A Rhino in my Garden

by Conita Walker

If you’d wanted to see a Waterberg community at its best, that would be your opportunity. As soon as the alert goes out, all neighbours rally around with their teams of workers and their water tanks; in no time at all there’d be a command post with a communications protocol; there’d be refreshment stations with plenty of drinking water and first-aid necessities; vehicles on standby for emergencies. I imagine it’s the same in all farming communities: men and women who spare no effort in helping their neighbours, knowing that they’ll be able to rely on the same level of generosity when it is their turn to appeal for help.

  Whenever some unthinking, cruel action by humans upsets me enough to want to condemn the human species, in its entirety, to perdition, I have to remember this. Humans destroy, but they also rescue. They have the capacity for savagery, but also for kindness. It is humans who begin wars, but it is also humans who stop them. Dresden’s Frauenkirche fell because of humans, but it also rose again, because of humans. While I’ll probably always maintain that Homo sapiens is a flawed species, as long as we continue to create, nurture and love, we probably deserve our place in the vast, wondrous ecosystem of the earth. All of us, yes, even those who started the fires that threatened my home.

  So I sat there, facing the cattle grid that guarded the entrance to Walker’s Islands, and tried to argue myself into accepting that while I condemned their actions, I could regard the people with compassion. I could observe and assess, but would try to refrain from judgement. With a cynical nod at my own fallibility, I decided that, just for that day, just for the couple of hours I’d be spending at Walker’s islands, I would refrain from judgement. I took a deep breath, precipitating another coughing fit, but when it had subsided, I drove on down the winding track through the trees and parked next to the little house. I’d come to take measurements.

  As enthusiastic as Clive and I both felt about Walker’s Islands, the inescapable reality was that we were still awaiting the land claim settlement for our Melkrivier investment. Until that had been finalised I felt that we had to remain at Magog’s, and in truth we couldn’t really afford any development anywhere else. Moêng was settled and happy there, and to my great joy there was now another rescued black rhino from Lapalala. None other than Meetsi, whom Anton and his crew had found as an 18-month-old calf, lying injured next to a waterhole in 2005. In his Lapalala boma Meetsi had recovered perfectly and we often visited him there, perhaps with, in the back of our minds, the possibility of taking him under our wing one day. His translocation to us at Melkrivier went smoothly and while he was still recovering, Moêng was already showing great interest in the new arrival. Anton had devised Meetsi’s boma in such a way that it abutted part of Moêng’s paddock, so they could interact while still each having their own space. Meetsi had developed into a handsome, strong young bull, with a proud bearing. Calm, friendly, very responsive to us – he instantly came when called and was happy to be petted and fed. He accepted all of us, Lazarus included, without any problem. Even so, Bwana had taught us not to be overconfident and underestimate the strength and instincts of such a powerful wild animal. I did notice that our little Jack Russell, Button, who had taken liberties with all my other animals, did not do so with Meetsi. They didn’t have issues, but while she entered Moêng’s enclosure and drank from her water supply, she never did so with Meetsi’s. Of course, Button was older now than when she used to race Bwana and took hazardous shortcuts between his galloping legs. She still accompanied me on all my visits to the rhinos, and was at her post there while I was lecturing to the public. But when we were done, she’d quietly go back home to find a favourite spot to lie down and sleep – usually under Clive’s desk, her head on his feet.

  The sight of Meetsi and Moêng lying snuggled up together on either side of their shared pole fence, or face to face, rubbing their noses, more than compensated for the negatives of still being at Magog’s, and across the road from what was going on at our old Melkrivier Museum site. I knew the immense distance, in terms of healing and adjustment, both these rhinos had travelled, so their wellbeing and contentment, and their friendship, gave me enormous pleasure. Not for anything would I have wanted to uproot them; we’d only move them to Walker’s Islands when all necessary facilities had been put in place and that would have to wait for the eventual Land Bank payout. In the meantime, we’d remain at Magog’s and Anton and René could, should they wish, move to Walker’s Islands.

  But then the fires started, and after one which took 20 fire trucks and 70 firefighters to bring under control, I found myself longing to escape. I still didn’t know how we could possibly afford to finance our move and get Walker’s Islands ready to receive rhino, but I was ready to begin with the small preparations – measurements to determine how much, or how little, of our furniture we’d be able to fit into our new home. “Compact” the estate agent said; compared to our former homes, it seemed like a doll’s house. I didn’t mind. Clive and I would manage perfectly well with the minimum indoors, as long as we had plenty out of doors. And sufficient storage space. The stables would be a godsend for everything we had to salvage from the Melkrivier Museum, for Clive’s collections and art materials, and of course his studio. In addition to the work he was required to do for the organisations he served and conservation causes he supported, it was in my view imperative that he should keep writing and painting.

  In his almost eight decades he has not escaped the challenges we all have to face, the losses, disappointments and betrayals. Everyone finds his or her own way of wrestling with those. Sometimes one simply needs to escape, to take a few breaths of different air. For Clive that usually meant Botswana. Once he’d crossed the Limpopo River into the Tuli wilderness, tracking and observing his beloved elephants, he’d return a new man. As a family we’d sometimes undertake a much-needed exodus to the south coast. A different world with its tropical vegetation and the ever-present sound and smell of the ocean. Since 1978 we’ve had a cottage there, Lomé, named for my father’s birthplace in Togo. It was in a nature conservancy that gave us the pleasure of seeing small game and brilliantly coloured birds, like the purple-crested turaco, which we’d never see in the Waterberg. As a child of the dry hinterland of Africa, I was never strong on water sports myself, but loved watching the others as they swam and surfed, flew their kites in the fresh salty breeze, or were happily engaged for hours as they discovered the fascinations of marine life in rock pools. I had a favourite walk there, up to a view point above two small beaches. There were benches there donated in memory of loved ones that had passed away, and I’d sit in that blue serenity, every cobweb blown away as I gazed out to sea.

  But one couldn’t always take the time to go away; you needed your small escapes at home too. At Doornleegte I walked with Bwana on his hill behind the house, or with Mothlo across the floodplain down to her rockpool in the Palala, or sat watching Munyane’s thriving little baby, Mokibelo, as she grazed alongside her mother, playing and learning under Doornleegte’s umbrella thorns. At Melkrivier I could walk up Lonetree to the silence of my rock ledge above the world, or across to Moêng’s boma to tend to her care, until her brave, sweet presence brought me back to peace. For Clive, I believe, it was his art that provided him with that therapeutic breathing space in his daily round. In front of his easel in the various studios he’d had over the years, or in some beautiful wild place, sitting alone with his sketchbook – that’s where he quietly worked his way back to equanimity. That is how he was able to present to me, and to the world, a cheerfully philosophical acceptance of life’s vicissitudes, and always find a way to regard events, and people, with a vision that opened up something bigger, something more hopeful and inspiring. I looked across to the stables. If we were to move to Walker’s Islands, it wouldn’t be long before I’d see him emerge from his studio there, stride up to our little house, walking stick swinging, and calling out as he saw me on the veranda, “You know, I’ve been thinking…”

  And why not? We were not ready to retire, certainly Clive wasn’t
– probably never would be. Slow down a bit, by all means. My back was certainly giving me occasional reminders that 70 years of hurrying, stooping and lifting, and driving over spine-jolting corrugated roads have not gone unnoticed. But to be in such a stunning place and only spend our time sitting on the verandah? Without any effort at all I could picture my rhino enclosures there, with the treed islands providing shade and interest and fresh browse. And should we wish to expand…

  I stopped myself. Let Clive do the dreaming – he had had plenty of experience in that department and his schemes have always had a way of working out. For the present I had my hands full enough with my two black rhinos in their bomas at the foot of Lonetree. When the time came to move, we would know. When we were ready for a new beginning, we would surely know. And in the interim I’d give myself the pleasurable challenge of preparing to arrive at our new sanctuary one day with a cleansed, lightened spirit. No more baggage to shed, no more demons to battle at that rusted cattle grid. No more scar tissue to blunt my joy in the blessing of being granted another new beginning.

  When I drove away from Walker’s Islands that day it was with a profound sense of gratitude, for many things, of course. But there was one thing in particular, which I’d never seen so clearly before, although it had been a characteristic of our lives together: Clive and I had always been able to begin again.

  Difficult as it is sometimes to be impressed with the human race, there is one thing that I know to our credit: we are, most of us, good at beginnings. Let our lives implode in a sorry mess, but somehow, more often than not, we will summon up enough grit and backbone to begin again. It must be coded somewhere in our DNA: we have to begin, again. I think that’s because we are so poor at endings, and so afraid of them. As long as we can we’ll hold on to a belief that things are yet possible. We’d rather try, risk and lose again if we must, than not begin again just one more time. There is surely no disgrace in doing as nature does: break open yet another day, a chrysalis containing possibilities that exist as yet only as hope.

  Our story has been a story of beginnings. Perhaps, like life really, it is merely the story of a beginning in search of its appropriate, appointed ending. A bearable ending. One which will legitimise all the effort, courage and pain it had required to make those beginnings en route to the final one where everything could come to rest.

  I could not have foreseen the cost of this final beginning.

  10 August, 2008. A leisurely Monday morning – my one off-day per week. I could take care of household chores without hurrying, knowing that Lazarus would be out cutting fresh browse for the rhinos, and then – since Mondays were more leisurely days for him too – he would get stuck into his tasks at the bomas with the kind of thoroughness for which he didn’t always have time on busier days of the week. At around 11 o’clock I became aware of someone making an awful lot of noise, shouting, screaming hysterically. It was rapidly coming closer. Then I knew: that desperate voice was coming for me. As I reached the backdoor and yanked it open, there was a piercing cry. Lazarus rushed up, shaking, seemingly on the point of collapse. He had his hands over his face, weeping uncontrollably, trying to tell me something. With some difficulty, and then in utter disbelief, I heard in between his shuddering wails: “Moêng is dead! Moêng, my Moêng is dead!”

  Clive manhandled me away from the door and forced me to sit down. “Stay here, until I come back. Conit, listen to me, please! You’re to wait, here. Understand?”

  He left me there, absolutely stunned.

  Much later he finally acceded to my raging demands and allowed me to see her. The poachers had lured her to the furthest corner of her 10-hectare enclosure, offered her some of her favourite game feed pellets and when she opened her mouth, as she had always done to take the treat, shoved a handgun in her face. The bullet went through the back of her mouth, into her brain. My little black rhino, finally perfectly healthy after her long, agonising healing journey, was killed for the two modest lumps of hair that had grown on her nose. I sank down on the blood-stained grass. Her ears were filled with thick coagulated blood. So were her eyes, her nostrils, her mouth and the jagged wound where her small horns had been gouged out. Moêng – brave, trusting soul – was gone. Murdered.

  From that point on, my memory splits in two. On the outside my world had gone quiet. A lifeless hush had descended, like a fog, to blanket everything and mute the stream of events that I only peripherally experienced. The authorities called in to try to track down the poachers; Moêng buried in her enclosure; Meetsi relocated to his former boma in Lapalala; Clive and I packing up and moving to Walker’s Islands; my family clustering protectively around me. I went through the motions, but I wasn’t there. A disconnected witness, I heard their voices and saw their concern, but as if from a great distance. There was an unbridgeable divide between their world and the dark, icy place where I, alone, was being mauled and buffeted in an emotional storm such as I had not experienced before, but of which I have a much clearer memory than of the outer reality of that time.

  Skewered by my guilt: I was the one who had taught Moêng to be so trusting, to respond so willingly, so unsuspectingly to human hands held out to her. Judging by the state of Meetsi’s enclosure, he’d gone berserk when Moêng was killed. The poachers would have had no chance to get to him too, not with the kind of weaponry they carried. He was far too swift and aggressive, and not nearly as trusting around strangers. And there was something else: in the early hours of that Monday – still dark – I had heard a shot, and thought nothing of it. Neighbouring farms had to deal with nocturnal raids by bush pigs, so we’d become used to hearing the odd rifle shot with which they scared away the pigs. Even so, how could I not have sensed something was terribly wrong? I had been as naïvely trusting as Moêng who had now paid for it with her life.

  I was consumed with anger, wildly railing at the poachers and whoever assisted them. It had become as clear as day that Moêng’s killers must have had help from the inside, someone who knew her, and us. Someone we trusted. Someone who knew that, with this particular black rhino, all they’d need was a handgun. The sickening sense of betrayal was more than I could bear.

  So it was that when, before the end of August, I crossed that cattle grid to Walker’s Islands again, I did so without even registering the fact. Clive was driving and in the passenger seat the only real thing I was aware of was warm, chunky little Button sitting on my lap, breathing against my tightly clenched, exhausted body. Just as she did up on Lonetree the morning after Bwana’s death, she comforted me again, simply by being there, by being alive. A small, sanity-saving link between my two realities: the outer one of arriving at our new life at Walker’s Islands, and the inner one of the turbulence and despair with which I arrived there. The shock of Moêng’s death had gathered other troubles and heartaches into a leaden, bitter depression that drained the life out of me.

  Where was the resolution I’d made just weeks earlier, to keep Walker’s Islands free from such psychological burdens? What had happened to that woman who had had the determination and confidence to stop at the cattle grid, and boldly declare that she would not take any historical baggage into her new home, that she would not make this transition while weighed down by sadness and shadows?

  She was sitting on her new verandah looking out over a grassfield, a pale ochre breeze-ruffled expanse which stretched for 300 metres to a low hill which, if she were to stand there, would allow her to look all the way down to the Melk River. It was that close. But if it had been a thousand times that distance it would have made no difference. Moêng’s entire range of vocalisations, the small puffs of dust that she kicked up as she played her pretend-chase-and-be-chased game, the feeling of her solid weight as she affectionately leaned against her favourite human, her dear, irreplaceable personality – they were all right there on the verandah. So was that single gunshot in the night, and her grave. And Bwana’s. And the ruin of what used to to be the thriving Melkrivier Museum, the one and only cultural a
nd natural history centre in the entire Waterberg Biosphere Reserve. The urgent scramble of the move from Magog’s. The unbearably touching little cards of condolence that her grandchildren had made for her, and their drawings of Moêng, the way they remembered her – alive. A small child’s tears at the upsetting realisation that such horrific things can happen.

  After what might well have been hours of sitting, staring out over the dry grass, I got up. “Start by doing what is necessary,” said St Francis of Assisi, that favourite saint of all nature lovers, and officially declared Patron Saint of Ecologists. “Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible, and suddenly you’ll be doing the impossible.”

  There was a row of plant pots on the edge of the verandah, still just as they’d come from Magog’s. I selected one of the larger ones, with a climbing creeper, now limp and drooping, and carried it over to a position where I thought it might do well. There was a dry branch, shaped almost like a cross, on the table where I’d put it down on the day we arrived. It had come from the rhino enclosures at Magog’s. On the day we finally left there, Clive and I walked across the road to what was left of the garden of our Melkrivier Museum, to stand for a few minutes at Bwana’s grave. It was so quiet there. The trees and plants had not been tended, the buildings not maintained. More had been buried there than just a most beloved mature black rhino bull. Then we walked back across the road and up to the now empty rhino enclosures at the foot of Lonetree. Right at the top of Moêng’s enclosure was her grave. When it had been covered over, dead branches had been laid over the loose soil. There too, so much more had been buried than a rescued, healed and adored little black rhino. We were already walking away again when I turned back to break off a piece of one of those branches. This I now stuck deep into the potting soil, and then untwisted the plant’s fragile tendrils and wound them all the way up the branch, as high as they could go.