Schlagwort: African culture

Hello, Bonjour and Salibonani from Cawston Wildlife Reserve, Northern Matabeleland where I stay for about 2,5 months and help with the horses. During the early afternoon we finally set up of the safari camp for the upcoming safari. It was quite a hectic day, but we managed to build a bush toilet, shower and set up all 3 tents. It’s finally safari time for the next 4 days!

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For the next few days I was helping to prepare horses for the bush outrides, getting breakfast ready in the morning and just enjoyed the amazing wildlife encounters during the bush outrides! I have to admit however, that it surely was quite a stressful time with days starting before 5am and finishing after 9pm, which lead to some shortages in sleep that I need to get back soon. But it’s definitely worth it, if you ever want to experience a great horsesafari, come along and join this fantastic place!

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After the safari days, we washed all the saddle blankets and went back to normal working days. Next task that is waiting for us is to repair the fences of the paddock for the horses. This will be a longer mission… Let‘s see if we will be done before end of May.

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I finally could go on a morning drive to fix the pumps for the waterholes all over the ranch. I believe I was a great help watching the guys fixing the pumps and that’s about as far as my help went. It’s really sad to say this as a German but I didn’t even know how the Diesel engine works. The guys did a great job and I might recognize a Diesel engine next time I see it – think that’s already some good improvement. However, I believe I wasn’t causing too much trouble, so I guess that’s a great achievement from my side!

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During the next day, I went back to what I can do a bit better, riding and looking for the donkeys as we have to deworm some of them. We easily found the donkeys in the bush and directed them homewards, where we did the deworming. Another 2 horses needed to be dewormed as well, so that was the work for the day. After working now for about 4 weeks in a row, without any day off, I believe I might need to take a day off soon and sleep, let’s see if this is going to happen.

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My new lessons learned while helping at Cawston Wildlife Reserve:

1. Sleeping time is rare on a safari – you are definitely a safari staff person if you are fine with only a couple of hours of sleep.
2. Knowledge about Diesel engines helps to fix the pumps – otherwise you can at least try to not be in anyone’s way.
3. Deworming is easier than I thought – the hardest work is to find the donkeys in the bush!

Cheers to wandering the world and the wonders of our lives, hope to see you see you soon again – bye bye, salut and lisale kuhle ∞

Hello, Bonjour and Salibonani from Cawston Wildlife Reserve, Northern Matabeleland where I stay for about 2,5 months and help with the horses. Every morning we start working at 6 am, I am however always a bit late as I can’t get up on time, it is just too early. It really gets me sleepy and tired to wake up so early every single day. There is no weekend as the animals are hungry, need exercise or might get ill every day. Definitely harder than I thought at the beginning…

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For the first time, I lunged a rescued horse, that can not yet been ridden, in our re-opened lunging arena that we had fixed some days ago. The horse‘s name is Zhovhe and he was doing really well, we had lots of fun together. Maybe we will get to the point that he actually can be ridden by June. We will see what happens once his injured back leg has recovered from a very deep cut.

But I am not only working with the horses here, I also help preparing the food for the ostriches on the reserve, which contains sorghum, maize and millet. We mix about half of a ton for 8 ostriches that should last a couple of weeks. Feeding the ostriches is a special task and I am not yet brave enough to do that. These huge animals get really crazy, so the grooms who feed them, take a long whip to scare them away as an ostrich attack could end deadly.

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I also go on game drives through the reserve to look after the game or injured donkeys. During my first game drive, I have finally seen the wild sables antelope for the first time. Magnificent animals with long horns standing in front of the sun setting down! Another time I went with the car to look after the free roaming donkeys, which turned into a game drive as well as I saw a herd of wildebeests just next to a herd of zebras that were really close to 9 giraffes enjoying their afternoon.

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During my lunchtime I enjoy to hang out at the deck and watch the waterhole action going on. There is always a party one of a kind, kudus or giraffes enjoying the water, monkeys playing around, warthogs rolling in the mud or bushbucks just strolling the green plain. I have even seen some very shy impalas coming for a quick drink as well as an old, limping sable antelope – beautiful animal! During the evening a fire is set up and I enjoy the marvelous sunset from this fabulous veranda, where bushbabies come to join me.

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On the reserve, there is a dairy as well as a butchery and I saw for the very first time a zebra that was being skinned after it got shot on the game reserve. The skinning process takes about an hour, done by 2 or 3 people. Almost every part of the animal is used, the meat to feed on, the skin to serve as a rug and the parts being left over are fed to the vultures.

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My new lessons learned while helping at Cawston Wildlife Reserve:

1. Sleeping until 7 am is heaven – getting up every single day at 5.30 am is really getting hard.
2. When not vegetarian, one needs to know where the meat comes from – seeing meat being processed, makes it more precious and understandable why this needs to be done in a proper way.
3. Avoid any sound when enjoying to watch animals drinking at a waterhole – every little click can scare them away easily.

Cheers to wandering the world and the wonders of our lives, hope to see you see you soon again – bye bye, salut and lisale kuhle ∞

Hello, Bonjour and Salibonani from Cawston Wildlife Reserve, Northern Matabeleland where I have arrived on the 13th of April. Lots of things have happened since my last blog post and some of them were really heart breaking. Thursday the 11th of April, we had to take the decision to put down the little foal, Bandi. We went to the vet with him and wanted a full assessment of his body and legs. It came out that 3 of his legs had major problems and it was unsure if he could ever walk. This was a very sad day and I miss his little face that got so excited when he saw the blue bucket with milk or his funny attitude of always wanting to drink my tea. He deserves all the best that heaven can offer to him! I hope he canters with 4 perfect legs along the skies.

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The day after, I drove to Umguza farm where 12 other horses are based from ridezimbabwe. As it was raining the night before, the last kilometers on the dirt road were in bad conditions. Definitely recommendable to have a 4WD. 

The horses here are roaming in a huge place of land that crosses the Umguza river, a lovely place!
The next day I got to ride a young gelding called Cola just before we drove off to Cawston, the game reserve I will stay at for the most of the time here in Zim.

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Cawston is about 32.000 acres big and full of bush land with plenty of wildlife and about 11 horses. We did some horse grooming and removed PLENTY of ticks of the horses. On my first outride in the morning, we saw Kudus, impalas, monkeys, wildebeests and bushbucks along with the donkeys and cattle of the farm. During the afternoon ride we saw 4 giraffes before we headed deeper into the bush, where I got caught up in thornes and I was left with a bleeding leg. Hope this is nothing I will need to get used to…

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The next morning started with feeding and grooming the horses as usually and afterwards we went to the lunging arena that we want to fix with new poles so we can actually use it for horse training. Quite hard work in the sun.

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During lunchtime, I went to see the butchery on the farm for the first time. Pretty scary, a skinned leopard was hanging from the ceiling and lots of pieces of a giraffe were cooling in the cooling room. Every animal that is processed in the butchery is shot on the farm and serves the purpose of being in a dinner plate of the staff and everyone living on the farm including myself.

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I have also found the Campground that has a gorgeous veranda overlooking the plain field and a waterhole, where some zebras were just enjoying the water. It was also here where I saw my first snake in this game reserve.

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My new lessons learned while helping at Cawston Wildlife Reserve:

1. You need to be very attentive and careful, riding in the bush – during my first day I got already caught up in the thorn bushes resulting in a bleeding leg, not mentioning the ripped pants.
2. Learn about the spiders species to know which ones are venomous and which ones aren’t – I got lots of these bigger and smaller friends in my sleeping room but I believe I know by now who is a friend and who not.
3. The Internet connection can be quite tricky – however, I think I found my favorite spot on the reserve and it has also a decent connection to the outside world.

Cheers to wandering the world and the wonders of our lives, hope to see you see you soon again – bye bye, salut and lisale kuhle ∞