Nakavango

 

“The bush is lovely, lush and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

A version of the original poem by Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

 

Feeling inspired by Robert Frost’s poem, I wrote the above lines as a goodbye message to the Nakavango Conservation Programme in Zimbabwe, because just like the poet, no matter how much I felt enchanted by this little nature refuge, I had to move on. I chose to volunteer at Stanley & Livingstone private game reserve as it is home to the big five animals, including the critically endangered black rhino. I’d like to share with everybody my unforgettable adventure partly to keep it alive, as a diary to myself, but also to inform others about African wildlife, its beauty and its hardship.

Living in close proximity to wild animals, even for such a short time, brought me happiness and peace (but I have to admit that waking up in the middle of the night in my tent to the roar of lions sent chills down my spine). Every morning, I’d greet the day with the anticipation of new encounters in the bush. You’d know what I mean, if one day an enchanting leopardess casually crossed your path – or if you chanced upon a rhino with a six-month-old baby, hiding behind the bushes.

 

my drawing of a leopard we saw

Every day brought some new adventure, but probably one of the most memorable experiences was when we participated in the transfer of two male rhinos to a national park in Zambia, which took a couple of years to arrange, due to bureaucracy. We observed as the rhinos were tranquilised, checked, their horns trimmed, and put into special containers onto a truck. Armed men stood on both sides and a helicopter hovered watching above, to ensure the rhinos made it to safety. It’s a very dangerous operation, which sometimes ends in injury and death to animals, but was necessary to avoid interbreeding in the local rhino population.

It was fascinating to watch Zambia’s and Zimbabwe’s top vets in action and inspiring to be among men who were so brave and humble. It was also sad to know that one of the most experienced vets in the country has no one to follow in his footsteps, a sign of uncertain future for Zimbabwe’s wildlife 

Although working in wildlife conservation is such a rewarding experience, I must share the dark side of the story too. As a tourist on a safari in Chobe national park in Botswana you will hardly be told that the carcasses lying around are the bodies of elephants who have died in mass starvation. While elephants in Eastern Africa are threatened to the point of extinction due to the trade in ivory, elephant populations in Botswana and Zimbabwe are thriving to such an extent that they put the habitat and its diversity in danger.

The toll of park mismanagement is only too evident to the wildlife manager at V&S reserve, Ian du Preez. Only with a great effort can he tone down his emotions as he tells us about how he sees the wildlife of his country disappear.

There is a lot of sadness in his face, but sometimes it’s illuminated by a happy smile: “

I would have never exchanged my life in Africa for your life,” he says with conviction. It’s not easy to survive in Zimbabwe – there is no pension when you get old, a tube of toothpaste costs $30 in a shop, and you need to queue for hours to buy fuel. Despite the challenges of his life and his work in conservation, he thinks himself to be a happy man. Every day he can go and see elephants, antelope and all other wildlife – it’s at his doorstep.

 

 

Sunset over the savannah at our camping place in the reserve. We had plenty of visitors, including elephants, rhino and hippos. We heard lions from the distance

 

Bim and Bam

There was once a bear called Bim. He didn’t know it yet but this was going to be his name. Bim lived in a dense forest and now it was late spring, the forest floor covering itself in all sorts of wild fruits and other delicious and less delicious foods. The grass was soft to walk on and there were many intriguing fresh smells that invited a bear out of his winter’s refuge. Bim and his mum had been awake now for quite a while and there was hunger in their eyes.
Next to them lived a pack of wolves amongst which was a puppy who was incredibly curious about all things around him, and especially bears. I’ll call the puppy Bam, as he will be given that name later. Whenever he wandered off from the wolf pack, any little sound was enough to make his tiny body freeze in panic, but not enough to deter him. He would venture out, first in hesitant, slow steps, then with more confidence, delighting in these adventurous moments. The first time he saw a bear was a very special moment. As he was searching for new wonders on one of his adventures, he was suddenly hit on the head, then on his ear and tail. He looked up and saw furry paws dangling from the tree. It was so sudden that he gave out a rather pathetic growl, to which the bear responded with horrendous thunder. The earth shook beneath Bam’s feet and all he wished for was to see his mum. From that very moment, bears had fascinated him as they seemed to him more like gods hovering in the sky and sending thunder. He wished his growl, or even his mum’s, could reach such a low bass. Every time there was a thunder-storm, he imagined a hundred bears in the treetops singing their concerto.

The pack was on the move when shots pierced the air from different angles. The pack dispersed immediately leaving Bam alone. When silence filled the air, the little wolf slowly came out of hiding to inspect the scene. He could not believe what he saw! A bear on the ground! The bear seemed fast asleep. Then he noted some movement and shuffling in the leaves. Another bear! This time it was a tiny furry creature, a third of the size of the other one. Because the bear was so small, Bam no longer felt afraid and came closer with hesitant steps. The bear noticed and answered with a heartbreaking howl. With his paw he poked the sleeping bear, but the bear didn’t move. The little wolf came closer, sniffing the air around him. The smell was new and exciting, with a whole new texture and curious undertones: there was a pungent smell of a damp hole in the ground, tree bark with a sweet aroma of honey, and a totally new array of smells that challenged description. He decided he liked it and licked the traces of honey from the bear’s fur coat. The bear didn’t seem bothered at all but continued to murmur pitifully in a bear’s language.

There is quiet in the forest at a dark hour. The birds are chanting melancholy melodies which are not lullabies. The birds’ chirping is in fact a wake up call for the forest. The wolves are on the move hunting. Hunger wakes up the little bear and wolf from their forgetfulness and they soon walk away, each a different way, disappearing into darkness of the mysterious forest.

Stepping into the Sumatran jungle

I can’t say I have learned or done much conservation in one week, but I’ve taken the first step in the journey of nature conservation and a first glance at the Indonesian culture.

I had all sorts of fears about going on my own into this country, which had imposed sharia law in its northern province of Ace. I arrived late in the evening and went on a surreal four-hour ride from the airport to Batu Kapal. Sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned car, I felt as though I was watching a movie in a theatre. I was a little tired and worried, and my imagination started to play tricks on me.

We were passing through Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, whilst I had imagined it to be an endless succession of villages. The uncontrollable traffic seemed like grotesque scenery, making me feel as if I was entering the first circle of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy; or watching how Giotto’s frescoes of the Last Judgement come to life in Scrovegni Chapel.

The chaos of the bustling street with its countless street stalls was vaguely familiar – like the streets of Cambodia or Thailand, I thought – yet in a totally unfamiliar way. I think the strangeness came from the combination of this jungle-like chaos, radiating life and passion, with the strict signs of Muslim culture. How different from the sensations of ease and peace that emanated from the sites in the north of Thailand!

When we finally arrived, I was handed over to a cheerful and handsome man, Jaka, who radiated joie de vivre. With his long curly hair, big laughing eyes and a trusting look, I could not help but feel enchanted and let myself be carried on his motorbike up a windy, slippery path to his brand new hotel overlooking Batu Kapal jungle from the top of a hill. Whenever we went on the road, I heard him say, “Kasia, don’t worry, you are safe. You trust me, eh?”

With Jaka on his motorbike

The next day, after an adventurous and perilous ride through the jungle mud, I met the others, including Vyca (though his name sounded more like Pika) and the owner of the project Sean from Australia. I was also glad to meet Mutha, the cook and the only woman there who was to become my friend.

Sean initiated me, in a way, into the conservation world, as I had not met many (or, in fact, any) conservationists in person before. As we took turns flashing the torch in search of slow loris from the terrace (which never turned up), he told me about Jane Goodall, as well as about how his busy and successful life and career in HR had finally brought him here.

What I found very ingenious about the project site (still under development) was how it was sustainable: the compost will heat the running water flowing into the sink, while the cool air from the cave will travel to the rooms acting as air conditioning. They mentioned other fascinating ways of producing energy and electricity there..which I forget now!

I found the two young and charming managers of the project Vyca and Jaka very ambitious, with a drive and thirst for knowledge. They knew that for the project to work they had to gain the trust of the local people and get them involved, and so they won the approval of the chief of the Karo tribe, the indigenous people of Sumatra.

Vyca showing off his garden at the project site

Run by Sue and Sean from Australia, the Batu Kapal project is one of the first, if not the first initiative of its kind in this part of Sumatra. Due to the expansion of palm oil and rubber plantations, more and more forest on the outskirts of the park is disappearing; the tall trees are being cut down every day and the orangutans become trapped in one corner of the park, unable to cross to the other side. They are also often shot by local landowners who catch them eating their fruits. The goal of the project is to change attitudes among local people and encourage them to care for the wildlife and nature.

One morning I spotted up to seven orangutans on a single ficus tree. They share the tree with Thomas’s Leaf monkeys, which seems to contradict a commonly held belief that orangutans prefer to lead a solitary life. I could never get close enough to draw them from real life.

I felt that the people of the jungle, or the Sumatran people in general, are imitating the jungle in the architecture and their ways. When I look at the houses – the colours, the shapes, the decorations – all seems to me childishly clumsy, creative and unrestrained, carefree and wild. They grin at you just the way the people do, whose openness and sensuality in my mind defy the strict religious rules the society follows. These features continue to intrigue me.

I became good friends with Mutha during the project. It’s much harder to make female friends here. Men are always around, eager to help you, and it’s easier to chat with them. If you come to the jungle your guide will always be a man.

I heard about and saw many cases of relationships and marriages between Western women and Indonesian men. I was surprised to learn how some European women, for example, married men in Sumatra, then left their husbands behind and returned to Europe to bring up the children on their own. It made me feel somehow sad. Why wouldn’t they be together? I wondered.

My painting of Mutha

With Mutha in Bukit Lawang

Bim, the Romanian bear

I would like to share a story of Bim and other bears and wolfs in Libearty Bear Sanctuary Zarnesti, Romania. I did not plan to go there when I was figuring out where to go hiking in Romania. I found the bear place by accident, whilst looking at the attractions near the town I picked to stay. And so I was overjoyed when I discovered what a special place I was going to. It could hardly be a coincidence I thought.

Was I moved or did I simply feel a bit tired when tears started flowing down my face on the way out of the sanctuary? Some sadness in me was released and I felt relieved.

As I was walking on the gravel paths between the electric fences separating us from bears and wolves, I felt just such a mixture of sadness and happiness. All the time I felt we had to be quiet if just in awe of this moment of coming so close to these beautiful wild animals.

I was holding a square frame with a certificate behind a glass – an adoption certificate. I was leaving after one hour visit at the sanctuary, but with a feeling I was bonded to that place. And I can go back there any time I wish, just by looking at this picture.

I am thinking now on the train that there is somewhere out there a bear called Bim. I chose Bim because he was an orphaned little bear and I liked him immediately. He reminded me of Kissu, my cat, when I saw him. When Kissu came to us his furr was very thin, his tail missing and he was distressed and lonely. He had a home but apparently not a good one. He had and still has until now a habit of licking himself compulsively.

Bim was making a pitiful humming noise, neither a growl nor a howl, whilst sucking at his paw. The guide told us he missed his mum, who was found lying dead next to Bim. The wolf who was staying in the same enclosure became friends and playing companions with Bim.

Whenever I think about them, about Bim and the wolf, a story emerges in my mind…

 

Reflections on animal conservation

“Humankind will never be able to repay animals what we owe them.” Josef Vágner

I have just watched a documentary “Sudan: the last rhino.” It’s a thought-provoking film which is very sad, touching and funny at times. Perhaps it’s wrong to say it’s funny but the story of Sudan is incredible. What I found totally unexpected was how the last surviving male of the northern white species was saved from extinction nowhere else other than former Czechoslovakia, under the Iron Curtain. Could you think of a more random place to find the last northern white rhino? The harsh winters must have been mild in comparison to the cruelty inflicted on the other rhinos back in their homeland.

There were many northern white rhinos once, not as long ago as mid-XXth century. A brave and ingenious Czech man, Josef Vágner came to the DRC to catch some rhinos to bring back home with him, as he dreamed a safari park in what was then Czechoslovakia, similar to parks that had already existed in the West. It was a great idea to give to the people locked in the communist block the opportunity to learn about the world outside they could not see. So he brought Sudan and a couple of others with him so they could breed. Back then there were lots of rhinos, but what from the stellar perspective would seem less than a tenth of a second, all of the northern white rhinos in Africa vanished. They were brutally killed in what we can term as a genocide. The only ones surviving were kept in zoos. Suddenly there were only a couple of them left and they were all in the Czech Republic.

Sudan and his females had difficulty breeding. Is it the northern climate and being away from home that have contributed to their infertility? Now Sudan is too old and the scientists are desperately working on an in-vitro method to make the last females pregnant.

The thoughts about the documentary brings me to reflections on conservation, including my experience of helping the Asian elephants. Once you know an individual animal’s story it is much easier to relate to the wider problem of extinction of species. The Asian elephants are perhaps not under the threat of extinction, like the white northern rhino, but their numbers are dropping fast too. People are the core of the problem in my mind. We are becoming too many too fast and naturally we take more and more space encroaching on animal kingdoms, turning them into our settlements, cutting the forest for more farm land.

I love the forest. I love taking the walks in different types of forest: the pine tree forests of the Carpathians, South East Asian jungles, or next door to my own house. I feel much better in nature when I go travelling and I prefer to stay in rural places. And so the big problem of deforestation and losing wildlife has partly become my problem and something I care about.

The documentary inspired other thoughts too.. I sometimes like to think about things from a cosmic perspective and then everything we find so obvious in our lives becomes unusual and questionable. We, humans tend to think of ourselves as in the centre and see animals as less important than us. Even the Bible, – if I am not mistaken – teaches us that a man is a master of other species. But are we the masters really? It’s hard to leave the human perspective, to place yourself next to an animal and think of it as just another being like you but different.

We have not yet sorted inequalities that exist among ourselves, such as racial, gender, income inequality, so how much more time and effort it should take to even consider other beings on this planet in the same way as ourselves, with laws to protect and respect them? How long before they vanish completely? Or shall we ask, how much of the nature we see around us will be left in the long time before it happens?

We may not think that we are just as frail as a little insect and that under a change of conditions we may also disappear in a split of a second, and some other form of life may take our place.

“Letters from Thailand”

Thai people emanate happiness through their smiles and peaceful expression I often saw on their faces. I probably don’t know enough about them as their southern origin must mean that passion is just under the surface. Perhaps they are just very good at harnessing emotions through the Buddhist practice.

I liked the temples with what looked to me like fairy tale illustrations straight from “One thousand and one nights.” I liked the sensuality of the pictures clearly showing every detail of body and dress, including naked breasts.

I’ve seen sofas in one temple of Mae Chaem, and a TV in another (though I don’t like TV). which made the temples feel less imposing and less formal, and more of a place where people could feel at home whilst being spiritual at the same time. Everything about the temples was happy and cheerful in a quiet peaceful manner. The Shhhha sound of sweeping the floors by monks created an aura of simplicity that helped you enter meditative state.

I was very curious to learn more about the buddhist practice from the locals and Chin shared some wisdom he had gained as an apprentice monk. I wanted to know more but the only way I could do it would have been to spend some time at a local temple with monks.

Chin spoke English well, his eyes had a bright sparkle, but so did Got’s. I was with them at all times and that helped to get close to their culture. They were gentle and caring, and they smiled a lot. But when they were not smiling, thoughtful expression appeared on their faces and only then they looked their age to me; there was something of a focus as I saw their features tense.

I was reading at that time a book, “Letters from Thailand” written in the form of letters by a Chinese immigrant to his mum back in China about his life in Bangkok in 1950s/60s, including his observations about Thai people. His remarks about Thai people were not very favourable to say the least; for instance, his experience shows a lazy bureaucrat who shamelessly sets down to his job after receiving a bribe, or an indebted female customer with a drunk husband shouting abuses at the Chinese merchant. It was exciting to read as there was a parallel between our experiences: we were both observers from abroad looking with alien eyes and writing to people back home what we felt about Thailand and it was fun to see how a person from such a completely different background felt about the same place decades before. Even though it was exciting, I had to stop, not because my impression of Thai people was conflicting, but because I was not completely happy with the narrator’s own mentality. I found the traditional Chinese outlook on life, especially family matters, including the place of a woman, deeply stereotypical and disturbing. In contrast to his experience, I loved what I saw and learned about Thai people though I know I haven’t been there long enough to see the darker side. Curiously, I have just learned that the author of the novel is a woman… I continued reading the book since I came back.

 

When I first saw an elephant

How did you feel when you first saw an elephant? asked me Chin, one of the BEES Burm & Emily’s Elephant Sanctuary project staff, taking care of me. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. Others told me that everybody feels something special and strong in that moment. The first time I saw an elephant live as I was driving to the project site I was too full of excitement and apprehension to say what I exactly felt about meeting the elephant.

The second time was a more proper encounter. I saw Mae Mor in the tall grass, with her back turned to us. And still I could not tell what it was. I felt a bit like a child who is just seeing something for the first time and is not sure what it all means or how to react.

The third time I touched Tong Dee. Just after we bathed her I came up to her and felt the rough warmth of her skin under my fingers. I was not sure if it made her happy when I stroked her. I did not know how to show her my affection.

My first meeting with Tong Dee, after she had a bath

Before leaving the project I asked one of my local guides: How do you show love to elephants? He laughed surprised. He had asked me to give him questions about elephants so that he could prepare answers in English for the other volunteers. He was not expecting this question. He simply said: I think you can feed them, wash them, walk with them… just take care of them. But I felt there must be some caress that elephants particularly enjoy. The mahout has a special relation with his elephant and so he must know. But none of the mahouts spoke English well enough to ask them that. They make very funny unattractive noises as they shout at their elephants. They are affectionate with them in a harsh way which probably masks a very deep and strong bond.

Talking about first impression, I think the size matters. Size and colour. You always know there is somebody big out there for you to take seriously and to think of even when they are not around. Yet there is also something about them that’s so fragile and good-natured that you feel like hugging them, but you can’t because your arms cannot reach to embrace them. It’s also that grey colour with the light touch of pink that softens the features and immediately makes you less scared.

They move awkwardly and slowly. The three project elephants are in their 50s, 60s and even 70s(!) so looking after them is like taking care of the elderly. They make me think of my grandma, emanating the same warm feelings associated with age and experience.

Especially the oldest elephant Mae Mor. The cavities on either side of her head are so deep you could fit your fist in them. Her skin is so furrowed and her spine is visibly winding its way down her body, like a rugged mountain edge, which I had time to inspect in close detail as I was drawing her picture. Apparently you can say how old an elephant is by the depth of a cavity in their skull.

My sketch of Mae Mor at BEES, Mae Chaem

Is it their age, size, or something else I’m missing here that makes you grow thoughtful and quiet as they approach? They have this quality to focus your attention. No wonder they are so revered in the land of Buddha. What I forgot to say is that what I felt could perhaps be most closely associated with the feeling of peace.