This bad muthi has a terrible impact on us because it often requires animal parts – and in extreme cases, human parts. Poachers don’t care what happens to the animals they kill. Money is money.
* * *
All this was going through my mind while I was waiting to hear from Vusi about the elephant calf. These babies are so curious and use their trunks to explore and touch everything they see, and a piece of wire glinting in the sun would be a tantalizing object to investigate. Once that little trunk is in the snare, the slip-knot tightens and only a strong pair of cutters can save it.
I felt sick at the thought of his suffering and his mother’s distress. Marula would be trying to help but probably making things worse as the wire dug deeper and deeper into her son’s face.
Frankie would be right there, next to them both, guarding her daughter and grandson, but powerless to do anything. Her instincts would be prompting her to hide the injured baby and keep him safe from predators. How on earth would our vet get close enough to save him? She would never allow him to approach.
The rangers kept me informed as the hours flew by. The herd had disappeared. At five o’clock, my phone rang.
‘No sight of them,’ Vusi said.
‘Keep looking. We can’t give up.’
Time was running out. We didn’t know how long the snare had been around the calf’s face and another night without food could be fatal.
Just before nightfall, Siya and Shandu radioed Vusi to say they had located the herd.
‘They’re near the fence line but won’t let us close.’
‘Stand by. I’m on my way,’ Vusi replied.
He raced across the reserve in his Toyota pickup truck and as he swung around the corner he saw the herd. He drove as close to them as he dared, signalled to the rangers on the other side of the clearing to stay where they were, then he killed his engine and trained the binoculars on the elephants. Frankie raised her trunk and swivelled it in his direction. Vusi radioed the rangers.
‘Don’t move. Let’s see what she does.’
He waited to see how Frankie would react to his pres- ence, keeping his hand on the ignition in case she charged. She had an injured grandson to protect and that made her unpredictable. She watched him quietly, the herd tightly clustered behind her. She stood still and seemed relaxed. Her ears weren’t flapping and her tail was limp. Marula and the baby were nowhere to be seen.
Slowly Frankie began to walk towards Vusi. The herd followed.
He scanned them through the binoculars. Still no sign of the calf. He kept the 4×4 in gear, ready to fly off. The elephants would be on tenterhooks and wary of him. They knew him from his visits with Lawrence but wild animals protecting their injured young can be lethal. If Frankie led a charge, he would be mincemeat.
He weighed up his options, eyes never leaving the approaching hulks. His truck was on a track that ran parallel to the open veldt and would be relatively easy to navigate at speed. He decided to wait.
He lowered his binoculars and frowned in confusion.
Why were they coming towards him?
He radioed a second instruction to Siya and Shandu to stay back. It was a risky call but if he didn’t get a proper look at the baby, he wouldn’t know how to help.
Frankie stopped a few metres away from him. The others stopped at exactly the same time. Vusi sensed no anger, no aggression. Frankie fixed him with her expressive amber eyes and from within the herd Marula appeared, her calf sheltered under her massive body.
Stunned, Vusi picked up his mobile phone and took photos for the vet. The better prepared Mike could be, the more chance they had of a successful rescue.
Marula’s trunk curled over her baby’s body and gently tugged him out from under her and pushed him towards Vusi. Frankie, wise, brave matriarch that she was, had worked out that the only way the calf would survive was with human intervention and she chose Lawrence’s right-hand man to help.
Vusi swapped his mobile for binoculars to properly assess the wound. Not good. The snare was gripped around the calf’s face and trunk, narrowly missing one eye. The baby couldn’t open his mouth at all. Marula stood serene and un-afraid, her trunk tip caressing her son’s forehead. The baby didn’t respond to her touch. A bad sign. Starvation and dehydration were beginning to take their toll. Frankie hovered near the pair, their trusted sentinel.
Vusi started the engine. He’d seen enough.
The only solution was a dicey exercise that would involve separating the calf from his mother and the herd. That alone would require a helicopter and several 4×4s. Once isolated, he would have to be sedated, treated, and released again – while his mother and every single adult female would be desperate to get back to protect it. Yes, Frankie knew they could help, but in the bush, instinct rules and her inborn drive would be to keep humans away from the dying calf.
The setting sun was slipping away and streaks of vermilion layered the horizon behind the darkening figures of the elephants. It was 6.40 p.m. Within half an hour, it would be pitch-black. Vusi called me with an update.
‘It’s not good, Françoise. The wire’s over his trunk and mouth. He can’t suckle.’
‘Mike Toft’s on standby. He’s organized a helicopter and will be here by daybreak.’ I paused, afraid to ask my question. ‘Will the baby make it?’
‘Angazi.’ I don’t know.
My heart squeezed with fear. Every hour the snare prevented the baby from suckling, he was a step closer to death. I sat on my veranda that night with an ochre full moon hovering overhead. I hoped it was a good omen. We had done this kind of rescue many times and I knew we could do it again. I poured love towards the calf.
‘Stay alive until morning, mon bébé,’ I murmured.
During the night, I heard trumpeting. The herd was agitated and distressed but it reassured me – it meant they were staying close by and not going into hiding.
Dr Mike Toft was as good as his word and at dawn the tak-tak-tak of a helicopter crashed through the silence. The weather report had threatened a storm, but thank heavens they were wrong. The skies were cloudless and there wasn’t a breath of wind in the air. The pilot landed near the house in a tornado of noise and dust.
‘They’re still in the same area,’ Vusi reported.
‘And the baby?’ asked Mike.
‘We’ve seen the herd. No sign of the baby. Head for the fence line past the airstrip and Siya and Shandu will direct you from there. I’ll follow in my truck.’
The chopper soared off. Vusi followed on the ground with his team. Every available man and vehicle was on hand to help isolate the calf from his mother. Lawrence would have been right there in the thick of things. Nothing frightened him, especially not if one of his beloved elephants needed help.
I didn’t have his gung-ho fearlessness to join in, and to be honest, I found it too hard emotionally. I was terrified. What if the baby hadn’t survived the night? What if something went wrong with the procedure? I don’t have nerves of steel.
The 4×4s took up position on the dirt tracks and the helicopter flew in low and swung dangerously close to the herd. The pilot was a fearless genius. Off the elephants thundered with Frankie in front, head swivelling constantly, eyeing the chopper above and the vehicles on either side of her.
Vusi radioed me.
‘The calf’s alive! He’s weak and can’t keep up with the herd.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
‘Very. He’ll be easier to dart. I’ll call you when it’s over.’
It’s awful to use a helicopter to force the elephants to scatter but it’s the only way to safely reach an animal needing medical care. The vet took aim and darted the calf with a sedative. Within seconds, the medicine kicked in and the calf sank to the ground.
The helicopter dropped Mike off near the fallen baby then shot back into the sky to keep the herd at a safe distance. The 4×4s kept vigil too, in case Marula managed to come back for her child.
The calf was
tiny and malnourished with down-like fluff covering the baby folds of his skin. He had landed beautifully on his belly. Perfect for removing the rusted wire from his face.
Vusi snipped the snare in several places and he and Mike eased each piece free, then Mike flushed out the wounds and applied a thick coat of antiseptic salve. He checked the calf’s vitals and gave everyone in the waiting 4×4s a broad grin and a thumbs up.
‘He’s going to make it!’ he shouted.
Vusi radioed the helicopter pilot.
‘We’re done and about to head back. Give us five.’
Mike injected the revival drug into the calf and sprinted to the vehicle with Vusi. They sped off and joined up with Siya and Shandu, a good hundred metres away. No one wanted to be anywhere near the calf when the herd returned. They trained their binoculars on him. He was already struggling to his feet, searching for his mother.
On cue, Marula broke through the bush, dark streaks from her stress glands blackening her cheeks. The calf wobbled unsteadily towards her. She tenderly explored his face with her trunk. Freed from the snare, his trunk curled up against her belly and his little mouth searched hungrily for her teat.
There was silence in the vehicles as the four men watched him suckle.
That day, in our long-standing tradition of naming baby elephants after the person who helped save them, I christened the calf Vusi, and I was so proud of the team that I put a few bottles of champagne on ice and invited everyone for celebratory drinks at 6.30 that evening at the lodge. What could have been a really tough rescue operation had gone so smoothly that it had taken less than half an hour. That was partly thanks to Mike Toft and my courageous rangers but also thanks to the beautiful faith the herd had in us. I felt so honoured that they had entrusted their injured baby to us. Everyone, humans and elephants, had worked together to save him.
My house on Thula Thula is about two kilometres from where we were having the champagne celebration so I only left at 6.25 p.m. to go there. Who should be at the entrance of the lodge to meet me?
The entire herd!
I couldn’t believe my eyes. When elephants go through such trauma – helicopter, panic stampeding, forced to abandon their calf – they can disappear for weeks on end. Not this time. They were all there, every single one of them, and they stayed with us for hours, so serene, moving silently along the lodge fence. Who knows for sure what they were thinking? But they were looking at us and glowing with warmth and love. There was no doubt in my mind that they had come to say thank you.
21
Only when the well dries do we know the value of water
Ellie had learnt to open doors. Not the one from his room, which was secured by both a door and a barrier, but the one to the kitchen. Our clever little elephant had put two and two together and figured out where his food came from and how to twist open the door handle with his trunk. I don’t know what it is with our elephant calves and kitchens but they always seem to find their way there!
His inventiveness was an encouraging sign of how well he was. When baby elephants are sick, they sleep a lot and just want love and food in their bellies, but when they’re happy and full of energy, they can get up to as much mischief as a human toddler.
Fifteen years earlier, when Lawrence’s beloved elephant Mnumzane was still a youngster, he once saw Lawrence put bags into our storeroom and realized they were full of food. He waited for Lawrence to drive off then smashed the window with his trunk and broke away part of the wall.
That was the easy part – knocking a hole in a wall is nothing for an elephant his size. The next trick was opening the bags. No problem. He lifted out one fifty-kilogram bag at a time, dropped it at his feet and stomped on it, creating an explosion of flour that turned him into a gigantic ghost with startled black eyes.
Ellie was as smart as Mnumzane and also loved food, so it didn’t surprise me in the least that he had worked out how to break into the kitchen. It was a full-time job keeping the little rascal entertained and making sure he stayed out of trouble. Thank heavens he had Duma to burn off some of his energy! One of their favourite toys was a big silver Pilates ball that Ellie would chase, dribble and back-kick away from Duma with ball control that David Beckham would be proud of.
Given how sick and tiny Ellie was when he first arrived, I still couldn’t believe what a healthy, bouncy elephant he had turned into. He did everything with relish. When he ran, his trunk and his tail, and all the bits in-between, jiggled in glee. He had so much joie de vivre, as the French would say – joy of life. Sometimes he would zigzag about in the garden making such happy high-pitched trumpets that Axel and Megan would run after him, terrified the herd would hear and want to investigate. But they never did. Somehow they knew that once he was better, the orphanage was the safest place for him to be.
Ellie was crazy about water. Switch on the sprinkler and he would dash into the spray, trunk flying high to catch the water. We bought him his own bright-blue paddling pool. He wasn’t too sure about it at first and watched in astonishment as it filled up with water, then he approached it cautiously and ran his trunk all around the sides of it, even pushing it as far underneath as he could. When the water reached halfway, he dipped his trunk in.
The penny dropped. Water!
He lurched forward to get inside, blundering against the pool. The plastic sides bulged without giving way. He raised his leg but couldn’t get it high enough. Frustrated, he lowered his head over the edge, bent low, bum high, and keeled over.
His first dive-bomb.
Up he got, out he scrambled, off he ran, around he spun, back he hurtled, in he dived, feet thrashing in the air. The only reason he got out was to plunge back in again.
I wasn’t there when he discovered his paddling pool, but every milestone our orphans reached was always so exciting that I heard within minutes via the bush telegraph. Our herd also loves a good water romp and it was beautiful that Ellie was displaying similar water antics. When a traumatized young animal behaves the way he should without ever having seen his own kind, it means he stands a good chance of being a normal wild animal. I never take such an important step for granted and whenever it happens, I feel the same joy, relief and sense of achievement.
One of my most uplifting experiences with our herd was when a downpour ended a really bad drought. Weather has become so unpredictable that we can’t rely on summer rains any more and my greatest fear is that one day, water shortages will become as big a problem for us as poaching.
The orphanage is particularly dependent on water. We need water to keep the orphans’ rooms hygienic and sterile. We need it to wash blankets. We need it to top up drinking troughs and mud wallows, and to cool down the young animals when it’s hot. During a drought, there are days when the carers don’t bath or shower so there will be enough water left over for the orphans.
You don’t realize how dependent you are on water until there is none.
That particular summer, in 2016, the Nseleni River was unusually dry and our dams were so dangerously low that our hippo family – Romeo, Juliet and baby Chump – had moved from their favourite spot at Mkhulu Dam to Mine Dam, the only dam that still had enough water to cover them. I was worried sick it would dry up too.
Hippo means water horse in Greek and it’s a perfect description because they do everything in water except eat. They can spend up to sixteen hours a day in it, so not surprisingly, they’re good swimmers, even graceful ones. While they can’t breathe underwater, they can hold their breath for as long as five minutes, and because they’re so heavy, they’re able to walk along the bottom of a lake as easily as walking on land.
Water is such a natural habitat for hippos that the minute a baby is born, it knows to swim to the surface, take a gulp or two of air, then head back under again to suckle, closing its ears and nostrils against the water.
I went to sleep that night panicking about their dam and woke to the wonderful sound of rain in the middle of the night. I cuddled Gypsy and listened
to it battering my thatched roof and clattering on the terrace. I love the sound and smell of new rain.
It poured for forty-eight glorious hours.
Dust turned to mud. The air smelled clean and green. The Nseleni River flowed. Our dams and waterholes glistened. The world felt softer. Nature replenished herself, as she always does.
By the third morning, the violent cloudbursts had turned to soft drizzle and I went outside to savour the hazy mist of floating droplets.
Right in front of me, just on the other side of the fence, was the herd.
Frankie first, followed by Nana and her daughter Nandi, then the youngsters and babies, with the big boys Gobisa and Mandla following at their own leisurely pace. Every single member of the herd was heading towards the pool of rainwater that had formed near the house during the storm. Mabula began to dig up the ground with his powerful tusks, churning and stirring the sand into mud. The little ones, Natal and Themba, copied him but didn’t realize they didn’t have tusks like their uncle and ended up with the kind of thick mud packs beauty salons charge fortunes for.
The entire herd tumbled about in utter abandon, flinging sludge over themselves in magnificent arcs. Again and again they made eye contact with me, as if wanting me to know how happy they were. They had 4,500 hectares of mud pools to choose from and they came to the one outside my home.
I pulled my purple dressing gown tightly around me, deeply moved by their joy and so grateful to them for sharing this moment with me.
Nana sat on her massive rear, trunk high, spraying mud all over herself. I noticed that her breasts were still full of milk – clearly her son Lolo had not yet had his morning suckle. Although he was four years old and had been eating vegetation for a while already, he still suckled regularly and would continue to do so until he weaned himself, or until Nana pushed him away. But at that moment, food was the last thing on his little mind and he hurtled after Natal and Themba and piled on top of them in a joyous goulash of muddy elephants.
An Elephant in My Kitchen: What the Herd Taught Me About Love, Courage, and Survival Page 19