Wow! What a week! Again, very different - maybe next week will start to get more normal again...

Independence Day March through Livingstone

Monday was 24th October, making it Zambia's 52nd Independence Day, in which they celebrate their independence from the British. Britain treating another country and it's citizens terribly... I have to admit it was slightly awkward! There was a large march through the centre of Livingstone followed by a series of performances from dancers, poetry recitals and bands. We joined in the march, walking behind our ALERT banner, and it was good fun and really interesting to see how different people acted - some very seriously marching in silence, while other groups were dancing and singing and clearly really enjoying themselves. We were however clearly out of place, and all felt slightly awkward joining in rather than watching from the side. We were certainly the only mzungus (white people!) marching, and as we walked into the field where the performances were held, everyone else was introduced on loudspeaker and they simply skipped over us. Maybe that was because they simply didn't know who ALERT were - generally people don't know ALERT, but they know Wildlife Encounter which is a separate tourist company, but which is very closely linked to ALERT - or maybe it was because they genuinely believed that we shouldn't be there as non-Zambians. Having said that, it was still all very friendly and a lot of people waved at us as we passed them. After the parade we watched some of the acts, then went for lunch and ice cream at a local restaurant, which was extremely welcome after marching and then standing for a while in the African sun! Headed to the local curio market too and totally cleared out my purse (oops....) before we headed home and hit the pool to cool down. A small kid in the pool decided he wanted to play with us, so we finished the day with a very amusing game of being lions, hippos and hyenas in the pool with him! One of the community interns decided she wanted to be an ostrich... Few things more amusing than watching someone attempting to watch an ostrich swim! I'm definitely going to miss her when she goes back to America in 2 weeks time... Watched the sunset from the pool, then headed home for dinner. All in all, an extremely fun, interesting, and relaxing Monday!

Tuesday went back to normal, with trees in the morning, followed by lesson plan for tomorrow's conservation education in the afternoon. It seems that the mupani bees have decided it's now too hot even for them, so we had another quick and easy session. Again it helped that having had to set off late and be back early (the joys of broken cars - we had to share with the people going to book club at a local school) so our head researcher had chosen another easy plot. I really enjoy trees, which is good because it means that a) I can be the one not complaining, and can keep smiling when everyone else is grumpy because they're stuck with their least favourite job, and b) because we still have about 12 plots to do in the next month! We went out for dinner on Tuesday night to Cafe Zambezi. I had the kudu stew which had been highly recommended, and it was indeed very tender and juicy... unfortunately I think I just don't really like kudu! Never mind!

Mummy and Babies!

Thursday was another slightly odd day... We were doing elephant research all day, and the afternoon was just normal research - with only the researcher, the driver and me. If I'm honest, that is how I like it best. The more volunteers and other interns that are with us, the less there is to do! But still, can't complain that they're normally here helping out - always good to have extra pairs of eyes for spotting. Our current elephant volunteer is amazing at spotting the bushbuck! The morning however, we did not have the researcher, and our boss is ill having been bitten by a spider... something I am very much hoping to avoid! This put me in charge of the vehicle, but I had no idea where we were going!  We were supposed t be driving the section of the park that we have never done, looking for any signs of elephants. I'd been told "don't worry, the driver knows where he is going, you don't need a map", but due to a miscommunication, the driver had no clue where he was going, and we spent the entire morning driving the wrong section of park! Oops... Boss wasn't happy... But at least we confirmed previous data that the elephants don't use that section!

Friday was an extremely frustrating day... We had snare sweep in the morning, and found 17 snares. No issues there - that's 17 lives saved! But the rest if the day was elephant IDs... and that almost killed us...! First of all, that long staring at a screen trying to decide if 2 ears match is enough to send anyone crazy. Secondly, the sheets of paper on which we've been recording the elephants present at each sighting, had been very helpfully thrown out... so we had to spend a ridiculous amount of time just scanning through photos that we had already processed, trying to find which were missing from our lists! So annoying... Third and finally, as a joke one of the volunteers highlighted half of the folders in the female elephants file on the computer, pretending like she was going to delete them... and then did by mistake! That was over 50 elephants just deleted, and if we hadn't been able to restore them, would have set us back months! As it was, it turned out fine as we managed to restore them all, but that wasted another 30 minutes again... Like I said, frustrating day!

Not a bad sunset view....!

Saturday was regular elephant research for the early and afternoon sessions, and IDs for the mid morning session. This was a good day, but it can definitely be said that there is tension building among the elephant team... I'm trying to maintain the good teamwork we used to have, but I'll admit it's getting harder. Hopefully having Sunday and Monday off (we're all doing different things on Monday) will help. We saw breeding herd 7 again quite close, and it's the first time in about 3 weeks that we've seen elephants on this side of the river! We know they're still coming back to the park at night, but in the day they go either to Zim or to the islands in the middle of the river. I can't remember if I've said this previously (I probably have), but breeding herd 7 is the easiest group to recognise. The 2 adult females are Sierra (F52) and Gabrielle (F60) who have 1 tusk between them! They've also recently been joined by a new female and her juvenile, and the juvenile has a limp, so again they are easy to spot. We were told about a lot of groups of elephants yesterday, but we couldn't find any of them! We'd get a phone call "there's elephants behind the David Livingstone Lodge", drive over there 2 minutes later and there would be no sign of elephants, or even any recent activity! I reckon people just have fun sending us on a wild goose chase!

DEVIL'S POOL!!! Totally not an awkward photo
with a random guy behind me...

And finally to my 2 days off this week (yes 2 not including Monday!). Today (Sunday) I have had a very interesting and enjoyable day, unlike most Sunday's when I go to the pool and just relax and read my book! This morning, I and a group of volunteers went with one of the ALERT staff to his Pentecostal Church in Livingstone. It was a 3 hour service and it was fascinating to see the difference between this and a UK service. At home, the services are very quiet, calm and relaxing, discussing life and how God affects us, with the readings and sermon interspersed with hymns. Here, the service essentially started with a party! The only way I can describe the first 30 minutes would be like a "religious rave"! It was insanely loud, with everyone dancing around, singing, clapping, and even screaming. Behaviour like that would get you instantly kicked out of the churches I go to in the UK, but here it is encouraged. It's the African culture I guess - there's so much more singing and dancing here all the time, it would almost be strange to have a UK-style service here. The preacher was fantastic, talking for well over an hour but holding everyone's attention the entire time. Again, he didn't talk like the priests and vicars that I've encountered in the UK, but it was certainly equally effective! Again, in the UK if people were shouting out during the sermon, they would heavily frowned upon (at least in the churches I've been to) and possibly asked to leave, but here it was encouraged. I found it amazing to see the differences, and will hopefully have the chance to go again sometime. We went out for pizza afterwards which was really nice too. Then my other day off... The plan was only to take the mid morning session off, but thanks to my stomach playing up (an event that you somewhat get used to here...!) I decided it would be sensible to rest up for the rest of the day too. But the mid-morning session? Definitely not relaxing! Devil's Pool! It was amazing... A group of 4 of us went to the Royal Livingstone Hotel, and from there took a speed boat to the top of Victoria Falls, the Smoke that Thunders. We saw elephants from the boat which was cool, and then reached Livingstone Island. We looked down the gorge which was really impressive. At the moment there is no water flowing over the edge between Livingstone Island and the Zambian side of the Zambezi, and it's just impossible to imagine what it will look like in a few months time! At the moment it's more like Victoria Walls than Falls! From there, we swam (yes I have now officially been for a swim in the Zambezi River!) across to a group of rocks in the river, and sat on those as, a few at a time, we were able to jump in, and swim to the very edge of the falls... It's SO beautiful! The water flowing over from there is shallow (dry season is the only time that this is allowed for a very good reason!) but still fast flowing and forms an incredible cascade as it tumbles 108 m to the rocks in the lower gorge. You can lie on the edge and look all the way down, and the gorge is just filled with rainbows dancing in the spray. Another one of those moments that just totally takes your breath away, making you feel so tiny and insignificant on the planet, and it's just absolutely magical. They take well over 100 photos of you sitting and lying on the rocks at the edge, then you swim back across the river and have a big breakfast before getting the boat back over to the Royal Livingstone Hotel. We stayed there and just had drinks for a good 3 hours before coming back to camp. It was an incredible experience, and while it was expensive, I can't help but feel that at some point I may have to do it again... maybe next dry season if it reopens in time before I leave!

Apologies for the stupidly long post this week (it's taken me well over an hour to type!) but I just couldn't miss anything out! Awesome week....