Surrender Dorothy

I have to admit that one of the things that I was most looking forward to on our recent trip to Tanzania was visiting the Flying Fox preserve out on Pemba. First off, on my previous trip to Zanzibar I had seen many of the things we saw on this trip, and the entire adventure on Pemba was new to me and that's always exciting.  Plus, who could not love bats with a three foot wing span?  Seriously.  The Flying Foxes are clearly/hopefully the origin of the legend of the nasty cryptid the Popobawa which plays such a role in the popular imagination on Zanzibar.  Because there was an election coming up, and because fear associated with the mythic creature tends to reach a fever pitch during the election season (either because of natural tension or because of a deliberate attempt on the part of the government to control the voting process, even marginally), we thought we'd hear more about the beasty, but they were oddly quiet.  The actual Flying Foxes were also very quiet, a surprisingly graceful animal that feeds on fruit and didn't seem interested in causing anyone any trouble.  Mainly they just wanted to hang around and rest up for the night's hunt.  I felt kind of bad that the guides were clapping their hands to get the Flying Foxes to fly, although in the end I appreciated it because they were an amazing site.

I really should have taken another picture of the building that housed the Flying Fox preserve center.  It's partially blocked by our constant companion on Pemba, Kombo's bus, which was actually very nice and air conditioned and the students truly appreciated.

A sign at the center/centre providing telephone information for anyone looks for guides.

Here's a shot of the students as we began the presentation on Flying Foxes and the efforts of the preserve.  The man who led the presentation did a great job, and was an associate of Kombo (as apparently everyone is on Pemba) and who showed up again at the meeting with the Waganga.

And, as was the case everyplace we went, we always drew a crowd.  Here is Sarah enjoying the talk.

And, finally, the Flying Foxes.  We were surrounded by around 7000 of them, which was strangely not as disconcerting as the thought that at night they flew off in search of food and covered the entire island. When we sitting on the roof of the Pemba Seaview Hotel in the evenings you could see groups of them arcing through the night sky.

And in flight.  This was definitely one of the times when I wished I had a better camera - and, more importantly, was a better photographer.