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Newsletter  

 

Sioma Camp                                                       Newsletter                                            

 

 

                  

April – June 2011

 

As usual let me start with the road. Work on this upper section is progressing well. The first tarmac application tests have been carried out and I assume that the tarmac phase will soon start, at least up here. The first section from Sesheke to Kalobolelwa has not progressed that far yet. The positive news is that by now a parallel detour road has been constructed all the way from Sesheke (Katima Mulilo) to Sioma Camp. This means that what used to take say 3½-4 hours one year ago can now be done in approximately two hours....and with far less damage to your vehicle. A four wheel drive vehicle is no longer required, at least as long as you stay on the main road. If you are driving from Livingstone all 320 km to Sioma Camp can now be covered in less than 5 hours. The road is still expected...so I am told....to be completed by mid next year.  At least for this upper part that seems almost realistic although I am sure the first section from Sesheke will take quite a bit longer. I am also told that work is progressing well on the other side, from Senanga and down to Sioma (on the north side of the Zambezi). They have a few major obstacles on the way though that may delay the completion of that section with quite some time. The Liu River for instance is about 1,4 km wide and although shallow requires a lot of very time consuming concrete construction work. As I understand the contractor is placing 5-6 meter long concrete ‘culvert/bridge’ sections across the river. This of course consumes a lot of material and takes a long time. Work on this road section may continue well into 2013.   

 

The construction of the bridge has for whatever reason been delayed and has not started yet.  We may end up with a situation where there are two nice sections of tarmac road completed on each side of the river....and no bridge. In that case I hope the pontoon ferry from Kalongola/Sitoti can be brought down to somewhere upriver from the Ngonye Falls and that preliminary roads can connect to it on both sides.  Apparently another Chinese company has been selected as the bridge contractor and is expected on site sometime in August. The actual work I am told will start in September.  However there seem to be quite some uncertainty on the starting date. I have heard estimates on when the construction work will start ranging from August to November this year. The problem is that it will probably be difficult to do much actual construction work in the river in the rainy season. Probably work ‘in the river’ will only be possible say from June/July – when the water level is getting fairly low – to November/December – where the river starts rising again. The bridge construction will take around two years, so one year after the road sections at least on this south side of the river have been completed it seems.

 

Once everything is in place the Western Zambian Circuit will be in place and tourists will be able to do the roundtrip from Livingstone through Sesheke/Katima Mulilo, Sioma, Senanga, Mongu to Lusaka. On the way of course visit Ngonye Falls and Sioma Ngwezi National Park, Liuwa Plain National Park (West of Mongu) and Kafue National Park on the way to Lusaka.

 

I can’t help commenting on the environment in relation to the road construction. Don’t they learn about environment in China? I am of course aware that some trees may need to be removed to make space for the road in some sections, but the apparent mindless bulldozing of trees, including valuable hardwood species like rosewood, Zambezi teak, mukwa (kiat) etc. just seem out of proportion. I am sure this is not in accordance with the advice contained in the Environmental Impact Assessment for the road building. So, it leaves me puzzled.

 

 Again this year the river has been quite high reaching the peak towards the end of April (quite late; and we even had some rain on the 19th of May). None of our tents were under water this year, so for the last two years the water level has gone down after the excessive flooding in March 2009. In January/February and again in May/June the rising/dropping of the water provide good opportunities for a bit of swimming. There are small ...fairly safe, but always watch out for crocs......secluded parts of the river where you can relax together with Tigerfish and other smaller fish. Even the Tigerfish are not very afraid and come quite close (some times less than half a meter). They are very beautiful, colourful, slender and agile. At times you may see big packs of up to 100 Tigerfish cruising over the sandbanks. I had to share my favourite bathing spot with a small crocodile (less than 1,5 metre long). When I came for my bath he (I for some reason assume it was a male) was often laying sunbathing on a small sand island and then slipped into the river on the other side of the island leaving my side of the island for a quick bath........we seemed to have a mutual agreement...(or so I felt).... you  - the croc - stay on your side of the island; I stay on my side....but to be honest I never quite trusted him! (You should be able to find a photo of him on the Sioma Camp website, or on the Sioma Camp Facebook site).    

 

I went to Denmark in April. I haven’t been ‘home’ (?) since October 2007. It was nice to link up with my two sons again and we had a lot of fun playing a computer game called ‘Supreme Commander’. In Denmark it was the hottest April month ever. Average temperature 9,5 degrees celcius or something like that. Yeah, that’s hot! Here in South West Zambia we are right now having a very cold period. Several nights the temperature has crept down to between -5 to -10 in the early morning hours. I thought freezing taps were a North European occurrence, but not so. Unfortunately the freezing cold has left many mango and papaya trees completely ‘dead’, at least for now. I am afraid this means it will be much more difficult than usual for us to serve our delicious papaya cake for our guests this season. I also wonder how the crocs survive. They need to generate a lot of heat from sunbathing during the day to get through the cold nights.

 

Business has been extremely slow and I have the feeling that there have actually been more cancellations than guests staying here; for a number of good reasons of course, but still it has been very annoying and frustrating. May was the worst month ever since Sioma Camp opened in July 2008. Total income in May: US$ 571. The costs amounted to almost US$ 3000. That is of course hardly sustainable. That’s also why I have realized that if possible I simply have to return to Denmark and take up my old job. It will at least take another2-3 years before the combination of the road/bridge is completed and I sincerely doubt that Sioma Camp will become viable before that happens. And 2-3 years is a long time.  I will probably face commercial hara-kiri unless I do something drastic in the meantime to survive. So, I have applied for various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in Copenhagen). My ‘private sector’ experience from ‘The Heart of Africa’ doesn’t seem to be much sought after.....at least that is the feeling I have so far. I do however remain fairly confident that by 1. September I will be back in Copenhagen overlooking the old port area around Asiatisk Plads.  

  

While away I will have a manager to run Sioma Camp. And I am not giving up on the Camp, merely taking a break. For how long I can’t say. I hope that a stable income will enable me to complete my investment; the lack of funds when you have so many – costly – plans have become increasingly frustrating.

 

I have started constructing two ‘luxury’ teak cottages with four more in the pipeline. Work progress is slow though. The landscaping of a swimming pool is almost completed. I just need some good advice on the actual construction. I don’t want to use concrete. My intention is to create a natural pool, using water from the Zambezi (pumped with a so-called sling pump). I hope that it will be possible to use ‘calcrite’ as the bottom layer, then a mix of ‘calcrite’ and clay (hopefully these two layers will provide a sufficient seal) and finally a layer of nice white river sand. Water from the pool and water from some fish ponds that I intend to construct as well will hopefully flow together and form a pool under the restaurant deck. The way I imagine it, it will look very nice enhancing the river and water atmosphere of Sioma (River) Camp. Hopefully the water will attract a bit of wildlife and a lot of birds.

 

Speaking of birds I am getting more certain that actually the number of birds around the lodge has increased. I see more bird parties and get the feeling that there are birds around here all the time. As I recall there used to be far fewer. Maybe it is because burning of the bush has not been done on my plot since I came.....apart from a few minor uncontrolled ones. This probably has left better nesting places and improved breeding opportunities as there are now more insects to be preyed upon.

 

I haven’t seen a lot of wildlife recently; maybe because I haven’t been much in the bush. Some guests from Livingstone were here mid June and went for a few bush drives and saw some sable, some tsessebe, some impalas and some duikers, but not impressive numbers in any way. At the airstrip a few km away some of the farmers have been complaining about sable antelopes eating the sorghum seeds. Apparently a group of around 15 had made it their favourite dinner area.

 

In camp we had two lions in the beginning of April. Mubita, my driver/tracker saw a lioness close to the safari tents. She ran away and apparently joined the male at the campsite where they managed to kill a duiker. A few weeks ago I drove from Sesheke in the evening and around 30 km before reaching Sioma Camp I saw a caracal. It has been several years ago since I saw one the last time (At that time I actually saw 3 in one evening, on the way from my bush camp).

 

We had an impressive....and long lasting total lunar eclipse on the 15th of June. We will of course try to offer this attraction to our guests again as soon as possible. The problem is that it is quite expensive and the ‘Lunatic’ authorities aren’t very service minded.     

 

The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area ...in short KAZA TFCA.... process is moving, but slowly. Village scouts and additional ZAWA ...Zambia Wildlife Authority...wildlife police officers have been recruited and slowly, slowly there is hope that it may start to have an impact on the level of poaching. A major problem is that people still seem to ‘accept’ poaching and I am afraid it will take time before the local communities more actively decide to oppose the illegal activities of the poachers. Again (I probably have been saying this before) systems need to be put in place so local people can start to benefit from wildlife. As for now they don’t and then of course they will continue poaching and very few will become ‘whistleblowers’. It does seem however that more ......again slowly, slowly....people from the area have started sharing information with ZAWA on the activities of poachers. It is a battle over the hearts and minds of the communities living around the park. Local people need to be convinced that the poachers are actually stealing from them. They also need to be convinced that the whole poaching business – at least what the trade in bush meat is concerned – is extremely bad economics and that the value from tourism and sport hunting is much higher than the value to be generated from the sale of bush meat.  But it will take time........and the communities need to see some tangible benefits soon.

 

In all humbleness Sioma Camp will now introduce a ‘tourism based wildlife sighting community incentive scheme’. In short the idea is to create a direct link between (sightings of) wildlife and money to the community. Whenever guests at Sioma Camp take a bush drive or go for a bush walk they will be asked (the scheme will be voluntary) to tick of the various species (not number of individual animals) they see on the trip. For each species a value is attached, say if a group of guests see a duiker they pay 1 US$; if they see a reedbuck they pay 2 US$, if they see a Kudu 3 US$, a sable antelope 4 US$ and say a lion 5 US$. Based on our bush drives/bush walks last year a group of tourists (as a group) will on average pay about 25 US$ per trip (on top of the standard activity fee to Sioma Camp). Hopefully the villagers in the area will eventually make the connection between the money coming from tourists doing game viewing in their area and the number of game that is there. In essence the tourists will be paying the local communities for NOT poaching. I hope many of our guests will join the scheme. I know it is extra money but on the other hand it is not that much and it may actually be your direct contribution to help save the wildlife in the African bush for the next generation. The villages who will benefit in this area will be Kabula 2,  Mwanambao and Sikuka. The money generated will each month be handed over to a representative from the Villages, probably from the Village Action Group. We will monitor the use of the money closely in order to make sure that the funds are spent on actual community needs......such as the local school, water supply, health clinic etc.

 

Kabula 2 has been the first village to benefit from funds from Peace Park in putting up an elephant fence.  After the first season it seems that the fence has been successful in keeping the elephants out. So this year no elephants managed to eat and destroy the maize fields around Kabula 2; although a dry spell took its heavy toll nevertheless. As I keep saying, this area is no good for agriculture....either the wildlife finish of the fields or you have either too much or too little rain ...at the wrong times. As usual nobody seems to listen to me. I wonder why.   

 

On a last concluding note please be informed that any person travelling between South Africa and Zambia now need to have proof of yellow fever vaccination. This apparently also goes for in transit travellers passing through the airport in Johannesburg.

 

 

Hans Christian Aaskov,

Sioma Camp

 

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