Elephant Dawn

by Sharon Pincott

  ‘It’ll be alright,’ Roger assured me.

  And all I could do was think, No, it’s not alright. This is not alright. This can’t be allowed to keep happening.

  When the young calf—who I subsequently named Tuesday (the day of the snare removal)—awoke from the immobilisation drug, she gave a deep, open-mouthed roar as she attempted to get to her feet. She wasn’t old enough to know what to do, or where to go. And she was alone, with only me by her side. Roger was in another vehicle, attending to her mother elsewhere. All of a sudden, her eight-year-old cousin, Twilight, appeared at the treeline, running at breakneck speed, her ears waving as she ran, her body barely able to keep up with her racing feet. Squealing and roaring, she headed straight towards my vehicle, and stopped a metre away. Gently caressing Tuesday with her trunk, Twilight ushered this de-snared baby off into the bush, safe and sound. It was an extraordinary display of how elephants look after one another, even at such a tender age.

  Then, a few days later, vultures led me to the remains of an illegal elephant hunt. This was photographic land, but the surrounding areas had been grabbed for sanctioned sport-hunting. Some hunting guides could not care less where they kill, so long as their overseas clients get to pull the trigger. Their lack of ethics and respect sickened me.

  And then, I worked quietly—and urgently—with the anti-poaching team to bust a poaching racket run by employees from a photographic lodge; the same lodge in fact, that had hired the anti-poaching team. Something was just not right. My instincts had become fine-tuned and I had learnt to trust them. I could practically smell a poacher at 50 metres. Eventually we had all the evidence we needed: wire snares, blood in a freezer, and worse, blood all over the inner walls of an unused dwelling. I also had damning photographs of their shoe-prints, clearly visible in the Kalahari sand, beside snare lines, and we knew exactly who wore which shoes. Particularly gut-wrenching for me was our discovery of snares set high up in trees, to strangle giraffes.

  What would have happened if I’d already been gone? Would any of these things have been discovered? And if they’d been discovered, would they have been properly reported and followed up?

  I also knew that many years after elephant guru Iain Douglas-Hamilton learnt to know a clan of Tanzanian elephants intimately, he returned to undertake a survey of them, only to find that a disaster had befallen this supposedly safe population. Many elephants that he had known were missing. Because elephant carcasses aren’t always seen, and no one else knew the family structures, this tragedy had gone unnoticed.

  I just couldn’t leave.

  Before departing for Zimbabwe in 2001, I’d gone with a friend to a psychic—in fact, I’d gone to two—purely for a bit of fun. The first cut short his reading, leaving me nervous about what he’d seen that had scared the living daylights out of him. The second warned there would be many paths along my new road, and that I must always be sure to stay alert and to choose wisely.

  My decision to stay doesn’t seem all that wise, even to me. This can be a dangerous and brutal country and once again it is gripped by political violence. The Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was recently beaten up in Harare. Journalist Edward Chikombo dared to release a photograph of the battered and bruised Tsvangirai in hospital. He lived for two short weeks after that. He was abducted and murdered, his body dumped.

  Right now, this is not a country where you can speak out against the government and expect to stay alive.

  Even if you can get past the brutality, there’s often not a lot to admire in its leaders. There’s been plenty of press about one of my contacts, Didymus Mutasa (still one of the most powerful men in the country), and other high-powered Cabinet ministers, falling hook, line and sinker for an elaborate hoax when a spirit medium claimed she’d discovered a place where diesel flowed from a rock. It’s one thing to have your future told, but pure diesel flowing from a rock?

  During this time of chronic fuel shortages, several Cabinet ministers and numerous officials set off in a convoy of scores of vehicles, and even helicopters, to investigate. The spirit medium (said to be a primary-school dropout) strung them along in a two-week con during which time she was reported to have been awarded a farm, a car, and cash from the government. The press published photos of the jubilant government officials watching diesel gush to the ground.

  My contact in the President’s Office earnt himself a new name. Now he’s known as ‘Diesel Rock Mutasa’ or ‘Didymus Diesel Mutasa’.

  Am I really staying in this crazy country?

  TRYING TO CATCH DREAMS

  2007

  Miriam is the latest in my circle of friends to decide to leave Zimbabwe. She’s lived here for ten years, and although she knows she will miss many things, she’s tired of life in a crazy dictatorship. We share a final dinner with Carol in Harare, still managing to laugh together despite all of the tragedies. Two British tourists—a mother and her ten-year-old daughter—were recently trampled to death by a bull elephant while on a game walk in a part of Hwange National Park that we love. We all agree the aggression of this elephant is a reflection of the turmoil going on in wildlife areas around the country.

  Miriam flies off to America, and I travel back to Hwange. I now have a can of pepper spray which I carry in the field with me, a gift from Miriam’s one-time partner. It is not the elephants that I fear.

  Zimbabwe is on its knees—no fuel, no bread, no meat, no eggs, few dairy products and empty shelves everywhere. My friends in the cities endure daily power cuts, often of eight hours or more, and constant water outages (if there’s any water at all). There are power and water problems in the bush too; they’re just less frequent.

  It’s difficult to imagine that at the time of Independence in 1980, the Zimbabwe dollar was stronger than the US dollar. In 2001, 30 litres of petrol was costing me Z$1440. In June 2003, it was Z$13,500. In June 2006, 30 litres cost me Z$10,200,000 (that’s 10 million and 200 thousand dollars). The exchange rate has now hit Z$150,000,000 (150 million) to one US dollar. To make matters worse, the government knocked three zeros off the currency overnight to try to make it manageable, so what was Z$750,000,000 (the equivalent of five US dollars) has suddenly become only Z$750,000 (the equivalent of nothing). Shaynie’s life savings are worth absolutely nothing.

  Immigration problems are my latest battle. I’m now required to travel the six-hour return journey to Bulawayo every three months to have my passport stamped. I feel like some sort of criminal on parole. I have not been issued with a new visa and can well imagine who is behind this. For now though, I just do as I’m instructed, unable to cope with anything more.

  Shaynie knows that I need to somehow recapture my dreams. ‘Hey, Sharon!’ she booms while standing high on a rock during a weekend away in the Matobo Hills, pretending to throw a big bag of dreams my way. ‘Catch!’ she shouts.

  Things in the field keep going from bad to worse.

  Lady’s closest sister, Leanne, is missing. When I last saw her, she was right beside my 4x4, looking healthy and happy, kicking the ground, loosening clumps of grass and stuffing them in her mouth. With perfectly symmetrical tusks, longer and thicker than those of most of the Presidential females, I always considered her to be a prime target for the hunters and poachers.

  Every day I search for this favourite family so that I can work out what’s going on. A week passes and I find Leanne’s two youngest calves, Lee and Litchis, wandering together but otherwise alone. Lee is nearly six years old, Litchis is not yet three. In normal circumstances, they would never be roaming like this without their mother.

  There is no body to be found, but I now know for certain that Leanne is dead. She was not sick as far as I could tell, so has very likely been shot. I am gutted by this knowledge.

  Lee seems to be doing okay—but Litchis is growing thinner by the day. I fear for his life. Why aren’t they with Lady and the rest of the family? I see them alone in odd places, and wish that I could follow them on foot, believing they might lead
me to Leanne’s bones. Jabulani and I try this one day, but it’s soon clear that our presence on foot is freaking these little guys out. We retreat.

  Although Litchis was still suckling from his mother, as the youngest calf does until the birth of the next offspring, he was no longer dependent on milk. Had he been, I would have tried to arrange for his capture, so that he could be hand-raised, but there are certainly times when it’s best not to interfere. Two weeks later, Lee and Litchis join back up with Lady and the rest of the family.

  Elephant families are deeply affected by death. When we meet up now, adults Lady, Lucky, Louise and Lesley stay close by my 4x4, and close by each other, as I sing the first verse of ‘Amazing Grace’ to them over and over again. They’re quiet and withdrawn. Lee stays close by Lady, who frequently suckled him during the year of his birth, as she also did with Litchis. I take comfort in knowing that Lady will keep a close eye on them.

  Outside my rondavel I join Last, a mechanic employed by the Painted Dog project, who works on my 4x4 in his time off. He was so named, he tells me, because he was to be the last born. (I’m sure Last is happy with his name. I’m less sure about the man I recently met whose mother had christened him Smelly!)

  My resident vervet monkey troop is in a state of alarm. They sit high in the treetops; often, I suspect, to simply enjoy the view, but also always on the lookout for predators.

  ‘Do you know there’s a leopard there?’ Last asks me, casually.

  ‘A leopard where?’ I query.

  He points to the bush not twenty metres away.

  I see the great cat lying on the ground, its beautiful patterned coat illuminated by dappled sunlight. There is no movement though, and I catch a slight whiff of decay.

  ‘Is it dead?’ I ask.

  ‘You’d better hope so,’ Last utters straight-faced as he watches me walk towards it.

  I certainly hope it’s alive, but it’s now obvious that it isn’t. The young leopard had come close to human settlement only because it was injured and weak. Its body is emaciated. One of its back feet is broken. I can’t help but wonder if it had escaped from a snare.

  I immediately report the dead leopard to the management of the nearby lodge, and ask that the carcass be collected.

  An hour later, nothing. ‘These people really do need a boot up the butt,’ I say to Last.

  So I report it to the Parks Authority.

  When the deputy in charge finally arrives early the next morning the body of the leopard is nowhere to be seen. ‘A hyena must have dragged it off overnight,’ he says while climbing back into his vehicle, happy to simply leave it like this.

  ‘Will you please show me the spoor that indicates a hyena dragged this leopard off,’ I demand indignantly, tired now of such blasé reactions.

  There are no animal footprints—that is very clear to me—although there are definitely a lot of human ones. I am insistent. The police must now be involved, as taking a leopard—even a dead one—is a criminal offence.

  Of course I’m seen as over-reacting. Why not just let it be?

  The police track the human spoor, which matches exactly the shoe-print of one of my neighbours (another photographic lodge employee), and find a freshly dug grave, from which they unearth the skinned remains of the leopard. The skin, naturally enough, is nowhere to be found.

  Despite clear evidence, no arrests are made and I face up to the fact that poachers live right beside me, while I do what I can to save the wildlife.

  Soon afterwards, I awake to pitiful wailing. A baby bushbuck has somehow managed to get his head through one of the small, diamond-shaped holes in a chicken-wire fence and is stuck. He is kicking frantically and droplets of blood are trickling down his tiny forehead. I take off my jacket and wrap it around him. I have no wire-cutters but after what seems like an eternity I’m able to manoeuvre him free. Still wrapped in my jacket with his impossibly huge, handsome eyes looking up at me, I carry him to my garden. After washing the blood from his head, he declines a drink and bounds away. Next morning I open the door of my rondavel and find the ground resplendent with tiny hoof-prints of mother and baby.

  I’m pleased when Christmas rolls around. With so many of my friends no longer in Zimbabwe it is quiet, but on Boxing Day I’m thrilled to meet up with the L family.

  Orphaned Lee and Litchis are still coping okay, and everyone else is fine. Other Presidential families appear from the bush and by evening there are more than 50 elephants around me. White-faced ducks whistle their way through tufts of pink and purple cloud. Elephant silhouettes are reflected in puddles of rainwater, tinted a soft pink. As darkness approaches, the bulbous clouds become wispy and blanket the sky with bands of astonishing deep blue and orange. Other swollen clouds roll in like a moving canvas of fluffy marshmallows. I close my eyes for a few minutes, to sharpen my hearing. There is the soft rumble of elephants and the soothing gentle popping of champagne frogs, in glorious stereophonic sound. Egyptian geese honk and red-billed francolins cackle. Elephants slurp and splash their way through surface water, as dung balls thump to the ground. It all sounds as amazing as it looks.

  The grand Lady stands motionless beside my door, and I revel in her company. She lets out a low, purring rumble every now and again, checking on her family. It is sad that Leanne is no longer here. Even so, as night descends, with an Amarula in my hand, I know that this is an extraordinarily beautiful place to be.

  DISORDERLY CONDUCT

  2008

  Beyond this place there be dragons, the early map-makers are said to have declared on reaching what they thought was the physical edge of the world—and it seems to aptly sum up my life in the Hwange bush. Although the first few months of 2008 have thankfully passed uneventfully, I’m forever fearing what awful thing might be around the next bend in the road.

  And then, while out patrolling on Good Friday, I meet the dragon when I see Leanne’s son, Lee. He is missing one quarter of his trunk, ripped off by a wire snare. The despair that hits me in the chest makes it difficult to breathe. He bends unnaturally to get water to his mouth, much of it spilling to the ground.

  A research vehicle approaches. ‘We’re having an Easter braai tonight,’ the driver slows to tell me. ‘Come and join us.’

  He hasn’t noticed my distress. I point to Lee, and try to explain what has happened to the L family. ‘Twenty-five per cent snared, in just one family,’ I say.

  But it’s like water off a duck’s back to the young people in this truck. ‘Well, we’ll be having a drink and a good time, if you want to stop by,’ they say, before driving off.

  That night, I choose to sit out alone under an exquisite full moon at Kanondo, on the rooftop of my 4x4. Hundreds of fireflies dance around me, to the music of elephant rumbles, the haunting howls of jackals and the frantic klink, klink, klink alarm call from a handsome blacksmith plover pair. They’re trying desperately to protect their three eggs from the giant footfalls of the elephants, who are innocently wandering within centimetres of their nest on the ground. I can see the outline of the elephants clearly. The air is clean and crisp. Tusks gleam in the magical night light, huge ears flap, and the night birds sing.

  Members of the W family join me, and I’m especially thankful for their company. The beautiful Whole gives me a trunk-to-hand greeting and I talk to her warmly. Little Winnie is suckling contentedly. Whosit, who is thirteen years old now and quite the cheeky teenager, decides to rest one of her small tusks, much too heavily, against my windscreen.

  ‘Hey! Whosit!’ I cry. ‘I’ll give you a smack,’ I tell her.

  Which is, I suppose, a pretty silly thing to say to a wild several-tonne elephant.

  The parliamentary and presidential elections are never the best of times in Zimbabwe and they’re upon us once again. Some people have chosen to leave the country temporarily. Although there have been ongoing reports of politically motivated violence, it’s been relatively calm in the run-up to these elections. The dollar keeps losing value, though, now on
an hourly basis. The exchange rate is more than Z$40 million to US$1 (which is actually 40 billion to 1, when you put the three zeros back on), and the inflation rate is over 200,000 per cent. People want change.

  When the election results are not immediately released, everyone knows that it cannot be good news for Mugabe’s Ruling Party. It is stalling for time. Votes are counted and recounted.

  Finally, after more than a month, the results are announced. For the first time since Independence in 1980, ZANU-PF has lost its parliamentary majority, and President Mugabe has lost the presidential election. Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai wins 47 per cent of the votes to Mugabe’s 43 per cent, but because nobody has acquired more than 50 per cent of the vote, a presidential re-run is scheduled, giving the Ruling Party enough time to unleash a terror campaign. In fact, the state-sponsored campaign of violence, rape and torture has already started.

  There are murders, beatings, gang rapes, genital mutilation of both males and females (all often reportedly done with relatives forced to watch), as well as disappearances. It’s a blood-bath out there. The message is clear: if you vote for the Opposition, this is what will happen to you.

  More than 10,000 people are reported to have been maimed and injured, and 200 murdered. Two hundred thousand people are said to have been forced out of their homes, and more than 20,000 homes destroyed. With a vote for the Opposition increasingly likely to cost even more lives, Tsvangirai pulls out, just five days prior to the scheduled run-off, as violence intensifies. He hands victory to Robert Mugabe, who wins resoundingly—against himself.