THANK YOU for my blog feedback

Thank you thank you so much for your BLOG feedback - I have received lots and it is wonderful of you to take the time to read and comment.  The length seems to be ok but I must provide enough context, so will plump it up here and there.  Dear Ulric put it so nicely...I need to draw the lens back, detail is good but wide-angle too! 

There is some conflict over the content, whether to include more personal bits or not?  Some like these musings most and others not....so I have decided to give health warnings to entries of a personal nature (they may be of more interest to my girlfriends).  Anyway – hopefully it will mature and evolve into something worth reading over time.  But please keep on commenting. 

All love Sophie

Chickens chickens everywhere and not an egg to eat!

We have a chicken and duck issue - which is proving a challenge for me.  There is no doubt that D loves these creatures more than much else - the dogs (Amigo and Festa) are possibly on the same rung of the ladder of affection with elephants! 

He was sure that if you took an egg away from any of his dears they would not lay...well that was his justification for breeding what can now only be described as a chicken and duck farm.   I counted 48 the other day and another 4 chicks appeared yesterday.  Even elderly blind Super Chicken, who survived an eagle attack when she was airlifted and walked for 9 days back to Mareja (and is at least 150 in chicken years), is sporting one prized new child!

(Once D tantalisingly flicked his wrist at a gathering of young cockerels and said ‘they are Soup Chickens’, I miss heard and said ‘what more Super Chickens?’ – ‘no, no Soup Chickens, perfect for soup.’  But that appears to have been a momentary lapse of concentration on his part.  Those young cockerels now contribute to the quite deafening morning chorus I wake to.)

While I was away I received an excited text which read ‘we have babies’ – gosh whose, my mind span with anticipation – elephants, his?  ...It was the duck’s. Cashew (the sister of Brazil) had 4 ducklings who have been given a lovely pen with a small pond and are hand fed by D twice a day.  (He is breeding yet more ducks that will attack my legs, mistaking them for D’s outstretched hand with nice white bread.)

Well I was in fact brought up on a chicken farm and I worry that this is some sort of cycle repeating itself.  We moved when I was 6 from the delights of Gloucestershire with its hedgerows full of cow parsley and buttercups to an intensive chicken farm (6,000 in three sheds) in Herefordshire.  We had our own beloved chickens too, saved from The Shed, because they were slightly different and likely to be bullied – coloured dots, squwiffy beaks... 

Anyway I realise I know quite a lot about chicken, like they do lay if you take their eggs away. 

For years I didn’t eat chicken at all as I am strongly opposed to battery farming, it is cruel and unnecessary.  But this loving free-range upbringing is far from intensive 1^st world production....and now I find myself in the awkward position of thinking we really MUST kill some chickens or at least eat their eggs.  AND first on my list for a nice roast supper would be the duck that attacks me in the fridge room..!   What has happened to me?

Chickens chickens everywhere and not an egg to eat.  Chickens chickens everywhere and all about my feet.  Chickens chickens everywhere and still no juicy meat!

Cashews are ripe

And this is what they look like on our dashboard.  They are very very bitter until ripe and then the fruit makes the most delicious juice.  They look a bit like parrots - see the nut looking like a beak.

A not quite complete parcel...and Timberland hope

One of my urgent jobs when at home was to gather better equipment for the Rangers.  I did a uniform inspection before I left and found the boots in a woeful condition. All bar one pair (Unkaheli’s) were in a terrible state – bits of metal poking out and large holes.  They had been renewed 2 years before but from second-hand odds and ends available here, and working in the tangled bush is heavy duty business.

A lot of my time was spent on line and in army surplus shops trying to track down combat trousers, caps and boots – that are affordable, buying for 10 rangers mounts up and I am painfully aware of not actually having an income at the moment.

 As part of this uniform research and replacement process I write my first two sponsorship requests one to Doc Marten and one to Timberland.  I have a video of D polishing Unkalhli’s (Elder, Ranger and Witch Doctor) boots, a pair of brown medium height Doc Marten’s – I have tried to upload it below (an exciting step forward if it works) - but please excuse me sounding like a strange loud frog in the background.  Unkaheli has a wonderful way with clothes – and wears these seemingly indestructible boots with style.  (He often sports a pale blue tweed jacket with collar turned up when on patrol, while all else are shielded by bleached t-shirt material, and has been spotted head toe in a glittering suit in Town, Pemba.)





While I am on the Timberland website I find a new world of cool, equipped outdoor living- not only do they have a section on corporate responsibility but they have wonderful motifs on their t-shirts of simplified nature, they would look so good worn by our Rangers – in action protecting nature. And their stuff looks so new!  Nothing is prized here like newness – (Elias still has the sticky label on his new dark glasses, now 4 months old, despite the fact it’s directly in his vision).  While on the website I wonder about practical, non-rip trousers, belts, nice camps with a good peak against the sun (and then wish I could have a lovely small leather suitcase I spy.)



Anyway I wait a week and no response from my request letters.  So back to surfing ebay and visiting the dark, dusty and expensive local army and navy surplus store (wondering who buys this gear?)  I do my best and spend nearly £200 but cannot be sure I have exactly sizes right (translated from cm to UK standard shoes sizes with a chart I find on the web), durability and it turns out Trisa has size 4 ½ feet and it is impossible to find a good outdoor boot designed in a child’s size. 



Bacar, Saleman, Trisa and Jose at the front (with confiscated snares behind)



Then just as I am thinking about how to send this stuff....I get a letter from Timberland!  It is such a great boost – a short, kind response.  ‘We love the sound of your project and would like to supply boots.  Please send me the sizes.’  I feel a swell of success – someone took the time to read my letter and their new new stuff will be so much better than anything the Rangers have ever seen.  I send a full response thanking them greatly and explaining the need for shirts/t-shirts/trousers/belts too – and then worry I am pushing my luck...(but I refrain from telling them how much I would like that small leather suitcase myself!)

Second phase....my parcel is despatched using DHL at a cost of £189 (but it includes some other essentials for D...two newspapers, some coffee, pistachios, 40amp fuses and paint brushes).  The expense is hard to bear and now the agonising hope that it actually arrives.  I track it obsessively on line and then it seems to get stuck in Maputo.  When I ring DHL they say merrily that they don’t deliver to Pemba, a local courier is used from Maputo.  Oh no....that does not sound good.  Many many things get lost and stolen here. 

Well D tries to get the parcel and discovers it has arrived but he is charged $180 customs – my parcel of second-hand german army tropical boots (and Trisa’s brand new ladies walking boots) is becoming stupidly expensive.  When he returns with the money the office is closed.  Then a week after my arrival – I go with him to DHL with heart in mouth.  There in the back room is the battered repurposed John Lewis box, my box.  It is covered with tape and labels that spell concern but at least it is here in some shape and form.  I open and find my coffee and bag of fuses and a pile of boots!  All looks good and we go home. 

Third twist...we get it home and unpack fully.  The pair of size 6 women’s walking boots I had bought for Trisa, the only new pair and most expensive (and too big for him) have been stolen.  D can only say...’why didn’t you check the package properly at the office?’ I am so upset and this comment does not help at all and indeed what if I had? – they would take no responsibility and blame Maputo or Johannesburg or the courier.  Mozambiquan gloom sets in, the success has become failure. I decide to smoke a cigarette, despite having given up and D leaves the room in disapproval.



Results of the boot check



Oh please may Timberland's wonderful wares arrive – the same day I receive an email saying they have dispatched TWO parcels, so as well as boots (new) there may be T-shirts (new) – how thrilling.  They have used TNT and according to D they are sent to the main post office and he has not received the last 3 parcels sent there.  So now we wait with restrained hope for what could be the most exciting thing that has happened in a long time...or the most disappointing.



What do you know of poaching?

Something that happened in Victorian England on an estate in Scotland and involved the blighter being fined and told to never step foot on your land again.  Or something like that and according to John Buchan’s novel John Macnab it required all sorts of cunning and skill. 

I am now familiar with poachers and poaching but in a different context a reserve in Northern Mozambique far from Scotland or a pond on Clapham Common plundered by night for carp. 

I know what a rice sack that is full of dried carcasses looks like and how the smell of rotten meat lingers on the wind and catches the back of your throat - the familiar smell of rotten guineafowl, rock hyrax, baboon, suni, bush buck and then occasionally the mighty sable or kudu, who horns poke through the rice sacks.

I also know what poachers look like, they look like everyone else but are wearing worn clothes with tired weather beaten faces full of anxiety and hungry anticipation. 

And I am very familiar with the tools of their trade – snares made from all manner of wire repurposed from all sorts of sources (electric cables, fences , the small area of new elephant fencing etc.), bow and arrows, large nets with string made from rice sacks and beautifully wrought spears used with scrawny bush dogs - though this method is employed by Makondas not the local muslim tribe Machua.

But here the realities of poaching are infinitely basic yet complex beyond belief.  Simple thirst for lean protein and a complex mesh of cultural norms and global concerns.  Within an of National Park -‘protected’ with scant resources and against a tide of pressures – where the appeal of bush meat, ivory and timber far out ways any conservation ideals.

The poachers are kept at bay by our small band of local Rangers.  Without Dominik the passionate Reserve Manager these rangers fall into lethargy, but can you blame them?  The poachers are their friends, cousins and neighbours...

So how do you prevent poaching while goats and chicken cost so much more and will never taste of the bush and your homelands?

An exasperating patch – police station and unhappy Swiss visitors but all cheered up by ... biology in action

A day in Pemba...

1:  Called to Metuge Police Station – Metuge is where the district offices are and a 1 ½ hour drive from Pemba down a particularly dusty bumpy road.  D recently finally persuaded a goup of farmers who were cultivating in the heart of Mareja to move on – with the usual incentive, money.  And one of these farmers has seen the opportunity for delay and more money.    We waited 4 hours for the Police chief to come back from other more pressing meeting. However, thankfully he saw the empty content of the farmers case.

2: While hanging out in Metuge (in the sweltering heat in the Toyota) we bump into Jacob who has come to see the Administrator over some landright worry.  Jacob runs Tarateebo, the other successful conservation project within the park and he tells us of automatic guns being used on his reserve by poachers.  Four elephants injured recently and he tracked them to find them in a terrible state.  Obviously this is a disaster as it creates yet more human-animal conflict; elephants in pain are potentially very dangerous.   

There is now no doubt elephant poaching has increased dramatically recently in the Park – D thinks 60% of the local population have been killed.

3: While here we are asked to meet the new Administrator too, a woman Elena and the Director of Agriculture.  Another long wait and then we are ushered into a office with the usual large picture of the President Geubuza hanging prominently and a few lever-arch folders on a high shelf, with large efficient looking labelling.  Mobile phones go  off constantly throughout the meeting and have the loudest and most exotic ring tones - and they are always answered.  In between calls, they lay a bevy of complaints at D’s feet, I sit there as the smiling wife but understand enough of the tone and fragmented conversation to get silently agitated.  Apart from many complaints from a community called Pulou which is far from Mareja...as D gentally points out - they want to see all the documents relating to Mareja’s operation – its community association, reserve status, tourism license etc.  This is highly disheartening, are they trying to make trouble or is just another case of administrative oversight. They have asked for these documents 4 times from Dominik.  When questioned where the papers supplied before might be they look blankly, pause, do not answer and change the subject.  So we wil have to resupply it all again by the end of the month...

Following day...in Pemba we pick up an email from a tour company who are sending a Swiss couple to Mareja tonight.  They had not received confirmation – once again a product of no email communication in Mareja and Mcel’s unpredictable ways.  We text the driver to say we will be there at night fall but the community will sort rooms etc.  The project is run hand-in-hand with the community and on such occasions Adamo and Maria will make the beds, Naquata light the paraffin lamps and make a fire.

We set off after lunch with all manner of stores and fresh food and arrive just after dark.  (The sun sets around 5.30pm at the moment.)

The driver William greets us and says his clients are ‘very very unhappy – they were obviously not expected, are hungry and...want bottled water ‘ not our filtered rain water – all we have.

I instantly run into the kitchen with two lanterns and begin hurriedly cooking supper.  Then hear shouting as D presents himself – they are yelling in german.  I keep on cooking thrilled to be tucked away in the dark of the kitchen.  I make snacks as a way to pick up glucose levels – with the prized oil, fresh bread and tomatoes – and offer them to D, I am happy to avoid our guests for as long as possible. 

Then supper is presented (spaghetti with mushroom, bacon, herb cream sauce and a luxurious large fruit salad) and I meet them, am hot and tired now – they are more elderly than I had imagined.  On meeting me they complain about lack of signage, to which I explain that we can’t install obvious signs – there is a key landmark, three white stripes on a tree.  Signs would attract all sorts of extra and possibly unwanted attention -  and we hope to provide directions but if you ask locals everyone knows where ‘Mareja and Dominque’ is.  This is a strange fact no doubt signage is generally seen as an essential thing.  Anyway after much effort to cheer , they warm up and we hear of their epic tour across Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique with William their driver. – and much wildlife spotted.   

The next day they are off to Ilha de Mozambique but have time for an activity in the morning.  I suggest the mountain, an easy walk and spectacular view to lift the heart.  D as always suggests an early rise and game walk...they will decide in the morning.  We listen to lion on the veranda and go to bed happy.

A civilised... 5.15am rise and coffee, and they apparently choose a 1 hour walk along the river (I stay in bed) D drops them off.  Well 2 hours later they arrive back...furious – rangers just charged ahead...they saw nothing and nothing was illuminated by the guides – no tracks, birds, points of interest.  ‘And explain you are not ready to welcome tourists!’  Oh how dispiriting, three rangers went, including the Head Ranger Ali accompanied them who has 10 years experience and was trained at Gorongoza – where they tired or distracted or was there a communication barrier or what?  My mind spins - and I tell D (unhelpfully) that they should have gone up the mountain!  D tells me they need forgiveness and openness to accept a community run project like this – where the local Rangers have learnt a lot about a tourist’s perspective but will always remain worlds apart. 

I hate such failures they leave me feeling so deflated, after many hot hours over a fire and round a large table attempting merry conversation.  I retreat to the kitchen again full of woe.  Now my wish to improve spirits through food has waned but I try to find the will....scrambled eggs, bacon, baked bean mixed with aubergine and toast, fresh coffee, fresh papaya.  That should do it?  But I hear the roar of the engine they are off - keen to improve their day they head to Ilha with its guaranteed sights.  I am left holding my wooden spoon without even a goodbye.

(The blasted spoilt duck....In the midst of that while in the fridge room gathering ingredients the larger male duck decides to chomp at my white legs, very hard and twice, once on each leg– this is D’s fault for feeding them by hand in the fridge room our bread... my legs must look like large bread sticks.  It is really painful and inflames the whole situation somewhat!)

Later on....phone disaster BUT camera success

Phone problems: We made a trip to the cashew tree earlier for William to speak to his office and get money sent for petrol .  In the flurry two phones were lost.  One is retrieved by an old guy who bicycled past the tree, the other that has D’s precious sim in it... has gone.  This is my fault – I must have left them on the roof of the Toyota as we drove off.  We search with no joy.

But the camera saves the day:  one good thing happened, a very good thing....we set the camera traps by the water hole.  They were acquired and supplied by Peter (Ox University Undergraduate who led recent fantastic research expedition). They are a really exciting tool and so far when used by Peter captured Serval (Red Data Book species) and Civet plus the snout of a Bush pig.  Well....we tentatively play back our first attempt and have images of an elephant, a head shot of a medium sized male and then a very close up view of an elephant penis.  Biology in action! 

And as the day draws to a close, we remind ourselves what matters – Mareja  is providing a sanctuary for elephants at this difficult time.

It is Sunday but... pink grapefruit

Slowly wake, swim then eat an elaborate breakfast.  Half-way through they begin to clear up the buffet and so I ask quickly for an omelette and then spy the fruit bowl.  We have to buy everything for our visitors and blow it, it is Sunday.... it is ok, it is a buffet after all – so we take 2 pink grapefruit, 4 oranges, one melon and two apples one green one red.  Then we leave.  Luckily the bakery is open and we get a new canister of gas.  We track down Malcolm via Rebecca and Rudi and discover he wants to leave after midday.  That is manageable and in the end we set off to Rudi and Lesley’s place at 1ish. On arrival Malcolm and Rebecca a few rangers and one of the tourists have LEFT.  Apparently desperate to get to Mareja in time to set up the nets.  (There has been much talk of improving his Mareja experience after last year....when his vehicle broke down and 5 hours later D collected him, but apparently D had been called by Rebecca 3hours before that and only set off to find them once a helper arrived on a bicyle.  And then he fed them duck, the oldest most inedible duck ever.)  And now he has left without us, possibly not a good start.

We put Jim and Phil in the back with cushions and 2 park rangers and Bruno. Then collect lots of vegetables and some more fruit – mangoes and papaya.  We arrive at Mareja....Jim has not spoken much and seems cross or in pain or both.

Peter, the other visitor, has set up the nets and is hot hot from lots of work.  Malcolm is very grumpy – the two new rooms which I have many working parts for (tarpaulin and shower heads) are not ready and what would we have done if one of his other guest had not cancelled?  Jim who wanted a nice room goes in the ensuite and I try to ignore Malcolm’s obvious bubbling annoyance at Mareja and its antics. 

Antonio cooks a delicious supper of squid and spaghetti and we have a super luxurious fruit salad with pink grapefruit and I hope sleep will improve everyone’s mood.