It's Friday and the team at the lion's training lodge are excited for 2 reasons. Firstly it is a town visit after the early morning walk and secondly a couple of the guys have 5 days off after a 30 day stint. It seems that this is a little bit like the trips to the oil rigs albeit in the bush where home leave is really cherished especially for some of the guys who live in the lodge and the evenings are very quite or to put it another way very boring, night after night, with little company apart from a couple of guys who you work with and the animal noises from the bush.
For me though, today was also a slight throw back as the other volunteers were not here as they are taking a weekend trip to Chobe a game reserve in Botswana. In some ways it is quite nice as the numbers are lower and therefore my level of responsibility increases which is great especially on the lion walks where I have the responsibility of leading the group for the lions to follow. Whatever happened to not being on your own??
The early morning walk was as expected less eventful that yesterday but never the less was great fun as the temperature was cooler, which suits the lions better, and hence they are more lively and playful. As soon as the walk ended we were off to town to do some shopping. As everyone knows not my favourite past time but at least a chance to see what Livingston is all about. The town is pretty basic, but a huge step up from Zanzibar, so the shopping is really limited but there were a few cafes for ice cream and coke to while away the morning. You do get hassled a lot here as Zimbabwe is only 10km away and there is a stream of refugees milling around trying to buy provisions to take back across the border while others sell various curios and Zimbabwe currency to make ends meet. The highest denomination I have come across is the 10,000,000,000 zim $. Probably worth less than the paper it is printed on. Before we boarded the bus back to the lodge I noticed that one of the crew from Zimbabwe had bought a child's watch that didn't fit his wrist which was really sad and in a moment of weakness took him back to the market and upgraded this to proper watch. The problem with this though is that there really is so much poverty and hardship for these people that it is too much to take on and if the others find out I am sure it will open the floodgates. At least Derrick though will not cut off his blood supply to his hand but I have asked him to keep this matter private which he has agreed to do.
The afternoon involved another walk with feeding time straight after, this time donkey, which I had to get from the store and take to the cages. This really is a horrible job but again essential, so after we cut up the meat it had to be carried over to the enclosures and then fed to the lions from inside the cages. I can only say is not a job for the squeamish or the faint hearted, but the lions seem to really like it even if I want to be sick.
I also saw the injured cub briefly before we finished for the day and was amazed to see that the wound had almost completely healed up and all due to organic unpasteurised honey and a lot of tlc. This is supposed to work on humans too but I think I will keep to prescribed ointments for the time being.
Tomorrow I am off and have booked to do some white water rafting on the Zambezi with a couple of other volunteers, which should be fun and a bit more challenging than the trip I took with Sally, Amy and Ellie in the Pyrenees.
No comments:
Post a Comment