Elephant Dawn

by Sharon Pincott

  Another book of elephant and bush tales never goes astray here, and it’s a source of satisfaction to me that it is complete. I learnt so much about the trees, the wildflowers, the insects, the birdlife and all of the animals, large and small, during 2005, simply by forcing myself to be more observant each week and writing it all down.

  It’s not easy to even find a bookshop in Zimbabwe these days, although I still manage to buy second-hand books occasionally. My friends and I often present each other with little gifts for no particular reason, and I once placed some pre-loved paperbacks on Shaynie’s bookshelf, knowing that she enjoys reading when she can. At exactly the same time she happened to surprise me with a little gift of her own; something that she knew I’d never seen. Actually, it wasn’t all that little. I’d bought Shaynie some books. She’d brought me a one-kilogram bullfrog!

  And then there are the elephants to keep me smiling. They’re never idle, always effortlessly entertaining. There is the best of human behaviour in all that they do.

  The strain on my pocket has been somewhat eased with the release of this second book. What’s more, SAVE Foundation in Australia is now contributing towards my 4x4 and fuel expenses. I’m really grateful for this show of support from my home country. Financial assistance allows me to be able to patrol more intensely each day without worrying unduly about the costs—that is, when I manage to source fuel. Yet entertaining donor groups in the field complicates my life even further. All sorts of jealousies and accusations overshadow any donation made to me, and having folk in my vehicle, no matter who they are, always causes more allegations to fly. There are people around who just like to try to make trouble for me at every turn, and this makes it difficult to even be able to reciprocate the kindness of donors.

  Right now I need to take it just one day at a time. I must stay especially mindful of the ex-governor and his family, and the influence they wield.

  Given all that I know, it’s increasingly difficult to find the beauty that holds me here. But I try to keep alive inside me my deep feeling for wild Africa, the yearning and the ache in my bones for the extraordinary beauty of the Hwange veld.

  Mandy emails me with news of Steve Irwin’s death, killed by a stingray barb at the tender age of 44. I admit to sometimes having felt a little embarrassed by his broad Aussie accent and over-the-top style, but one of my nephews grew up with the Crocodile Hunter and adored him. There’s no doubt that Steve was loved and admired by people all over the world, and was an inspiration to millions.

  ‘What happens for you after the elephants?’ I’m asked.

  The best that I can usually answer is ‘I don’t know’. It’s not something that I think about. I have no retirement policies or plans for my old age. Indeed it’s difficult for me to see myself even making it to an old age.

  I can’t help but grin when a colleague writes to me saying, ‘My god Sharon, it often sounds like you’re auditioning for a Die Hard movie!’

  The truth is that I’d be content with a short life—and perhaps that’s what gives me fortitude in difficult times. I haven’t worked full-time in a paid job since I was 31. I retired altogether from the salaried world at age 38. How could anyone wish to change that? I would much rather be happy in my 40s doing what I truly want to do, than be rich in my 60s.

  And immediately I think of my dad, who once scolded me with a half-smile. ‘I hope someone asks you if you still think that when you’re 60 . . . What about planning for your old age? You might think you’re not going to live all that long but God will punish you. He will make you live until you’re 105!’

  Forget 105. Shaynie has frequently thought that I won’t reach 45.

  ‘Now you’re thinking about leaving?’ she asks me perplexed. ‘I know it’s been a tumultuous time, but maybe the worst is over?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  ‘Always remember,’ Shaynie urges me, ‘an eagle flies further when in a turbulent wind.’

  Carol and Miriam decide that I must join them for a couple of reenergising days at Wilderness Safaris’ Makalolo camp inside Hwange National Park. This responsible photographic safari company knows how to run a concession, and I’m forever wishing it had a presence on the Hwange Estate. It’s incredibly cheap for locals with foreign currency to visit these luxury lodges right now. For the Zim dollar equivalent of around US$45 each per night we get accommodation, meals and two game drives each day.

  It’s so unusual, and such a pleasure, for me to see bush roads so well maintained, and so much dry season water in pans. The poisonous ordeal trees, abundant in this Kalahari sand region, are producing young foliage in stunning shades of purple, making our drives through the veld especially beautiful. I’m glad that I’ve come. We manage to laugh a lot.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Miriam shrieks loudly, crouched in the grass, glaring at a scary-looking tarantula-like creature.

  ‘It’s a Parktown prawn,’ our guide tells us.

  ‘It’s a what?’ we screech in unison.

  ‘Sounds like something you’d eat at a fancy restaurant in Cape Town,’ Miriam chuckles.

  ‘Or on Queensland’s coast,’ I say, with longing. ‘My goodness, they’re running around everywhere!’

  They’re actually exceptionally ugly oversized crickets that look like miniature mechanical monsters. ‘If that’s a cricket, I’ll eat my hat,’ I mutter, still amazed at how many African critters leave me aghast.

  An oversized eight-legged solifuge also manages to give me the heebee-jeebies every time I see one. Known as the ‘rain spider’ or ‘Kalahari Ferrari’, it’s an extremely fast-moving, hairy and downright scary spider-like creature with beady eyes (and definitely not your speedy game-drive vehicle)! Everything seems to grow so big here.

  One of the first thunderstorms of the season brings a deluge of rain and the smell of the earth reborn. Standing in the glow of sunset, we watch flying ants of a pint-sized variety emerge from slits in the now damp ground, floating up to the stars like tiny fairies. At my feet are miniature frogs having a feast. The local people feast too, on the larger variety of flying ant. They place buckets of water under lights, attracting millions of these insect delicacies to their deaths, and into frying pans.

  With the rain, tortoises return out of nowhere from their hibernation, and a ballet of butterflies gathers around puddles on the ground, proudly displaying exquisite markings. The booming thunder and rain urges throngs of frogs into a deafening, full-throated chorus. Everywhere, there are toktokkies, an adorable wingless black beetle that attracts a mate by tapping its abdomen on the ground. And shongololos, giant black millipedes that move in graceful waves on countless little legs.

  Even without elephants in sight, it is beautiful. It is what helps to hold me here.

  One morning I walk towards the base of an umtshibi tree, easily recognisable by its blackened bark. This tree holds particularly fond memories for me because it’s also the name of the national parks base where Andy, Lol and Drew had lived. Miriam and our guide inquisitively amble on towards a large hole in its trunk.

  ‘Watch out,’ I say playfully. ‘There might be a black mamba in there.’

  The very next instant they jump back from the tree, their eyes wide. Oh no! Don’t tell me there really is a black mamba in there!

  ‘Ssshhhhh, sssshhh,’ they urge, gesturing at me to come and look. ‘There’s a genet asleep in there,’ Miriam whispers.

  I see the beautiful black-spotted coat and long thick tail of this nocturnal cat-like creature, slumbering now inside the tree trunk.

  I smile at the wonder of it all.

  Rain has not yet reached the Hwange Estate, where Kanondo pan and most of the other pans are once again bone dry. Waterhole maintenance has not improved at all over the past twelve months, and Presidential Elephant sightings remain few. Where once I could taste hope, now I can taste only neglect and it is bitter.

  My concerns intensify over land degradation, unethical sport-hunters, far too much snaring (so many fen
ces destroyed for wire) and never-ending gunfire. I’m also alarmed by speeding vehicles that hit animals, including elephants. And by lenient or no penalties for just about everything. I’m as tired of people’s indifference as I am of the neglect, the lack of care, the threats and the intimidation. Some people do have plenty to say in the safety of their own private gatherings, but so very few do more than talk among themselves. I throw caution to the wind and publicly relay facts. Some think that I’m being too forthright, too fiery, too honest. Many do not like to hear or believe what is happening on the estate. Hwange’s wildlife—Hwange’s elephants—deserve better. I soon decline to attend time-wasting group meetings where people aren’t prepared to say aloud what needs to be said.

  Every day now, to relieve the strain, I play a little game with myself. As I drive along the road to Kanondo I stretch my open hand out of my window, trying to catch my dreams. But they just whizz past. I used to like to imagine that ‘Hope’ occupied the passenger seat beside me, but now I see nothing but an empty space. I am bone tired of dancing with despair all of the time. And I’m tired of being tired.

  There is one saving grace. For the past two years, following Wholesome’s traumatic death from his neck-snare, Whole has appeared terribly forlorn, but now she has a new baby girl in tow. There’s a lot of joyous slurping going on just centimetres from the door of my 4x4. I ask Miriam to name this little one. She calls her Winnie and I desperately hope that she will survive.

  It’s only the sight of Whole, Lady, Misty and my other elephant friends that reaffirms that it hasn’t been for nothing. What is happening to Zimbabwe is heartbreaking and devastating. It’s now time to make some decisions.

  ‘You’ve done more than your share,’ I’m assured by friends time and again.

  This doesn’t help to lessen my grief.

  ‘I must leave here,’ I whisper one evening with a tight knot in my stomach, finally surrendering after close to six arduous years.

  ‘Leave here? I think you’ll leave here on the twelfth of never!’ says my friend, Reason, who works nearby.

  I know in my heart that my friend is wrong. He’s trying hard to be cheerful, but he can sense my fatigue.

  I think about Karen Blixen, who died the year that I was born. In 1937 she wrote Out of Africa, which was later turned into an epic movie of the same name. For seventeen years she lived in Kenya’s eastern highlands, and loved it dearly, yet after her enforced departure, she never returned—not once during the remaining 31 years of her life. Only now do I understand how someone might never go back to a place so well loved but where so much heartache was endured.

  At least I’m not alone in my sadness. Emails flow in from thoughtful strangers once they hear of my plan to leave. One in particular I will always remember: ‘You passed this way and touched the history of the Presidential Elephants. They would thank you if they could.’

  I don’t quite know how I will leave. The words of Beryl Markham weigh heavily on my heart: ‘I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can,’ she wrote in West with the Night.

  But it seems easier, better, for me to leave in a slow way. I spend time at Kanondo—the Kanondo that I once loved so much; the Kanondo that I now barely recognise given the neglect. I sit alone and let the tides of uncertainty and disillusionment wash over me.

  JUST CAN’T DO IT

  2007

  With the new year, I try to sharpen my hopes but find little reason to celebrate. It feels like it really is time for me to take a different path.

  Carol drives me south more than 2000 kilometres to Port Elizabeth in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. After six years working full-time in the field with elephants at such an intimate level, I’ve gained specialty experience and skills that relatively few people hold. These would hardly get me a job in Australia, but I’m not ready to give up working with elephants just yet. I’ve offered my time to Addo Elephant National Park and am travelling there to meet with Graham Kerley, who is in charge of its elephant program.

  We travel via Botswana to try and escape the worst of the notoriously inefficient border-crossings. I’m astounded to see Tim Tams in a supermarket! My mouth waters. One packet is the crazy equivalent of US$7. I fondle it longingly, and reluctantly place it back on the shelf. Down the next aisle I pass a woman who has six packets in her trolley—and she doesn’t even sound Australian! I think about mugging her as she walks to her car.

  Our first stop in South Africa is at a McDonald’s for a cheeseburger—which I wolf down, with fries inside the bun. And soon it’s down to business.

  Addo is such a completely different ecosystem to Hwange.

  ‘There are no trees!’ I lament.

  The vegetation is dense and low growing. At least this means no snakes falling on my head from towering trees.

  The park is soon to be expanded considerably in size and then the elephants will range in a stunning, wider habitat. The females in this population are tuskless so at least they won’t be the target of ivory poachers. I know that once I get to know the Addo elephants personally, I’ll love them in a similar way to those in Hwange. And there won’t be sport-hunters and land grabbers to contend with.

  Graham offers me a position, one that will help to link science with tourism. He is flexible and leaves the start date up to me, understanding that there are things in Zimbabwe I need to finalise, and things in South Africa that he will need to finalise for me.

  ‘And you talk about me jumping from the frying pan into the fire,’ Shaynie retorts when I tell her about the job. ‘Not only is South Africa one of the most dangerous countries in the world, it’s fast going the same way as Zimbabwe, and that’s downhill.’

  South Africa’s crime rate is indeed sobering. The murder rate is five times higher than the global average. The killing of white farmers happens so frequently that it doesn’t even make the news. But at least South Africa hasn’t tried to rid itself of the white population.

  ‘Not yet . . . ’ Shaynie shivers.

  While I feel the need to leave Zimbabwe, I’m not at all keen to leave elephants altogether. South Africa’s tourism areas are typically very safe. I decide it will be okay.

  I take my time and say heartbreaking goodbyes to Lady and Libby, to Misty and Merlin, to Whole and Winnie, to Willa, Wilma, Cathy, Courtney, Belda, Brandy, Joyce, Grace and to hundreds of my other special elephant friends. I wonder if they’ll eventually realise that I’ve left them. I wonder if they will forgive me. I beg them to stay safe; to stay away from the hunters and the snares. My goodbyes, especially to Lady and her family, are excruciatingly painful. I watch them wander away down a sandy road, not knowing if I’ll ever see them again.

  I feel deep sorrow over this parting of ways. And I feel aching grief. It’s not possible for me to hand over to anybody else. I’ve worked with no salary, while also funding the bulk of the project equipment and costs myself. I’ve had to make my own way. Contemplating setting someone else up out of my own pocket is out of the question. I haven’t found anybody who can continue on in the way that I have, on the long-term basis that is needed.

  I know my giant grey Hwange friends will always be part of my future hopes and dreams. As heart-rending as it all is, I hope to still be able to return, every now and again.

  And after going through all of that, I don’t leave. I just can’t do it.

  ‘I understand,’ says Graham when I tell him at the very last moment.

  ‘Do you?’ I say, surprised. ‘I’m pleased one of us does.’

  I feel dreadful that I’ve mucked Graham around like this. He knows, though, what the Presidential Elephants mean to me. He knows too about my endless troubles and that I won’t have made the decision easily.

  ‘They’re lucky to have you,’ he says.

  Four disturbing incidents occurred while I was preparing to leave, all within just a few week
s, and these combined to change my mind about leaving Hwange. I reached this decision in spite of Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard inadvertently putting all Australians in Zimbabwe in an even worse position than we already were.

  ‘Did you hear what your prime minister publicly called Mugabe?’ Carol rang to ask me. I can barely remember the name of the Australian prime minister, let alone know what he said.

  ‘He called him a grubby dictator,’ Carol laughed.

  ‘Really? He said that? Aloud? Oh god,’ was all that I could say.

  While I quietly applauded John Howard for speaking his mind, I knew that this sort of statement would affect me, merely by association. And indeed, President Mugabe already takes every opportunity to lump Australia in with the United States and the United Kingdom as his top three most loathed nations. He prefers, these days, to deal with the likes of Russia and North Korea. Australia has imposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on members of Mugabe’s regime following ongoing human rights abuses and reported election rigging, and these are now reinforced. I’m already an Australian government spy in the eyes of some, so what might I become now? Despite this, a sequence of concerning events persuaded me to stay on in Zimbabwe.

  Lancelot, born to Lesley six months earlier (grandson to Lady), became the third snare victim in the L family. Thankfully his wire came off his right front leg without our intervention, leaving a slight injury that remained for just a few weeks. But I knew in my heart that this wasn’t the end of it for Lady and her family.

  Then the T family was hard hit, with three snares in this much larger family within just a few weeks. By the time I spotted Trish’s tiny six-week-old daughter with a very tight snare around her neck, I was already beside myself with concern. A skilled darter named Roger responded to my radio call. As he took aim to dart both the baby elephant and her mother out of the window of my 4x4 (this was an exceptionally young elephant so the mother did need to be darted as well), I took an audible deep breath and involuntarily clasped my hands to my face. I just hated these dartings so much.