Hi,
my name is Enzo and
in 1991 I decided to make
my home in Africa. Sorry about the rather old & fuzzy
photo (and the cheesy grin) but I was really
enjoying myself! I
am married to a beautiful woman, Thoko,
and I am the proud father of Jasmine (Seka Jasmine). Currently
I run the Africa
4x4 Cafe but I am also studying Design & Technology
at Brighton University and awaiting the time that I can
go home to live and work in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
LandRover
addicts may want to see the whole picture of my Landy,
variously known as: "The
Antichrist" or "The Skadonk". This
vehicle featured in LandRover Owner International
and was named as "possibly the most battered
functioning Land Rover ever to be featured!"
This vehicle had no lights, no starter and, given all
the holes in the hydraulics, very little in the way of
brakes, but it did do us honest and true service by getting
us (The Young Guns and I) to our favourite watering hole,
The Gwayi River Hotel, whenever Oom Buck
was in a generous mood!
I
have been in and out of Africa since 1991 (Kenya, Botswana,
Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and I have worked as
an anti-poaching scout for Kumuna Safari Lodge & Lion
Ranch Hunting Lodge, for Sikumi
Spa Crocodile Ranch and as the project manager of
Kwathembeka Environmental Education Project amongst other
things. At Kumuna Safari Lodge I worked with three of
the best guys in the world: Bruce Fletcher
(now a Professional Guide); the late Douglas Hidden
and Daryl Martyn (also now a Professional
Guide) - collectively known as "The Young
Guns" - and it was from these guys that
I learnt about the excellent life that could be led working
in the bush in Zimbabwe.
Operation
Raleigh Zimbabwe 91F.
My
first visit
to Zimbabwe was as a venturer on Operation
Raleigh (Zimbabwe 91F - Inyangani) in August 1991.
Op. Raleigh was not only a great big adventure for me
but also a huge learning experience and the start of my
"love affair" with Africa. With Lt. Rupert Fitzmaurice
as our group leader and Col. Lionel Dycke as our expedition
leader, we left from OR's base in Harare and traveled
south where we carried out Flora and Fauna surveys in
West Nicholson at The Bubiana Conservancy (SE). We then
trucked to Bulawayo (SW) and up to Jambezi
Village where we built school rooms, walked the 70
kms into Victoria Falls (NW) and then white water rafted
128 km in 5 days (you might have seen me get flipped out
of the raft on a British TV show called "Adventures")
to Deka Drum. From here we had a few days R&R in Milibizi
before setting off on a the serious task of canoeing the
entire length of Lake Kariba in two man kayaks - 250 km
over 11 days - all the way up the Zimbabwean side of Lake
Kariba from Milibizi to Bumi Hills and finally Kariba.
It then took three days of serious trekking, from Chirundu,
aongside the Zambezi River to reach Mana Pools Main Camp
(N) where we built our final project: a vehicle repair
workshop for the National Parks Department.
After
the expedition was over we returned to Harare - most people
bailed out immediately but I stayed on and started working
for Environment 2000 as a volunteer and
then as an anti-poaching scout for Lion's Den
Hunting & Photographic Safaris.
The
owner of Lion's Den Safaris, Buck de Vries,
is an unforgettable character who allowed me, a relative
unknown quantity fresh out from Blighty, to go out alone
into the bush and, armed only with a shotgun (my tracker
had the FN!), to try and stop a group of Zambian poachers
armed with AK47s! Unluckily or rather luckily, I missed
them! From there on I progressed to living in the bush
(with my Tonga tracker: Capt. Zing-a-zing) and patrolling
his 80,000 hectare game farm picking up snares, repairing
fences, building dams, protecting the wildlife and generally
trying to discourage subsistence poaching along the many
borders with the Tribal Trust Lands.
I also helped Zimbabwean National Parks & Wildlife
Anti-Poaching units set up stopper groups in the attempt
to stop the decimation of the few remaining Black and
White Rhino that inhabited Hwange National Park (some
of which Buck had paid for himself to be imported from
South Africa) and Buck's land by small units of Zambian
poachers; as I knew the area well (having walked every
inch of it) I assisted in the tracking and de-horning
of Black Rhino by the National Parks chief vetinary officer:
Dr. Mike Koch; I was driver and logistics support for
a British film crew who had come out to film the de-horning
of Black Rhino in Sinematella, north west Hwange National
Park; looked after young elephants (orphaned by culling
operations), impala and a baby lion at Kumuna Safari Lodge
and generally assisted in the running of Buck's two safari
camps, croc farm and hunting camp.
When
I arrived at Christmas 1991, my first job was looking
after two baby elephants that had been saved from the
culling process and were awaiting trans-location. We also
looked after two "tame" Lions at the Main House
and two young Elephants at Kumuna Lodge. Later we also
had a lion cub at Kumuna that a young lady, Antoinette,
used to look after. Apart from the daily chore of looking
after these animals, we also had to maintain the veld
by building dams, reclaiming and preventing erosion, and
maintaining our fleet of crappy Landrovers and ex-Rhodesian
army vehicles (specially converted for use as game viewing
vehicles etc): the Anti-Christ, the Green Machine and
the Kalahari Ferrari!
Working
at Buck's was great, everyday
we had to cope with some new problem or some dangerous
and exciting situation. One day something really notable
happened: behind Buck's house were two huge diamond mesh
enclosures that contained two Lions: a young male and
an old female who was his mother. Lions mate all the time
and unless you keep them separate they will inter-breed.
This happened and the old female gave birth to two cubs
so the Lions were separated. It was winter and so the
veld was really dry and susceptible to bush fires. As
luck would have it there was a fire and it swept across
the veld and towards Buck's house and was heading directly
through the male Lion's enclosure and towards the newborn
cubs. I had just come back from the workshops where I
had been working on my old LandRover (!) and I saw the
fire gaining a foothold and rushing towards the old female
and the cubs. Without thinking it out I grabbed a piece
of old sacking and went into the male Lion's cage. My
boss had named him Leo, and as I fed him nearly every
night I thought he wouldn't harm me...yeh right, dumb
makiwa that I was!
Anyway,
so there I was concentrating on beating out the fire with
this piece of sacking before it got to the cubs that I
forgot about Leo. I was surrounded by thick smoke but
the guys had seen my situation and, instead of running
for a hosepipe, had run for their rifles ( I was still
a bit naive at the time). So I turn around and there's
Leo coming towards me and he "puts" his paw
on my shoulder. I'm too busy for what I thought was a
"game" and so I just pushed him away and got
on with beating the fire! Luckily the guys had sussed
the danger I was in (no-one had ever been in with Leo
before) and had fetched a huge piece of meat from the
coldroom and attracted Leo's attention away from me by
banging it against the fence as we usually do at feeding
time. Luckily Leo went to the meat and I was able to finish
beating out the fire and then escape through a little
hatch we had in the fence. I didn't really become conscious
of my actions until after the drama was over and every
was "congratulating" me on my crass stupidity
ie: for putting Leo's life in danger as, if he had gone
for me, they would have had to have shot him and to my
boss, Leo was definitely worth more than some stupid rooi-nek!
From
Zim I then worked in South Africa as a Field Officer
for the Wildlife Society of SA, teaching Environmental
Education & Ecology at the Abe Bailey Nature Reserve,
before returning to Zim to head up an Environmental Education
Centre and Wildlife Conservancy Project called: KwaThembeka.
I project managed fundraising, construction and PR as
well as teaching Environmental Education and Ecology at
half a dozen rural schools. I sourced, supplied and planted
trees for school orchards; took parties of school children
on game drives into Hwange National Park and helped train
Anti-Poaching Scouts for the newly formed Gwayi
Valley Conservancy.
During
this time I started a BSc in Zoology & Botany
and also trained as a Zimbabwean Learner Professional
Hunter / Guide. I participated in PAC (Problem Animal
Control) on Lion and Elephant as well as hunting plains
game for food. I was also lucky enough to attend courses
with some of Zimbabwe's premier ecologists (Meg Coates-Palgrave)
and safari guides (Gavin Ford). The KwaTembeka
project did not get the funding it deserved and, even
though we had considerable local & government support
for the project, the sponsor would not fund it on his
own, and so I left to spend some time in Malawi as an
Overland Safari Guide before returning
to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe to start teaching at Bulawayo
Polytechnic and to set up my own design business.
I
left Zim in 1998 (in a bit of a rush as Immigration were
threatening to deport me for not having the right permits,
and even though Jasmine was only 3 months old, I had to
leave. So I got married on the Sunday and left on the
Monday). I came back to the UK, retrained and started
a company doing front end webdesign for EDS' clients:
the Employment Service, JobcentrePlus, Working Links etc.
A few years of this and then I took a contract at Coventry
University as a Usability/Accessibility/Information Architecture
consultant before missing Africa so much that we decidedto
go back for a couple of years.
First
we tried South Africa, but that didn't quite work out
for the pair of us, so we packed the car and drove up
to Kenya. Here my wife took a job with an NGO: Practical
Action and I started the Africa
4x4 Cafe. After 3 years in Nairobi we decided to come
home and restart our UK careers. Tho first joined Education
Action in London before we moved to Brighton where she
settled into a fantastic job at SightSavers and I got
in touch with one of my old passions: teaching.
So
now we are working and studying in Brighton; enjoying
all our African friends who come visiting and all the
various African artists who come to play at the Dome.
So pull in for a Castle and, if we get lucky, we can all
go see Hugh Masekela!
Go
well,
Enzo
Until
then, hamba kuhle...
