#he beats up buffalo poachers!!

[wolfmeat]

at any given time the most important thing to be considering is charles smith

[you-me-and-jermaine]

Crisp and His Girls

Harare was amazing! We landed Wednesday, got picked up by Trey, and made our way to their incredible house. It’s a tropical climate in Zimbabwe, so their yard grows the most amazing flowers and fruits! Trey and Kasey have the 2 cutest daughters, Molly and Naomi, and we hung out with them in the pool for a bit before heading to trivia. We scored respectability in trivia, ate some good curry, and called it a night before the next big day.

Thursday we woke up at an uncomfortable 4am to drive 2 hours to Imire, the rhino sanctuary. Oh my goodness, what am incredible day. The black and white rhinos are going extinct and are highly sought after by poachers. Their horns go anywhere from $250,000-$400,000 each, and are typically sold in Asian countries for bullshit medicinal or religious purposes. So the rhinos in the sanctuary have 24/7 guards, who carry guns with them to shoot poachers. During the day hours, the rhinos wander free with guards following them from a distance. At night they sleep in an enclosure together while someone keeps guard. In 2007, poachers got into the sanctuary, threw acid in one guards face, beat the other and tied him up, and then killed the 3 breeding female rhinos they had. Only a baby was left, and it was devastating for the sanctuary. They moved the baby rhino into peoples homes, and that’s where it grew up, so they could always protect it from poachers. It took 10 years for the baby to grow up and be able to have a baby of its own and start the breeding cycle again. Sadly, that baby rhino, along with 126 other animals on the sanctuary, died 4 years ago when they experienced a terrible drought. The drought left all their food sources lacking in vitamin E, which didn’t affect the older animals or babies that were nursing, but the growing teenage animals need that and died because of it. Luckily the rhino was able to breed before it died, and they currently have 3 black rhinos and 5 white rhinos in the park. That morning, we had a private tour in which we “walked with the rhinos”, meaning we walked with their guards through the bush as the rhinos went about eating breakfast and meandering about. It was incredible to observe them up close, and be able to ask their guards all the questions we wanted.

Some fun rhino facts-

Black rhinos are smaller, and have terrible eyesight. Because of this, when they hear a noise, they charge right at it, and figure out what it is later. They’ve accidentally charged their guards before, and the guards have to run and escape up a tree. Black rhinos always keep their babies behind them, and can run up to 35km/hr.

White rhinos are much larger, and typically run away when they hears noise, don’t charge. They keep their babies in front of them as they run away from danger, to keep an eye on them.

Both kinds of rhinos can live up to 45 years, eat 100 kilos of food a day, and can’t swim. They have a 15 month gestation period, and nurse their babies for 2-3 years, so the breeding process is timely. Since January, 5 rhinos have already been poached in the area. It’s incredible hard to stop poaching because Africa is so damn big, and only Botswana has a “kill poachers on sight” policy. Zimbabwe and South Africa have an arrest on sight policy, but as the guards explained, these poachers are rolling in with giant weapons to bring down a rhino. The guards stand no chance against them, and are unable to arrest them as they usually get taken out in the process. It’s a sad situation, that unfortunately will lead to extinction for our most beloved animals. It is predicted that by 2035, the elephant and giraffe will also be extinct. The elephant being poached for its ivory, and the giraffes natural resources being wiped out. Lots of sad facts on this trip. Feeling grateful we got to see so many of these animals in the wild, before they’re gone.

After the walking with rhinos experience, we were fed a delicious breakfast, and then had a game ride, in which we piled into a giant safari Jeep with a bunch of old people, and saw so many animals. Our guide brought feed with him, and was able to lure different animals closer so we could take a better look. The zebra came right on up, andddddd so did the giraffe!!!! It was incredible! They were so close, and chill, and funny looking, and it was incredible. We saw sable, the most aggressive antelope, who look like they’re wearing Anonymous masks, and eland, giant antelope who can jump 12 feet straight up. The tour was made better by a couple behind us, who 20 years ago had moved to Zimbabwe from Indiana to start an orphanage, and who had been to Imire 18 times. They were very knowledgeable about all the animals, shared stories of their experiences, and gave us an interesting insight to life in Zimbabwe. We were served one of the most amazing lunches in a rock garden aptly named the Hard Rock Cafe, and met Mzou, an elephant who came to the sanctuary as a baby. She was the only elephant for 48 years, and spent all her time with the water buffalo, so she actually thinks she’s a buffalo. She does not socialize with the other elephants they now have, as they scare her, and she rules over all the buffalo as the matriarch. Her name means “elephant” as a way to remind her that she’s actually an elephant. We got to feed her before heading back to end the day. That night we had a great dinner with Trey’s family at beautiful restaurant with a big outdoor area, twinkly lights, and lots of good food options.

Friday we got up early and headed into downtown Harare for a free walking tour. We met our guide Eliseus, and he started telling us the history of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was conquered by the British back in the day, turned into Rhodesia in the 50s, and finally became Zimbabwe in 1980. Eliseus took us to the National Gallery of Art, which is one of the best art galleries I’ve ever been to. It was small enough that you didn’t get sick of looking at art, and all of the art was so honest. It lacked the pretentious undertones that art can have. They were running several contests at the time, and we got look at a lot of different art, all with the artists explanation of their work. Many themes were prevalent, and it was interesting to see how in Zimbabwe, they are facing many of the cultural and societal challenges we are facing in America. The loss of the family structure, the influence of technology, the changing role of women, and the search for peace and understanding in this rapidly changing world. Eliseus explained many traditional beliefs to us, like the importance of totems. People have family totems, which can be an animal or object, and you just respect that totem and follow what it does. For example, Eliseus’s totem is the heart, so he cannot eat animal hearts because that is going against his totem. His mother’s totem is a lion, so it is important she eats meat, because lions only eat meat, to honor it. Other people’s totems might be a chicken, so they cannot eat chicken, but will eat grains as a chicken does. He also taught us about mhepo yedzinza, which is your families spirit. This spirit, good or bad, follows your family lineage forever. So if your uncle got a spirit that says he can never drive, no one in the family for any generation to come will ever drive. Crazy stuff.

We also got to teach Eliseus some fun facts. Zimbabwe is 89% Christian, and he had never heard of the concepts of atheism or agnostic before. He was also new to the ideas of vegetarianism, veganism, and reincarnation. He meets a lot of people on these tours, and is very open minded, but because he comes from a homogenous society, these concepts are so wild and out of the ordinary, he had a lot of questions that were fun to answer.

The tour continued around the city, where we learned the tallest building in the city is 28 floors, Michael Jackson has stayed at their nicest hotel, and Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa before terrible leadership threw it into the worst economic depression its ever known. The city is incredibly green, with giant parks, and some of the most beautiful trees and flowers. The tour ended by eating a bunch of great food- sadza is the staple food of the country (like rice, bread, etc) and made from maize corn. It’s white, and sort of like grits, and accompanies most meals. We also ate madubu, which is intestines, madura, which is caterpillar, chicken stew, and pork trollies. All was delicious. We said goodbye to Eliseus shortly after and headed to our car, where we found it ticketed and booted for not paying $5 in parking. That was pretty nuts. We freaked out for a second, then found the parking lady, who told us we must pay the ticket off before we got the boot removed. Chris then went on a half hour journey with police officers to pay the ticket. He did not lose a limb, and whilst being a crazy journey (you can hear the story from him in person), the ticket wound up only being $20 and we made it home before dark.

That night we went to a local bar with Trey to meet some of his friends, then people came back to the house to hangout for the night.

We had planned to spend the night in the mountains that’s weekend, but a cyclone hit! Wtf! Harare is usually perfect weather, in the 70s and sunny, but the cyclone brought rain, wind, and excuses to snuggle up and stay home. Saturday morning we checked out the local farmers market, which was awesome despite many of the vendors staying home because of the rain. There was a new Asian grocery store that had just opened, and that had some crazy products in it. We purchased cucumber flavor Pringle’s, and an unidentifiable but delicious drink. The rest of Saturday was spent bumming around, a day we greatly needed after this crazy trip, and we spent the day playing games and napping. Saturday night we got a butt ton of Ethiopian food, and fell asleep full and happy.

Yesterday, the rain lightened up a bit, so we head out with Trey to see the Balancing Rocks. They’re a field of these big ass rocks that are precariously balancing on each other and no one knows how they got there. We had a blast climbing around on them, and getting some great views of the city. We headed to an Irish pub next to celebrate St Paddy’s Day, and enjoyed a delicious lunch and a Guinness :) We went to Domoshava next, which is a giant rock you can climb up and explore. There are ancient cave paintings there, depicting people and animals. There isn’t much info on the paintings, so we don’t know how legit they are, but they were still cool to see. The top of the rock gave us beautiful views of the city and surrounding countryside. Zimbabwe looks a lot like central Oregon, rolling green hills. We grabbed Greek for dinner, then headed home to hangout for our last night.

We had a morning flight back to Joburg today, so we said goodbye to Trey, Kasey, and the girls, and got on our 6th flight of the trip. We’re currently in Joburg, where we’ll be spending the night, and then heading back to America tomorrow night. I cannot believe how fast these last 3 weeks have gone, how much adventure we’ve had, and how beautiful this whole experience has been. This was more incredible than I ever could have imagined, and I’m already looking for excuses to come back to Africa.