Tatenda's first walk about with Reilly, dogs and warthog

19 November, 2007

Bless you for the wonderful email we have had from you.
Its been beautiful receiving all this incredible mail...there is so much love, support,prayers and words of massive comfort, its been an incredible sharing of agony.We have also found so many special friends that have come out of the woodworks, its quite fantastic.Zimbabwe will always remain a community where ever we are, and when the chips are down our friends stand up. Thankyou for everything and still being around, even though there are seas between us.

The loss of our four rhino's, the fourth rhino being, the little unborn calf. have woken up the rest of the world ,as to how out of kilter man has become with his greed.
The world are in tears, there is an out cry for justice, there is a feeling of extreme anger from all four corners of our planet.

Those rhino have given so many people including us on Imire, the most wonderful privilege of sharing incredible moments with them.Their hugeness, their presence, their gentleness we all took for granted, it was a forever...now its gone!

I cant quite describe the feeling of loss and grief we are in...Today a week from when it happened is a very low day...there is a silence that hangs over us in a still form.
The energy of Imire has gone for now.

We are devastated through to the very core of our hearts.Its painful.
We will gather ourselves up again and move on, but today its not easy,thankgoodness we still have so much here on Imire, we have the elephant, the babes, we have the magic world of wildlife.
All these creatures need our love and time, so we do move on, we don't sit still, but that space of our beautiful Amber, DJ and Sprinter will never be filled again.
Thankyou for sharing this moment with us, its been so special.
Tatenda is filling up the hours in a day. We are going to move him to our house, as the run up to the bomas is endless.John also needs to have me back snuggled in his bed..The haystack,Reilly and I have been sharing with Mishek and the rats, has had its time.
Please keep in touch, I'm so sorry we haven't been able to write sooner, but together with no phones, powercuts, and feeding Tatenda seems to keep us away from all comms.
Thankyou again for all your support and letters, its taken us all through the worst.
All our love from us on Imire
Judy and John

PS The next day.. as I'm finishing off this letter,Reilly has just radioed to say he and Mishek have walked Tatenda 7 kms to our home. He is enchanted by everything, and thrilled with life itself....how brillant is that? we now have him safe in our garden together with the warthog and dogs.He also seems to have found the sitting room a social place to be.