From the hunted to hunters . . . case of Kanyemba

THIS week, The Herald went on an expedition to Kanyemba, located on the south bank of the Zambezi River at the extreme northernmost point of Zimbabwe in Mashonaland Central province at the meeting point of the Zimbabwean, Mozambican and Zambian borders.

The team had to put up at a police post just after the long Angwa River bridge due to the bad terrain going forward.

The police officer there did not mince his words in warning us: “Munin’ina (my brother) the car you are driving will not take you to Kanyemba, it would be an absolute miracle if you were to get there with that car given the terrain as well as the wildlife you will encounter on your way. I would highly recommend that you put up here and assess the developments happening on your way back to where you are coming from.

“Worse off if it rains, which is highly likely as you can see the lightning, it will be virtually impossible to get back, in fact, it will take that bus that has just left between four to five days to come back from Kanyemba if it rains so imagine with your vehicle”.

The Herald team accepted its fate. After all, under the Second Republic, development is happening in every corner of the country. The team thus went on to visit projects around the area, including the Dande Dam construction site. Anyway, back to the story.

There were a few shops opposite the police post and a barricade so The Herald vehicle parked there and the team decided to put up for the night. It was very hot and humid; with the crew’s clothes damp with sweat so they decided to get out of the car and sit on a slab just outside one of the shops.

Two ladies were putting up there as well as they had been coming from Zambia, so it was now too dark for them to go to their homes as there was wildlife roaming around.

They told us that there was a lion that was on the prowl in the area we were in, and it was killing people’s livestock hence it posed a threat to them if they were to walk to their villages in the dark. With the crew were also three men: a guard who lives in the area, one of the police officers at the post as well and another who lives in a nearby village.

At the beginning of the conversation, it was unbeknown to The Herald team that it would inspire this article until the reporter and photographer heard the story.

They were told that the first settlers who came to establish residence in the Angwa River area came in the 1970s and had come in search of food, to hunt and to gather. What stood out was the settlers’ bravery.

The village elders were so brave that when a pride of lions took down an animal for consumption, villagers would have the audacity to take the meat away from the lions and take it to their villages for sustenance.

When that story was narrated to us, we were awe-struck.

“You mean a human being goes and takes meat that a lion has hunted down and goes home with it and is not attacked by the lion?” The man chuckled and said: “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You know the elders here who grew up hunting are very brave. If a pride of lions makes a kill, let’s say they have killed an animal, it would take two or three villagers to wrestle that meat from the lions,” said one of the men.

“They would approach the pride with fire because lions and fire are not the best of friends so as one of them maintains the fire to keep the lions away, the other would carve the meat from the animal’s bones and this meat would be able to feed the village, they would even end up drying some of it.”

The Herald crew had been used to hearing ordeals about human and wildlife conflict which always have humans at the receiving end but here was this story of the wildlife, lions for that matter, on the receiving end.

This was a story of human triumph, courage and bravery.

The Herald team was then told that the elders have been passing down their knowledge to the younger generation so they can as well do it and even perfect it although the most recent attempt by two young men had not been successful.

“Recently two guys from the village saw that a pride had taken down a buffalo; they then said to themselves: ‘What our elders did, we can also do’ but they were not so lucky and it proved to be a very unsuccessful endeavour for them. They came up with a plan to start fireballs using grass and use them to chase away the lions from the meat and it proved to be working but that success was soon to be short-lived.

“When they managed to get to the meat, one of them was maintaining the fireballs while the other was cutting the meat to make it easier to carry but the lions were not so keen on giving up without a fight,” narrated the guard.

“So, the lions decided to surround them and patiently wait for them to cut the meat.

It is then that they came across their biggest hurdle. They had now cut the meat and had managed to maintain the fire, but the biggest task was to pass the lion barricade with the meat, so they ended up throwing the meat down and throwing a fireball at the lions and running for their dear lives. Lucky enough the lions were not too keen on chasing them because they had left the buffalo meat,” he said.

The biggest takeaway for the two-man news team was knowing that such harrowing and gripping experiences take place in these remote parts of Zimbabwe.

The whole conversation was rare and surreal, painting a picture of an aspect no one has thought of before save for those in the Angwa River area who have lived to experience such tenacity and bravery.

The two were then told of how human and wildlife conflict had been high in the area as elephants and lions roam freely looking for food, especially in dry times such as these, although in some cases they live in harmony together.