HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and that 2017 will be a good year for all.

RS2 - silly boy!

So what's been happening for the past 2 weeks? A lot of lions, a lot of elephant IDs, and a rather significant amount of celebrating! I've done 4 mornings of Dambwa Research which is always fun. One of those was Boxing Day morning, so having not gone to bed until nearly 1am, we then left for work at 6am... that was an amusing research! Partly just watching everyone else try to stay awake while we watched the lions sleeping! We also had a research session in which we dropped another scavenge for the pride, but this time was somewhat less exciting than last time as we couldn't go into the site (too wet - we would have got the car stuck!) so had to watch through the fence. Very different activity this time though - while last time it was just grab a piece and munch then go looking for another, but don't really interact with the others, this time it was all about fighting for your share! RS3 and RS3 were smart and just grabbed a piece and vanished, but the others were in a constant battle, mainly with Zulu. The big man was so busy chasing everyone else off of the meat that he barely ate anything for ages! He was so aggressive it was quite scary to watch at times, particularly when he totally bowled over LE1 and went for him, throwing him against the electric fence (thankfully I think LE1 was lucky and got away without being shocked). This then made the following research session very interesting, as Kela (who had got only a small share of the food and Zulu had been especially aggressive towards) was sat several hundred metres away from the rest of the pride. We didn't see her for the entire research session, and had to go and find her to just make sure she was alright. Fortunately, there were no signs of scratches or bite marks on her, and she was back with the pride the next day, so they clearly hadn't kicked her out, but she'd just wanted some alone time. That wasn't all though, while we were off looking for Kela, it would seem Rusha also decide it was time to be by herself for a bit, and she just got up and wandered off. It was only when we got to the other side of the release site and were about to let the lion handler off of the vehicle onto the ground that we saw her just wandering along! She came right up to the gate and then on further and further from the pride. However, again when the researchers went in the next day she was back with the group, so goodness knows what mischief she was up to! As well as Dambwa Research I've also done several afternoons of feeding, cleaning and enclosure maintenance. Feeding and cleaning has become much more difficult (and dangerous!) as the grass is growing unbelievably fast in the enclosures. There is a definite difference in height literally just overnight! However, with dangerous snakes around (one volunteer saw a puff adder) we can't just go wading through tall grass to look for poo and bones. Instead, we have to cut the grass back in certain parts of each enclosure, and then just only clean those bits. Without a lawnmower, this is easier said than done! We use swipe blades to slash the grass down to ground level, and then simply repeat the section every few days as the grass immediately grows back up again. Slashing is actually really good fun - active but also really rewarding as you can see the difference you make instantly. Does give you some good blisters if you do it for too long though! 

LE3, his mane is slowly improving...

The big man Zulu

Rusha off for lonely stroll

When the nap attacks, Zulu must obey...

Madoda at grub time!

Beautiful butterfly in the release site

Elephant research the last couple of weeks has not been especially exciting - 2 sessions of driving through the park catching up on dung decay survey, and the rest has been IDs. We didn't even see any bushbuck while we were out! IDs I'm steadily enjoying more and more - now that I am good at making the comparisons, spotting the similarities and differences, and can recognise more and more elephants, I'm able to spend less brain power thinking about that, and appreciate more the patterns that emerge over where they are, and which elephants are doing what and with who. It never gets old being able to recognise individuals instantly. I did 62 photos in a row the other day without needing to pick up the folders! Obviously many of those were multiple photos of the same elephant, but still I was definitely proud of that one! 

Ground hornbill with a snake

Baby impala are so cute!

Balancing on Paper game

2 more weeks of Kids Club have been good. Maunga school is especially rewarding to go to as there always lots of kids and they get so excited about everything! This time we had a football match of Zambians vs Mzungus.... can safely be said that we lost badly! We then pinched our driver back and made it Wildlife Encounter vs Maunga School, and that we did better at.... We played some other games including ladders and duck-duck-goose that the little ones (and the dogs that just appeared out of nowhere!) could join in with, then we gave them a couple of teamwork exercises to do. Unfortunately these worked less well, as they just weren't that interested and weren't bothering with the "work as a team" part! First we tried a game where it was a race between 2 teams to pass a balloon along the line between their knees, which some of them got, and others just stood and did nothing no matter what encouragement we gave. Second we played one of my old Brownies games, where in groups of 3 we gave them a sheet of paper and they had to stand on the paper without any of them touching the ground. This they did, but then as soon as we told them to fold the paper in half they just refused and said it was impossible, even once we gave them some suggestions of how to fit more. It worked better the second week at Natebe School, and we made it to 6 people on one sheet of A4 which we thought was quite impressive. Then we brought out the balloons.... Wow! Natebe not so much, but the excitement at Maunga about balloons was just incredible! Any child gets excited about a balloon, so children from poor rural areas end up running around screaming! They absolutely loved playing with them, and we brought the whiteboard pens so they could draw on their balloons too which went down a treat. A really enjoyable morning for everyone, even if it is less useful to the children now that we don't have a teacher so it is more games rather than learning. Having said that, our new teacher should be arriving very soon so Kids Club will regain some structure, and we'll be able to restart book club too. 

Zambia vs the Mzungus!

And that brings me to Sundays! 2 weeks ago after I posted last, I headed to Victoria Falls with the 2 volunteers. We had a lovely afternoon just wandering around, getting drenched in spray, and taking far too many photos! The plan was to go again this afternoon and bring in the New Year at one of the Natural Wonders of the World, but a combination of rain, no sleep, and hangovers is making that plan a bit less inviting! Last Sunday was, of course, Christmas Day. We started off with scones for breakfast, then headed to church with one of the lion handlers. I have to admit, it wasn't the Christmas Day Church Service I was really expecting or wanting in order to feel the spirit of Christmas... There were no carols, no mention of the nativity and a lot of really quite aggressive shouting. Let's just say I don't think "Silent Night" is a common sound from that church... Still it was interesting, and everyone was very welcoming and there was a section in the middle where the women were all singing and a dance which we were able to join in with and clap along to, so it was still enjoyable. We headed home for lunch, then went up to our boss's house for the rest of the day. We had a wonderful afternoon just playing cards, chatting, eating and drinking, before having dinner, a (rather offensive but equally quite funny) quiz game, and Secret Santa. I got a little herd of 5 wooden elephants which are very sweet, and now sit on top of my cupboard in my room. A very Merry Christmas all around, even if it can't replace a good old Mylne Christmas at home.

Christmas dinner

Victoria Falls

At the Falls

The falls slightly more full than last time I stood here!

At the top of the Falls