
[ Elephant on the march ]
Another place in Zimbabwe is the Wankie Game Reserve, a large area where wildlife is protected and all sorts of animals can be seen by tourists driving around on roads. There are elephants and lions and Cape buffalo and sable antelope and hippos, to mention some of the larger animals. It is possible to get very close to lions but the windows need to be kept shut and pictures taken through the glass.

[ Chris and the gnu ]
I then had to run for safety as that gnu was right after me! We circled the car a couple of times and fortunately my mom opened a door and I leapt in for safety. The next morning on “rest-room” trip, gnu was standing around looking for a victim and I had to be escorted by Mom and Chris.

[ One of my pet monkeys ]
The same man was out hunting at night once and so were an African friend and I. We all carried flashlights (torches over there). Our prey was spring hares, a rodent that hopped like a kangaroo and lived in burrows, and ate a lot of the mission crops by night. When we saw the light of the mission fellow, both of us turned our lights toward him and he paused briefly to look at us, and then took off running in the opposite direction.
We were fortunate that he did. Next day when we asked him why he had run away, he explained that he thought our two lights were the eyes of a big leopard and he didn’t want to take the risk of wounding it and being attacked!

[ Mission station where Chris taught ]
Four big lumps in its body showed where four eggs had gone, with shells still unbroken. The African picked up the snake and squeezed out all four eggs into a basket. For several weeks thereafter Mom did not buy any eggs from African vendors knocking at the door, fearing that she might buy eggs that we knew now as “the eggs twice eaten!”
When one bought eggs from Africans, the usual procedure was to place them in a bowl of water and see how they reacted. If they laid over or floated, it meant they were old and might have little chicks inside. The hens ran free and made their nests where they wished and when the African owner found a nest, he just collected all the eggs and took them off for sale. – DALE
(next up, Part 3…)