Kruger National Park, South Africa, June 2008
June, 2008, I returned to southern Africa for the first since 1992. Southern Africa was a completely different world; the pariah in the region was no longer South Africa, but Zimbabwe, which had undergone a vast decline economically and socially. In anticipation of the rapidly upcoming elections, Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe since 1980, was increasing his violent campaign of opposition suppression and voter intimidation, leading to a flood of illegal crossing into South Africa. Already facing severe unemployment itself, South Africa saw its own dramatic rise in xenophobic violence. Kruger National Park, I was lucky to come across a group of endangered wild dogs, and a kill that had nothing to do with politics.