Elephant Dawn

by Sharon Pincott

  At 2 a.m. I awake with a start. Somebody is creeping around inside my cottage. I can hear movement, and strange sounds that I can’t identify. I pluck up the courage to climb out of bed. It’s pitch dark and I use my hands to feel my way. I stand at the doorway and listen. I hear nothing. So I inch a little further towards the kitchen area.

  All of a sudden I collide with something unknown; my leg brushes against some sort of strange, furry being, much bigger than a rat. I let fly with another four-letter word.

  What the heck is in my house now? A baby hyena? A baby lion? A tocholoshe? I dive for a light switch. And there she is: Chloe the lodge cat, looking up at me and meowing innocently.

  ‘Chloe,’ I sigh, bending down to pick her up, and now laughing wildly. ‘You crazy cat, you scared the living daylights out of me. Don’t you ever do that again!’

  It’s actually been a fun time settling into my new home. I’m so grateful to have had the help and company of Craig and Amos. I just hope my elephant friends will be grateful for all that we’ve been through, on their behalf.

  Visitors pop in over the course of the next few weeks, curious to know where I’m now living.

  ‘It’s a shame it’s so small,’ one South African colleague declares.

  ‘Small?’ I frown. ‘Compared to what I lived in for the past ten years, this is a palace!’

  ‘Well, it’s got . . . character,’ he decides.

  ‘Let’s be honest,’ I laugh. ‘It’s got rodents and a rotten roof!’

  Even so, I feel more at home than I have in a very long time.

  MEETING CECIL

  2011

  It is with trepidation, rather than excitement, that I finally venture out onto the estate, after more than five months away from the elephants. I desperately want to find out how they’re all faring but at the same time I feel waves of anxiety, deep in the pit of my stomach. What dragons are awaiting me now, I wonder?

  We had a good wet season and there are still gratifying amounts of surface water lying around. Now that the rains are over, though, the water in these depressions won’t last for long. Water should already be pumping into the main pans, but it is not. There’s still no one making any effort to keep fresh water flowing for the wildlife, which is disheartening to say the least.

  I drive around searching for the elephant families. Lol, from Lady’s family, was due to give birth to her very first calf while I was away and I’m keen to know how she is coping. Of course I long to catch up with Lady too, and indeed all of her family. Echo from the Es should have given birth to her first calf too, around the same time that her own mother Eileen was due to deliver another wee one. Assuming all has gone well, Whole should also have a new little baby beside her. There will be many births (and I will soon learn, some disappearances as well) to record.

  From the moment I stumble upon my first family I am overjoyed. All the residual stress of the past few months instantly lifts.

  It is the adorable C family with matriarch Cathy that I come upon right away. Tuskless Cathy has an incredibly strong bond with her sister Courtney. They’re the friendliest of the Cs, along with Courtney’s son, Court. He’s a lovable and somewhat bold boy who simply doesn’t want to leave his relatives. He’s taller than both Cathy and Courtney, which puts him in his very late teens. (From Cynthia Moss’s Amboseli project I learnt that a male of seventeen stands taller than every female in a population, which helped greatly with my age estimates.) Males typically leave their natal family, either of their own accord or when they’re pushed out by the older females, at around thirteen or fourteen years of age, leaving just the girls to stay together for life. Yet here’s Court, approaching twenty, and he’s still with his mum. His trunk is frequently dotted with war wounds, most likely from brief encounters with independent males which must have convinced him to stay at home with his mum and siblings for as long as possible.

  Courtney recognises my voice at once and comes trotting over to investigate, looking a little confused. She stands right beside my door. ‘What are you doing in that vehicle?’ I’m sure I hear her say. While I stand up through my open roof, the Cs investigate my bonnet and back window, apparently satisfied that it is indeed Mandlo, back with them once more.

  I find the W clan milling around together. All five sub-families are present—Whole’s, Wilma’s, Wanda’s, Wide’s and Wiona’s. I hold back, and search through my binoculars for Whole. She’s not here. But members of her immediate family are. I call to Whosit and Willa, to Wilma and Wonderful, to Why, and to all of my special friends. They come bouncing excitedly up to my 4x4, huge heads waggling, not caring at all that I’m in a different vehicle.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ I’m sure I hear them ask. They poke their trunks inside my windows, rest their tusks on my bonnet, nudge my bull bar, touch my side mirror, peer in through my open roof, and squeal and rumble.

  I’m thrilled to be among them once again. But where is Whole? Has she died in childbirth? Is she sick? Has she been snared? Not every elephant from each sub-family is here in the open, and so I desperately hope that Whole is already in the bushes somewhere, preoccupied with her new baby. I look at Whole’s grandson, Wish, and feel another rush of concern. He doesn’t look at all well. He is thin and much smaller than he should be. He tries constantly to suckle from his mum, Whosit, but she isn’t moving her front leg forwards to allow him to do so. He is only a year old and isn’t getting sufficient milk. Whosit, it seems, isn’t a very good first-time mother.

  A few days pass before I bump into Whole. And I breathe a huge sigh of relief. She has an adorable baby girl beside her, and I am on another Hwange high. A lot of trunk-sucking is going on beside my door, which is the equivalent of a human baby sucking a thumb. This little one will be named Will-be because, as a supportive friend says, ‘She WILL BE our new hope for the Presidential herd and a beginning of a better time with less poaching and threats, and freedom for you to do your job.’

  Whosit decides to help celebrate the arrival of her baby sister by according me a memorable encounter. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my 4x4, focused on Whole and Will-be to my left. Whosit clearly wants some attention focused back on her. As I turn, her huge face is unexpectedly right there in front of me, glaring in at me through the windscreen. Mere centimetres separate us. I jump with such fright that I whack my knees on the bottom of the steering wheel. ‘You wicked woman!’ I laugh aloud.

  A few days later when some of the As materialise, I search for Adwina. It’s almost a year since Esther removed the ghastly wire snare from her leg, and I’m keen to check on how she is doing. She’s still not walking as well as she could be and the wound is very obvious even now, but she looks healthy and happy. She too has a gorgeous new baby girl beside her, who Esther names Antje.

  There were two successful snare removals from elephant bulls in my absence. No one had taken identification photos though, and while I’ve seen photographs of the sedated bulls lying on the ground I wasn’t able to identify them from these angles. I’ve been constantly wondering who was snared.

  One afternoon I find myself with tuskless Debbie, who now leads the D family after the sad and mysterious disappearance of matriarch Disc; Disc’s body, like that of numerous others, has never been found. I notice Dempsey, a teenaged bull, with a snare wound. The wire is thankfully off, but he is still limping quite badly. The wound on his back left leg matches one of the photographs I’d seen.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that, Dempsey boy,’ I whisper.

  While the snaring isn’t as bad as it used to be, it still occurs and probably always will, despite the anti-poaching efforts. At least I now know who one of the recent victims was, and can monitor his progress.

  Try as I might, I just can’t find Lady and her family. I worry, wondering if they’re alright, and hope none of them have been snared. I drive around, desperate for them to materialise from the bush.

  Eventually I catch up with the Ms and the Es. These two
families are closely related and often move together. I’m thrilled to see Misty again. She comes when I call to her, but hangs back a metre or so, not ready to offer me her complete trust again just yet. Masakhe is beside her, happy and healthy, now two and a half years old. As expected, Eileen has a fine-looking little baby beside her. He is later named Elvis, a true king of the savannah. But Echo has clearly been through a sad time with her first pregnancy: she no longer has any breast development, and there is definitely no baby. Did she miscarry? Was her baby stillborn? Did it die after birth? That information has been lost forever.

  After weeks of dedicated field work, Lady and her family are still nowhere to be found.

  I need to find out what’s happening with my proposal to reaffirm the Presidential Decree. I’ve already emailed Minister Francis Nhema directly, but despite frequent phone calls and faxes to his office, I still haven’t managed to speak to him. Subsequent correspondence with the always helpful Minister (‘Diesel Rock’) Mutasa seems to have an effect and a meeting is scheduled for me in Harare, not with Minister Nhema, who seems intent on avoiding me, but with his second in command.

  ‘Do those elephants still exist?’ I’m asked in the first few minutes of our meeting. It’s immediately clear Minister Nhema hasn’t passed on any information at all, and I have a lot of work to do. The original decree was never formally documented by the ministries, and I yearn to see a certificate this time. It turns out to be a long, productive meeting.

  Once I’m back in the bush, I continue to send extra information. This isn’t as simple as it may sound, since printers, photocopiers and fax machines are few and far between, and the ones I can access are often broken. There are also frequent phone-network outages. All of this drives me to distraction. Weeks fly by and I hear nothing in response. I don’t even know for certain whether or not the minister is supporting my request. I’m considering making the tedious sixteen-hour return journey back to Harare for another face-to-face meeting.

  Then, completely unexpectedly, I receive a text message out of the blue that reads in part, ‘Am pleased to advise that His Excellency the President signed the reaffirmation decree.’ I read this three times before I leap to my feet, let out a boisterous whoop of joy and do a little dance. I grab a bottle of pink champagne from my fridge, pop the cork, and drink straight from the bottle! I grab my mobile phone and contact those who I know will share in my excitement.

  ‘He signed it. He actually signed it!’ I gush.

  I’m beside myself, giddy with astonishment, gratitude and deep satisfaction. And champagne tastes so much better when you drink it straight from the bottle!

  Now, I have to make sure that it really does mean something.

  A few weeks pass before I manage to see the signed document. Alas, somewhere along the line, the words ‘Hwange Estate’, as they appeared in one sentence in my draft, have been altered to read ‘Hwange National Park’, a reflection of how removed the Harare people unfortunately are from the realities on the ground. They probably don’t even realise it, but it’s a blatant mistake. Although the text has been substantially shortened too, the overall sentiment is still there, loud and clear. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so picky, but I can’t help myself; I ask if the president could possibly sign a corrected, and professionally typeset, version (which is what I’d been planning all along). I’m told sternly that no one would be game to ask him! At least what we have is signed by the president and further sanctioned with his seal. And it was a coup to get it at all.

  To be perfectly honest though, I’m not convinced the signed decree will mean all that much in the long term. But I’m determined to try to give it real meaning. I wonder if the president would have signed it, in the current prejudiced environment, had he known it was proposed and drafted by a white person. I’m quite sure that he knows nothing about me, despite my decade-long battle on behalf of his flagship herd.

  My next mission is now clear: I need to ensure this reaffirmation gets as much publicity as it deserves, especially as there are now rumours of methane gas and coal-mining licences being issued within the key home range of these elephants, very close to photographic safari lodges. The South African film crew are still in touch, and will soon start working with me to make the previously planned documentary. Minister Francis Nhema has finally taken a personal interest and has agreed to be filmed reading the decree reaffirmation on behalf of President Mugabe. I have to trust that his interest will endure, after the cameras are switched off.

  Things are finally moving in the right direction.

  Sadly, things are not going so well for one of my close friends Down Under.

  While my Kiwi friend Eileen was celebrating her fiftieth birthday recently, across the ditch in Australia, she discovered a lump. Cancer had come calling. This is another harsh reminder of what an absolute bitch life can sometimes be and makes me question again what I’m doing back here. Eileen has no choice other than to deal with her cancer, but I have a choice. I don’t have to be here fighting so many battles in this crazy place; life throws us enough curveballs without seeking out more. For Eileen, it’s going to be a long bumpy ride, down a path that she did not choose. My own despair here in Hwange has been more or less self-inflicted. I take strength from Eileen’s determination, and resolve to send her only bright and hopeful vibes—along with a little angel, to sit on her shoulder. She is stubborn, like me, and I know that she will get through this.

  Shaynie’s settled well into her new job at Wilderness Safaris and has, along with her bosses, invited me to spend a week in their part of the national park. If I was a tourist with only one trip to Hwange likely in my lifetime, this is where I would spend my time. It’s what the Presidential Elephant areas on the Hwange Estate used to be like, with abundant water pumped into fourteen pans early in the dry season. I secretly want to take the Wilderness Safaris directors home with me in my duffel bag.

  Wildlife encounters are more spectacular than ever on this concession. Prey species are abundant and so it follows that predators are abundant too. The big cats typically go out of their way to avoid each other, yet in less than a kilometre—an impossibly short distance in the wild—we encounter three different species. There are three cheetah cubs on a termite mound by the roadside, a little further on in the low branches of a tree two leopards are feasting on an impala, and just around the corner, there are seven lion cubs. The patron saint of pussy cats is looking down on us favourably!

  The father of the seven cubs, our expert guide Lewis tells us, is called Cecil. The face of one of my favourite uncles, who shares this name, flashes in front of my eyes as we catch up with this magnificent, big, black-maned lion and his lustrous pride of ladies, out hunting. Why would the lion researchers call such a magnificent beast Cecil? I wonder to myself. I love my Uncle Cecil but the name doesn’t seem nearly powerful or masculine enough for a lion. Then Lewis reminds us the founder of Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe at Independence) was Cecil John Rhodes. I’m surprised, but evidently there’s no resentment of colonial times here. As Cecil bellows unforgettably to the waxing moon and the myriad stars above, I decide that I would rather think of him as Astro: astronomical in more ways than one.

  Then one evening, after enjoying some G&Ts while soaking up the breathtaking sunset colours and the rise of the full moon, I squat behind the game-drive vehicle (as one has no choice but to do).

  ‘Lions!’ Shaynie yelps.

  ‘Yeah, right, Shaynie,’ I say, by now very used to the never ending jokes about what is about to eat you.

  ‘No, man, really! Lions, right there,’ she blurts out, letting the spotlight guide the way to a pride of lions just ten or so metres away.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I squawk, swallowing my distrust. ‘Those lions just watched me pee.’

  ‘I bet that makes you want to pee again,’ says one of the tourists on our game-drive vehicle as I scramble back on.

  The four lionesses intermittently bellow, and hyenas howl, under the glorious full moon. We sit
savouring every moment before making our way back to camp.

  It is quite by chance that in this remote part of Hwange I meet up with an American woman and her companion who are thrilled, but confused, to see me. They’d paid extra to a Hwange Estate operator who had assured them that they would be spending time with me while at their next lodge, only to be told at the last minute, when it was too late to change their booking, that I was unavailable. I knew absolutely nothing of this, or of them, or of the donation they’d made towards my work.

  ‘What are they doing with the premium paid by these guests, and the donation?’ Shaynie wonders aloud.

  ‘Certainly not putting it towards the Presidential Elephants,’ I say, dejectedly.

  That my name was now being used without my knowledge came as a shock to me, even though I knew this had already happened to someone else. Although I’m actively encouraging elephant tourism, I’m not here to help any estate operator line their pockets in unprincipled ways.

  I also know that in some neighbouring countries a set percentage of profits from photographic (not just hunting) lodges must go back into assisting the wildlife and the surrounding communities, and although some do this routinely in Zimbabwe, it isn’t compulsory.

  Deceitful advertising and giving back. These are now on my ever-growing list of things to discuss with Minister Francis Nhema when I soon have him captive beside me in my 4x4 for an afternoon of filming among the elephants.

  Shaynie, as always, manages to lift my spirit. After dinner one night she presents me with an extravagantly iced ball of real elephant dung to belatedly celebrate my 49th birthday.

  AN ELEPHANT KISS

  2011

  Now that I’m settled back into Hwange, it doesn’t take long for old troublemakers to try and stir up more trouble. Those fire-breathing dragons are back once more.