Cultural Day at Linkwasha

This morning we went on our game drive on the way to visit the school and the village here in Zimbabwe. We saw another jackel on the way as well as wildebeast and zebra. We saw lion tracks but had no time to chase them this morning. We were met at the school by the 5th and 7th graders. This school is sponsored by the Grand Circle Foundation, which is operated by the tour company we travel with. They have just put in a bore hole at this school for a well which will help so much and they have built new bathrooms as well as other things. The children had uniforms which were bought by the foundation also. My two new friends were Julia and Lois. We talked for a little while and then they went back to class while we toured the school with one of the teachers. We saw the first grade class and they sang for us. Then we went to see the 5th and 7th graders who were meeting together that day. They sang and danced for us and had us get up and join them. We were oh so good-NOT. They asked us to perform something for them, so with Rosanne leading us, we sang Row Row Row Your Boat in a round. They all laughed and so did we. From the school, we went to the village where the head man, whose name was Johnson, told us about village life today. He is a Christian so only has one wife, whereas he said his father and the generations before would have multiple wives. The men sit on one side of the hut and the women sit on mats on the floor. It was very interesting and after we finished, we went to the market that they had for us in one area of the village. With things so hard in Zimbabwe right now, these crafts help the families with food and other necessities that are so hard to get. They are very talented and their wood carvings were just beautiful and very reasonable as well. They make beautiful baskets from the grasses and everything was lovely. We all did our part at helping their local economy and would have liked to do more if we had the money, time and no weight restriction on our luggage (we were limited to 26 lb total so that may well have been a good thing!) We bought a wooden wall carving that Mr Johnson made, but it got broken on the way home. We glued it back together and still treasure it but it is hard to protect things in the duffel bags. On the way back to the lodge, we saw a couple more jackels and a couple of new birds but not much else.

There were vervet monkeys in the camp this afternoon in the trees and they were fun to watch. Again there were babies. The animals have their babies right as the rainy season starts so there will be plenty to eat and we really did enjoy seeing all the babies and how the animals protect them. There are pink flowers that have sprung up on the plains as well-very pretty.

Our afternoon game drive was eventful in that we saw a cheetah sunning himself on a rock. He just stayed there and looked at us and we all enjoyed being able to get that close and see him. The other vehicle got to see a leopard that was in the grass but by the time our driver got us there, he was long gone. We had joked about a leopard the entire trip but we never did see one. Guess we will have to go back someday.... We saw a big male lion parked in front of a bush near the watering hole, waiting to take down his prey when darkness fell. We had our sundowner at the waterhole with the elephants and enjoyed another night drive back to the lodge. It is so interesting to see the eyes glow in the infrared light. We saw another african wild cat not too far from our camp. When we got ready to go to our cabin at night, the guide got to our path and told the others to be very still and wait while he walked us to the door-that there was an elephant by the tree. There was indeed! He spent the night right near us and the next morning he was over by the waterhole that our tent looked out on. We heard the leopard that night and the guide said he was very near the camp...