Hungry Like the (Quiroz) Wolfs: August 2025

What an experience volunteering in Zimbabwe with Imire!

Fun facts about animals that we learned:

1) Giraffes have blue tongues to keep their tongues from getting burned by the sun.

2) There are 2 main types of rhinos at Imire - black rhinos and white rhinos. You can tell the difference by their lips - black rhinos tend to have smaller mouths for eating twigs and smaller bodies. White rhinos have wide mouths which is helpful for "lawn mowing" grass. Since black rhinos live in the forest, they tend to be more vulnerable to poaching since their attackers can hide in the trees (white rhinos live more out in the open). Imire sadly had a poaching attack earlier this year, and one of their black rhinos died :(

3) Aardvarks make big holes which ends up being homes to many animals, including warthogs and pythons.

4) What color are zebras? Black or white? We learned that zebras are actually black with white stripes.

5) Sables are Zimbabwe's national animal. You'll see photos below - they are gorgeous!

6) There are the Big 5: elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, and buffalos. There are also the Small 5: elephant shrew, buffalo weaver, ant lion, leopard tortoise, rhino beetle.

Even with all these facts, the adults lost in a competition to the kids in a trivia game. Better luck next time!

Let's kick this blog off with some photos from Uncle Robbie.

Day 1 - Arrival from Capetown to Imire

Simba. There is also a dachshund named Paddy. Poor Paddy got injured by a warthog (wild animals roam the property, but luckily not rhinos!)

Our week plan at Imire

Day 2 - Cleaning up the elephant bed (each elephant has their own crystal they like to sleep with)

Walking with elephants

Feeding elephants

Building a fence by using a machete and then stripping off the bark

Our own lake to swim and canoe

Crispin the crocodile. His girlfriend escaped but poor Crispin was too slow and got caught

Zoe was the first elephant to join Imire. She was put with buffalo and grew so attached she no longer thinks of herself as an elephant but a buffalo!

Giraffe feeding

Giraffe defending against warthogs

Day 3

Ha! The other volunteer group at Imire is on elephant poo duty this morning :)

Walk to see the elephants and giraffes.

Bright is our awesome animal guide. He doesn't hesitate to give us hands-on demonstrations and picks up huge poo like this.

We learn that middens are places where rhinos congregate to poo. If you want to challenge a rhino for domination, you poo on top of his poo. Take that!

GPS tracking for the rhinos

Found the rhinos - a baby and a mama. Grateful we got to hand-feed them.

Shocking - Scarlet was a dishwashing machine during the trip, washing dishes almost each night for the dozen of us.

Opening the electric gate.

Watering the new trees to help reforest the grounds.

Here's that sable.

Food for Crispin the crocodile.

Scarlet and George drag the body deeper into the grass.

Cutting a leg for Crispin.

Calling Crispin out of the water.

Getting wood to build an obstacle course for the canines who help keep the rhinos safe from poachers.

Machetes for all.

A pre-dinner walk with the elephants.

Day 4

Baby and mama rhinos

Huge nest by a little bird

Animal tracking

Hiking to Pride Rock. This is also where the Shoshone people (who came after the original Koisan people) lived.

Secretary bird.

Volunteering with Numwa, a group of mothers who make sanitary pads for girls so that the girls can continue to go to school instead of skipping during their menstruation cycle. Numwa has given out 500K pads while they have been in existence.

Repairing roads. Dusty and hard work!

Uncle Rob got this monkey during our "Who am I?" game and could not get his name. Vevet!

Playing 31 and cambio.

Day 5

Elephant poo duty (yay!) and then an elephant walk and feeding.

We played some games - which animal am I, one/two/clap/stomp/jump, animal trivia, country trivia.

Scarlet negotiated this rhino down from 15 to 5 bucks.

Brekkie (breakfast) with the elephants.

This elephant really liked Uncle Robbie.

Elephants have a gland on the top part of their mouths. If another elephant uses their truck to touch it, they will understand that animals emotions, thoughts, and whether they are good/bad for them.