Storytelling about Africa.

It’s been an interesting 36 hours.

I’ll go backwards.
Right now I am in Toronto Aiport, waiting for a flight to London as we head to Africa.

Last evening I was telling stories to the Western Canadian Association of Bovine Practitioners. The title of the session was Rhinos Cattle and Sex. The cattle part is what is new to these ages, and the pieces I cited came from both of my Africa books. I think that what created the most buzz was the footage of Ankole cattle entering a plunge dip.

Here it is. Old Africa hands know that this is for tick control, but folks who have not had to think much about tropical diseases, including most of the students we have taken to Uganda over the lat 8 years are amazed at the sight. Of course our hosts are just as amazed to think that we have no cattle dips in Canada, anywhere. I suppose that winter, snow, and severe cold have some advantages!

On Wednesday evening I told stores to the Calgary Academy of Veterinary Medicine in the Africa pavilion at the Calgary Zoo. My title for this group was The Trouble With Lions and other Animals in Africa. Footage was again a big hit, and I ran the edited piece that I have already got on You Tube that shows me capturing rhinos in the early 1970s with the team led by Tony Parkinson, my old tennis partner. There is no sound track - this footage was shot with a Super8 camera in the late 60s and early 70s.

I’m waiting for pictures on the 3rd gig, which was to the children in grades K thought 4 at the Chaparral school in Calgary.

‘nuff for now. I’ll be back with the story of the school soon.