Village Life

​Last evening’s game drive featured a lot of elephants. Bull elephants are loners, grazing by themselves. But with an estimated 50,000 elephants in this national park, we had no shortage of sightings. As long as we stay in the jeeps, they tend to ignore us.

(Photos will be added when we have better internet connections.)

We stopped near a river gorge to get a good look at the sunset. Our drivers came prepared with wine and snacks for us to enjoy off the tailgate as we watched.

As we returned to camp in pitch dark, we heard an elephant trumpet, which they generally don’t do. Later we learned that the other jeep from our group, behind us, had startled a bull on the road with its headlights, and was charging their jeep. A bit of excitement for them, and an explanation for the sound we had heard.

This morning we left camp early once again to exit the park for the day. We were almost getting bored with bull elephants, so I hadn’t gotten my camera ready. But as it happened, we came upon a herd of elephants — females and their young.

A baby elephant, perhaps a year old, was nursing from its mother. But by the time I was camera ready, the baby had quit nursing and was edging around behind mom to get away from the strange, noisy animal (jeep) that had approached. Mom and the baby’s big sister (probably about 4 or 5) were unperturbed.

Later, we encountered a large troop of baboons. They were not willing to let us get nearly as close, and fled into the bush.

The day’s main event was visiting a village outside the park. Once again we had to navigate through the enormous open-pit mines that are destroying the landscape. We later learned that most of the men in the village work for the Chinese in the mines. Though wages are low and working conditions are very poor, it is the only employment available. And with the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe at nearly 80% (NOT a typo!) they feel fortunate to have the jobs at all.

We stopped at a roadside “shopping mall” much like the one where we had met Clive a couple days ago. Our trip leader gave us shopping lists in the native language along with cash and sent us in groups to shop for the village. Fortunately, the shopkeepers knew the drill and helped us fulfill our orders — corn meal, millet, cooking oil, sugar, soap, etc. With the remaining change we bought candy for the village kids who are off school for Easter holiday.

This village is unique in that the “head man” of the village is actually a woman — quite rare in this culture. She greeted us in perfect English and welcomed us to explore any and all buildings, to take any photos we wished, and to ask questions of anyone we met.

The children were shy, but crowded around when the candy was distributed. Mary discovered that the adults were just as eager for the sweets.

Boys in the village were playing soccer with a homemade ball of plastic bags. They were overjoyed when one man in our group gifted them with a brand new soccer ball — a real one, along with a hand pump and pin to blow it up.

The women prepared tea and a traditional lunch consisting of a millet paste with a side sauce of ocra. The sauce was pretty tasty, but the millet might better have been used as wallpaper paste. It was also very difficult to get the orca sauce to stick to the millet, which we shaped into bite sized balls with our fingers. No silverware available. We ate politely, nevertheless.

Lunch was followed with an open discussion with the village women and just a few men who were either elderly or not working today. The questions from both sides were largely about marriage practices and gender roles.

We learned that the women here walk 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) to the river and carry 3 or 4 gallons another 5km home for drinking and washing. This village is progressive in that some of the men will sometimes cook or even change a diaper if their wife is not feeling well. Otherwise, all domestic chores fall to the women.

When our discussion ended, we unloaded the gifts we had brought from the “shopping mall” and other items that people had brought from home. The villagers showed their appreciation by singing and dancing, many with bags of meal or bottles of oil balanced on their heads. If the gifts were unappreciated, the villagers certainly did not show it.