Not your regular Canadian news story

Here is an example of how news here can have a different focus. The following news story is from the region we are living in, but not anywhere near where we live, (don’t worry Grandparents) rather it is in the municipal boundaries but in an area that if you saw it you would classify as rural. Parental Guidance warning, this is not a pleasant story.
Hyena preys on four-year-old boy
By Amos Gumulira
A marauding hyena killed and devoured a four-year-old boy at Chiwamba Village in T/A Chimutu’s area in Lilongwe last week after it snatched him from his mother.
Kanengo Police confirmed the death of the boy in a press statement on Monday, saying the deceased, Joseph Chonga, and his mother Matrida Khoviwa, had gone out of their house to urinate around 11 pm when the marauding hyena came, caught the boy and ran away with him.
Kanengo Police public relations officer Beatrice Mwachande said in the statement when the community mounted a search for the boy the following day they only found his jaw bone some 10 kilometres away. The rest of his body had been eaten up.
Mwachande said Kanengo Police in conjunction with Parks and Wildlife Department officials have since mounted an intensive hunt for the hyena.
Stories of hyenas attacking, killing and preying on people are common these days.
Senior assistant parks and wildlife officer responsible for environmental education and extension in Central Region Dixie Makwale said incidents of hyenas killing and preying on people happen because people have destroyed the environment resulting in the creation of an imbalance in nature.
He said because of the growing human population pressure on the natural forests as people’s demand for cultivating land grows, animal habitats are destroyed.
Makwale said because hyenas find alternative habitats within the area in the form of caves or road curverts [spelling theirs], they still hang on in the same deforested areas.
“Now the problem comes when the hyenas want to eat. They find that the easiest prey are humans.
“Believe me, human beings are very easy prey.” Said Makwale.
The wildlife officer said stories of hyenas killing people in the Central Region are common in Dowa, Dedza, Ntcheu and Chiwamba in Lilongwe because people in these districts have destroyed the natural habitats by destroying the environment.

The Nation February 15, 2008 Page 2

An interesting note with regard to the spelling error with the word culvert. For reasons that stem from their native language Chichewa the people here often mix up the letters R and L and in fact use them interchangeably. So Regan is often called Legan at school. When someone is advertising the security of their house they often write that their wall has lazor wire rather than razor wire. It makes for some interesting and amusing signs.