Bat Migration and Colonial Relics

The bat migration was one of the cooler things I've seen recently. Maybe I was so blown away because I wasn't expecting it to be cool at all? I don't know. It is the largest (number-wise) mammal migration in the world, and one of the mysteries is that people don't really know where they go to or from – some have been traced to the Congo, but I'm not sure if researchers know their trajectory. And then there's the fact that it's barely mentioned in the guidebooks, very sparsely frequented, and in a protected park with ghetto dirt roads and unmarked trails makes it seem like that much more of a special, magical and personal discovery.

After an ambitious wake-up at 5:30 AM (still stuffed post-Thanksgiving desserts)) we finally hit the road by 7:30 or 8:00 (gas fill-up and cohort pick-ups were required). We drove about 6 or 7 hours through smaller and smaller Zambian towns, past the Copperbelt, kissing the south-easternmost edge of the Congo, until we reached Kasanka National Park. We set up tents and went to search out these strange, strange flying mammals. We arrived at the bat forest at about 5:15 to find the bats roosting. As depicted in every bat story and movie, they actually do hang upside-down. Lining tree trunks, covering branches like browned leaves of autumn, there was a plethora of bats. I expected to be grossed out – I imagined being surrounded by rats or mice – but they were surprisingly beautiful. With wide wingspans and cute faces, they imparted none of the negative connotations they usually are taken to represent. We ducked the rope prohibiting us from great views and snuck into the forest (where we were supposed to pay 270 000 ZMK – equivalent to $54 – for someone to guide us in...yeah right), and scaled tree-houses and key look-out points to have a heightened view of the goings-on. Between about 5:30 and 6:20 PM was the peak of their swarming – they leave their roost in order to feed on fruit – and the skies were legitimately FILLED with bats. It was potentially one of the simultaneously simplest and craziest things I've ever seen. We emerged from the wilderness to find everyone else sitting on benches like drones waiting, and a guy with a thick Southern African accent chastised us in front of people while we apologized, played slightly dumb, and were secretly thrilled that we duped the system and had an outrageous private view.

The next morning we busted out of there and drove another 6 or 7 hours north to Shiwa Ng'andu, an old colonial house in the middle of the bus built by an eccentric British dude in 1932. He modeled it after a stereotypical British estate and at its peak it employed 2000+ people and supported the entire village. After his death it was left to fall into ramshackle disrepair, and only in the 90s did the eccentric's grandsons refurbish the house and open it to tourism, The inside is still a little shabby and only alludes to the prestige and glamor it must have once garnered, but the grounds are impeccable and a bizarre disjuncture between cultures is created: straw huts next to a colonial estate; bellies swollen from malnutrition and ion imbalance beside opulence and silver and china; current working people, lives and events next to preserved relics of another era. Like I said, it's completely bizarre.

We camped about 20 km down the road at a lodge and campsite next to crystal clear shallow hot springs, and while we expected the springs to be a bit more dramatic, the lodge itself was a genuine oasis with flowers and herbs and lounging spaces indoors and outdoors and *surprise, surprise* INTERNET! In the middle of nowhere, I couldn't believe it.

One last highlight before moving on: I finally saw a Zebra! And not one but many! They're slightly weird animals, with the babies sporting long lanky legs, and the adults with legs too short for their bodies, but their pelts (do zebras have pelts?) are as gorgeous in person as represented on runways.

Lastly, yesterday was World AIDS Day. Here's my friend/other intern Alice's Haiku in honor of the event:

Red Ribbons Flapping.

Testing Today for Status.

Positive Freedom.