Last activities!
Door: Elise
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elise
10 Juni 2015 | Kameroen, Bamenda
Hey all,
Saw that is already has been a very long time since I have written something. Many things have happened and I have been super busy. The month of April was mainly the preparation of the Childrens bushcamp. We prepared a camp to invite 250 local school children into Bénoué NP. We had to arrange the schools, teachers, teaching materials location food etc. More work than expected.
We also spend around 10 days in Bouba Ndjida NP. We did many interviews, herbivore counts and we searched a lot of poos (for our dietary research). Also, we just took a lot of rest. In the middle of the day it was just too hot to work. I already forgot what we did exactly. Oh, by the way, we made some real Bouba Ndjida pizza :D Everything is possible in the bush. The last two days we moved to the camp of hunting zone 11, because the villages we had to go to for our interviews were closer to that camp. It's a very nice place with a beautiful view over the dry river. And.. I had my first hyenas for this year. We got a special concert every night. Hyena sound in the night make me always soo happy. Crazy researchers as we are. We started a calling station in met middle of the night (3:00 AM) to start a conversation with the hyenas. And it worked :D. They reacted to us and we saw two hyenas that crossed the river. Super funny.
We also went to Faro for a few days. We had to see if the bomas were already built. First, we wanted to go at the beginning of April, but this plan failed.. Because of our shit car. It was broken again.. To, eventually we went after our Bouba Ndjida trip. We were surprised by the results of the bomas. They were all there, and better than expected. This time, we would bring the doors, roof, wood and cement (to plaster all the walls). The wood and cement we would buy in Poli. When we arrived, all wood was gone.. We had to think of another plan. We chose to bring it the next time. The other problem was the cement (we already knew on forehand). It would be way too heavy for our car to bring it to the villages. Therefore, we asked help by the lamido (sort of king of the region). He has a truck for the community, and we asked him if we could use it to bring the cement to the villages. It turned out that this man was very kind, and it was no problem. Problem solved for us!! They arrived with all the bags of cement two days after. Everybody was happy. Of course they asked again for more money in one of the villages. They only want to earn, while the bomas are for their community, to reduce depredation :/ Its sometimes difficult to cope with such people. We also did many interviews around Faro NP. It is clear that the help of the bomas is welcome. There are many problems with the carnivores in this area. Also, it is clear that those people are still very interested in what we tell them. Faro, is a sort of forgotten area. All help is going to Benoue and Bouba Ndjida, while Faro has also many problems.
When we came back in Garoua, we arranged all last stuff for the Childrens Bushcamp. Lot of stuff happened in the last days. Nothing was clear, and to arrange everything, we had to find out everything by ourselves, but we managed.
At the 26th of April, it was finally time to go to Benoue NP. We had packed the two busses the day before, so we could leave as soon as possible. But, 5 minutes before we wanted to leave, Malloum (our driver) was called by the delegue. He had to drive for them, and saying no was no option. This was like the worst timing ever, because we still had to arrange so many stuff in the camp. luckily enough, we could use another driver of EFG for the first day. We were so happy! Malloum would come a day after. We arrived in the camp of Benoue NP around midday. We put all stuff in our rooms (150 kg rice, 100 kg onions, 15 boxes of tomato paste. We have to feed many people). Somewhere just between all stuff there was still little space left to sleep. We held a small siesta, and after we did a tour to instruct everybody. Also, we did some cleaning of the buildings we were going to use. We were ready to let the first group of children come. But first, let me explain what the idea of the Childrens Bushcamp exactly is. The idea is that we bring many children from local schools (in this case, around Bénoué NP) into the camp inside the park for environmental education. All those children and their teachers live so closely to the NP, but have never entered to see the beautiful inside. Because all the problems and threats the park is currently facing, it is necessary to change the attitude of the next generation. Environmental education for this next generation is the way to do that. The children received classes in botany, herbivore/carnivores and habitat/ecosystem. All specifically focussed on the ecosystem they are living close to. They received theoretical classes, outdoor activities in the bush and practicals in the camp. As we could see it, they loved it! For many of them, it was the first time they saw wild animal (antilopes, giraffes, hippos). Such reactions, that why we do those things :D. Making people happy and trying to learn them something. In the evening, we made a small bush cinema to show the children a nature documentary. They loved it. All those children live in small villages having only basic facilities, so watching a movie (and then beautiful nature) was a whole new experience for them. We ended the program with a game of bingo. Almost nobody knows this game here, so it was funny to play it. In one of the groups, the smallest little boy won even two times (his neighbours were looking quite jealous towards his two bags of candy XD). Another funny story about the bingo. When we drove back at the end of the week, when we were passing one of the villages, we heard a man screaming 'BINGO'! when he saw us. He did not already forget us haha. Over all, we can say that we had a really good week. The students of EFG had their difficulties, but did well during the courses. Also the eco guards did an amazing job. Without them, we would have been nothing. Even seeing our lion guards working with the children made me happy. One of them came every time after a GPS route that he has finished it totally, with a big smile on his face (other groups were only doing half of it). It was good for them that they could show their knowledge of the park. We were just running around the whole day. Filling water bottles (yeah, children drink a lot). Preparing activities, keeping track of the planning, helping in the kitchen etc. It was a busy, crazy, but so satisfying week. I'm happy and grateful that we did it. Two crazy white girls doing where others were already talking about for years. And, next year we will do it all over again.
The next activity. The planning for this was quite blurry. I think that we eventually only know that we were going was on the day we left. Finally, people had listened to our request and came with funding to help the three snared lions in Bouba Ndjida. We had only a few days to prepare everything. For example, finding the dart guns, arranging prescriptions for medication etc. And that, when we were still very tired from the week Childrens Bushcamp in Bénoué NP. We went to Bouba Ndjida at the first week of May for 10 days. In our idea, it should be possible to find the lions and help them. Already at the day we arrived, we did our first try to find the lions. The idea was that we were going to do calling stations with a living bait, in this case a goat (I know, that was the part I did not really like). At this first night we were very lucky. After a while of waiting, a group of three lions reacted to our calling station, and it was the group with two cabled lions. They did not dare to pass our car to attack the goat :(. They stayed in the grass which made it impossible to dart them. They left and thus no success for this group for now. When driving back we saw two other lions. On first instance, we thought that both of them was health. However, later we saw that one of them had a cable. We tried to dart. We did not really saw good if we shot well. The men in our team (Hans, who was responsible for the darting and two ecoguards for safety) went into the bush to search the lions. Later we concluded that we did not hit the lion. And it was true because we found the dart back in the bushes. It was bad luck, but luckily enough we had still nine days to go). On the other hand, we had seen all three injured lions. So now we know that all of them were still alive, even after more than two month after the first sightings with the cables. On our way back we did also saw a big male lion at the side of the route. He was very calm and we think that he just had eaten. So, after all a day full of lions. The next day, we just filled with sleeping. The calling stations we do at night, so we have to sleep during the day. Around 18:00, we went into the bush again. This night, we did not have that much luck. No lions at all. For the other days, I will shorten the story a bit, otherwise it will be too long. We saw the group with two cabled lions a few times. However, those lions were very skittish and did not dare to come close by. One night, we decided to kill the goat, hoping that the lions, which we know they we close in the grass, would come to the smelly fresh carcass. We waited for four hours, and the lions waited the same amount of time, without coming closer. At 2:00 in the night, we gave up and headed back to the camp. Evenings like this happened a few times. Lions that were close but impossible to dart. One evening we had a very good chance, bus missed two times. Just a lot of bad luck unfortunately. We even tried another method. Hans went into a large cage with the darting materials with the goat (a new one) attached to a tree on 20 metres. The cars would wait for two hours on 2 km distance, not scaring away the lions. Even this method was not successful, no lions that came close. On the last day, we id not have a lot of hope anymore. Although, we started to use another calling station sound on a place we had not been before. I was already half falling asleep when a lion was approaching the goat. First we thought it was healthy, but no, it was an injured one. Hans darted, and did not miss this time. We waited a few minutes before we started searching. We started driving in the middle of the bush. It took us almost 45 minutes to find back the lion. First, we had driven in the wrong direction. Later, we saw three small lion cubs. That must be the small ones of the lion we had darted! It was a mother of three young and was searching for food! When we found these three, we also found the mother soon. We drove close by and Hans stepped out to check if the lion was well sedated. We had to give her a bit more, because her head was moving. It worked, after, she was lying still and we could start the work. There were always some people torching the neighbourhood to check if no other lions were arriving. We found out that the cable was already gone. It is still a mystery for us how she did that. The wound was healing quite well, although there was still a big hole in her neck. We disinfected all and gave her a shot of antibiotics. We think she will manage and become a total healthy lioness again. We hope she can raise her three cubs successfully. We gave her the antidote and after 15 minutes of waiting she walked away in the darkness of the bush (still a bit drunk of the sedation). We were really happy that we could have helped at least one lion. We tried to find the other lions, but again no success. With this, our mission came to an end. It was exhausting, but it was totally worth it. The next day, we went back to Garoua.
Then we had our last days in Garoua. We had to arrange and finish a lot of small stuff before we would go. Besides that, we slept a lot. After a week of Childrens Bushcamp and more than a week of night work we were extremely tired. We still went to Faro for one day to bring the last stuff for the bomas. Of course, our car was again breaking down. Don't know how we reached Garoua again. And that, when our car had been in the garage for days before we left. Now it could go back again, to fix it again. This car needs retirement, we can't work again with this thing. It is giving too much frustrations and it is costing too much money. When back, we started to pack all our luggage. At the end of May, it was time to leave Garoua. Malloum brought us to the bus station (he did really not like it that we had to go). It was a 6 hour drive in a too small bus back to Ngaoundere. I felt like a sardine :/ In Ngaoundere we had to wait for a few hours before we could go in the train. And for me, a massive headache started. There we no problems with the train this time. One of the carriers even arranged that we could keep our luggage with us in our sleeping compartment. I was happy with that :D I do like it when I can always keep an eye on my luggage. Losing my suitcases would be one of my worst nightmares XD. I went directly into bed. I was so tired and my head was painful. I think I have slept for almost the whole travel of 17 hours, and it was even quite comfortable. We arrives in Yaounde around 9 (the train was really on time this time). We grabbed a taxi that brought us to the next bus company. We would have a small 'holiday' of two weeks in Bamenda. Again, a long bus trip of eight hours in a too small bus. Totally not comfortable for tall persons like me :(. But hé, it's Africa and part of the deal :D. We arrived around 20:00 in Bamenda and Honera was already waiting for us (t had also started to rain and we had to adapt immediately to the new climate here). We took a taxi to the house. There, Henriette was also already waiting for us. We were happy to see those two girls back after more than a year. There was some food for us ready, and after we had been eating something, we went to sleep. The days after we spent on working and finishing a lot of reports. It is just writing, writing, writing. We want to finish most of it before we go back home. We also went a few times into town, but there is not much to do here. I think I do like the French part of Cameroon more than the English part. Up north, it is way more relaxed. Probably because it is just because of the heat. Also, we just relax and do a lot of nothing. I also got a bit sickish, I think all of the tiredness of the last months is coming out now. Hope it will be okay, before flying back home. Only a few days to go, and another adventure has come to an end. it was great, and I am thankful that I could go again to this beautiful place. I have done such amazing thing this year. But also, I am ready to go home again for a few months. Only a few days to go, and I will finally be home :D. Although I probably miss Africa within a few days haha
Last greets from Cameroon!
Elise
Saw that is already has been a very long time since I have written something. Many things have happened and I have been super busy. The month of April was mainly the preparation of the Childrens bushcamp. We prepared a camp to invite 250 local school children into Bénoué NP. We had to arrange the schools, teachers, teaching materials location food etc. More work than expected.
We also spend around 10 days in Bouba Ndjida NP. We did many interviews, herbivore counts and we searched a lot of poos (for our dietary research). Also, we just took a lot of rest. In the middle of the day it was just too hot to work. I already forgot what we did exactly. Oh, by the way, we made some real Bouba Ndjida pizza :D Everything is possible in the bush. The last two days we moved to the camp of hunting zone 11, because the villages we had to go to for our interviews were closer to that camp. It's a very nice place with a beautiful view over the dry river. And.. I had my first hyenas for this year. We got a special concert every night. Hyena sound in the night make me always soo happy. Crazy researchers as we are. We started a calling station in met middle of the night (3:00 AM) to start a conversation with the hyenas. And it worked :D. They reacted to us and we saw two hyenas that crossed the river. Super funny.
We also went to Faro for a few days. We had to see if the bomas were already built. First, we wanted to go at the beginning of April, but this plan failed.. Because of our shit car. It was broken again.. To, eventually we went after our Bouba Ndjida trip. We were surprised by the results of the bomas. They were all there, and better than expected. This time, we would bring the doors, roof, wood and cement (to plaster all the walls). The wood and cement we would buy in Poli. When we arrived, all wood was gone.. We had to think of another plan. We chose to bring it the next time. The other problem was the cement (we already knew on forehand). It would be way too heavy for our car to bring it to the villages. Therefore, we asked help by the lamido (sort of king of the region). He has a truck for the community, and we asked him if we could use it to bring the cement to the villages. It turned out that this man was very kind, and it was no problem. Problem solved for us!! They arrived with all the bags of cement two days after. Everybody was happy. Of course they asked again for more money in one of the villages. They only want to earn, while the bomas are for their community, to reduce depredation :/ Its sometimes difficult to cope with such people. We also did many interviews around Faro NP. It is clear that the help of the bomas is welcome. There are many problems with the carnivores in this area. Also, it is clear that those people are still very interested in what we tell them. Faro, is a sort of forgotten area. All help is going to Benoue and Bouba Ndjida, while Faro has also many problems.
When we came back in Garoua, we arranged all last stuff for the Childrens Bushcamp. Lot of stuff happened in the last days. Nothing was clear, and to arrange everything, we had to find out everything by ourselves, but we managed.
At the 26th of April, it was finally time to go to Benoue NP. We had packed the two busses the day before, so we could leave as soon as possible. But, 5 minutes before we wanted to leave, Malloum (our driver) was called by the delegue. He had to drive for them, and saying no was no option. This was like the worst timing ever, because we still had to arrange so many stuff in the camp. luckily enough, we could use another driver of EFG for the first day. We were so happy! Malloum would come a day after. We arrived in the camp of Benoue NP around midday. We put all stuff in our rooms (150 kg rice, 100 kg onions, 15 boxes of tomato paste. We have to feed many people). Somewhere just between all stuff there was still little space left to sleep. We held a small siesta, and after we did a tour to instruct everybody. Also, we did some cleaning of the buildings we were going to use. We were ready to let the first group of children come. But first, let me explain what the idea of the Childrens Bushcamp exactly is. The idea is that we bring many children from local schools (in this case, around Bénoué NP) into the camp inside the park for environmental education. All those children and their teachers live so closely to the NP, but have never entered to see the beautiful inside. Because all the problems and threats the park is currently facing, it is necessary to change the attitude of the next generation. Environmental education for this next generation is the way to do that. The children received classes in botany, herbivore/carnivores and habitat/ecosystem. All specifically focussed on the ecosystem they are living close to. They received theoretical classes, outdoor activities in the bush and practicals in the camp. As we could see it, they loved it! For many of them, it was the first time they saw wild animal (antilopes, giraffes, hippos). Such reactions, that why we do those things :D. Making people happy and trying to learn them something. In the evening, we made a small bush cinema to show the children a nature documentary. They loved it. All those children live in small villages having only basic facilities, so watching a movie (and then beautiful nature) was a whole new experience for them. We ended the program with a game of bingo. Almost nobody knows this game here, so it was funny to play it. In one of the groups, the smallest little boy won even two times (his neighbours were looking quite jealous towards his two bags of candy XD). Another funny story about the bingo. When we drove back at the end of the week, when we were passing one of the villages, we heard a man screaming 'BINGO'! when he saw us. He did not already forget us haha. Over all, we can say that we had a really good week. The students of EFG had their difficulties, but did well during the courses. Also the eco guards did an amazing job. Without them, we would have been nothing. Even seeing our lion guards working with the children made me happy. One of them came every time after a GPS route that he has finished it totally, with a big smile on his face (other groups were only doing half of it). It was good for them that they could show their knowledge of the park. We were just running around the whole day. Filling water bottles (yeah, children drink a lot). Preparing activities, keeping track of the planning, helping in the kitchen etc. It was a busy, crazy, but so satisfying week. I'm happy and grateful that we did it. Two crazy white girls doing where others were already talking about for years. And, next year we will do it all over again.
The next activity. The planning for this was quite blurry. I think that we eventually only know that we were going was on the day we left. Finally, people had listened to our request and came with funding to help the three snared lions in Bouba Ndjida. We had only a few days to prepare everything. For example, finding the dart guns, arranging prescriptions for medication etc. And that, when we were still very tired from the week Childrens Bushcamp in Bénoué NP. We went to Bouba Ndjida at the first week of May for 10 days. In our idea, it should be possible to find the lions and help them. Already at the day we arrived, we did our first try to find the lions. The idea was that we were going to do calling stations with a living bait, in this case a goat (I know, that was the part I did not really like). At this first night we were very lucky. After a while of waiting, a group of three lions reacted to our calling station, and it was the group with two cabled lions. They did not dare to pass our car to attack the goat :(. They stayed in the grass which made it impossible to dart them. They left and thus no success for this group for now. When driving back we saw two other lions. On first instance, we thought that both of them was health. However, later we saw that one of them had a cable. We tried to dart. We did not really saw good if we shot well. The men in our team (Hans, who was responsible for the darting and two ecoguards for safety) went into the bush to search the lions. Later we concluded that we did not hit the lion. And it was true because we found the dart back in the bushes. It was bad luck, but luckily enough we had still nine days to go). On the other hand, we had seen all three injured lions. So now we know that all of them were still alive, even after more than two month after the first sightings with the cables. On our way back we did also saw a big male lion at the side of the route. He was very calm and we think that he just had eaten. So, after all a day full of lions. The next day, we just filled with sleeping. The calling stations we do at night, so we have to sleep during the day. Around 18:00, we went into the bush again. This night, we did not have that much luck. No lions at all. For the other days, I will shorten the story a bit, otherwise it will be too long. We saw the group with two cabled lions a few times. However, those lions were very skittish and did not dare to come close by. One night, we decided to kill the goat, hoping that the lions, which we know they we close in the grass, would come to the smelly fresh carcass. We waited for four hours, and the lions waited the same amount of time, without coming closer. At 2:00 in the night, we gave up and headed back to the camp. Evenings like this happened a few times. Lions that were close but impossible to dart. One evening we had a very good chance, bus missed two times. Just a lot of bad luck unfortunately. We even tried another method. Hans went into a large cage with the darting materials with the goat (a new one) attached to a tree on 20 metres. The cars would wait for two hours on 2 km distance, not scaring away the lions. Even this method was not successful, no lions that came close. On the last day, we id not have a lot of hope anymore. Although, we started to use another calling station sound on a place we had not been before. I was already half falling asleep when a lion was approaching the goat. First we thought it was healthy, but no, it was an injured one. Hans darted, and did not miss this time. We waited a few minutes before we started searching. We started driving in the middle of the bush. It took us almost 45 minutes to find back the lion. First, we had driven in the wrong direction. Later, we saw three small lion cubs. That must be the small ones of the lion we had darted! It was a mother of three young and was searching for food! When we found these three, we also found the mother soon. We drove close by and Hans stepped out to check if the lion was well sedated. We had to give her a bit more, because her head was moving. It worked, after, she was lying still and we could start the work. There were always some people torching the neighbourhood to check if no other lions were arriving. We found out that the cable was already gone. It is still a mystery for us how she did that. The wound was healing quite well, although there was still a big hole in her neck. We disinfected all and gave her a shot of antibiotics. We think she will manage and become a total healthy lioness again. We hope she can raise her three cubs successfully. We gave her the antidote and after 15 minutes of waiting she walked away in the darkness of the bush (still a bit drunk of the sedation). We were really happy that we could have helped at least one lion. We tried to find the other lions, but again no success. With this, our mission came to an end. It was exhausting, but it was totally worth it. The next day, we went back to Garoua.
Then we had our last days in Garoua. We had to arrange and finish a lot of small stuff before we would go. Besides that, we slept a lot. After a week of Childrens Bushcamp and more than a week of night work we were extremely tired. We still went to Faro for one day to bring the last stuff for the bomas. Of course, our car was again breaking down. Don't know how we reached Garoua again. And that, when our car had been in the garage for days before we left. Now it could go back again, to fix it again. This car needs retirement, we can't work again with this thing. It is giving too much frustrations and it is costing too much money. When back, we started to pack all our luggage. At the end of May, it was time to leave Garoua. Malloum brought us to the bus station (he did really not like it that we had to go). It was a 6 hour drive in a too small bus back to Ngaoundere. I felt like a sardine :/ In Ngaoundere we had to wait for a few hours before we could go in the train. And for me, a massive headache started. There we no problems with the train this time. One of the carriers even arranged that we could keep our luggage with us in our sleeping compartment. I was happy with that :D I do like it when I can always keep an eye on my luggage. Losing my suitcases would be one of my worst nightmares XD. I went directly into bed. I was so tired and my head was painful. I think I have slept for almost the whole travel of 17 hours, and it was even quite comfortable. We arrives in Yaounde around 9 (the train was really on time this time). We grabbed a taxi that brought us to the next bus company. We would have a small 'holiday' of two weeks in Bamenda. Again, a long bus trip of eight hours in a too small bus. Totally not comfortable for tall persons like me :(. But hé, it's Africa and part of the deal :D. We arrived around 20:00 in Bamenda and Honera was already waiting for us (t had also started to rain and we had to adapt immediately to the new climate here). We took a taxi to the house. There, Henriette was also already waiting for us. We were happy to see those two girls back after more than a year. There was some food for us ready, and after we had been eating something, we went to sleep. The days after we spent on working and finishing a lot of reports. It is just writing, writing, writing. We want to finish most of it before we go back home. We also went a few times into town, but there is not much to do here. I think I do like the French part of Cameroon more than the English part. Up north, it is way more relaxed. Probably because it is just because of the heat. Also, we just relax and do a lot of nothing. I also got a bit sickish, I think all of the tiredness of the last months is coming out now. Hope it will be okay, before flying back home. Only a few days to go, and another adventure has come to an end. it was great, and I am thankful that I could go again to this beautiful place. I have done such amazing thing this year. But also, I am ready to go home again for a few months. Only a few days to go, and I will finally be home :D. Although I probably miss Africa within a few days haha
Last greets from Cameroon!
Elise
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