Cathedral of the Wild

by Boyd Varty

  The elephants were practically alongside us when Uncle John lifted his head from the eyepiece. “Jesus!” he said. There wasn’t a lot Jesus could do right then. “Slip down the back,” he whispered. We were crouching behind the termite mound when the lead elephant froze eight yards away and cocked his trunk. Slowly the trunk rose over the top of the mound, like a periscope. My heart was racing; we’d been found. John, however, had a goofy grin on his face. This is what he lives for. He pointed at a warthog hole in the mound. I knew what he was telling me: If the elephants charge, crawl into the hole. Thanks to my hunting days with Elmon, I’d seen warthogs up close, with their razor-sharp incisors and fetid breath. There was no danger of me ever going into that hole.

  Astonishingly, the elephants walked right by us. Unfortunately, they were heading straight toward where Bron had been left with the responsibility of her little cousin. There was no way for us to get back to her. Bron was on her own.

  At the sight of the herd, Bron’s first thought was “Damn Uncle John and his elephants!” Then she calmly swooped Savannah up into her arms, walked over to the Land Rover, and ripped a child-sized wad of foam padding out of one of the camera cases.

  “Time to play hide-and-seek!” she told Savannah, who looked mildly puzzled as Bron tucked her inside the duct-tape-strewn camera box. “Now, don’t come out until I say!” She then folded herself into the foot well of the passenger seat and pulled the picnic blanket over her head.

  The elephants sidled up to the Land Rover. One expertly forked up a discarded naartjie peel and snacked on it. Then they moved on.

  Fuming, Bronwyn crawled out from the foot well and released a none-the-wiser Savannah from the camera case—“Surprise, sweetheart, I found you!”—and Uncle John sighed with satisfaction, having had exactly the kind of picnic he likes best.

  Bron caught my eye and gave me the “this guy is a freak” look she saved especially for Uncle John, but we both knew that as much as we hated his exploits, we loved them, too.

  Looking back on my various encounters with elephants, I’m struck by the way concern for my physical safety sullied my ability to absorb the immense sweetness of their spirits. I want to go back to every elephant I’ve met, feared, avoided, run from—and this time stand my ground. Let them sit on me, like Bronwyn’s nemesis in her Indian lifetime. Let them toss me into the trees or impale me on their tusks, run me down like the bull that didn’t quite reach my grandfather—anything, if it comes with that bottomless calm only elephants possess.

  Even though my parents have spent years in the bush, they will go out each afternoon to get their elephant fix for the day. I tag along as often as I can. “This makes my heart sing,” says my dad from behind the wheel of the Land Rover, with my mom in her Panama hat sitting next to him. “This is what we always wanted.” A love for nature deepens with age. Perhaps as we become less attached to our own vitality, we’re able to draw in more of the energy and depth of love that the natural world can give to the human spirit.

  The return of the elephants to Londolozi was an act of great healing, a reclamation of something wild. Our wellness is tied to this healing. In 1854, Chief Seattle said, “If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit.” I still hear people quote this as if that danger lies in the future. Perhaps this is because they have never known the company of animals. They don’t realize that the great loneliness is upon us already.

  Wherever you are, with whatever means you have, if you reclaim a piece of land for nature, your world will grow kinder, more benevolent. Create havens—for animals, for other people, for yourself—and let this reflect into the world. Fight for space in your own backyard, in an acre or a flowerpot or simply an embrace of the longing for company that lingers in your wilting heart. If you take this one step toward them, no matter where you are, the elephants will come to you.

  TEN

  THE CRASH

  DAD WAS THE ONE who picked up the ringing phone that Saturday. It was early morning. Immediately, we got nervous. Calls at that time in the safari business rarely meant good news.

  “Ah, Jesus … where?”

  His whole demeanor changed in an instant. My mother walked briskly toward him from across the room.

  “Shit.… Do you know how high they were? … So you’re not sure if they’re alive? … Some are? … Okay, give me an hour.”

  Dad hung up and let out a big sigh. He had a determined look on his face, the look that said he was about to spring into action.

  “Your uncle has been in a chopper crash in Zambia. From what we know, he and the rest of the crew are alive but badly hurt. Some might be paralyzed. They’re still in the wreck.”

  A Saturday in South Africa means very little is going on, while in Zambia, a diamond-in-the-rough nation a thousand miles to the north, it means nothing is going on. My uncle had managed to crash in one of the most remote places in the world, deep in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley. Dad knew that time was of the essence. He needed to pull off a miracle if Uncle John and his camera crew were to survive.

  Since the death of their father, Dave and John had always looked out for each other. Dad couldn’t fail the brother who’d been willing to punch out pilots and commandeer Christiaan Barnard when his own life had been in danger.

  Mr. Logistics swung into action. Dad instantly turned our home into a major base of operations. Mom’s job was to track down the right phone numbers—at one point she was tracing the number for the president of Zambia—while Dad made nonstop calls, running four phone lines at a time. Within hours, he’d managed to charter a plane—large enough for the EMTs and all the injured crew—and staff it with paramedics. Uncle John had a friend in Lusaka, Yusef Patel, who seemed to know everybody who was anybody in Zambia. Dad got on the phone with him.

  “Listen, Yusef, I don’t care what you have to do, we have to get the paramedics from Mfuwe Airport into the valley. There are scouts there who know where the wreck is.”

  Yusef went to work. We were all on a knife’s edge. At age twelve, I wasn’t religious, but I slipped off to my room and began to pray for the return of my iconic uncle.

  Deep in the Luangwa Valley, Uncle John and most of his crew—Elmon Mhlongo, Willi Sibuye, and Karen Slater—were lying in and around a crumpled tangle of metal. On Friday, they’d been filming aerial shots when the tail rotor had snapped, the helicopter had lost all directional control, and they’d begun to spin madly, then fall out of the sky. By some miracle, Rob Parson, the pilot, had managed to crash the copter down on its struts, which no doubt saved all their lives, as the struts absorbed a huge amount of the impact. Rob was stuck in the chopper, while the rest, in the back, had been thrown to the ground. They lay there in the fading light, watching the sun drop lower in the sky, knowing no one would find them.

  A deeply spiritual person, Karen had been practicing meditation for years. When the chopper had lost control, she’d begun to meditate and her body had become completely relaxed, which likely contributed to her incredible ability to rally after the accident. After some time, she’d pulled herself to her feet and begun a solo five-mile trek through the bush to try to get to John’s tented camp so she could radio for help. She had to wade across the Luangwa River, renowned as having one of the densest populations of crocodiles in the world. Astonishingly, she made it back to base camp, where she discovered Loyd Gumede.

  Loyd is a parenthesis of a man with a gentle, moon-shaped face. He was from a small village north of Londolozi and had a reputation among the villagers of being a few jets short of a squadron. My uncle had hired him to give him a bit of a leg up, figuring that the job of lighting man for a film crew was fairly self-explanatory: see an animal, shine a light on the animal. Despite this, within the first few months Loyd had distinguished himself by forgetting his simple tasks at crucial moments. My uncle was constantly exploding with rage over Loyd’s forgetfulness: “We were here, the leopard was there, and I knew that the kill would happen right in front of us.… Then
fucking Loyd forgot to turn the lights on!”

  At times during filming, Loyd and Uncle John would have only each other for company for months on end. Loyd was the designated cook, so each night he would prepare the only thing he could make: sadza porridge, which Uncle John would eat without complaint until he felt as if cornmeal might come out his ears. Loyd was truly Zen in his simplicity; Uncle John said that he wanted to make a movie about him called Still Life.

  My uncle had once entrusted Loyd with a critical task. He was to drive to the distant town of Mfuwe, easily a six-hour trip in the wet season, because Uncle John desperately needed some documents signed in order to prevent the impounding of his only vehicle, an old Hilux pickup he loved. Loyd set off on the epic journey through mud, rain, mad elephants, and bandits. He returned five days later. I witnessed the following conversation.

  “Loyd, you made it?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the way to customs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the drive go okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You met the customs officer?”

  “Yes.”

  And then a hopeful: “So did they sign the papers?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  And then Loyd uttered the words that have immortalized him in our family for the rest of time: “Eziko lu ballpoint.” Despite nearly five days on the road, Loyd had failed at his mission because there was no pen at the customs office. Uncle John’s truck was duly impounded, and we did a great deal of walking after that.

  Loyd had gone with Uncle John to Zambia as a member of his film team, remaining at base camp while the others took off in the helicopter. On the day of the crash, he behaved in a way that would allow him to be forgiven for all past and future failings. After hearing about the accident from Karen, Loyd waded across a waist-deep, crocodile-infested section of the Luangwa River in the black of night to tell the park scouts the position of the crash. He then crossed the river again—near the spot where Karen had initially crossed it—to lead the scouts and eventually paramedics to the scene. Armed with blankets, he stationed himself there and defended and cared for the wounded crew throughout the night as they lay helpless in the bush. My uncle is certain that along with Karen and basic first aid, Loyd, with his provision of blankets, was a major reason why they survived that night. Loyd had steel in him, and I admire him for this.

  Back home, Dad was ecstatic. “When you’re in a tight spot, you definitely want a Shangaan with you.”

  Meanwhile, through various nefarious channels, Yusef had arranged for a Zambian military helicopter to ferry paramedics to and from the scene of the crash. Mr. Logistics had pulled off an incredible feat, aided by Karen’s resiliency and Loyd’s inspiring loyalty.

  I waited at the Milpark Hospital, in Johannesburg, for my uncle to arrive in an ambulance from Zambia. It had been twenty hours since we’d received the news that he’d crashed. John looked appalling, but he gave me his signature high five as he rolled by me on the gurney, saying, “Good to see you, buddy.” There was blood spattered on the beaded bangle given to him long ago by the Masai as a symbol of their friendship and acceptance—a bangle he never took off. If anyone was going to come back strong, it would be Uncle John. In a strange way, seeing him lying there, bloodied, heavily medicated, with tubes and drips everywhere, didn’t break my awe of his invincibility; instead, it ratified it.

  The vertebrae in Uncle John’s lower spine had been completely compressed by the impact of the crash, but the paralysis would slowly recede and he would walk again. The other members of the crew would likewise recover over time, except for Rob Parson, the tenacious pilot, whose split-second maneuvering of the helicopter had no doubt saved everyone else’s lives. Sadly, Rob died a year later of complications from his injuries.

  Over the next few months, while his back healed, my mother visited Uncle John regularly. She fed him and tried to stifle her annoyance as he issued monosyllabic instructions, the only way he could exert control over his helplessness.

  “Peas,” Uncle John ordered. He lay flat on his back in his hospital bed with his mouth open like a baby bird’s.

  “Chicken.”

  “Broccoli.”

  Finally Mom had had enough. “You will get what I give you,” she snapped.

  Once they started arguing, I knew things would shortly be back to normal.

  Loyd shows up at Londolozi from time to time. He’ll sit calmly on the steps to my uncle’s house, waiting for him to return from the bush so they can catch up and share a meal. He is as quiet and unassuming as ever, a true still life, yet he reminds me that most true acts of heroism—reflections of one’s deepest nature—remain unknown to the hero.

  ELEVEN

  THE GREAT MIGRATION

  I DECIDED TO LAUNCH A massive conservation effort, rivaled in scale only by the efforts to save three gray whales trapped in Arctic pack ice I’d read about a few years before. As the dry season approached, the edges of the pond near our house began to recede; small pools of catfish could be seen flailing around in the muddy water. I knew that in a few short weeks, if the rain didn’t come, the puddles would dry up completely and those big old catfish would become a part of the food chain. Already a fish eagle had begun to sit expectantly on a dead tree nearby, in anticipation of the feast to come. My catfish might not be as sexy a species as whales, but I believed they were just as important.

  The plan looked like this: walk down to the edge of the puddle, which was about the size of my bedroom, wade in, catch a fish, put it into a large trash can filled with water, then take it to the river, where it might continue to live in peace and harmony for the rest of time. Repeat until the several dozen were rescued. I had put aside about half an hour for the whole operation.

  At ten, my enthusiasm overrode my logic, and I naïvely thought I could catch terrified catfish in murky water. Without a net, I flailed around trying to grab them, like a blind man chasing a piece of wet soap across a polished floor. I achieved nothing, and my mood swung from jubilant determination to utter dejection, a common state I’d noticed in conservationists like Dad and Uncle John. It was at just this moment that Jerry Hambana drove up to the pond in a beat-up old tractor.

  Jeremiah Hambana was a Shangaan man with the most gentle, soft features and the broadest smile. He’d been working at Londolozi for many years. He waved but said nothing, just grinned at me. After taking in the scene for the better part of ten minutes with a quizzical look on his face, Jerry unhooked a sharpened panga that had been secured to the side of the tractor with an old piece of tire tube and ambled off into the bush. He returned a few minutes later, dragging a large piece of buffalo thorn behind him.

  Jerry reached the edge of the pool and nonchalantly dropped the thorny snarl into the water, holding on to one end of the branch as if he were casting a net. Slowly he pulled it out of the pool, allowing it to drag along the bottom, trapping about ten fish in the tangle of thorny branches. Jerry picked up two of them, presumably for his supper, and, laughing to himself, walked off. Example is often the most powerful teacher. Using Jerry’s technique, I had the rest of the fish in the trash can and headed to safety in no time.

  My Shangaan elders’ approach to learning was an intuitive one that invited me into nature. In contrast, “big school” in Johannesburg, which I attended with Bron as soon as I was six years old, was all about sitting still, being told what to do, what I must learn every minute, and reading instead of experiencing things firsthand. I couldn’t see the point of it. I lived for the weekends, when our parents would fly us back home so I could resume my real education.

  Unbeknownst to me, however, when I was ten, my bush education was to come to an abrupt end.

  Against all odds, my parents and uncle had made Londolozi into a business that ticked along. Their next big vision was to replicate the Londolozi model all over Africa by restoring the land and creating sustainable lodges. Dad and Mom founded Conservation Corporation Af
rica, or CC Africa, in 1992 to make conservation commercially viable while Uncle John continued to shoot wildlife documentaries. This was ecotourism, an idea well before its time. Dad and other members of the team would find investors and shareholders who would help establish self-sustaining lodges and camps throughout Africa and, in so doing, preserve the land. CC Africa would eventually open twenty-three lodges across the continent, including sites in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zanzibar.

  In the northeast of South Africa, near the Indian Ocean, lies a region known as KwaZulu-Natal. It’s crowned by a remote area called Maputaland, which, while rich in unspoiled wetlands and marine reserves, nevertheless was home to some of South Africa’s poorest residents. Some of the land had been destroyed through poor farming techniques. Mom and Dad set their sights first on some derelict pineapple farms. They wanted to bring the land there back to life; they called it Phinda, or “the Return.”

  Nothing fires my parents up like the next great adventure, and they threw themselves into this one. The plan was to create a reserve of sixty square miles in the midst of Maputaland’s direst poverty. Dad wanted to reconnect the surrounding rural communities with the land. He believed Maputaland’s beauty was worth saving, although his sales pitch acknowledged some small bumps in the road.

  “Hi, I’m Dave Varty, here in your posh bankers’ offices to raise money to start a game reserve in Maputaland. Yes, all the farms there are bankrupt, but that’s a good thing, because it means we can buy them cheap. Yes, it floods twice a year, but that’s only an issue if you’re in farming, and we’re gonna be in tourism. Yes, malaria is rife in that area and the Zulus are a warlike people who consider it part of their kingdom—and there’s a very real chance that they’ll start a civil war with the Xhosa-speaking ANC, but obviously that’s subject to getting rid of the apartheid government, which the rest of the world has, thankfully, put sanctions on. Anyway, I think you should give me your money, because even though you can’t see it now, I believe this will be a great project for restoration! One day Phinda will be a better investment than gold!”