Zanzibar Safari ya Nje

Despite first appearances, my trip to Zanzibar was intended more to be an educational trip rather than a holiday, although it always helps to have a friend who has an apartment! My overriding mission was to practice my Swahili as much as possible and see whether I could get by. Zanzibar is the birth place of Swahili and the place where it is spoken the most purely. 

With the help of a few friends of Colin's, and a huge gulp of bravery, I was soon fairly independent, talking to anyone and everyone that I met. Muslims, Masai, and tourists, chatting away to shopkeepers in the spice market in Stone Town and the man who worked for the BBC who sold Kiswahili story books. I walked into town to change money, and go to the pharmacy (toothache!).

I didn't feel in the least bit worried. Even the people touting for customers on the beach understood a "La, asante" and left me along or chatted about other things, mainly my ability to talk to them. I had a happy afternoon with two wonderful ladies from the mainland of Tanzania, first having a massage and then, somehow, my hair braided; not so much cultural appropriation, but cultural appreciation. Like women everywhere, we put the world to rights.

I was invited to eat with a family of Muslim women as they broke their fast for the day during Ramadan. While the men were off praying at the local mosque, the ten women, who had twenty five children between them, made the food in massive, massive cauldrons on fires outside. The children, who were playing, soon came to investigate me, watching videos of horses and the post-banging in machine over and over again - shouting tena! tena! when one came to an end. One little girl tested her English out on me and I added in some new words to her collection of fruits and trees and food.

A visit to Jozani Forest, conducted entirely in Swahili, was extremely pleasant in the shade, looking at black and white Colobus monkeys and the rarer Red Colobus monkeys known as Kima.

Jozani also has mangroves which are crucially important to ecology. Thankfully they are protected, and like the Forest itself, no development can take place. Everywhere else hotels and apartment are being thrown up to satisfy the Blue Economy which is vital to the island.

My other mission, of course, was to see if I could find any camels, and I learned that there are only three remaining, all imported from the mainland. One is in a zoo at Stone Town but these two live at the hotel I went to last and they live on the surrounding trees and can get right down to the sea. 

Mission accomplished although the grinding poverty behind the party beaches is hard to witness and yet everyone remains friendly and polite, whatever they think of the tourists, their livelihoods depending on it.  Zanzibar has banned the plastic bag but the litter is mainly made up on single use plastic drinking water bottles - that will be down to the tourists too. 

The End

We are very lucky to live in a country where we have the ability - albeit at a cost - to have our animals put to sleep, without pain, by using drugs or a humane killer (gun). Indeed, we would be considered to be causing unnecessary suffering if we failed to do so and could be prosecuted.

Last week I was in Zanzibar where the cultural and religious rules, or at least the interpretation of them, forbids the killing of an animal unless it is going to be eaten. The Quran also states that it is forbidden to be cruel towards any animal, a rule that we know is ignored in many countries and by people of every religion and those with none. The Masai and Samburu are generally Christian now but their way of life is very pragmatic - where you have livestock, you have deadstock and that's it.

Moving to a hotel near the end of my visit, I was welcomed to 'Paradise' and it was lovely to see donkeys, camels, chickens and a turkey with their chicks, running around the well-tended grounds. The female donkey had been unlucky in the past when someone had cut off the tops of her ears, a 'traditional medicine' of the cruellest kind. However, she was happy and well now and had a filly foal at foot called Bonita.

At the top of a hill within the grounds, I spotted some more long ears, flickering in silhouette. I climbed the hill to a shady area where a donkey was just about standing, cleary shaking and extremely hot. There was no water that he could reach and the only food provided was dried banana leaves which were long and fibrous. His genital area was covered in blue spray and swollen with infection and every so often he tried to stretch his back legs to ease the pain or attempt to pee. There were no droppings in the area. It was clear to me that he was in agony and that he was dying.

The Masai men who work at the hotel for an Indian owner, quickly came up and we talked in Swahili about what had happened. Apparently, three weeks ago, the donkey was attacked by the other donkey jack and had been badly bitten in the genital area. I gathered that the vet had been and later I was told by the owner that the donkey had had an operation and later contracted tetanus. I asked the men to bring clean water, and I offered the donkey a drink which he took eagerly but not for very long. I asked them to leave the water close to the donkey.

An hour later, I went up again by which time the donkey was recumbent. I wiped him over with a damp cloth which I borrowed from one of the Masai, and offered him water from my hand which he sucked from my fingers. We placed the dried leaves under his head to prevent sand getting into his eye but they insisted he was just sleeping when I knew that he was dying. By the following morning he had gone.

The owner wasn't prepared to talk to me properly about what had happened but in later messages told me that it was against the culture and religion of Zanzibar which has a very high proportion of Muslims, to put any animal to sleep. This seems to have overridden the religious rule about not being cruel to an animal and I am struggling to reconcile the two. Even at law school we discussed the fact that rights are great until they rub against the rights of others - in this case an animal - and we know that religious books were written long before we had choices about how to kill an animal for welfare reasons. 

I have no doubt whatsoever that this donkey was loved, and shown love, and treated well by his owner to this point. His owner was definitely sad when his donkey died. I wish he could see, even if it is just to keep tourists happy about welfare standards, that it was unfair to leave this donkey struggling and in pain. Rest in peace Punda.

Sunny

The weather was absolutely perfect today to take Blue's ashes and 'turn her out' again in the valley of Howen Bottom where Juma was born, and where his ashes were placed. It was a reminder of that glorious summer when Tracey and I say on the hummocks watching out little herd, Nelly, Juma, my Blue, White Blue and Nanny. It is so peaceful down there, just a few walkers and no road nearby. 

Sleep tight my girl.

Bothered?

You might wonder why anyone would be particuarly bothered about the death of a 'fairly ordinary' New Forest mare who spent seventeen years of her life on the open Forest, another on a SSSI conservation site, and the occasional winter holiday, and the final years of her life, at home catching up on eating and self-care. 

Apart from loving her with the whole of my heart, and admiring her beautiful qualities of calmness, trust, and care, I loved to watch the whole herd together, their reactions and interactions, loyalties and duties to one another. Blue was a wonderful mother to the one foal that she had, and a brilliant Auntie to those that Nelly had. She would lead, follow, and protect as needed. And occasionally she would come out of her natural retirement to work with me, the Firemen or people with addictions when a spare pony was required.

Blue, Blue, my world is Blue.

Sunday, was the most beautiful day for a very long time. The sky was a proper sky blue, heralding the spring ahead, and as dusk fell there were striations of pastel colours, baby blue and pink, like watercolours streaked across the valley.

 

This was to be my beautiful Blue's last day on earth and I have known it was coming, fought if off for several months knowing that the end was inevitable. Last August, when she should have been at her best weight, Blue started to look slim - a nice racing-weight the vet would have said - but a vast array of tests followed up by cartons of supplements did no good. She seemed very happy, galloping up for her two decent feeds a day, rolling her neck like the distant Arab in her New Forest ancestry, and she held her own. She didn't really fancy any hay even though there was nothing wrong with her teeth and after a feed she would stand contemplatively while digesting her food. She wore her first rug and kept it straight and undamaged, seeming to be grateful for the extra warmth but she didn't spend long in the open barn despite a really deep bed and the company of Pie an Patsy.

When I looked under her nightie on Friday evening it was a shock to see that she had suddenly dropped even more weight and now she was a shadow of the pony that she had been. Still cheerful at the front end, she didn't like me pressing into her flanks. The time had come.

  

She has spent the weekend eating her way through carrots, minty treats and Stud Muffins hopefully thinking it must be Christmas, and today, at 3 p.m., her light went out. How I loved my Bluesy pony, my beautiful girl, you have been an angel for the twenty one years that I have owned you.

Saturation Point

Ruth has been in a quandary about whether to put a rug on Prince who has never encountered one before. She has been practising putting it over him and flapping it a little to try to assess whether he might panic once it was fastened on. The horrible weather brought by Storm Eowyn and then Herminia forced her hand at the weekend.

Hmm, I think there has been a cover up.

Cool with it now.

Doris Day (2)

It is most fitting that Julie and I should go to visit Lady Doris of Janesmoor in a full blown storm, just like the night I discovered her seven years ago, all skin and bones up the track from my fields. That night I asked her gently, "Do you want to come home?". She followed me back to the gate and into the yard and that was the last bad day she ever had.

After four weeks with me, having basic medical checks and plenty of food, she was found a place at the Blue Cross, and from there a loving home as a companion. I had hoped to see her a few years ago after the gentleman who had her contacted me, but the pandemic intervened and we lost touch for a while. 

Her whereabouts are still a secret and so I felt privileged to go and meet her. She welcomed me easily and just to remind her I said, "Do you want to come home?" and I like to think that she said, "No thank you, I am very well here." 

Her loaners love her and her companion very much and take good care of their welfare, measuring their weights once a week, They were such pleasant people and I should think that Doris thinks that they are her angels. 

If you want to read about Doris then there is a blog on 20.3.17 and on on 3.4.17. Storm Doris was on 23.2.17.

Skip, Skip

Last weekend, Harri and I went to meet Stephanie and her beautiful Arabians. I have a special soft spot for Bernie, (Eastworth Bernini) who is now a grown up stallion who has been doing a bit of showing. Here he is at his most natural in the winter field.

He has the most amazing temperament and was quite happy to let me give him a loving hug, accepting it with very good grace. 

Like many horse owners, Steph has recently experienced the devastating loss of one of her horses, Eastworth Ahmoshini, known to everyone as Skip. 

This amazing mare has been the backbone of Stephanie's career as a trainer and show producer, and is intertwined with her family too. She achieved wins and championships in the top Arabian classes with Steph and her daughter, Amelia. but turned her hooves to everything from dressage, hunting, movie films, and taking part in the London New Year's Day Parade as well as teaching people how to ride.

There were so many precious and poignant moments which brought tears to everyone's eyes.

 When Amelia beat Stephanie.

Following her father's coffin as a mark of respect.

We all know how absolutely devastating it is to lose a horse, especially when they take away huge files of your own archives.