December proves to be a month of variety ...

Wednesday, 06 December 2006

I am finally sitting here in my office tent having skirted the camp and sneaked in the back because Oliver is back on the front lawn after such a long absence. Welcome though he is and it is indeed a pleasure to see him again it is a little irritating that he is eating up all the shooters that I had hoped to finish spreading the lawn with over the next few days.

Had Munde done what I asked and started collecting them yesterday it would not be so bad so I guess I am really upset with Munde.

The week got off to a rough start when I had to discipline the staff for fishing from the gully right in front of me while I was cooking dinner. I decided that it merited issuing written warnings. It is a frustrating situation in that the Zambian government has finally woken up to the issue of over-fishing and proclaimed a total ban but nobody down here takes a blind bit of notice and there is no visible law enforcement.

Over the last couple of nights there have been thunder storms and I have been trying to take some lightning shots. I am going to take a look now and see how they have come out.

Thursday, 07 December 2006

My mistake, the elephant is not Oliver. He has different distinguishing marks, a cist on his abdomen and a notch near the tip of his right tusk.

I need more practice with the lightning pictures, a narrower aperture possibly.

Saturday, 09 December 2006

Thursday night was a good evening. I had a braii with Hugo and Esther from Kasaka and Anna came with a guy called Anton who was visiting CLZ from Eco-training in South Africa. It seems that Grant has been working away in the background to forge some sort of partnership in training. All news to me but then there is no reason why I should be aware of the strategy behind this particular part of the operation.

Monday, 11 December 2006

Finally I have my lightning photograph, taken last night as the guys were watching James Bond on the computer. I am quite pleased with myself. However, I am still pissed off with Canon for not fixing my camera properly in the first place. I am sending them an email to see if they can do the whole thing by courier from Chirundu. The mail is taking forever to send as I have attached sample photos and they are huge. I can only hope that someone in Elstree understands my predicament and comes to my assistance. It seems though that the place is staffed entirely by minions who are unwilling or unable to take personal responsibility and ownership of the task I am setting before them. Hopefully they will prove me wrong.

Yesterday Chrispine and I surveyed the new roads that Chongwe and Royal have put in to avoid their properties. Now that I know that CC land goes across the road I am more inclined to the new plan. It would give me fifteen hectares instead of my current two and I am sure I can make a deal with Chicoda on the sublet.

Saturday, 16 December 2006

This morning my satellite system has decided not to work. The SAT light is merrily blinking away telling me that there is a satellite up there waiting for me but no way in hell for me to connect. This on the day when I am really going to start to need being in touch as CLZ management are pulling out and I am going to be on my own down here.

It has been a frustrating few days for things going wrong. The electrical system in my car has also started to play up and I now have no hazard or headlights. Those at least I can get Chops to look at tomorrow and hopefully resolve but the satellite has to mend itself.

Yesterday I placed my camera in the hands of DHL to get it to Canon in the UK for fixing. I turned up at the Chirundu office to find that the guys there had never actually dispatched a package before but they were willing to help and enthusiastically went about finding out what was needed. The first hurdle was weighing the package. We all racked our brains to think who might have an accurate set of scales in this crazy town. Eventually I thought of Zambeef and took the parcel over there to be weighed much to the confusion and amusement of the local women discussing their meat purchases for the weekend. Having got the weight, we managed to get a price from the Lusaka office. Then we had to find and fill out the waybill. Humphrey Bwalya, the guy in charge had never done this before so I did the paperwork as he looked on and learnt. My Leatherman came in handy again as we had to measure the size of the box and no-one had a ruler.

So I handed over the money and walked away feeling a tiny bit pleased with myself on having achieved a small victory. My camera would soon be on its way. The feeling of achievement quickly changed to frustration when I discovered that there was no beer in Chirundu (the other major part of my mission). I bought out the local tavern’s entire stock of Castle at retail price just had to hope that Kanyemba had some and Steve would be willing to let me buy it. Fortunately they did and he was. Meanwhile Patros and Chrispine were off shopping for themselves. Chrispine turned up with a couple of lengths of roofing material that we had to fit in the car somehow and Patros turned up with a dustbin.

The drive home was less eventful than I had anticipated. The heavy rain that had pelted the ferry on the way back turned out to be very localised and the road was fine. We actually had a few nice sightings of a contented elephant family, my first black kite of the season and a group of crested guinea fowl right close to camp.

Back in camp I picked up an email from Humphrey. We had got it wrong. The charge was calculated differently and was not the actual weight but calculated from the size of the package. I owed a further K153,000. I managed to think quickly and invited Anna and Adrian over for sundowners. I could pass the money to them to take to the office on their way out. It would entail a slight delay but not a major problem.

All I needed to do now was monitor the package on the internet and warn Canon that it is on its way; except I cannot do that because the satellite is down today.

I wonder if Adrian has disconnected the CLZ system. I expect so. I had better get on the radio now.

Tuesday, 19 December 2006

To make up for the delays in the last couple of months I have decided to put up this page early. In truth it is because I want to have my lightning picture available quickly and although I am aware that it is not the best example of its type it is the only one I am going to get this year.

That is because my camera is on its way to England, I think. I just checked the website and it says “shipment on hold” which could mean a number of things but I am hoping it simply means waiting for a place on the plane. British Airways fly today so when I check tonight I will know if it went with them or not.

Things are breaking down all over the place. The carburettor on the water pump is now held in place by a loop of copper wire and gaffer tape. I have no idea where I can get a replacement for that!

Still no lights on the car and Chops has gone missing. He was supposed to be back at CLZ and working on it today for me. I wonder if the old CLZ Land Cruiser is not yet fixed and he is delayed in town.

The radio chatter is already reaching absurd levels with no managers in the valley and the workers are chattering away about all sorts of trivia including fishing as they are completely ignoring the national ban for the breeding season. I suppose taking a few fish here and there cannot be too bad and without any form of enforcement there is nothing I can do about it anyway.

The new warden seems to be shaking things up a bit. There are three teams of scouts in the park right now. I know this because one team leader is constantly on the radio moaning that he has insufficient rations, another team leader is complaining that he is sick and the third, actually seems to be reporting from patrols. Strangely that is progress after months of complete absence.

Saturday, 23 December 2006

Today I looked up to see two bushbucks on my front lawn. It was amazing and the first time I have seen any here in all these months. I hope they come back as the place is being monopolised by the baboons who are consuming my bumper harvest of mangoes.

Sadly it looks as though the baobab is going to fail me again. All the hopes I had of a successful fruiting season have been blown away by the high winds that precede each storm. It is a little disappointing and I would not mind quite as much if we actually got some of the rain here in camp. It always seems to be just out of reach.

Last night or rather, yesterday afternoon, there was a hunting party on the main road outside CLZ. They shot an impala there. Everybody was on the radio asking what was going on and it seems that they had some special permission to hunt and were with an escort scout. It strikes me as very odd that the patrol team up on the Chongwe River did not know about them. It was no surprise that Command Control did not inform anyone else though.

Wednesday, 27 December 2006

I had a lovely Christmas at Kanyemba. The Pollards, who I first met in 2004 when signing the lease on this little plot, came with friends and took over all the chalets. I was put up in a tent in the bushes which was absolutely fine and comfortable except for the lack of a toilet and shower.

I had hoped to impress them all with my card trick but the opportunity never came up, maybe next year.

Saturday, 30 December 2006

The old generator is sort of working. If we can fix the fuel system with a pipe of some sort we will have a working generator that I can give to CC at the end of this lease. Chops came up trumps again with his patience and enthusiasm for engines. It took several hours of determined effort to isolate all the problems which were mainly due to neglect and lack of care in maintenance but we got there in the end.

I have been trying to get the new database up and running for Anna and Adrian when they return at the end of January. It is proving a lot harder to do than I imagined because I do not know the vagaries of Access as I should and am sometime finding myself swearing at the screen in frustration.

Still no rain here.

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