Lions, Military Junta, Hyenas, Wildfires and Nomads: Working in the Developing World

By James Naylor

In 1971 I received an appointment in a United Nations Development Wildlife Project in Zambia Africa. From that time until May 1984 I worked on projects in the Developing World. This book is about my experiences, the environment, the people and the animals that I met in those countries, I worked in rural areas and with the people who lived and worked in those areas. I learned much about the world that had been unknown to me. I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed living it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 27, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469112381

James Naylor

“Jim” Naylor was raised, one of five children, by exceptionally good parents, on the plains of eastern New Mexico during the 1930’s. Because of the war, instead of attending high school Jim became a railroad telegraph operator. After brief duty in the army, 1945-1946, two years of travel and work and five years as railroad train dispatcher he married. Starting in 1960 he earned a B.S and M.S. at the University of New Mexico and a Ph. D. in Botany at North Dakota State. This led to the experiences told of in this book.

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Copyright © 2000 by James Naylor.

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Contents

PART ONE: ZAMBIA

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

PART TWO: CHILE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

PART THREE: SOMALIA AND THE NORTHERN RANGE LANDS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

PART FOUR: MALI

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

PART FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

PART ONE: ZAMBIA

CHAPTER ONE

GETTING THERE

We were going to Zambia where I had a new job as an Expert for the UNDP-FAO on the Luangwa Valley Wildlife Project. Zambia is a country in south central Africa, called Northern Rhodesia by the British, between seventeen degrees south latitude and eight degrees south latitude and between twenty-two degrees east longitude and thirty-four degrees east longitude. We had barely heard of it at that time.

This was the first airplane flight for my wife Rose Mary and our seven-year-old daughter Capulina. We left Amarillo, Texas early in the morning flying to Dallas on a fan jet, then to New York on an airplane fairly new to the public, a Boeing 747. Although Rose Mary had experience waiting for and traveling on trains and buses, the airport and the long waits there were somewhat different and this was a new experience for both of them. Besides, Kennedy Airport was being remodeled and it was a mess. We had a five hour layover and both Rose Mary and Capulina were excited and somewhat frightened. About dark our daughter begin to get restless and nervous and she was getting hungry so I went down, from the loading gate waiting room, two flights of temporary stairs to the snack bar to get her some food. The line to the snack bar was very long and before I got to the bar the flight was called but not at the snack bar. Rose Mary came looking for me. She was about to cry. She said the flight had been called and Capulina was lost.

Before we left home I had made a card to hang around our daughter’s neck on which I had written her and our names and the date and flight number we were to be on so that we could locate her if she got lost. She had a habit of drifting off to look at something or to do something while we were not watching.

That is all right I said. She has her card with the information on it.

No she does not. Rose Mary said and showed me the the card. We took it off because it was annoying her. When they called the flight Capulina said, ‘I will call Daddy’, and she left before I could stop her.

We went back to the loading gate. We decided Rose Mary would go through the loading line and tell the person at the gate that I was looking for Capulina and that we would load as soon as we could. Then I went along the hall looking in all of the waiting rooms. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, I found her, a very frightened little girl. We hurried back to our loading gate and arrived there just before Rose Mary, who was last in line, reached the gate. We were loaded without delaying the plane.

We took off about nine o’clock that evening on what appeared to be a new 747. We had seats in the center section of the plane and after we reached the cruising altitude we felt more like we were in the waiting room than in an airplane and fear was more or less forgotten. The plane was full and it seemed that most of the passengers were of Italian ancestry. They had plenty of carry-on luggage including many gifts for the people in the old country and plenty of liquid spirits to take with them. They were in a joyful mood. Partying started as soon as the seat belt light went off and continued all night. Capulina was able to sleep but sleep was out of the question for Rose Mary and me.

We landed in Rome about nine in the morning and took a taxi to the Pensione San Anselmo which was near the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization headquarters in Rome and where we had reservations for our stay in Rome. We were very tired and when we finally got all of our personal belongings into our room we all went to bed. The Manager of the Pensione was amazed that anyone would come to Rome and go to bed the first thing but we had been very busy for the previous ten days sorting out what we thought we would need in Africa for the next two years; then moving from southwestern New Mexico so that we could store our household goods in Amarillo where Rose Mary’s mother lived. Then we had to get physical examines and shots.

We stayed in Rome for five days while I was processed for employment with the UNDP-FAO and given orientation concerning the project and my duties on the project. I was quite busy but we did manage to see some of the famous sites of Rome during my time off.

We left Rome at midnight on our long flight to Zambia. We started across the Sahara just at daylight so I was able to get a distant, birds eye view of the landscape of one of the famous deserts of the world.

We landed in Nairobi, Kenya about ten o’clock in the morning. After the Nairobi passengers had disembarked all en route passengers were told to get off the airplane so the airport crew could clean the plane. We were told not to take any of our carry-on luggage off the plane but to leave all our belongings on the seat. We had a small bag in which we had all of our cash and travelers checks, passports, health cards and other important items such as medicines. Rose Mary picked up the bag and started to take it out with her. I told her that they had announced that passengers should leave everything on their seats but she said she was not going to leave our very important bag. When we got to the door of the plane the attendant told her that she must not take anything off the plane. There was some argument but Rose Mary refused to get off and leave her bag and they finally gave up and let us off. We were on the ground at the Nairobi airport for about on hour. En route passengers were not allowed to go to the terminal building but were required to stand on the tarmac near the plane while the crew cleaned the plane. When we were reloaded and the passengers started to take their belongings off their seats they found that the belongings had been searched and any valuables they had in their bags had been stolen. When they complained to the airline crew they were told that it always happened but they were unable to do anything about the thievery. Due to Rose Mary’s suspicious nature we lost nothing.

We landed in Lusaka about three o’clock in the afternoon and were thoroughly questioned and searched as we went through customs. After being allowed into the country we were picked up by a UNDP driver, who was polite and helpful, and taken in an UNDP vehicle to the Hotel International in downtown Lusaka.

We were impressed with our first view of Lusaka with all the nice buildings, their fine gardens and beautiful flowers. What we saw was the Lusaka that had been built and occupied by the British Colonialists now being managed, to some extent, by the Zambians with, often, unseen British managers in actual control.

This was the Africa from which the European colonists had just left or were just leaving. The Europeans had been in Africa to use the resources and people of Africa to increase the European Country’s wealth. The Europeans had greatly modified the original African culture. Now, after these Europeans had left, there was almost no viable culture because the Africans living today can not know the days before the Europeans. They have only what was passed vocally to them through the generations and what was learned from the Europeans. The Europeans had wanted to keep power in their own hands and therefore had set up, for the most part, no real economic and political organizations for the African people. Zambia was in somewhat better conditions than other African Countries I worked in. The British had established an education system and had allowed the people to work in and learn some of the low management jobs and there had been a small amount of political activity allowed near the end of the occupation. Also Zambia had a fair economic base due to the copper mines there and at the time we were there copper prices on the world market were high.

Kenneth Kaunda, then president of Zambia, was one of the best African leaders to take over from the colonial powers so the country was politically stable and relations between the United Kingdom and Zambia were good.

The United Nations Development Programme and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization had been created, in part, to try to alleviate the damage done to the land and people.

By the time I became a part of the process, nearer the end than the beginning, what little had been left of the European political and economic system was beginning to come apart, even in Zambia. However, the UN was welcome there and was operating well as was, apparently, the project I was to join.

The UNDP driver that took us to the hotel told me that the UNDP Official who was in charge of the project said that I was to rest up that day and to report to the UNDP office the next morning.

We had a very good meal and looked around the hotel and the surrounding area that afternoon and then had a good night’s rest and an excellent breakfast.

At the UNDP headquarters the next morning I learned that there had been a tragic event within the project in the Luangwa Valley. One of the Experts, a wildlife specialist who was a world class authority on rhinoceros, had shot and killed himself the previous day. Because of this I was told I should return to the hotel for the day and to report to the office the following day.

The next day I was taken in hand by one of the project supervisors from Rome who was in Lusaka that week. Because I was to be delayed in Lusaka another day or two this project official decided that this provided a good opportunity to evaluate my knowledge. He had arranged for the project airplane to take us to Blue Lagoon National Game Park on the Zambezi River.

At the Blue Lagoon Park, after I had been examined, we had lunch with a young Dutch couple who were working part time on the same project I was to join. These people spoke English but an English that I found I could barely, at best, understand. Whenever I said anything they would look at me and then, I felt, very rudely ignore me and continue their conversation with each other or with the supervisor. After a short time I just listened to the conversation, trying to understand what was being said, and not trying to join in. About a year later this Dutch couple moved into the Luangwa Valley and we became good friends. One day the woman said, referring to the time at Blue Lagoon, Your English has improved. Before we couldn’t understand a bloody word you said.

When the supervisor and I got back to Lusaka he told me that he was not very happy with my expertise but that he had decided that he would give me a chance to work on the project as it took a long time and some expense to get new recruits.

The next day we were told that we should continue our journey to Chapata the location of the project headquarters and where we were to live while I worked on the project.

We boarded the plane which carried us to the Game Reserve Headquarters, Mfuwe, where some passengers, the game-viewing tourist and safari hunters, left the plane. At Mfuwe we got our first, brief, look at the African Wildlife. After a few minutes on the ground at Mfuwe the flight continued on to Chapata where the project headquarters was located.

We were picked up at the airport in Chapata by members of the project and given breakfast. We met most of the project members and them went to the office where we were assigned a house, a willy kit, which was a two bedroom prefabricated building the UNDP had provided for the project Experts.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPATA

The project headquarters was located at Escape Farm, an English colonial farm located about five miles west of the town of Chapata. This had been a very nice farm but the owner had escaped when Zambia became independent. The headquarters had electricity, good water, and bottled gas; facilities as good as we had in Fort Bayard where we worked for the Forest Service just before coming to Zambia. Shopping was done in Chapata.

Chapata is a town in the southeast of Zambia on the border with Malawi. There was a section of town catering mostly to English residents and European type expatriates where there were shops in individual buildings. The Modern Bazaar run by a family of India ancestry was the largest of these, but there was another large store run by two brothers also of India ancestry as well as a store owned by a Pakistani. There was an English meat market and a new store operated by a family of English ancestry. Except for the meat market which had fresh meat of local origin, almost all of the merchandise was imported. The original source of this merchandise: food, hardware, clothing, anything and everything, was all the world. I don’t know exactly how the stores came by this merchandise, certainly it had not been purchased by ordering from a traveling salesman as it is here in the U. S. Every week there seemed to be a new shipment of goods and these could be anything: canned meat or cans of meat and vegetables from Denmark and Sweden, vegetables and fruit from South Africa, other food and clothing as well as household hardware from Asia.

Then there were the African Markets. The Zambian market was essentially the same as the Asian-European market except that it was a kind of open market. Here there were small booths operated mostly by women and an open market selling fresh, local fruits and vegetables. Also there was the Malawi market on the border where traders, mostly women again, brought in fresh fruits and vegetables on Saturday. These fruits and vegetables of the Malawi Market seemed to be especially good and we always went there to purchase the special things like strawberries.

Varieties and supplies were good and, although the things available each week changed and there could be shortages of certain things such as flour and sugar (sugar was almost always in short supply and to maintain a supply of sugar each family became a good customer at one of the Asian shops and then the owner saved a small sack from each shipment for that family). Otherwise we bought what was available and waited for the next shipment. Mostly we used fresh produce at home and the canned goods went with me to the Valley to sustain me during my work there.

Very soon after we arrived in Chapata it became apparent that although I had a land rover assigned to me for my work, as did all of the project personnel, I would be working in the Luangwa Valley and therefore away from home most of the time. If she and our daughter were going to be comfortable and well fed, my wife would need transportation available for her own use.

There was an automobile dealership in Chapata, owned by a man of India ancestry and he had new Datson automobiles available for sale. Within the agreement for the project between the Zambian Government and the UNDP was included a way for the FAO Experts to purchase an automobile without paying the large tax and other fees charged for importing an automobile. As soon as we got settled and started receiving our pay and our mail we bought a new, small Datson for Rose Mary’s use.

For we expatriates in Chapata there was no real hardships and, although some of the people experienced cultural shock, we did not.

CHAPTER THREE

THE LUANGWA VALLEY

The Luangwa River flows north to south in a large rift valley in south central Africa. The valley is twenty to forty kilometers wide between escarpments in the area that had been set aside for game reserves. The Luangwa rift valley is a side branch or fork of the rift valley that extends from Djibouti, at the place where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden, down to include Malawi in south-east Africa. The main rift contains a series of lakes starting with several small lakes, then Lake Rudolf, Lake Victoria and Lake Albert down to Lake Nyasa in Malawi which is east of the Luangwa. This rift is caused by the tearing apart of the African Continent due to the north east drift of a continental plate on the eastern side of Africa. The waters of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have just these last few years begun to flow into the rift near Djibouti.

The vegetation of the Luangwa consists of a wet-dry tropical forest called Miombo. Due to the rift escarpment the valley is in a bit of a rain shadow and the vegetation consists of the more drought tolerant species of Miombo forest which seems to make the forest here more fragile than is the well watered Miombo forest on the escarpment.

The colonial government had years ago established parks for protection of the wildlife along the Luangwa River.

The British Forest and Game Personnel who worked in the area saw there was serious degradation occurring and asked the United Nations for help in alleviating the problem. The UNDP-FAO, as a result of this request from the Zambian Government, funded the project in the Luangwa Valley.

The wildlife of the area is confined between the break in the slope at the top of the escarpment on one side to the break in slope at the top of the other escarpment. One big reason for the confinement is the presence of the tsetse fly Glossina morsitans. The tsetse fly population is very high in the valley and no domestic livestock can live there. The fly is the victor of the protozoan Trypanosoma rhodesiense which causes the disease trypanosomesis, called sleeping sickness, in people. The form of the disease here, rhodesian sleeping sickness, is very virulent, killing untreated people and domestic animals in only one or two months after infection. There is a fence and cleared strip at the top of the escarpment on either side of the valley and guards patrol the fence. There are guard posts on the roads where the guards stop any vehicles leaving the valley during daylight hours to look for flies and to spray the vehicles with insecticide. Any wild animals found outside of this fence are shot. This is to protect the people and livestock of the farming area and the towns and settlements of the country from the disease resulting from the bite of the fly which accompanies the wild animals.

The protection of the animals by the establishment of the game parks had resulted in a great increase in the numbers of animals. Increase of the human population in the valley has reduced the area available for the animals. Overuse and frequent fires in the valley have caused degradation of the vegetation.

Overuse of the vegetation is perpetrated by all of the approximately one hundred eighty species of herbivores in the valley but elephants, Loxodonta africana, initiate the process. Elephants feed on the trees of all sizes and this opens up the forest canopy so other types of vegetation such as shrubs, forbs and grasses can grow. The elephants not only destroy trees for food but damage and destroy trees for other reasons. More than once I saw large bull elephants push over trees up to two feet in diameter, either as a test of strength, out of boredom, for the fun of it or for a reason known to the elephant but incomprehensible to me. The bull, or bulls (sometimes two bulls worked together) begin by pushing on the tree with head or trunk. He will push then relax and let the tree spring back thus rocking the tree back and forth. The elephant will continue this rocking motion until the tree pulls loose at the roots and is leaning far over then he will push the tree on over. Sometimes after the elephant has gotten the tree down he will feed on the tree for a while, sometimes he will only take a few bites from a twig or two, sometimes he will walk away without eating any of the tree.

Elephants seemed to be able to push over the trees of any species growing there except the baobab, Adomsonia digitata. For this tree the elephants had an entirely different method of utilization.

These baobab trees were two, three and sometimes even four meters in diameter and fifteen to twenty meters tall. We checked the growth rings on several, they become dormant during the dry season and thus have prominent rings. We believed none of these baobab trees to be less than two hundred years old and some we checked seemed to be a thousand or more years old. During my sampling I found a very few seedlings of baobab but I never saw a young tree of this species and I never saw a baobab in the valley less than nearly two meters in diameter. These are magnificent trees, as worthy of life as an elephant or any of the other animal, maybe with the exception of humans.

Usually several elephants or two or more bulls would attack a baobab tree and begin to tear off chunks of the tree using their tusks as chisels. They will tear off strips, which peal off at the growth rings like paper from a roll, around and around the lower trunk. They chew these chunks for a while and then spit out the masticated wood. They will continue to tear off chunks until the tree breaks and falls. After the tree is on the ground the elephants will tear and chew until there is nothing left but chewed wood. As I said before this destruction of the Luangwa forest was the reason for the project.

In the beginning the project included a program for cropping of the wild animals from the valley. There was some cropping of hippo, Hippopotamus amphibius, and elephant. When the various animal protection groups of the United Kingdom, the United States and other developed countries discovered that there was a project to kill wildlife the members of these groups became very concerned and began to protest and to put pressure on the Government of Zambia, the UNDP officials and other governments involved in funding the project.

Due to the protests, by the time I arrived on the project, cropping was limited to the taking of hippo and this did not last much longer. The idea of cropping of these wild animals was a good one because the destruction being done to the habitat was terrible and the careful harvesting of excess animals for food for the people of Zambia seems no different from harvesting of domestic animals. Indeed in all of the countries from where the protests arose harvesting and otherwise killing of wildlife has gone on so long and so vehemently that compared to the Luangwa Valley there are almost no animals left. However, cropping as was being tested would probably not have been successful because the meat from the animals could not be economically processed and marketed due to the remoteness of the area and the conditions existing at that time.

The wildlife protection groups were successful in stopping the program and this ban on cropping included a ban on hunting of animals by the people living in the valley, whose field crops were being destroyed by the large numbers of wild animals, people who needed the food. The harvesting by the people living in the valley was the only kind of harvesting we of the