For enriching body and mind, I can’t imagine there are many places better than the banks of the Zambezi River. It’s a place of which I will never tire. The view from our upstairs bedroom looking out on to the river is supreme. It simply can’t be bettered.

And the hippo who puts his eyes and nose up above the water right in front of us,  just moments after we arrive,  is a very welcome sight. He spends his whole day there. He will disappear under the water for a few minutes and then moments later, reappear in almost the same place. Sometimes he seems to catch sight of us watching him, other times his eyes are closed as he blissfully dozes in the late April sun. Later in the season the colder water temperature may drive him out to warm up on dry land, as it did with the hippo I watched here last July.  

Meanwhile on the opposite bank, a trio of hippo emerges to graze on such tufts of green grass as they can find. The smallest member of the group is about half the size of the largest. The largest is enormous and really quite pink. The hippo are silent as they move between bushes and trees, intent on eating. They hardly ever lift their heads. Then at some sign – perhaps of full bellies – they slip quietly back into the water with as little fuss as they arrived.

There is a certain kind of silence here filled mostly with insect noise. Humans are audible from time to time, as are the noises of an occasional boat but mostly the sounds are from nature. The crickets and katydids seem to sing from dusk till dawn, but sometime in the very early hours of the still dark morning, if I am awake, I will be aware only of silence as they too rest from their vocalising. As to larger beasts, the hippo are the most audible of these. At night especially, their snorts and guffaws float across the river to us then drift on by, like the river itself.

In the day time, on a sandbank on the other side of the river, we watch as flocks of Spurwing Geese arrive and in such vast numbers as I have never seen before. Viewed a bit more closely some appear to be simply resting, others rooting about. They are handsome birds with their black and white feathers, their red beaks and legs. And large, some weighing as much as 7kg. Which makes it all the more amazing to me that their highest recorded flying speed is 14okm per hour. I understand that some populations of Spurwing Geese would be poisonous if one was to eat them, for their diet consists of poisonous beetles. Watching these geese on the Zambezi, their calls and squawks are almost continuous.  They arrive in the early morning in different-sized groups, and depart at dusk, in the same way. We make an estimated count of over 300 birds. I wonder where they head to at night.

The bird traffic at dusk is always intriguing; some flocks heading in one direction, others flying the opposite way as they head to their various roosting places. We are even treated to a small group of Great White Pelicans who pass overhead as we sit on a pontoon on the water at sundown. They appear from beyond the tree line behind us and head off downstream. The fading sunlight catches their feathers, tingeing them with orange.

The mbira is a traditional musical instrument played in Zimbabwe and other countries in Africa. Here the artist Tinashe plays and sings “Zambezi.”

In all the world there is no sound I love more than that of rain drops splashing under the eaves of my house, here in my little corner of Zambia. And especially at night. The smell of it too is pure soul food – made all the more delicious because I am tucked up in bed, inside.  

When the rain is accompanied by high winds I do worry about the little birds’ nests all around the garden but as there is little I can do, I just hope they built them good and strong. Of course, the wind is sometimes pure bliss – a cool breeze on a very hot day is wonderful. And so too, a warm wind on a humid day because that might just be bringing rain.

It’s a subject much talked about right now, in our community – rain, the lack of it, the lateness of it, the blessing of it which some people have had. Some have had quite a bit for this time of year, others very little. It’s been patchy, falling on some farms and overlooking others, with no apparent pattern. April rain is not a regular occurrence and even though it is too late for some crops, it certainly brings some relief. April rain will help the grass which means there will be a bit more grazing for the cattle. April rain is also not entirely too late for tobacco or fruit trees. And certainly in my garden, rain is always welcome, at any time of year.

Rainfall of course lifts the water table. If rivers fill, every living thing can benefit but left only to Nature, smaller rivers will clog up with reeds which can grow in water, thrive in muddy conditions and survive the dry. The result is a deadlock, for such water as there is will eventually not be able to pass. Small rivers feeding a farm dam need help but it is very hard going, clearing a waterway of excessive reeds. They are sharp and unforgiving against bare legs and arms.

We walk the river’s edge, my husband and I, inspecting the places which have been cleared and what is still left to do. It is always fascinating to me, to walk beside a river, even one which is dry in places. I love the exposed, tangled roots of trees, encasing intriguing river-bank holes, usually unseen by human eye. We find shiny fresh-water mussel shells, which are much larger than their ocean cousins. We speculate on what may eat them as we investigate the discarded shells. Usually there is an impenetrable denseness to the vegetation along a Zambian river and the only reason we are able to walk at all is because my husband has had a pathway cleared for just this task – to keep an eye on the water level in the months to come. Our walk is very winding. The river has made its own way through the bush – always taking the easier route – with the result that it has carved for itself, a very sinuous bed. There are also several extremely deep bends in it which could become ox-bow lakes if the water was flowing constantly and consistently. For now, there are still some pools and after some dredging and clearing, it will flow again, when there is enough water.

Meanwhile in the lowest lying areas of the veld near the dam, my husband has had a couple of trenches dug. Water will collect in them too. After one of our better rainfalls, what a sight it is to see water flowing unencumbered straight into the dam!  I can’t help feeling that this harvesting of rainfall will probably be vital in the dry months to come.

The South Korean-English composer Yiruma, wrote this piece, River flows in You, in 2001. A few years later it was brought to the attention of a much wider audience when it was featured in the Twilight Saga movies. These days it is one of the most popular contemporary classical pieces on the music streaming service Spotify and has upward of a 3 million likes on YouTube. To me, it is lovely – and like rain or the lack of it, with a bittersweet quality that is haunting.