Elephant Dawn

  ‘Do you recall the precise area I’m talking about?’ I ask Minister Nhema over the phone.

  ‘I’ve known Kanondo since you were in diapers,’ he says to me.

  I bite my tongue. Minister Nhema is only a couple of years older than me. What I really want to point out to him is that he should know this land area incredibly well since he put his signature on a quota allowing it to be sport-hunted in 2003. That’s how well he knows this land. Instead, I remind him of what he said to the press after the decree reaffirmation ceremony: ‘Nobody should compromise the Presidential herd.’

  He assures me he will deal with it.

  He doesn’t. Instead, it gets worse. Chief Dingani, who also participated in the decree reaffirmation ceremony, then grabs the land adjacent to Kanondo, also claiming it as his own private property. A wildlife conservation project was actually the first, recently, to lay claim to land in this area and now everyone wants a slice. It is out of control.

  I am back on the phone to Minister Nhema. He tells me, again, that he knows nothing; that he will deal with it. But an election is looming and I know well where his priorities lie. I’m also not in a position, nor do I have any desire, to provide a ‘facilitation fee’, which I know is what’s usually required to make things happen in this country.

  Once again, there are people who are not happy that I’m speaking out about these latest land grabs and more trouble is brewing. I throw my hands up in the air, and message Barbara in Bulawayo.

  ‘I need a break from all of this. Look out for me in four hours,’ I write, just in case I find myself in an ‘accident’ along the way.

  Barbara, Dee and I walk together towards a bakery, where I plan to treat myself to goodies in a small white cardboard box tied up with string. It is always little things that help to make the big things bearable. Inside the box there will be a chocolate éclair, a milk tart, an apple strudel, and a jam donut—all of which I will devour like a hungry hyena.

  ‘Sharon, hello! How are you?’ someone shouts at me with a huge smile as we walk along, his hand now extended towards me.

  ‘Fine. I’m fine, thank you. How are you?’ I ask.

  My hand is held for a moment while we both smile broadly at each other, as I continue to walk along.

  ‘Who was that?’ Barbara asks.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I admit.

  And then it happens again. ‘Mandlovu! How are you?’ And the performance is repeated once more.

  When this happens a third time Barbara simply whispers, ‘You don’t know who that person is either, do you?’

  ‘No. I really don’t know who any of these people are.’

  When an old 4x4 passes by us with hands waving frantically out the window, Barbara decides this is now getting a bit creepy.

  And then we pop into a tiny specialty confectionery shop where a young man sidles sheepishly up to my side and says politely, ‘Excuse me. You’re from Hwange, aren’t you?’

  ‘Okay,’ I mutter to Barbara, ‘you’re right. Now this is just plain weird.’

  This time, we ask questions. It seems that copies of the documentary have been circulating around Bulawayo and the surrounds. With white skin and blonde hair, I am apparently very easily recognisable walking the streets of Bulawayo.

  These people are clearly interested and proud to be associated with me despite President Mugabe’s rants against whites. More and more I’m known as Thandeka Mandlovu, the much-loved elephant woman. In the bush though, hunters such as Headman Sibanda and other ex-governor cronies just know me as ‘fucking white trash’.

  The story is different again in Harare where, as far as I know, the documentary has never been mentioned or shown to more than a handful of ministry employees close to Minister Nhema. There is no real desire to make it more widely known that a white person is involved in all of this.

  ‘Keep remembering Mandlo,’ I am told, ‘with these ZANU-PF men, one day if it suits them they’ll try to make you feel like you’re the cock of the walk, the next day, if it suits them, they’ll make sure you’re nothing but a feather duster.’

  My teeth ache. It’s all those chocolates and bakery goodies, and years of neglect. I’ve only been to a dentist twice in the past twelve years (and to a doctor just as infrequently). Spending money on such things hasn’t been a priority and so I put up with the sharp stabs of pain as I eat and long periods of dull aching. I look at the black throw-top I’m wearing and realise it’s one that I brought with me to Zimbabwe twelve years ago. It’s time for another visit to the street markets.

  Barbara looks terrified. ‘So long as we don’t get accosted by your groupies,’ she grins.

  FINDING TIM TAMS

  2013

  On my way back to Hwange I encounter seven police roadblocks. More often than not I’m simply waved through, but when I’m stopped in the township of Gwayi, close to Hwange, I smile broadly at the policeman as I always do, and immediately hand over my licence without waiting to be asked.

  ‘I know you,’ he declares. ‘You are the one who works with elephants.’

  Given that I have presidential elephant conservation project signs prominently displayed in both rear windows, this isn’t difficult to figure out. With everything that’s happened over the years though, perhaps he does genuinely recognise the name on my licence.

  ‘How are the elephants?’ he asks me, in the polite way of the Ndebele.

  ‘Fine. They’re fine,’ I lie.

  Many of the ‘new farmers’ around this area are in fact hunters, and they loathe me. I’m not interested in getting into a conversation with this cop, who no doubt is well acquainted with them. He knows that I’m aware that commodities like ivory get through these roadblocks far too often—presumably with the help of corrupt police.

  I smile again broadly and present him with the palm of my hand, ready to take back my licence. But he tightens his fingers around it and wanders around my 4x4.

  He’s searching for a misdemeanour that he would expect me to bribe my way out of. ‘Headlights!’ he barks, indicating I should turn them on.

  Oh dear, this isn’t good. I never drive on public roads at night because I know that one of my headlights doesn’t work properly. Luckily, the sun is shining directly on to them, and he doesn’t notice that one’s out. He continues his slow waltz around my vehicle and eventually arrives back at my window.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say with another encouraging smile, my open palm extended once again towards him. And I have my licence back, before he has a chance to search harder.

  On my way home I travel through the estate and run into Whole’s and Wilma’s families mingling together. They rush to greet me, their temporal glands streaming in excitement, welcoming me as one of their family. Willa is here with her youngest calf, Wobble, and I think back to our kiss when she was pregnant with him. The adorable Wilma has fallen in love with my bull bar and chooses to stand with her trunk curled on top of it, her eyes closed. I can’t bear to disturb her, despite the sun beating down on my perishable supplies. I feel uneasy though; I’m constantly wondering if any land claimants will turn up to harass me.

  When the documentary screened in France recently, its name was changed to La Gardienne des Éléphants (The Elephant Guardian). Here I am, guardian over these adorable elephants as they all now snooze around me. But who is my guardian?

  I continue to liaise with my ministerial contacts over the land claims, and I’m assured that all will be resolved. Chief Dingani is staking his claim, measuring up John’s old house, having decided it is now his. I thank the heavens that John is long out of this never-ending mess. I send him a text. He still desperately misses his homeland.

  Keith, a white Zimbabwean and chairman of the Farming Dining Club, gets in touch to organise a screening of the documentary in Harare. He and his wife Raynel recently had a particularly memorable encounter with the Presidential Elephants with me on their game-drive vehicle, and are keen to help broaden awareness. I catch a bus to the capital, wh
ere it’s a full house. ‘An exceptional evening, and one of our best ever,’ Keith tells me. There are a lot of white farmers in attendance, many of whom have lost everything. I tell them I desperately want to believe that both Ministers Nhema and Mutasa are behind these elephants, and that they’ll reverse the land grabs, the same sort of grabs that are achingly familiar to these farmers.

  While I’m in Harare, Carol surprises me with the offer of a wonderfully big fridge. It will be the first time in all these years that I can actually freeze and store a reasonable amount of food, and make lots of ice for the long hot hours in the field. The problem is getting it to Hwange, but Keith arranges it all. He and Raynel have quickly become ardent supporters and I’m thankful to have them in my life.

  Finally, I have a decent fridge alongside the little microwave that I recently splurged on, an old oil heater of Carol’s for the freezing winter nights, and a fan to ease the sizzling summer ones. My thatched roof is covered with wire to shield it from the monkeys and baboons. And I have all the problems with my 4x4 fixed, including the unreliable starter motor which has been getting me stuck in the bush, and the jarring suspension. With the kind help of others, I feel like I’m settled and living a little more comfortably at long last.

  What’s just as extraordinary is that Tim Tams have become temporarily available in a couple of supermarkets in Harare! I just about fall over myself, prattling on to Carol about how these iconic Aussie biscuits came into the world just two years after me.

  But not even Tim Tams can lessen the heartache of the ongoing tragedies.

  All too soon there’s a horrific snare injury in Whole’s family. Greg, Esther and Hans are now based in other parts of the country, so Brent, who works with lions, agrees to help. He’ll attempt to dart, but it will be several hours before he can get to me.

  The young snared elephant is Wahkuna, Whazup’s daughter and Whole’s granddaughter. For the next three hours—which is an awfully long time to keep an elephant in one place—I sing and talk to Whole. If I can keep her with me, the rest of the family will stay too.

  It’s after five o’clock when Brent arrives. After the first dart hits its target, I have to rev my vehicle, bash on my door, and charge at Whazup, since she refuses to leave her daughter, now lying sedated on the ground. I’m unsettled and feel as if I am betraying their trust. Whazup is eventually darted as well (after an earlier misfire, which resulted in Wahkuna being darted first). When she falls some distance away, Whole and others come racing back to help her. And then I have to do it again, aggressively chasing off my beloved Whole.

  With a Parks scout standing guard, Brent removes the wire and treats the wound. It is getting dark when Wahkuna and mother Whazup are both finally back on their feet. They’re still groggy from the drugs and wander in different directions. There is no sign of Whole and the rest of the family. In darkness and alone now, I pray to the god of wild things that they’ll find each other quickly, and will then catch up with the rest of their family. Lions are known to be in the area.

  Three days later, Keith and Raynel are in my 4x4 with me—a thank you for all they’ve recently done—when I encounter this family for the first time since the snare removal. I’ve been searching for them every day. I recognise Willa in the distance heading into thick bush. I yell to her, ‘Come here, Willa. Come here, my girl. Come on, Willa girl.’ She turns towards us immediately.

  I call to Whole. ‘Come on, Whole. Come on, girl. Come here, Whole,’ I yell, over and over again. Keith and Raynel must think I’m nuts, since there are no other elephants in sight. I’m simply yelling at the bushes. But I keep calling, knowing that Whole must be there somewhere. All of a sudden she’s coming back out of the bushes, moving quickly towards us, her huge head bobbing from side to side. The entire family follows her. Soon, they’re all right beside us. Whazup and de-snared Wahkuna are among them, and doing brilliantly. I am just about in tears, and Keith and Raynel are thrilled to have witnessed this reunion. Wahkuna’s injury to her back right leg is already looking so much better, and she’s putting weight on it.

  Surely the authorities will not allow anything to ruin all of this. We talk at length about the private land grabs and what this will mean in terms of sensible access and monitoring of this flagship herd. Keith has some good contacts, and he promises to try to help.

  The next afternoon we’re surrounded by more than one hundred Presidential Elephants, all of them intensely inquisitive about the strange people I have with me in my vehicle. It is a spectacle to behold and together we savour every minute. And then, without warning, every last one of the elephants race away from us at high speed, their ears flat and tails extended. We have heard absolutely nothing. But the elephants have; distant gunfire audible to their ears only perhaps, or a desperate infrasound alarm call from other elephants.

  I’m back on that same old roller-coaster ride of highs and lows. What’s more, I feel like I’m trapped in my own personal adaptation of Groundhog Day. Year after year after year, it’s the same gut-wrenching problems over and over and over again. It’s just a different day.

  BULLDOG WITH A BONE

  2013

  In late July there is another election. This time it’s unnervingly calm across the country. ZANU-PF sweeps to a resounding victory. Commentators say there was no need for violence, since ZANU-PF had cooked the electoral roll (which was scandalously unobtainable by the Opposition) so well that it was never going to lose. Voters were turned away, their names supposedly not on the roll, while others were reportedly bussed in to cast their vote. Stories abound of non-existent and long-dead people on the roll. There is no doubt, though, that confidence in the Opposition has certainly dwindled. There are plenty of people who really did vote for ZANU-PF willingly, even if it was in return for nothing much more than a bag of grain. And for the continued downfall of the white man.

  Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is out. ZANU-PF rules the country alone once more. I wait with baited breath to see if Minister Francis Nhema remains as wildlife minister.

  For the first time ever ZANU-PF have won overwhelmingly on my side of the country, where the Matabeleland massacres took place at their hands, in the early years following Independence. It’s difficult to fathom that all of a sudden they seem to have forgotten what the Ruling Party did to them in the 1980s. ‘There was the Nazi genocide of the Jews, and the ZANU-PF genocide of the Ndebele, but you didn’t see Jews in Adolf Hitler’s Germany later becoming Nazis, yet now we have the Ndebele overwhelmingly joining Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. Something is not right. There must have been some big bribes,’ I hear people say.

  In rural areas, the chiefs are said to have frog-marched villagers to polling stations, warning that they will know who to blame if the vote goes the wrong way. Chiefs are well rewarded by ZANU-PF for their efforts. Like with land in Presidential Elephant areas.

  In response to international outcry about vote rigging, President Mugabe declares, ‘The Western countries holding a different view of our election, we dismiss them as the vile ones whose moral turpitude we must mourn.’

  Who on earth writes his speeches, I wonder? Turpitude? What is turpitude? ‘We think using big words and having great oratory skill, speaking English better than the English themselves, will somehow hide our ignorance,’ a black Zimbabwean commentator once wrote. I have to open my laptop’s thesaurus to discover that it means ‘immorality, wickedness’. Yet again, it is the West that is immoral and wicked.

  I need more light-hearted relief. I’ve acquired a cute little bean-bag elephant that I decide to introduce to my elephant friends. And they absolutely adore him! It is just the most amazing thing: wild elephants standing by the door of my 4x4, staring curiously at this little fellow. Some try to steal him, and others look as if they’d like to eat him. He keeps getting himself into extraordinary predicaments but continues to go back for more. I name him Fearless. Whole and Wilma love him most of all. Fearless sits on their tusks, and snuggles up to their long noses. He’
s an instant hit on the elephants’ Facebook page.

  He has become the Presidential Elephant mascot, capable of making tens of thousands of people smile with each post.

  I don’t smile, however, when an email arrives from Carol. ‘Now you are really fucked,’ is all that it says.

  Oh no, what now?

  In a second email she tells me that President Mugabe has finally announced his new ministers. Francis Nhema has been assigned to a more powerful ministry and Saviour Kasukuwere is now wildlife minister. I’ve heard his name bandied about, unfavourably.

  ‘Kasukuwere was previously the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment,’ Carol tells me. ‘He’s long had a leadership role in the ZANU-PF youth wing and is said to have been instrumental in rallying the youth, and personally driving a lot of the farm invasion and election violence. He’s ex CIO, a former bodyguard of Mugabe, and big with all of the anti-white policies.’

  Nervously, I search the internet. There are plenty of entries. The first one I read says that Saviour Kasukuwere is known as ‘Paraquat’ for endorsing the use of this highly toxic herbicide on the torture wounds of Opposition party activists. He’s better known as ‘Tyson’—after US heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson—for his bulk and aggressive style. One journalist refers to him as ‘a thug in a suit’. There are first-hand accounts of him having wielded an iron bar himself; not just simply directing the violence. He’s described as one of the most violent ZANU-PF ministers. In one newspaper article he likens himself to Hitler.