I remember when i first came to Africa nearly thirty years ago there was a story going around that, if i am honest had me chuckling at the time.

I still chuckle about it, but for very different reasons.

The story, which was apparently true goes as follows.

A family in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, were given a new house to live in, their first proper house by all accounts. The adults in the family were very poor with no formal education to speak of.

Winter came soon after they all moved in. It was a cold winter and by the middle of it the family were so cold that they started to use the wooden doors and window frames as firewood to warm themselves by lighting a fire inside one of the rooms.

That in essence was the story. It was basically told as a “racist” story, a joke. The stupidity of the occupants being the butt of the joke.

They had a perfectly good house to make their home in, one that would keep them sheltered and dry and they then trash it to keep themselves warm in the short term. It would seem that no thought was given by them to the consequences of their actions barring the notion that they survived the moment and lived to realise the consequences later.

The point of bringing the story up is that now today i cannot help but think that what that family did was in fact a mirror image microcosm of what the industrialised world has been doing for a couple of hundred years since the industrial revolution.

We have been ravaging the planet for fuels and materials at a completely unsustainable pace. It is nothing less than rape and pillage of our worlds’ resources.
In the last century or so we have pushed hundreds, if not thousands of plants, insects and animals into total extinction.

What is the difference i wonder?

Not much at all i would say.

Except that the industrialised world has acted, and continues to act, out of greed and largely hidden power agendas.

What a circus we live and perform in. Who is the joke really on?

As a footnote i thought i would add the following thought.

Lightening strikes the earth approximately 100 times every single minute of every single day somewhere in the world.

Millions of wattage of electricity. Is anyone working on harvesting this power?

Just imagine what the results would be if this ‘harvesting’ could be achieved!!!

One thing is for sure, if it can be achieved, and i somehow suspect it is achievable, the world from then on would most definitely look back on us today as uncivilised savages, who, in the curve of time are barely out of the crèche at this point.

The viewing that day was great though. I headed back to the sausage tree at Mogamba, passing a bunch of vultures that were busy cleaning up the old lions buffalo kill from two days ago, arriving at around 7.15am to find the area deserted.

By the time i had poured a coffee, peeled a couple of boiled eggs and cut up some fruit there was in front of me approximately 130 buffalo, 13 zebra, the grysbok male (where was the female?), jackals, impala and warthog all vying for a place at the water hole!! Fantastic accompaniment to my breakfast.

I sat for a further couple of hours watching a woodland kingfisher who was perched in the sausage tree and occasionally swooping down to catch crickets before flying back up to his perch to eat them.

Back to Punda camp around 10.30 for a much needed sleep, before moving up to the camp restaurant where i ordered a hunters pot that i enjoyed under the Baobab tree again whilst chatting with an older couple from Alaska.

In the afternoon, not feeling up to much i took a slow drive around Mahonies loop again.

At one point i found myself in the middle of a large herd of Buffalo, perhaps 400 plus, which was very exciting as i was completely surrounded as they crossed over the track i was sitting on.

Further on i saw a breeding herd of elephants about 80 metres into the bush in a fairly open space. Working out where they were headed i moved on a couple of hundred metres to a stunning spot about 15 feet above a bend in the river where i had noticed some really clear running water.
It was perfect and after about 30 minutes the ellies eventually emerged through the riverine bush on the far bank and ended up drinking directly below me less than 20 feet away. There were a couple of very young ones, probably not even 3 months old, and they were quite inquisitive of the landy. Mum was close at hand and eyed me very suspiciously as the young ones drank right below me.

The remainder of the afternoon was full of good game sightings as i crawled around the loop and even though i was not feeling up to scratch i was quite sad to have to head home at 6.30. Mind you, once i got back i was ready for bed and must of been sound asleep before 8pm.

The following day i had arranged to drive south to Mopani to meet up with D again. I was up at 3.30am but no go, i could feel myself coming down with something so i went back to bed till after 6, got up to try again but ended up back in bed till mid morning when i went up to the camp office to leave a message at Mopani. Sleeping was the only option i really had and even though i was a bit pissed at myself for not going down i knew that i had done the right thing and would of been quite ill if i had not slept.

Waking just before 3pm i decided to drive a few klicks out onto mahonies loop and park up at a wide bend in the river for the remainder of the afternoon. I named the spot ‘carcass corner’ as there were the remains of two buffalo that had obviously been killed at different times in the days preceding my arrival.

Although nothing spectacular happened it proved a gorgeous place to sit and, in fact over the remainder of my trip i spent many hours at the same spot.

That night whilst sitting by my fire all the African people who worked at the camp got together under a tree on the hillside and sang Christmas carols for an hour or so. It was lovely, their voices resonating through the bush and wafting down to me in superb timbre as i gazed up at the night sky covered in a blanket of sparkling stars. I truly felt as though i was sitting in one of the old trekkers camps from 200 years ago!!