I spent a great few days back at Chipembele, one of my favourite projects we support in Zambia. The lovely Anna and Steve Tolan do a great job rescuing and rehabilitating a huge variety of wild animals.  They also have an amazing conservation education programme for local communities which they run from their purpose built classroom on sight.

www.chipembele.org

 

My old mate Douglas pushing me over a log … Thanks Dougie! … And wallowing in the Luangwa River… love that hippo.

 

Here is a little heart warming video for the softies – aaaaaah

 

I have such an awful job

Nothing like a baboon spider in the bathroom whilst you trying to have shave……. It’s Beautiful 👍😀

 

A happy reunion with Cosmas, proudly sporting his new OAT cap! For those of you who don’t know, Cosmas is the project manager of Zambian Primate Project. A fantastic project that rescues and rehabilitates primates who are mostly victims of the bush meat and pet trade trade. Cosmas and his team do a great job ensuring that these poor animals are returned to the wild as soon as possible. A lengthy and complicate process but successful most of the time! 👍

OAT have sponsored senior school scholarships for 3 boys and 3 girls in Zambia, who have all shown great interest and aptitude for conservation. They attend regular conservation courses provided by Conservation Lower Zambezi, on of the amazing organisation we are very proud to be supporting.  I had the pleasure of visiting the scholars this week and they were keen to show off their exercise books…. I was very impressed!

Annette and Lynette, two sisters (twins) are two of the three girls on the OAT scholarship programme ……. sadly, the third girl was away the day I visited.

So Proud of all of them. Here is one of the reports we received… Mathews wants to be a vet!

I have just spent a day with young Jackie, what a big mouth!

Caroline and her team of 24 hour carers are doing a fantastic job looking after her. After being rescued at just 2 weeks old and a very rocky start, Jackie now has a beautiful home here on the banks of the Zambezi river where hopefully she will return to live with other hippos one day. Great team effort form Caroline, GRI, CLZ, Chipembele and OAT to make this happen.

She loves having her head, neck and chin tickled and playing in the garden sprinkler.

CUTENESS OVERLOAD !!…

En route from Tikki Hywood Trust to visit Mana Pools region I stopped off to see Kariba Animal Welfare Fund Trust in Kariba.  You won’t believe this but Kariba is a built up area and lions were just over the garden wall from Debbie’s house. Debbie is the founder of the trust.

Kariba Animal Welfare Fund Trust – KAWFT

These lions are a problem pride that are hanging about at the moment, they roam around the town at night hunting and killings dogs, unbelievable really but true 😳. In the past many humans have also been killed 😀

This is a major human / wildlife conflict area, the worst I’ve seen. I arrived in Kariba at 8pm last night and was taken straight out by Kariba Animal Welfare to elephants that were passing by the Kariba dam and coming into conflict with humans walking home from work. Unbelievable sightings.

 

 

 

So at the end of another amazing day in Africa, and my last day in Zimbabwe, I’ve just done the final night time rounds with Lisa (CEO of Tikki Hywood Trust) checking on all the rescue animals (10:30pm)…

the following happened:

1) got shocked by the  bloody electric fence 😳😳😳😳

2) the female Serval stalked me and mock charged me 😳 (nice)

3) the white tailed Mongoose tried to attack me through the fence 😳

4) one of the bat eared foxes bit me twice 😳😳😳 (nice)

5) but finally and with my favourite animal here, Hooch the African wild cat. I lay on the floor and she just walked around me and around me rubbing herself all over me whilst I stroked and fussed her into a Frizzy Frenzy…….. she is such a Beautiful cat and I will miss her 😥😪.

As lovely as it is interacting with these wild animals, this sort of thing is always kept to a minimum as hopefully one day, as many of them as possible will go back to the wild.

Next stop…..Zambia

 

Walking with Pangolin

My Tikki Hywood visit is sadly coming to an end, but my activities over the last few days have been incredible.

Pangolin are now one of the most endangered species in Africa as sadly they are poached for their scales that are used for traditional Chinese medicine and their meat is considered a delicacy.  These Pangolin have been rescued or confiscated from poachers and are being rehabilitated by the Tikki Hywood team before they are released back into the wild.

I have just come back from walking in the bush with 5 rescued Pangolin’s. This is part of a daily routine carried out by the amazing team of carers here at Tikki Hywood.

I used to believe riding motorbikes was the BEST experience a human can have with their clothes on… ……but not any more…

That was the most AMAZING EXPERIENCE I HAVE EVER HAD!   Speechless 😳😳😳.

Check out Tikki Hywood’s website

 

Football

I have bought a load of footballs to Africa to give to various families / communities etc. Here is a clip of the Pangolin carers kids having a kick about with me…

 

One more day left with Tikki Hywood Trust.   

I’m still speechless and totally overwhelmed by the amazing Lisa Hywood and her team of animal carers. Really nice to see the smaller wildlife species being given the care and attention they deserve.

I hope to find the words soon to share my feelings but for now here are some of the animals I’ve met who are currently being rehabilitated at the Tikki Hywood Trust. Every effort is made to return them back to the wild as soon as possible.

I’m Totally blown away and have a large lump in my throat mostly of the time …😳😳😳😳😳😳

This ‘Oke’ is off again! It’s time for me to get back out there and see all the exciting things that are happening with our partner projects on the ground in Africa.

I’m going to visit some of the amazing and inspirational projects we support – first stop Zimbabwe, then on to Zambia before heading for Malawi.

I’ll be blogging all the way so don’t forget to click follow so you can watch my journey unfold. You will read about some extraordinary people and animals and share with me some unforgettable experiences as I meet and work with some of the people who make a real difference to the lives and the future of animals.

I’ve packed my bags, printed off my boarding pass and off I go on a new adventure. Can’t wait to get stuck in. Watch this space.