Gavin Lau tells us about a typical day interning at a local Nature Reserve in Harare, Zimbabwe!
Mauya! I am currently completing an internship at a nurture reserve in Harare, Zimbabwe for a few months. The nurture reserve is the only one of its kind in Zimbabwe and possibly the world as it is set right in the city and provides a large green space, where over 18,000 school children visit for a chance to see wild animals and miombo woodlands. Together with some local students from the local universities and technical colleges, we are part of the Education Department, where we are running the flagship Eco-Schools Programme. The Programme is on the forefront of creating a new generation of young people who are environmentally aware and who understand the conservation challenges facing the world. I live with a local family who are my host family, which is great because I get to taste local food pretty much everyday and I am immersed in the local culture through the stories as well as visiting their family, who have also become my family too!
Fun fact: I ignored the packing list included in my pre-departure pack from Tiritose & figured the sub-tropical climate in Zimbabwe would be hot and so no need for shoes hahaha so I only brought flip flops with me…Anyway, here is a typical day in my life in Harare…
Early Starts:
First day, I attempted to walk the 13kms I had seen on Google Maps, and it took me more than the listed 2-hours and so I’ll never attempt this again throughout my entire stay! Normally though, I arrive at 7:30 am in the morning and head straight to the horse stables where I assist the groomer with cleaning the horses, the bed and let them out. Later I use the horses to assist the little children who come for school educational trips to do the pony rides. They enjoy it when they are photographed. Tea time is a massive thing in Zimbabwe and so it’s customary to take a 15-30-minute break for some tea and bread. What’s awesome is that this is served to us from the staff kitchen.
Mid-morning:
Between 10am and 12noon, I am usually at the education department office, where I meet up with the team going on woodland patrol around the game fence, observing animals and checking for any signs of fence breaks. Having been trained on woodland patrols, I am particularly observant on what specific animal species feed on, the animal behaviours where I am most interested about how they react to sudden appearance of man, which gives an indication of whether there has been some poaching around. I also collect seeds of tree species that are being browsed and in particular if there are few trees, which I make a collection for reproducing.
It may happen that a school group may come around, usually they book well in advance and so we would have been prepared for their visit but it can also happen that they drop-in without a booking and so we pretty much drop everything we are doing and attend to the group. Part of the Eco-School programme includes taking the group into the lecture room and give some lectures on some of the following topics:
- Introduction to the nurture reserve; the organisation’s mandate to conserve the environmental resources for education and enjoyment.
- Animal protection and poaching
- Conservation of environmental resources
- Animal behaviours and characteristics and show them some artifacts
- Tell them how to behave with wildlife to give them an appreciation of wildlife.
The attention span of school children is not that long and so the in-class lessons are brief and then we have to take them around the estate, showing them animals such as tortoises in pens, crocodiles in pens, parrot birds, impalas, zebra, giraffe, eland among other animals. During these walks around the reserve, I talk about how these animals survive in the woodlands, how they interact and reproduce as well as their adaptations. Some of the practical stuff I do with them includes water quality testing to prove that water might be clear but dirty in actual fact. Usually, the kids are in awe as they make a commitment to help reduce pollution on water.
Right before lunch, we come back to the office, where along with the other interns, we compile a report, which we present to our supervisor.
Afternoon Activities:
After lunch I often do some manual labour in the organic garden and possibly plant the seeds from trees that I would have collected in the morning. I also have a nutrition garden where I am raising garden plants, which we use for our meals. In the same garden are herbal plants, which I also use for educational purposes with children who try to identify them as well as their uses. Being from Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, I of course make some afternoon herbal tea from this garden.
In the late afternoon, between 3pm and 4pm, we have supplementary feeding for wildlife, which is taken into the game area. The feed is put around the Duncan applicators that serve as a mechanism of controlling ticks in wildlife in a confined area. Once the animals that need supplementary feeding are well fed, I come down to do the cleaning at the centre and enter the information gathered throughout the day in my daily time book, which I also use as my diary/journal. Zimbabweans are religious about leaving the workplace at 4:30pm and so off we go, and I set off to my host family.
Evenings:
Afterwork activities vary according to the day, but I usually grab a shower once I get home and together with my hosts, we make dinner and eat together – family style. There are quiz or trivia nights pretty much everyday in Harare and so we often then head out with other Tiritose interns and volunteers who are based in Harare from about 7pm. Tiritose organises my weekend excursions and so I have done the Chinhoyi Caves, Inner-City Sightseeing tour and I have also gone as far as Namibia – what can I say, YOLO!!!
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