Dinner with the Bells and Night Driving

Evidently the best way to fish in Zimbabwe is to drag an Elephant’s head behind your 4X4, attach it to your boat, motor to where the fishing is good, and anchor for the night.

And I thought you just needed some bait and a hook.

Man, I was way off!

The other night Kaela and I had dinner with the Bell family, some of our favorite people here in Zimbabwe. Their daughter Kirstin (age 20) lives up in Chirundu (on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border) in what seems to be a game park/farm. Hearing her encounters about Elephants, Hippos, Crocodile, Leopard, Lion, Cheetah, poachers, and fishing for Tiger fish made my raccoon encounters seem pathetic.

“At least they can wreak havoc below your knee” I added.

Her stories made Harare seem like the center of civilization as far as I was concerned.
She talked about how this massive Baboon always breaks into their house, and how her boyfriend had to hold the door against another one while she had to fight the first off. While Baboons like to break into their house, she makes it clear they don’t get into their garden because, well, she shoots them with her shotgun. Summing it up concisely, Kirstin just said “Ooh, I hate Bobos”.

She went on to say, “Oh and did I forget to mention how lion have eaten 6 ½ people in the past few weeks in Chirundu? You can’t walk outside, or go from the general store to the church without a gun because of the lion, and one of the attacks happened right outside the National Park office. They just shut the door and listened as the guy was eaten… Ja, crazy man. Once when my friend put out a bonfire to pack up his camp, and there was a Lion as far away as you are to me just watching him… eish man, it was so scary. Like the time when this Elephant shouted at me and charged and Mark (the boyfriend) just watched him come at the car while it just chugged along in 2nd gear. Ja, I was so scared then…”

The stories she had were incredible, and at the end of the night, they invited me to go up there in the first week of August. I am way stoked!

The rest of the night however turned a bit tense. As we were chatting in the living room drinking the customary tea we were all put on edge as we heard banging somewhere closeby. We all froze. The curtains were drawn, and the youngest daughter age 11 started giggling and sunk low in the couch and said, “I’m getting down because when you open the windows, I don’t want to get shot!” She was dead serious, and yet giggling.






Keith, the Dad (and ex professional rugby player), turned on the flood lights and looked outside, but the banging continued. They then let the dogs out, but they didn’t find anything either. They all guessed it was the neighbor trying to open the front gate next door, but we were still on edge as Mikaela and I drove out of their perimeter fence and on the way home. To get home, however, we had to drive on a road that crossed a “Vlei” or deserted field (pictured above during the day). Unfortunately there was no other way home except through the vlei. Mikaela had the car in top gear as we sped through there because she said, ”I’ve heard of stories where they come out of the vlei and stand in the middle of the road to stop you. It’s then that they shoot you and take your car.”

The car rattled as it sped across potholes filled with broken brick, and plowed through hazy pockets of smoke caused by some fires in the vlei. The headlights made the smoke block our view of the rest of the road, and each time we drove through one, I half expected to see a pair of eyes and a mouth open with sudden fear.

“No matter what, we are not stopping for anything.” We drove through each of the deserted intersections with red lights in fear of stopping, and raced through the Msasa lined streets. The large gnarled trees, illumined by the pale glow of the old headlights, cast uncertain shadows on the various protective walls they lined. Because there are no functioning street lights its hard to tell, especially in Africa, if that is just a flitting shadow or a person. There is always that fear that you won’t see someone at night until it is too late.

Once we entered Chisipite, I looked at my hands and they were white as I let go of the door handle.