Tag: photog

My favorite

Of all the animals one might encounter on a safari, I think the leopard is my favorite. It’s strong and graceful, cat-like enough to seem cuddly, and threatening at the same time. Look at this one, glaring at me while still appearing so relaxed!

Photo taken at the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria, South Africa

Happy baby elephants

In Southern Africa, elephants regularly fall victim to poaching or to conflicts about living space with farmers and villagers. Sometimes baby elephants are left orphaned when their mother is killed – elephants drink their mother’s milk until they are three years old. In Zambia, Game Rangers International rescues, rehabilitates, and releases orphaned elephants back into the wild. The youngest elephants are cared for at the elephant nursery in Lilayi, close to Lusaka. There they receive bottles of milk every three hours and are taken into the bush to learn to vend for themselves. Everyday between 11.30 and 13.00 hrs visitors can watch how the babies are fed – a lovely sight, as you can see in this photograph. When they are a little older, the elephants are taken to Kafue National Park to join other older orphaned elephants, to work towards reintegration with elephants in the wild.

Winter is coming

The sun shines brightly, but in the mornings and evenings it gets chilly. No wonder that Zambians are stocking up on their winter’s clothes. In this roadside stall the main item for sale are gloves. Who would have thought that there is a thriving market for gloves in Zambia?

Suburbia in Zambia

Just a few miles out of Kabwe we stumbled upon this unlikely scene: rows of terraced houses with carports and small gardens. So different from the usual bungalows on walled plots. It could almost have been the Netherlands. Who lives there? What do they make of their suburban dream home? Is this the new Zambia?

Praise

Glory to you for the feast-day of life

Glory to you for the perfume of lilies and roses

Glory to you for each different taste of berry and fruit

Glory to you for the sparkling silver of early morning dew

Glory to you for the joy of dawn’s awakening

Glory to you for the new life each day brings

–

Gregory Petrov

Dream tree

When we had just moved to Zambia, people often asked us: What is it that you miss most? The presumed answer – I guess – was ‘my family’ or ‘that the power stays on’ or ‘pindakaas’. What I used to answer, however, was trees. I missed the trees I grew up with. Trees here, they have another shape. Their leaves are just not right. Their bark is different. Maybe that’s why I like to play around with my photographs of trees: to highlight the sense of not-belonging that they give me.