Panthera pardus) that can adapt to live close to people, the cheetah, a timid animal, is unable to do so.
Its relative docility and tolerance to humans has contributed significantly to its decline. Apart from being hunted as trophies, since the time of ancient Egypt, four thousand years ago, they were captured and kept as pets. This custom is still maintained today as they are displayed as status symbols and used for hunting in several countries. The consequence of this is that these animals have disappeared from much of their habitat.
In addition, these animals are very vulnerable in the wild because of the way they obtain their food. Cheetahs use their great speed to hunt but to be effective they need open spaces and excellent visibility since a false step can mean an injury that may condemn them to hunger since they are too timid to steal prey from other animals.
Female hunting springboks in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
The hunting of their prey, medium-sized gazelles, begins with their stalking until they reach a distance of between one and three hundred meters. From that moment a real “life race” between hunter and prey starts. After three leaps the cheetah is already about 45kph and during the chase it can reach over 110kph in short stretches. This makes it the fastest mammal on earth as we all learn at school but also one that enjoys an exquisite elegance of movement.
Resting after hunting and strangling a Thomson gazelle in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. See the teeth marks on the gazelle’s neck.
When it reaches the prey it makes it makes it trips it and, after it falls down it chokes it and kills it quite fast. The cheetah, usually exhausted after the chase needs to catch its breath and it only starts feeding after a while that can be as short as five or as long as fifty minutes. At that time it is common for other larger predators to steal its prey. Knowing that this can occur at any time, the cheetah eats fast and much, starting with the muscular hindquarters and it is able to eat up to 10kg of meat from a sitting.
Eating a Thomson’s Gazelle.
The “public” life of the cheetah not only exposes them to losing their prey because of the interference of irresponsible tourists that, eager to obtain a better picture, interfere with their hunt but they can also lose one to two quarries every ten to stronger predators and, in some places, losses can reach up to fifty percent.
Cheetahs breed throughout the year and females ovulate when they have sexual contact with the male. For this reason their pups may be from different fathers boosting genetic diversity, an important factor in shrinking animal populations.
They gestate for almost three months and between three and five cubs are born, although in rare cases up to eight offspring have been observed. It is easy to imagine that for an animal that relies on speed to eat, being pregnant adds another complication to its life.
Cheetahs, especially females with cubs need to hunt almost daily and they are constantly monitoring their surroundings from a vantage point that can be a termite hill, a tree[2] and even a car!
This behavior not only allows them to detect possible prey but also prevent attacks on their offspring by lions, leopards and hyenas that would not hesitate to kill them. Failure to hunt either due to natural shortages or human interference may also mean that the cubs would starve.
Four cheetah cubs with prey. National Park of Nairobi, Kenya.
Fortunately for the species, there are females that manage to breed the vast majority of their cubs and these are known as “super mothers.” Some even raise the cubs of other females! These super moms are not only successful hunters who manage to kill prey on a daily basis but that also know how to protect their offspring from predators.
One of these females called “Eleanor” is well known in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania for having raised 10% of all the cheetahs that today live in the South of that huge park. This finding is one of the important achievements of the Serengeti Cheetah Project, led by researcher Sarah Durant[3].
[1] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/a-chase/
[2] For a rather extreme example see: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/tree-cheetahs-2/
[3] For interesting information on the subject see: http://www.tanzaniacarnivores.org/
Camping in Kenya. Mara River fishing
Although I do not like eating fish, I am what the British fishing community know as a “coarse fisherman” and I have been engaged on this activity all my life, although I do not fish much these days. At the time we were in Kenya I was already returning the fish, unless someone would be interested in eating them. Tobias, Paul’s camp hand, was such a guy and if he was around there was no way that a fish would escape his attentions and invariably it would end up in the sufuria[1]!
Tobias was from the Luo ethnic group that dwells around lake Victoria both in Kenya and Uganda and, naturally, they eat fish in contrast to the Kikuyu and Maasai that very rarely, if ever, consume them. The rare event of a Maasai herdsman fishing with me was described a while ago in this blog[2] although whether he would have eaten the fish or not will never be known!
As only driving with your eyes closed would stop you from seeing animals while traveling through the Maasai Mara area, sometimes, for a change, we decided to just chill out around camp and on occasions, try our hand at fishing in the shadowy Mara River. We were able to do this as, by virtue of being outside the reserve, we enjoyed freedom of movement within the limits of common sense and/or lessons learnt!
In the area we regularly camped there were a couple of nice grassy spots from where we believed that fishing could be attempted. The problem was that we knew that crocodiles were plentiful in the River and there was no doubt that they were lurking anywhere under the muddy waters. We had already seen them in action snatching wildebeest during their river crossings. Clearly in this setting, fishing would be a hazardous sport.
After careful consideration we chose a nice opening in the riverine forest that not only offered a good view of the river but also towards our back, an important consideration in the Maasai Mara as dangerous animals were also around us inland! As there were no trees nearby we could handle our fishing gear without major mishaps. I have the innate ability to get carried away with the fishing and end up “hooking” a few trees! Although there were lots of hippos cruising up and downriver, we did not consider them a major problem.
A view of a Mara River hippo pool to show the colour of the water.
The aftermath of a wildebeest river crossing.
The Mara River bridge on the way to the Transmara. A lorry and us wait for a herd of Maasai cattle to cross.
So, one of the trips to the Transmara coincided with Paul doing some work with wildebeest on malignant catarrh, a viral disease that affected cattle, and we decided to try fishing. I brought fishing gear and cow liver so we were ready to try our luck. Our intended target was the common and ubiquitous African catfish (Clarias gariepinus). Immediately a worldwide event was born as we represented three Continents: Europe (Britain), represented by Paul, Africa (Kenya, Luoland), represented by Tobias while I was the America representative from Uruguay. Similar to the spear throwing competition earlier[3], it was an intercontinental fishing tournament!
The river was at its normal and flowing gently so that was favourable. What was not were the abundance of submerged trees and branches that poised great difficulties to a normal line recovery. The consequence was severe loss of equipment and we were soon running out of hooks and our lines were getting shorter! In addition, I spent lots of time disentangling my line from the trees that seemed to jump towards me every time I would try to get my bait in the water!
The Mara River from the DC3 when it did regular flights between Nairobi and the Maasai Mara.
A fish bite was invariably followed by frantic efforts to recover the line in an attempt to get it out while avoiding it getting entangled in the various branches and water plants. However, if you were lucky or perhaps unlucky? and hooked a large fish, the task would become much more difficult as the fish would try to escape by getting inside the branches. In addition, there was the “crocodile problem” as the reptilians would be alerted by the fish splashes and immediately come to “investigate” and get our fish so fast recovery was a must to avoid losing our trophies as those lost “en route” to anything such as snags or crocs would not count.
Paul did quite well and caught more than me. However, Tobias was the star and clear winner. He probably knew things we did not, through years of fishing “for the pot” during his early years near lake Victoria. His technique was simple, almost too simple. He chose to use a hand line and threw it very close to the shore. In this way, he avoided a lot of the snagging and did not suffer too badly from line and hooks losses like us wazungu[4]. He will then wait a short while and pull them out, almost unfairly easily!
Tobias and the Bushsnob with some of the spoils.
Tobias was delighted, not so much for having won the contest but, much more importantly for him, for having the possibility of feasting on fish for a few days! Although later on we tried the catfish, Paul and I agreed that they tasted like we imagine the Mara River mud would do and, luckily for Tobias, we declined further offerings.
[1] Saucepan in Kiswahili.
[2] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/memories-a-fishing-trip/
[3] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/javelin-throwing-almost-olympics-games/
[4] In Kiswahili, white man. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzungu
A chase
It was driving from the Kalahari Tented Camp on the Auob River bed that we found a cheetah and her four cubs resting under the shade of a tree a long way off, at the edge of the dunes. An impossible find except for a detail: my wife was with me this time and she spotted them! As we had not had a good sighting of cheetah for quite a while, we stayed with them waiting for some action.
We watched them as they moved from the dunes to the actual dry riverbed, the mother always watchful while the cubs were engaged in a never-ending game of chasing and grabbing each other, already graceful and enjoyable to watch.
After a while, they got under a large tree and they decided to have a rest. Well the mother rested while the youngsters continued with their shenanigans. It was getting rather hot.
When we were considering a return to the coolness of our bungalow we saw, at about one hundred metres downriver a herd of about fifty springbok. They were slowly walking towards one of the waterholes located perhaps two hundred metres up river. We realized that they would need to walk in front of the cheetah so we abandoned our parting idea.
By the time we looked back to the cats, the mother had already spotted the gazelle and she was already alert while the cubs were flat on the ground. Obviously, their playing had been suspended by mom’s orders!
As the springbok got closer we saw the female cheetah crouch and her muscles tense so we knew that an attack was being prepared. The cubs were still invisible! “When is she going to go for them?” I thought while I readied the camera but, most importantly, my eyes to watch what was about to take place.
The springbok were still about fifty metres from the cheetah but, at that point, she started running towards the herd scattering gazelles in all directions. Although she did a beautiful sprint through open ground in front of us, she failed. After a while she walked back towards her waiting cubs that broke their cover to greet her, even when she was “empty-jawed”. I thought that the cheetah charged way too early but, who am I to judge a cheetah charge?
After the dust settled, we saw that the cheetah had split the herd. The lucky ones could continue their disturbed journey towards the water. The unlucky that stayed on the other side stopped for a while and then, reluctantly turned around and slowly retraced their steps. They will need to wait until the cheetah moved off to resume their quest.
The five cheetahs returned to the shade and they were still there when we finally left them after a few fine hours of fine wildlife watching. The following morning, while driving to our next camp, we saw them again, not far off, their black and slender silhouettes against the early morning sky.
Spot the beasts 18
Just to keep you entertained while I finish a post on this subject.
Here they are:
Two dhows
Traveling to the warm Kenya coast was an attractive break from working inland in the cooler and often cold highlands. After trying a few options, the preferred choice was to rent a house for a few days at Watamu and, from there, to explore the surrounding area or to enjoy the beach for my wife and practice windsurfing for me. But that is another story.
Our first visit to the coast included staying at a rather hot camp in Diani beach that we did not repeat. During that visit we explored Mombasa and we got lasting impressions of its ocean and coastal area, particularly Fort Jesus and the old Mombasa harbour.
Mombasa city centre.
Fort Jesus.
While at the Mombasa harbour, apart from the ubiquitous fishing boats we saw some larger vessels that seemed to be dedicated to cargo activities. It was also the first time that we saw (or learn of) dhows. These, rather elegant vessels anchored some distance away from the shore and surrounded by smaller boats that were busy offloading them during the cooler hours of the day.
The Kenya coast in the 80s.
To add to their rather romantic reputation, we also learnt that these sailing boats, with their main masts pointing forward and lanteen sails, would use the trade winds to commute between Africa and Asia with exotic cargo.
I found pictures of the dhows recently while looking for images to place in my Instagram page. As the photographs were originally taken as slides with a film camera and later on scanned by myself, I was checking them critically to decide on their quality for the intended use. It was during this process that I noted the names of the dhows: Nawalilkher and Tusitiri.
Nawalilkher in the 80s.
Tusitiri as we saw it in the 80s.
Curious, I Googled the names to see if, by any chance, they were still with us. To my surprise I not only found them but learnt that they seemed to be still in “active service” forty years after I took the pictures and probably quite a few more from the time they were built.
I then contacted the owners and they confirmed that the vessels were the same after looking at my photographs and I got some interesting information.
Nawalilkher is now a floating restaurant with the Tamarind Group and they call it “Nawali” for short. The dhow was refurbished to a five star cruising restaurant now moored at the Mombasa Tamarind jetty. The vessel can accommodate seventy commensals for dinner, leaving room for dancing on the night cruises. It sails everyday except Sunday for both the day and evening cruises. Unfortunately, the company would not let me use their pictures to illustrate this post and referred me to their web site for more information[1].
Tusitiri, nicely restored, is sailing as an exclusive floating lodge along the Indian Ocean coast, owned by the Enasoit Collection[2]. It is believed that it was bought by its present owners around 1995 in Lamu where she was also originally built. I was also assured that the dhow is being treasured by them and is very much loved as I can see by the way it is being kept. It mainly stays within the Lamu archipelago but it has gone as far as Mozambique and she is considered by its owners as “…without doubt the most beautiful dhow on the East African coast”.
The restored Tusitiri sailing somewhere at the Kenya coast. Picture credit: The Enasoit Collection.
A great picture of the restored Tusitiri. Picture credit: The Enasoit Collection.
A view of Tusitiri’s deck today. Picture credit by The Enasoit Collection.
A tropical night on board Tusitiri. Picture credit by The Enasoit Collection.
I must admit that I am quite pleased to have found the dhows again and clearly it is worthwhile to follow up certain things, as you never know where your search will take you.
[1] See: http://www.tamarind.co.ke/tamarind-dhow/
[2] See: http://www.enasoit.com/
Acknowledgements and credits
John and Lulu Clark, Managers of Tusitiri Dhow, The Enasoit Collection for the information and use of Tusitiri pictures. Pictures of Tusitiri by Robin Moore Photography and/or Stevie Mann Photography.
Akoko Vivian of Dhow & Rest Reservations of The Tamarind Group confirmed the identity of Nawalilkher and assisted me with useful information.
Camping in Kenya. Maasai Mara Game Reserve.
We “learnt” lots of the secrets of camping in Africa from our friend Paul, another veterinarian working at Muguga, Kenya. Soon we had broken the barrier of “camping among the beasts” as most campsites in Kenya were unfenced. We often visited Paul during his long spells residing in the bush while working in the various national parks and/or in the fringes of parks and game reserves.
One of Paul’s camp sites in the Maasai Mara. His camp hand Tobias is on the left.
It was great fun and we soon started to go at it alone. Preparations included the procurement of a few second hand camping items that, apart from a small tent, a couple of chairs and a foldable table, included a large frying pan with an extremely long handle, as my wife did not and still does not enjoy cooking at the fire. For working purposes, I could use a large ICIPE tent that added great comfort to our outdoor lives.
While in Kenya we practiced “basic” camping!
Working camping was still basic but we had the advantage of a large tent.
Our most frequent camping destination was the Maasai Mara where not only Paul often worked but it was an area I needed to drive through on my way to Intona ranch in the Transmara where I was working with ticks and tick-borne diseases as explained earlier[1]. Luckily my work took us there regularly as I needed to supervise the on-going observations as as well as to bring new personnel to be stationed at the ranch.
Camping in the Maasai Mara very often involved close encounters with different animals and you needed to be alert at all times as elephants and buffalo were present in large numbers, in addition to the normal and harmless savanna dwellers such as giraffe and the various antelopes. Although leopards were quite rare, the place was a predators’ playground.
Near Kichwa Tembo Camp, Maasai Mara.
The Mara-Serengeti area is world famous for the annual migration of wildebeest and zebra and luckily we witnessed this unique event several years (in fact we watched it every year while in Kenya!). The richness of easy prey is matched by an equal abundance of predators. Lions were a common find and spotted hyenas were really plentiful. So, our camping regularly had some exciting moments, particularly after dark!
From the start we learnt that we were safe (well, as safe as we could be) while inside our tents and we were always extremely careful when moving around camp, particularly when light started to fade. Although some friends preferred to keep fires burning all night, we did not but whether this has an effect on nocturnal visitors I do not know. All I know is that rhinos are believed to stamp out campfires, a fact I could not corroborate as rhinos were already few in the 80’s[2].
Helen was the daughter of a well-known veterinarian from the UK that had come to spend some time in Kenya[3]. We met her at a social event and, as she was looking for opportunities to travel around, I invited her to join my wife and I on one of our regular trips to the Transmara. She immediately accepted the offer.
So, as arranged, we picked Helen up one early morning as the journey was a long one over rough roads and we wanted to arrive to the shores of the Mara River, adjacent to the Maasai Mara, early as this would enable us to go for a short game drive with Helen.
I had an agreement with the Mara Buffalo Camp to stay close to them and I was also kindly allowed to use their facilities. Usually we would arrive at our Mara margin campsite with just enough light left to set-up camp, dine and go to bed. Sometimes our departure from Muguga would get delayed and we would arrive after dark and needed to set up our tent with the car lights!
We would then spend the following day driving to Intona where we would usually camp in the ranch for two or three nights while the work was done and return without stopping all the way back to Nairobi because I had another on-going trial in Muguga and time was quite short.
The journey with Helen went as planned and we arrived in good time. After setting up camp, by mid afternoon we went for a game drive to show some of the beautiful Maasai Mara and its animals to her. We saw most of the usual plains game but failed to find any predators, apart from the ubiquitous spotted hyenas that were extremely common in the area.
A spotted hyena dealing with a wildebeest carcass.
Tired from the long journey and the additional game drive, our dinner was a quick affair and we were in our tents rather early as we had another journey the following day whose duration was difficult to predict as we needed to negotiate some bad roads that were often muddy and slippery.
While laying on our camp beds, as usual, the lions started to roar far away and we called Helen’s attention towards them. She was very excited to hear them but soon our exchanges got interrupted by sleep.
I am not sure at what time the lions’ roars woke us up but probably it was midnight or perhaps later. We could hear several lions getting closer as their growls gradually got louder. We estimated that they were probably coming along the river although we could not be sure. I did not wish to open the tent door to have a look for fear of attracting unwanted attention so we could only imagine the lions approaching our camp!
After a few more minutes of stillness during which my wife and I waited with bated breath, the visitors arrived, preceded by loud roaring a few seconds earlier and followed by the noise of “flying hooves”. The rumpus did not last more than a couple of minutes as, apparently, the lions were -we also assumed- going for a herd of zebra and/or wildebeest although we did not hear them calling. We did hear a few items being knocked over in the process and then the animals left, luckily.
Only then we remembered Helen! We shouted at her telling her not to move from her tent but, although we tried to get an answer from her, we failed. Concerned, I shone the torch in the direction of her tent and I was relieved to see that it was still intact although I could confirm that some of our belongings had indeed suffered the consequences of the tresspasers!
As the animals moved off, we gradually relaxed and decided to leave things for the morrow as Helen was surely fine and tidying up the camp could wait. I only hoped that she would not decide to go to the toilet before daylight. So it was back to a rather fitful sleep but nothing else disturbed us that night.
The Oloololo escarpment as a spectacular backdrop for a zebra herd, Maasai Mara.
The following morning, while water was on the fire, we gathered table, chairs, towels and a few other minor items while we checked the abundant footprints in an attempt to unravel the events of the night. The conclusion was that several lions had been there chasing zebras through our camp as we failed to find wildebeest prints. The kill, if any, had taken place somewhere else and we decided to look for it afterwards on our way to Intona.
One of the prides resident near our camping area in the Maasai Mara.
While we were busy around camp, we heard “Good morning” and we saw Helen emerging from her small tent. Only at that point I paid attention to her tent and felt relieved that it was still intact. It was one of these mountaineering jobs, low on the ground and of a bright blue colour! Helen looked well rested and asked us what we were doing. “We are looking at the spoor, trying to understand what happened last night” I replied. Helen gave me a look of confusion and said: “why, what happened? I slept all night and even did not go to the toilet!”
A male lion feeding on a topi kill at the Maasai Mara.
I was quite relieved by her ignorance of the facts and felt tempted not to say anything but I thought the truth should be voiced so I told her the whole story. Her eyes got larger as I talked and at first she had doubts about my story so I had to show her the footprints of the various animals and, eventually, she believed me and she was both concerned but also disappointed to have missed the action!
Although we took a detour looking for a possible kill nearby, we failed to find any traces of neither prey nor predators, although we knew they were watching us!
A zebra kill at the Maasai Mara.
[1] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/life-and-work-in-kenya-intona-2/ and https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/intona-ranch1/
[2] I leave the research about whether this is true or not to you as Google does not seem to give a straight answer.
[3] Years later, her father was the External examiner of my PhD Thesis.
Lord of the (dead) flies
While living in Maputo (Mozambique) we rented a house that came with a gardener, as it is usually the case very in these places. His name was Erasmus and he was a very easy-going and religious young man. Often in the afternoon we were regularly treated to a choir of holy hymns when he and the afternoon security guard sang together. We later learnt that they were at the choir at the same church and they were rehearsing. I must admit that -as it is the norm in Africa- they sang very well.
The house was built in an area of Maputo liable to flooding and, perhaps because of the humidity and heat, we had a serious problem with flies. The latter became an issue during the rainy season, despite us keeping all rubbish in sealed containers that were removed regularly.
After some search we found the solution: a flytrap, a transparent plastic contraption that, when filled with a smelly solution, would attract flies to it where, unable to escape, they would die.
In consultation with Odette, our housemaid, the trap was placed by the kitchen door with the objective of intercepting the flies before getting into the house. The siting was an instant success as, after a few days, flies began to get trapped. Then we confronted a problem: the smell! It gradually increased as more flies accumulated and soon Odette started to make remarks about the fedor[1] that started to emanate from the offending trap.
View of the garden and the casuarina tree where the trap was hanged at the end.
After a couple of days of putting up with the stink, Odette moved the trap away from the house without opposition as, despite being of small complexion, she was clearly in charge of the household personnel by virtue of being the employee closest to us.
The trap stayed in the new location, close to the security guards’ changing quarters, for a few days until they staged a “mini demo” to protest about the stench and Odette agreed to hang it far away, under a casuarina tree where its smell did not interfere with anyone.
Peace restored, the contraption continued to hammer the flies but soon it filled to near bursting point and it became less effective as no more flies would be able to get in anymore. So, Odette stroke again! She asked Erasmus to empty it. Poor old Erasmus had no option but to accept Odette’s request, being her sidekick.
The above background to this saga has been reconstructed afterwards talking to the various participants and witnesses as at the time I still had working duties.
I was at home when I heard a strange noise in the garden and went out to investigate. I saw Odette overseeing Erasmus work from a prudent distance. Erasmus -looking quite sick- was busy emptying the trap while pausing frequently to move away and take deep breaths of pure air while trying to keep his lunch down! Eventually, the job was done and Erasmus started to look his normal self while Odette looked rather amused! I am sure that it was probably his toughest assignment ever.
It was a very quiet Erasmus that walked past after completing the cleaning and that got into the toilet. It was too evident that he needed a long shower to be allowed on public transport to get back home!
After the operation, the trap was not cleaned again, a decision that I suspect followed some hard bargaining between Erasmus and Odette. In 2013 I retired and we left Maputo so the flytrap was packed away and it disappeared from our memories. Since then we have commuted between Uruguay, Argentina and Zimbabwe, avoiding the winter as much as possible.
Harare, being at about 1,500m of altitude has an extremely pleasant climate and it is almost fly- and mosquito-free for most of the year but some flies start to appear just before the rains and their numbers increase when it gets wet. Last year (2016) , the rains started on time and the flies were more numerous than normal.
A consensus was reached between my wife and Stephen -our caretaker- that preventive action was indicated to keep the flies in check. So, lo and behold, the infamous flytrap re-appeared! I immediately remembered Erasmus and felt sorry for Stephen but kept quiet…
This time, as experienced users and with the benefit of hindsight, we placed the trap far from all forms of human and pet habitation and positive results did not take long as the trap had not lost any of its effectiveness. Flies came in in numbers, again probably from the whole of our neighbourhood and, as it happened in Maputo, after about a week, it was obvious that a cleanup was needed.
My thoughts immediately went to Stephen and I was totally taken by surprise when my wife asked me to do the cleaning! “What about Stephen?” was my immediate response. “He is going to the rural area tomorrow, to prepare the land for planting” was her reply. I found this as a very suspect situation and I even thought that Erasmus had intervened in a long-distance revenge!
So it was the trap and I! I decided to take the only course of action left to me: my often practiced procrastination to see if I could last until Stephen’s return and delegate the task to him. To my regret I failed as some flies were spotted in the kitchen despite my efforts to kill and hide the corpses.
So, like Erasmus before me, I braved the cleanup. I have to confess that I had an advantage over Erasmus as my training and practice as a veterinarian had exposed me to a variety of emanations from decomposing nature. I also found a good face mask (from the times of the flu pandemic scare!) that I decided to wear, apart from rubber gloves.
When I believed I was ready, I went for it! Remembering Erasmus, I refrained from eating prior to the event. I unhooked the trap from the tree without major problems and I sprayed its contents with insecticide to kill the flies that were still alive inside. Emptying it was not as easy as it looked. Being lazy I tried to do it without removing the lid but this was not possible. Opening it became inevitable.
This action created a blast of malodorous miasma that hit my covered nostrils at full blast. The smell nearly knocked me off my feet and I decided that it was time for a pause to think (read “to keep all my innards in their right places”). At that stage I remember poor old Erasmus again as even the photographer used a powerful zoom to take the shots shown!
The pause worked and I managed to empty the trap from its burden and re-charge it with fresh water and powder so that it could continue functioning. I was quite happy to set it up again as I knew that the next cleanup would fall on Stephen and it would be my time to watch!
After hanging the newly-charged contraption I needed to dispose of the fly bodies by burying them as recommended to prevent any flies’ eggs from hatching. As an added precaution I also sprayed the fly mass with an insecticide and buried them deep.
The procedure over, I was triumphant for a while, until flies started to come towards me, mistaking me for the trap (now clean and smell-less) as I must have stunk badly although I was unable to smell anything at the time and for a while afterwards. Flies still followed me into the house when I entered to have a badly needed shower.
[1] Stink in Portuguese.
A Bushsnob out of Africa 