visitor

Curious night visitor

Most camps in Zimbabwe are unfenced or, if fenced, the wires are missing, allowing most animals to go through.

Usually, while camping, we place a camera trap to know what goes around camp after sunset. I have posted some of the results earlier (https://bushsnob.com/2022/09/24/night-visitors/ and https://bushsnob.com/2017/10/25/night-visitor/).

We try to place the camera pointing at a used wildlife path that nocturnal animals are likely to use, usually on the way to the water.

Probably because they smell different, camera traps attract attention from some of the passing animals as it happened in this occasion.

We were camping at the Masuma dam picnic site, one of our favourite places in the Hwange National Park where a new fence had just been placed in an effort to separate campers from large mammals. So, as usual, before midnight, we retired to bed after placing our camera pointing at a path that followed the fence towards the dam. “That should be a good spot.” I remember commenting with my son. It was…

In the early hours of the morning, apart from the usual hyena calls, a lion started to roar nearby, a futile effort to compete with the louder noise the elephants were making at the water edge closer to the camp.

The following morning we went to collect the camera and it was not there! We searched for it until we found it a few metres away from its original place. The strap had been chewed and the protective carcass was cracked! We collected the pieces and, anxious to look at its memory card, we returned to camp.

It took a bit of study to understand what had taken place. (The first 4 pictures are stills from the short videos taken by the camera).

First sign. Dust that indicates that an animal walks past.

The camera being moved.

Camera still in movement and the culprit appears briefly.

The camera is dropped on the floor and lies pointing towards the fence.

Although the camera was on the ground by now, the unmistakingly shape of a lion flank can be seen. The animal moves from top to bottom.

Finally, we recovered the camera. Luckily, we managed to recover the memory card and reconstruct the events that had taken place.

We have camped in this same spot for several years without nocturnal incident showing once again that tents are safe.

The telephone rang once

Despite the limitations we found almost daily at a rather remote place such as Bedele, the work progressed. By mid 1989 we had already accumulated good information on tick population dynamics and distribution and trained a large number of veterinary people from the three provinces. We were quite pleased and then we even started looking into other work venues such as acaricide resistance, tickborne diseases and the possible use of local plants in tick control.

  • A well attended training session.
  • Practical demonstration.
  • Discussing results.

Our laboratory was basic but sufficient for our needs although communications were a severe weakness. We did not have access to telex or telegrams, the only means of communication at the time, together with land telephone lines. We did have a telephone set but it sat in my office noiselessly from the time of our arrival. We soon learnt to ignore it joking that it could be used to put some flowers in it to decorate our lab! This was the situation when, one day, it did ring.

Shocked we all stopped what we were doing to pay attention to this unusual event for which we were quite unprepared. One of the Ethiopian colleagues, rather weary, pick up the receiver and answered. Judging by the tone of the conversation rather than the words in Amharic, I could gather that something serious was happening. I got worried as it looked and sounded like bad news.

Once the conversation was over, we learnt that the head of our donor, the UNDP Representative, was coming to our laboratory to see the work that both FAO projects, the one on trypanosomiasis headed by Jan and ours were doing.

Quite excited, we informed our Director of the unexpected but important news. Used to visits of political nature, he immediately put in motion a number of activities to ensure that our important guests would get a good reception, including the necessary visits, lunch and other refreshments.

We also prepared and rehearsed our technical presentations trying to impress the visitor. I have already mentioned that, as far as UNDP was concerned, our project was regarded as a problem, a consequence of the unfortunate delays it had suffered because of the sickness of my predecesor and my delayed arrival.

The visit was our only chance to get some more funding to continue our work. We also arranged for a field visit to nearby farmer in case time allowed.

So, two days later, when the guests were meant to arrive the laboratory had been cleaned and a new Ethiopian flag was flying at the front of the building where all personnel was lined up for a rather long wait.

Finally the convoy arrived and the car carrying the Representative stopped at the front of the building. The Director of the Laboratory stepped forward to greet him. The solicitous driver opened the door and the man emerged but, before he could even shake hands with the Director, something as unexpected as unfortunate happened: a rather large wasp came from nowhere and stung our guest somewhere in the face!

It was a powerful sting that left our visitor motionless and not sure of what to do, apart from holding his face! He tried to ignore the sting but the swelling (and I am sure the pain also) increased rather fast despite the ice that was applied to try to stop it.

After a while, concerned for a possible allergic reaction to set in, the decision was taken for his return to Jimma and later Addis just in case. that he would need further medical attention tht was not available in Bedele.

To say that the rushed departure of such an important official created generalized consternation would be an understatement as all efforts made by all were rather wasted. We remained with his assistants -well known to us- but feeling a sense of anti-climax. The last chance to change the fate of our project through our planned presentations was gone and, of minor importance of course, our only telephone call was unfortunately for nothing!