With the rains come the insects. The rains as such haven’t really started but the insects can sense it’s their time to make an appearance. I always check the outside lights for interesting specimens in the morning. This moth was high on the back door yesterday but when I came home in the evening it was in Kharma’s bowl. Here it is sitting on my shoe – hardly a natural setting but certainly different!
I didn't know they were so furry! Click on image to enlarge.
The Dance Trust of Zimbabwe held its annual Starlight Dancing show last month literally under the stars outside the National Ballet premises. I was invited along to take photos. I’ve also been invited to take photos of the “Stars of Tomorrow” show later this week where the various dance studios show off the youngest dancers (I guess it will be entertaining if nothing else). One day I will be paid to do this! Actually, I don’t mind doing it for free. I need the practice and a bit of publicity is good. My last year’s photos of Starlight Dancing made it onto the cover and inside of Hello Harare monthly “what’s on” publication and were credited to the wrong person!
Early season storms in Zimbabwe can be ferocious; lots of lightening, wind and often hail without a lot of rain. This season’s storms have been unusually savage. Last night I was sitting on the verandah and I could hear the gust front approaching. It was not long before the power went off, came back on and then went off until around midday today.
The various global warming models have predicted that weather will become more extreme. Whether the ferocity of the recently experienced storms is anything to do with this would be very difficult to say but I cannot help but think that the appalling bush fires of the dry season are not helping the situation. Burnt veld of course is darker than grassed veld and therefore heats up a lot more.
In Zimbabwe dollar days we actually paid a carbon tax based on the size of the car engine of the vehicle we used. It had nothing to do with CO2 emissions or any sort of remedial action on the pollution – it was just another tax. It may even still exist for foreigners bringing their cars into the country but we found that the disc that had to be displayed on the windscreen as proof of payment was easily forged with a scanner and a bit of image processing so it did not last long. Maybe the Greeks could learn a thing or two about tax evasion from us!
Last weekend I took the Landcruiser up to Nyanga to get away from the heat and work. I did not give a lot of thought to the CO2 footprint I was generating. Paragliding was off the cards due to the storms around but I still managed to get a few good photos of flowers, this being the flower season. On the way back I went through the tail end of a storm near Juliasdale that had dumped a sizeable amount of hail on shade cloth covering a Hypericum crop and another near Ruwa that slowed traffic considerably.
Driving in to Harare from Barwick mining village on the Great Dyke this afternoon I was struck by how little of the veldt had NOT been burnt this year. It is definitely the worst I can remember seeing it. But there are a number of plants which are dependent on fire for their life cycle and some have some quite spectacular flowers. So I’d taken the opportunity this weekend of finding some to photograph. I will add names as I find them.
Blue headed lizard outside my back door
Normally very shy this blue-headed lizard posed for some time on a stump outside the kitchen door on Saturday afternoon. The black background is shadow on the ground. I cropped the picture slightly – that is all!
As I write this Jenni is sleeping on the couch. She will get up just now, stretch and make her way past me to the bedroom where she will climb up on my bed and make herself comfortable on the pillows with a gentle sigh. On her way past she might give me a glance, just to check on me. Her tail will be high in that Ridgeback confident attitude. Or so I imagine.
Actually Jenni is sleeping outside my east-facing window, next to Tina under the “Angel Bells” rose that I planted over her grave. She was cold, poor girl, when we buried her this morning so I covered her with the fleece I’d been wearing. I left her head uncovered so that she could hear me in the bedroom more easily and I also put a biscuit in her bowl by her side – just for a snack before breakfast. Jenni was Tina’s sister by another litter so hopefully they are sharing happy experiences although they never knew each other.
Jenni came to me last night in distress, she shivered next to my chair so I stroked her and asked what was wrong. Thinking she needed to go outside as her belly was obviously distended I opened the back door and she rocketed out in a very uncharacteristic manner. I immediately called her to no avail. Now Jenni ALWAYS comes when called, not always immediately but sooner rather than later. Now I was worried. I got out a torch and went looking. Eventually I saw her eyes reflecting back from the bottom of the garden. I called her and she came to me then ran off along the verandah. I called her again and she lay next to me, her head in my lap as I stroked her. I had to get her into the Landcruiser but needed to get organized. I called her into the house and she ran in, again uncharacteristically fast. I expected to find her inside but after searching the house I realized she’d just run straight out the front door. Now I really was panicking. After about 15 minutes of calling and searching I phoned Trevor to come and help me then spotted her eyes by the side of the house. She was whimpering and groaning which I’d never heard her do. I finally managed to get her into the car and we set off to the 24hr veterinary surgery on 2nd Street.
There were no lights on in the surgery (power cut) which was not a good start. Not getting a response from the doorbell I phoned the number listed next to it and got a reply. A side door opened and several people came out to help. I explained the problem to the duty vet and he gave Jenni a cursory examination. I was worried that she’d maybe swallowed a sharp bone at the microlight club that afternoon and an X-ray would be in order. The vet explained that he thought that was unlikely and anyway, they were on inverter power and couldn’t do an X-ray but I should leave Jenni there over night and they would sedate her and see what developed. This sounded like a really bad idea to me. I knew that the Kamfinsa vet would be available after hours (which the 2nd Street lot did not know) so we got through to him and I took Jenni over.
It took the vet a while to arrive as he had to go and get an assistant for surgery but he took one look at Jenni’s distended stomach and her distress and pronounced that she had a twisted stomach and needed immediate surgery. I watched the surgery start from a distance but decided I’d better move off before I fell down. I scratched Jenni’s chin and went to the next room. After an hour it was all over and Jenni was moved to a recovery kennel. The vet was pleased with how it had gone and despite having to remove her spleen which was too badly damaged from lack of blood said that he’d be very disappointed if she did not recover. He did caution that an embolism was still a very real danger but he gave her a powerful painkiller to keep her quiet and promised to check up at around 2a.m.
On the way back across town I wondered if it would be OK to take Jenni up to Nyanga in 2 weekends time. We are going to go up for the long weekend for some much needed paragliding and it would be unthinkable not to take her – she’s always liked going up there. I’d ask in the morning.
When I phoned at 8 this morning the vet was still doing the rounds so I was told to phone back in half an hour. At 08.24 I got a missed call from a number in the Kamfinsa area that I did not recognize. My heart sank. I called back but it was engaged. Then the call came through. “Hello, is that Andrew Roberts?”. “I’m afraid I have bad news about your dog.” Jenni had been up and wagging her tail when he checked at 02.15 but when the staff opened up at 8 she was found dead. It seemed likely that an embolism had indeed struck her down.
My Gentle Jen, Jenni Girl, Chienne Sauvage, Joli Jenni, Jensie or just plain Madam had left me. There is a rose on top of her grave too, a red floribunda one of unknown name. Jeanette laid some of the blooms that I’d cut off the bush next to it after it had been watered and settled in. I am tired now. Tired from a short night last night and the grief today. I must try and get some sleep tonight. Maybe in the moonlight I will see Jenni lying on her old sheepskin on the foot of my bed. She might even get up in the night, turn three times to make a better “nest” and lie down again. Then again it may just be a ghost.
Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique was one of the first national parks I ever saw as a child. I am not sure if I remember much about it as a 6 year-old or I remember the photos. It was famous for its lions that used a derelict camp on the edge of a flood plain as a vantage point, climbing onto the flat roof for a better view (presumably). Most of the game was shot out during Mozambique’s protracted civil war and last time I visited the main camp the bullet holes were still clearly visible on the buildings. They are still there if you look around but this last weekend we were more interested in getting into the park and anyway, the main camp is a bright, clean shadow of its former self!
We were not disappointed. A lion too pigged-out on warthog to move lay less than 5m from the road and a gaggle of hissing, squabbling vultures devoured the remains of the warthog not 20m further along the track. Bushbuck and warthog were in abundance (a lack of predators perhaps?) and lots of waterbuck and impala dotted the floodplain near the famous “lion camp” though the roof of the latter was no longer accessible to anyone except perhaps equipped with a ladder. We spotted some truly massive crocs in the rivers and pelicans and crowned cranes waded in the water holes and flood plain. We also spotted a rare (for this park) Cape buffalo and some massive leguaans (water monitor lizards). The weather was ideal for the park which can be oppressive in summer and nights were cold and refreshing. A long drive for a weekend but well worthwhile!
Driving back to Harare yesterday afternoon I had plenty of time to ponder the differences between Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Mozambique is populated, heavily populated at least along the road. The Zimbabwe countryside is by contrast visibly empty, the result of more than a decade of willful destruction of the farming sector. Mozambique is grubby – this impression is not helped by the Portuguese architecture which was predominantly a love affair with concrete. And there is rubbish everywhere. Mozambique almost certainly has a bigger economy than Zimbabwe but it seems poorer – the people one sees in Zimbabwean towns appear more wealthy and are better dressed (which is odd).
Flower sex (well it IS that isn't it?)
I have a new camera lens – a 105mm Nikon micro – and this is just a taste of its capabilities!
Nap time
What does “No thieves” mean in this context? No thieves welcome? We don’t cut for thieves? We are not thieves?
Maribou stork
Not a brilliant photo but it beats commenting on the Financial Gazette that I bought yesterday, looking for material to blog – it was just too depressing. The maribous congregate on some acacias next to the municipal rubbish tip where they scavenge. Of course the sun chose to go behind some clouds as I got there.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 