Imake a Difference's Supporter Trip to South Africa 2014 - Day 9

DAY NINE:

So today was a day Ingrid and I were really looking forward to. Through Pete's contacts we were given the opportunity to visit a rhino orphanage. As this is a high security area, general public don't normally have this opportunity. This is where baby rhino can go if they are orphaned due to horrible poaching incidents. The location of this orphanage cannot be mentioned for the safety of the baby rhino.

This was such a fascinating but also sad place to visit. The poor baby rhino cry for many days until they get used to the idea of not having a mother anymore. It requires a lot of dedication by the staff feeding them milk as well as pairing the rhino up with goats to keep the rhino company or other older rhino they have in the orphanage. They have to be very careful though to not provide them with too much human contact as when they return to the wild they need to be able to fend for themselves without a human standing by their side.

Usually you can get in the pen with the babies but unfortunately the rhino that were currently there were being weaned from human contact. We got to pat one through the fence though, wow what hard leathery skin they have. So cool to get so close to a rhino to actually touch one. You wouldn't being doing that in the wild, that's for sure.

Then we moved on to a most amazing place called Shakaland. This place was made to film Shaka Zulu but then was bought by Kingsley Holgate. Kingsley Holgate is a very well respected man in South Africa. He is considered one of Africa's most colourful modern day explorers, a humanitarian explorer, author, tv personality and fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Getaway magazine calls him their “Explorer in Residence, the most travelled person in Africa”. As well as that he does a huge amount to try and combat the rhino poaching problem. He's a man with many great values and one you can learn a wealth a knowledge from. I was honoured to meet him! He can also sink a fair few Caption Morgan and coke's when it is party time :).

Kingsley's main aim for Shakaland is for tourists to gain insight into the Zulus' former traditional way of life. Shakaland contains a large number of traditional Zulu homes called beehives with the walls made out of branches with dried reed roofs and small doors you need to bend down to get through. It's amazing how strongly they're built and was a great experience to sleep in a traditional style home. As well as this, the tour guide explained to us the typical set up of family houses, and who sleeps where, we watched a video explaining the story of King Shaka, saw how they weave mats, how to make spears, how to make beer out of maize (I think we could sell them a Grainfather, the perfect target market :), had a go at traditional fighting and balancing pots on our heads. Wow I don't know how the women do it and they are normally carrying a lot more weight than we tried.

Finally we watched traditional Zulu and Swazi dancing and singing. These were amazing performances, I definitely couldn't stand up there and do the moves they were doing. Very flexible people. To complete the celebrations we also judged another Rhino Art competition, providing the winner with a bike, as well as a very adorable 6 year old girl with a bike, who was one of the finalists. I just wanted to pick her up and sneak her into my luggage :). Kingsley also thanked Peter, Hamish and Dawdy for donating R250,000 to the cause.

What a jam packed day, but definitely a memorable one! We even got an article written about Imake a Difference in The Observer Zululand!