An Elephant in My Kitchen: What the Herd Taught Me About Love, Courage, and Survival

by Françoise Malby-Anthony

  ‘If they pick it up, they’ll never okay the bloody thing,’ he said in despair.

  I was stunned. We were ready and now the herd might be shot after all.

  ‘Should I try and get the reserve to delay sending the elephants?’ I suggested.

  ‘It’s probably too late. They’ll be on their way to us already. Let’s just hope our herd has guardian angels.’

  I buried my face in my hands. The only reason the inspectors were here was to check for mistakes and weaknesses in the fence. They would never sanction it if the electrics were wrong.

  They held the herd’s death warrant in their hands.

  5

  Reality strikes

  I paced up and down our veranda, checking my watch and wondering why the inspectors were taking so long. It couldn’t be good news. We were desperate to save the herd and now through sheer bad luck and an electrician’s carelessness, they would end up being shot.

  My mobile phone rang. Lawrence.

  ‘They rejected it, didn’t they?’ I said.

  ‘Crack open the champers, Frankie. Our herd just won their passport to a new life.’

  I yelled in delight. The inspectors hadn’t picked up that anything was wrong, and the minute they left, Lawrence and his men fixed the wiring.

  We were ready for Nana and her herd at last.

  Monday morning, my phone rang. I grimaced when I saw who it was. The owner of the herd. The elephants were supposed to arrive that night. Had something gone wrong? Had he killed them after all?

  ‘We had some trouble with the matriarch,’ he said without preamble.

  ‘What do you mean? Is she all right?’

  ‘I shot her.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘She’s a bloody nightmare and would have broken out of your reserve and flattened someone.’

  I was speechless.

  ‘I took out the baby too so there are only seven elephants arriving.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake? We were ready for all of them, trouble or not,’ I said furiously.

  ‘That matriarch was bad news, lady. I did you guys a favour.’

  I was beside myself with anger and despair. A herd’s matriarch usually inherits the role from her own mother and she is their teacher, referee, keeper of memories, travel guide and bush stateswoman rolled into one. They turn to her in a crisis, the little ones learn the ways of the wild from her, and she ‘negotiates’ with other herds they might come across. She is their anchor and their rock.

  When I told Lawrence, he exploded. Killing the matriarch went against everything we stood for. Her owner’s complete indifference to shooting her is the brutal truth behind elephant culling. He thought he was helping us.

  ‘This is bad, Frankie. Really bad,’ Lawrence said. ‘How the hell did he think this poor herd would cope after losing their leader? He probably shot the matriarch right in front of them.’

  I began to worry about what we had taken on. The herd was already in a bad way before this and now they would be even more traumatized and without a leader to calm them.

  ‘You know, Lolo,’ I said quietly. ‘They need us even more now. We can do this.’

  ‘We can,’ he agreed. ‘And we will.’

  By the time the herd arrived that stormy night, Nana had already taken over as matriarch, with a confidence that came from knowing it was a job she had to do. The rest of the elephants accepted her with the same ease, as if they knew that Mother Nature had always intended for her to be their commander in chief.

  Keeping them safe was going to cost a fortune, so finding a regular source of income became our top priority.

  ‘What if we had a really upmarket lodge?’ I said to Lawrence over croissants one morning. ‘Ecotourism is the way of tomorrow. It could be a way for us to have money coming in on an ongoing basis.’

  ‘Brilliant idea. Let’s do it.’

  We built seven luxury chalets under the acacia and tambotie trees on the banks of the Nseleni River and opened the Elephant Safari Lodge in June 2000. I was bursting with pride.

  ‘How are the bookings?’ Lawrence asked at the end of every day.

  ‘Not good,’ I said glumly. ‘Two rooms for the weekend.’

  Only a handful of guests trickled through our doors. We were so naive. People don’t visit places they haven’t heard of, but we had no budget for marketing. We refused to give up.

  ‘The chalets are great. Your food is fantastic. People will start talking,’ Lawrence said.

  ‘Maybe, but at this rate, we can’t even afford staff with lodge experience.’

  We did as much as we could ourselves and put the word out that we wanted to employ locals, with or without experience. The Zulu bush telegraph spread like wildfire and by the next day a long queue of young men and women looking for work had formed outside the gate. I employed the ones who spoke the best English and began the challenge of teaching them about office work, dealing with guests and cooking French dishes they had never heard of.

  Lawrence handled everything to do with the reserve – he mended fences, monitored security, improved the dirt track network and cleared the vegetation. It was back-breaking, relentless work. We stumbled along in a constant state of exhaustion and were just beginning to see the fruits of our labour when war broke out in Iraq.

  ‘I’ve got to go and help,’ Lawrence announced.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t sit here and do nothing while they bomb the hell out of Baghdad Zoo. Someone needs to rescue the animals.’

  I didn’t even try to talk him out of it. ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of weeks.’

  He was gone for six months.

  The toughest problems I faced without him were human ones. The bush is a macho environment and Lawrence was an alpha male, respected by the men he employed. With him away, I was just a foreign blonde who spoke funny and who was clueless about the bush. Instead of pulling together as a team for the good of the animals, many took advantage.

  I don’t know how I survived, except that I knew that I didn’t have a choice and I got on and dealt with it. If I hadn’t been a hundred per cent behind what Lawrence was doing in Iraq, it would have been impossible. War rarely has a contingency plan for human victims, and it never has one for animals, so while I was desperately worried for his safety, I was equally desperate for him to succeed.

  Lawrence left me with a new game reserve manager who thought his job description involved playing Romeo to our young volunteer vet, the daughter of a friend in France. He was the worst kind of macho.

  ‘That perimeter fence of ours might as well be made of dental floss,’ he declared. ‘Anything can get through it. We’re lucky we still have animals left.’

  Rather than getting on and fixing the problem, he cracked jokes about the elephants escaping. I was still traumatized from the herd’s earlier breakouts and didn’t need this kind of bad news from the person supposed to be in charge of them. I was also very concerned about his behaviour towards my friend’s daughter. I barely slept during the first few weeks that Lawrence was in Iraq. Satellite phone conversations with him were a nightmare. Half the time, it sounded as if he was underwater, which made discussing the problems I was having almost impossible.

  In short, it was chaos without him. The rangers were undisciplined. Poachers exploited the confusion. And on top of this, several of the bull elephants were in musth – a sexual condition that causes their testosterone levels to skyrocket. They were out of control, chasing vehicles and fighting one another.

  And night after night, all I saw on TV was bombs and more bombs in Baghdad.

  One morning I woke up and thought, I’ve had enough.

  I fired the Romeo and replaced him with Vusi, one of Lawrence’s most respected rangers. He didn’t really have enough experience to be reserve manager, but he was a well-built, softly spoken Zulu man with solid bush knowledge and quiet gravitas. He fixed the fence, impro
ved security and employed new rangers. Promoting him was one of the best things I did, because when Lawrence passed away he was an irreplaceable pillar of strength.

  Lawrence’s stint in Baghdad was my baptism of fire in running the reserve on my own, although I didn’t need to become directly involved in the conservation and animal side of things – Vusi had that covered. He and I were both very relieved when Lawrence finally came home and took control of the security staff again.

  * * *

  In 2012, we had twenty-three full-time guards who were supposed to watch over our animals, sweep for snares and be first responders if poachers entered the reserve, and it was a shock when problems with them surfaced so quickly after Lawrence died. I was devastated when the officer investigating the shooting of Thabo told me that they suspected an inside job.

  ‘How is that possible?’ I gasped. ‘Do you know who?’

  Officer Khuzwayo shook his head.

  ‘Our informer only said that it was someone at Thula Thula. Probably one of the guards.’

  I sat back, stunned. Could one of my staff really have tried to kill my beloved Thabo? It felt so personal. Everyone knew how important Thabo and Ntombi were to me and it crossed my mind that someone might be trying to frighten me into leaving. They obviously didn’t know me, because I had no intention of going anywhere. Thula Thula was my life.

  ‘What should I do? What if he tries again?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything,’ he promised.

  I immediately called the security manager into my office.

  ‘What’s going on, Connie?’ I asked.

  ‘Could be anyone,’ he replied.

  ‘Have you had specific problems with any of the men?’ I prodded.

  ‘There’s always problems,’ he shrugged.

  I looked into his eyes and wondered if he even cared. I didn’t know what to do. Our ongoing poaching problems and my instincts told me some of the guards couldn’t be relied on, but I had no way of finding out which one had betrayed me. Connie wasn’t interested in taking orders from me, and I couldn’t speak directly to the guards because most of them didn’t speak English and my Zulu wasn’t nearly good enough to tackle such a delicate subject with them.

  I forced myself to take one step at a time. Snap decisions taken in panic are rarely the right ones and I certainly didn’t know enough about security to risk any decisions without guidance.

  ‘Any clue at all who could have done this?’ I asked Vusi.

  ‘There’s talk it was someone on the outside with a grudge…’ He paused, as if not wanting to worry me.

  ‘But Officer Khuzwayo’s informant said the guy was still here.’

  He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  ‘You think one of our guards was bribed?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ he nodded gravely. ‘I think we should make some changes to who guards Thabo and Ntombi. Why don’t you ask Connie to appoint Richard as their full-time guard and then get Richard to choose who else he wants on his team?’

  It was good counsel. Richard was a tall, wiry Zulu with sun-wizened skin and wise, watchful eyes. He had worked directly with Lawrence and I knew without question that he would protect our rhinos with his life.

  On top of this security chaos, I had no money. When news broke of Lawrence’s passing, booking after booking was cancelled. It was as if I didn’t exist and people thought Thula Thula was going to collapse without him. Cash flow dried up, made worse by administrative complications with Lawrence’s estate and a huge overdraft that had grown over the years. In a flash, I was back in the frightening situation that we had been in years ago, scraping together rands and cents to survive. It’s a miracle we made it through, and to this day I’m dead against credit. If I don’t have the money, I don’t buy it.

  Lawrence was gone, I had a rhino in trouble, security men I couldn’t trust, and an empty bank account.

  The pressure to deliver was enormous and I struggled against the scepticism of people who didn’t believe in me and who didn’t think I would manage. No one said it to my face but I sensed it, and over the years some have admitted that they never thought I would cope on my own. Most thought I would go back to France. But that never crossed my mind. How could I have left the Thula Thula dream that Lawrence and I had fought so hard for? I worked with the most wonderful local people who were relying on me. They were my second family and I couldn’t abandon them. I had lost a husband but they had lost a man who had been like a father to them.

  And then there was our special herd and the rhinos we had raised from babies. They were my family too. It was unthinkable to abandon them.

  I had a lot to learn, but tragedy and adversity have ways of opening new roads of hope and opportunity, and I slowly found my feet. There were moments when I felt I was drowning, and others when I had such clarity about what to do. I clung to the image of a ship navigating dangerous seas and was determined to survive the storm.

  Vusi and I set up daily meetings to go over reserve and animal issues together and to agree on priorities. If I didn’t understand something, he would patiently explain it again. All the long-standing staff members were the same. I learned so much from them during that time.

  One morning, Vusi told me that the conservation authorities were coming the following week to do a game count by helicopter.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s part of their environmental research for long-term bush management.’

  ‘Can’t we just tell them how many elephants we have? Couldn’t we let them know that sixteen babies have been born since Nana arrived and that we now have a total of twenty-two elephants?’

  ‘They count all the game, Françoise, not only the elephants.’

  ‘But a helicopter will terrorize them. Why don’t they do it from the ground and use our Land Cruisers?’

  He didn’t reply, which was his gentle way of saying that there was nothing we could do.

  ‘What actually happens?’ I asked.

  ‘The men in the helicopter count the game and report the total via radio to a land-based team who record everything.’

  ‘What do they do with all this info?’

  ‘It’s mainly to track trends. They’ll send us a report once it’s done.’

  I hated the idea of the animals being disturbed by the helicopter but I also knew that this kind of environmental research was invaluable for safeguarding KwaZulu-Natal’s wildlife.

  About a fortnight after the game count, Vusi, Alyson and I met to talk about Thabo’s condition. Physically, our young rhino was healing well, and he was allowing Alyson to clean his gunshot wound every day, but emotionally, he wasn’t doing well at all. He was still very traumatized and had regressed back to his baby ways, needing constant love and comfort. He lost weight, cried out at night and had become worryingly lethargic.

  The day before, he had lain down at the dam edge with his face completely submerged. Rhinos can’t breathe underwater and although they are quite good at holding their breath, his guard Richard was so worried about him that he had taken off his trousers and sat next to him on the bank of the dam, cradling his head on his lap until he was ready to get out. Everyone did everything they could to help him get better but it still took a good year before he was over the trauma.

  Alyson left and Vusi handed me the report the conservation authorities had sent him. I frowned at his glum expression.

  ‘Are we in trouble?’

  He didn’t answer. I scanned the report and stared at him.

  ‘Too many elephants? What the hell do they mean?’

  ‘They have strict guidelines on how many elephants can live on a reserve our size and apparently our herd has become too big for the amount of land that we have.’

  I struggled to take it in. When Lawrence was still alive, we had gone through two expansions that had added 3,000 hectares to the reserve.

  The first had taken place in 2008, ten years after we bought Windy Ridge, and involved
land that had originally been given to the amakhosi – tribal leaders – but it had serious water problems which made using it for cattle grazing im- possible. So when Lawrence approached the leaders about needing to increase the size of Thula Thula and suggested we create a joint conservation project, they didn’t hesitate to give us the green light to drop the fence between our two properties.

  Lawrence loved the magnificent bush on the new land so much that a year later, he and Vusi built Mkhulu Dam there. It’s where his ashes were scattered and where his beloved Mnumzane’s bones lie to this day.

  Two years after the first expansion, we reached an agreement with the Robarts family to extend onto their bushland south of Thula Thula.

  ‘Vusi, we have three times more land than when we started. Surely that’s enough?’

  ‘The herd’s also trebled in size, Françoise.’

  ‘What about what they say here about the alien vegetation and fire breaks?’

  ‘It’s all to do with environmental planning. We have to clear plants that aren’t indigenous and create enough space along both sides of the fence to act as a fire break.’

  This was Lawrence’s domain and I had no idea what to do.

  ‘Let me think about how to handle this,’ I sighed.

  It turned out that there wasn’t much I could do or say, and even my contact on the conservation board just repeated what was in the letter. The alien vegetation had to be removed, fire breaks had to be cleared and worst of all, he confirmed that Thula Thula wasn’t big enough for our herd and that we would have to make a plan to control the numbers.

  That was all well and good, but what plan? And how?

  ‘You have two options,’ the man said. ‘Bring in a team to cull them, or relocate some of them.’

  I ended the call in tears. Culling is just another word for killing and the thought of it sent me into utter panic. And relocation? Tear apart our elephant family? Not a chance. This herd had suffered enough. Lawrence and I hadn’t spent the last thirteen years protecting them and rebuilding their trust in humans to put them through another massive trauma.

  There had to be a better solution.