Somewhere East of Eden

by Michael McKeown

  In one of my favourite passages, White writes of a neighbour who had ‘a nice musical ear,’ and who told him how the owls in the village hooted their moonlight sonatas’ in four different keys – in G flat, or F sharp, in B Flat and A flat.’ The Natural History of Selborne abounds in small, seemingly unremarkable anecdotes and gentle observations of this kind.What a different and infinitely more leisurely and peaceful world it was then, as this beguiling book so beautifully conveys.

  Next door to the owls, was a pair of African hedgehogs, a mother and baby. Considerably smaller than their North American and European cousins, the African hedgehog has the unenviable distinction of featuring in the ‘must-have-exotic-pet’ list. Being nocturnal creatures, all I could see of them were the shiny black snouts of their delightful pixie-like faces peeping out of from their warm blanket of freshly cut grass that covered their spiky bodies during daytime. Their neighbour was another night-time species, a male bush baby rescued from a poacher who had kept it for several months in a cramped, dank concrete cage in a high-density township. He had arrived malnourished and with a suppurating sore on his tail. Like all his species, his tiny face was dominated by huge soulful, staring eyes and bat-like ears that allowed him to pursue insects in the dark.

  Wood doves called seductively to one another enhancing the air of tranquillity that Twala so effortlessly begets. In a setting, as peaceful as this it is easy to forget how all-encompassing the illegal trade in wildlife is. Run by criminal syndicates, often operating in the drugs and arms market, it impacts on animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, tropical fish and plants and is estimated by Interpol as being worth between $10 billion and $15 billion per year.

  One of the major difficulties in enforcing wild life legislation in Africa is the laxity of law enforcement and I asked Sarah if this was the case in Zimbabwe.

  “It’s a huge problem,” she admitted. “Even when someone is caught, prosecuted and convicted the fines are usually negligible as to amount to no more than a slap on the wrist. But lately things have improved and magistrates are imposing much stiffer penalties.”

  Sarah’s unaffected passion and hands-on commitment for the project made a refreshing change to many of the white-collared officials I had encountered from international animal welfare charities. Over coffee on the veranda I listened as she spoke of the bushmeat trade, a term originally used for the meat of wild animals killed for sustenance purposes by poor rural societies throughout Africa. For centuries, it had provided many with their only source of protein and the overall impact on wildlife species had been, for the most part, insignificant. Now however the volume of the escalating illegal commercial trade was beginning to threaten a wide range of species, some of them already listed as endangered.

  At some point in the discussion, our attention was diverted by a young vervet monkey called Horace with a white front and an impertinent black face, playing animal tag on the lawn with a black cat. Every now and again they would break off for a short rest until, at the monkey’s prompting, they began again. Eventually the cat, no doubt dizzy from its exertions decided to take a brief nap and curled up under a thick bush. Horace, who clearly lived his life in a state of non-stop lunatic activity, at once looked around for a new diversion and settled on one of the tortoises lumbering ponderously in the direction of the small dam fringed by mopane woodland. The temptation was too much and with half a dozen skittish bounds he slid to a standstill beside it. For a moment, he looked momentarily nonplussed before tentatively extending a paw and stroking his prospective playmate’s outstretched leathery neck. Over the years, the tortoise had learned to live with, and tolerate, any number of diverse species but this was a liberty too far. He came to an abrupt halt and retired aloofly into his mottled carapace where he remained like some affronted dignitary until Horace loped away in pursuit of fresh distractions.

  “He never stops. He’s like that every day 24/7,” Sarah said. “At times, he’s exhausting just to watch.” She excused herself and left me, saying she would be back in half an hour when we would visit the lions.

  I sat there and helped myself to more coffee. It was hot and bright in the garden and Horace’s fur gleamed sharply white in the sun. He had discovered a pigeon’s feather and was examining it intently, holding it between his paws trying to part the plumes and making occasional ‘proup- proup’ noises, his small black face furrowed in concentration in the manner of someone solving a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. During subsequent visits to Twala, I fell hopelessly into the trap of anthropomorphising Horace’s behavioural habits. Like a great actor, he could effortlessly register different moods moving from delight and glee to curiosity, sadness and even a dejected air of deprivation which, of course, was the purest moonshine. There were times too when I could imagine him as a court jester to nobility in Renaissance times, attired in colourful clothing with cap and bells, juggling balls, performing magic tricks and – who knows? – reducing his audience to tears of laughter with outrageous tales.

  Horace was perfect for Twala, part of whose raison d’être along with the rescue and rehabilitation of animals, is to provide young children with an introduction to nature and wildlife. We are all conditioned by what we are exposed to and experience at a young age – imperceptible forces that remain with us, however marginally, throughout our lives. In my own case, it was Vulpes Vulpes, the red fox whose range extends across the entire northern hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to Eurasia. Foxes were the embodiment of my early childhood in Scotland, part of a misty, half-forgotten world of moorlands and larch woods weighed down with snow. Roe deer, red squirrels, badgers, hares, stoats and weasels all figured too but it was Reynard, the anthropomorphic fox who captured my imagination. Like countless other children, I was drawn to this astute, opportunistic and unfailingly handsome creature with his rich, rufous coat, white front and bushy tail whose guile and cunning invariably led to him triumphing over his adversaries.

  The epic of Reynard is thought to have originated from folk tales in Lorraine in France during the eleventh century from where they spread to Germany, the Netherlands and England. For the most part, they are concerned with his adventures in outsmarting and overcoming his rivals, chief of whom is Isengrim the wolf. The stories were full of intrigue and trickery but it was not until many years later that I realised they were highly satirical in content, aimed mainly at the ruling aristocracy and the church. But that, as they say in children’s books, is another story. At the time, I enjoyed them immensely and the wily Reynard keeps me company today.

  Sarah returned accompanied by a small brown and white dog gambolling happily around her legs that immediately attracted Horace’s attention. We set off to see the lions but within minutes Horace decided the outing was not for him and scampered back to the house. It was probably just as well, for long before we reached their enclosure the lions gave notice of their presence with a series of low guttural coughs and grunts, arousing atavistic thoughts from a time when our species first came down from the trees on to the East African savanna, a time when they were the lords of the plains and we were their puny, defenceless prey.

  Shani and Shungu had arrived in Twala two years earlier cowed and underweight from a captive lion breeding farm in the south of the country. Unbelievably, up to seven thousand lions are currently living behind bars in private ‘breeding’ farms in South Africa. Raised from birth in captivity, many of them are petted as cubs by tourists, who for a hefty fee can walk alongside them with their carer in the bush. Almost all of them however end up being laundered into the grotesque but highly lucrative “canned hunting’ industry in which lions are shot in confined areas like fish in a barrel. It is a vile, abhorrent trade that should make the South African government, their tourist board and its citizens cringe in shame.

  Shani and Shungu were fortunate. Both were now thriving in their spacious natural habitat with glossy coats and clearly full of confidence. As we approached they regarded us with golden unblinking eyes, that unwavering
, impassive lion gaze that seems to pass right through one, watchful but unconcerned. Shortly before we left Shungu nuzzled his head against Shani and moved away in that low-slung, easy lion gait. My last glimpse of him was standing on a rocky ridge, his magnificent head silhouetted against the setting sun that was washing the valley below in deep brushstrokes of mauve and lilac. It may not have been untrammelled freedom but at least he was living out his life in tranquillity alongside his companion under the open skies. I left Twala uplifted and with a sense of hope, not just for the animals I had seen here but for all those who were yet to come.

  THE NO-ONE KNOWS FOREST

  Only after the last tree has been cut down

  Only after the last river has been poisoned

  Only after the last fish has been caught

  Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

  - Cree Indian Prophecy

  The rainstorm had come and gone with violent tropical swiftness. From my seat on the terrace of the Forget-Me-Not Hotel in Calabar, in south eastern Nigeria, I inhaled the rich, intoxicating scents of flowers and plants drawn up from the damp red earth that so indelibly marks the aftermath of a storm in West Africa. Two grey parrots skimmed low overhead calling to each other and dazzlingly blue and orange agama lizards resumed their sunbathing around the swimming pool, nodding as though in satisfaction that the rain had ceased.

  Calabar, beautifully situated on a hilltop high above a curve of the palm-fringed estuary of the Cross River, had grown up in the seventeenth century as a commercial port shipping palm oil and timber to Europe. Later, during the time of the infamous Atlantic slave trade, it had played a major role in the transportation of thousands of slaves to plantations in America and the West Indies. The grim history of those times is chillingly documented in the small but immaculately clean and instructive history museum in Court Street.

  I had been waiting at the hotel for the last two days with mounting misgiving for a pickup truck to take me to the Cross River National Park, one of the oldest and richest evergreen tropical rainforests in Africa. Together with the adjoining Korup National Park, Cross River has the highest assortment of primate species in Africa including the lowland gorilla, red-eared guenons and drill monkeys with their famous grinning smiles. It was something I had failed to grasp on my first visit to Nigeria some fifteen years ago, and now, given a second chance, I was anxious to make amends.

  “No harm in trying, if you’ve got the time,” an urbane and elegantly suited World Wildlife official with a plummily pitched BBC voice, had informed me a week earlier in his glass-plated, air-conditioned office overlooking the Marina in Lagos. International agency executives are aristocrats in Africa, combining the minimum amount of duty with maximum comfort and privilege and Julian Clutchbury fitted the role perfectly. “But, if you ask me, you’ll be wasting your time. Plenty of jungle but the bunnies are hard to find.” He laughed to show me he was making a joke.” And transport there can be a nightmare.”So far, loathe though I was to admit it, he had had been right. Time was melting away and now I had only four days left.

  I was roused out of my misgivings by Augustus, the hotel porter-cum-receptionist.

  “Masta no go vex,” he said, sucking air through the prodigious gaps in his front teeth. “You go wait small time and the driver done come.”

  West African Pidgin English is widely used as a lingua franca throughout Nigeria, whose two hundred and fifty tribes speak over five hundred languages and dialects. It evolved along the West African coast during the period of the Atlantic slave trade between British slave merchants and African traders to simplify their commercial exchanges but quickly spread up the river systems into the interior of West Africa where it became the common language for trade. Consisting of a vocabulary of simple, unstructured English with grammar and syntax derived from local languages, it makes for a rich cocktail of idioms and expressions.“You know this driver? “I enquired hopefully, following him inside.

  “Yes, I go savy him. Na, good man dis. But sometime his mind done humbug him and ‘e go walkabout,” Augustus shrugged fatalistically. From his demeanour, it was clear that he had no idea when the driver would come, other than at some stage he would.

  Africans, I had long ago come to realise, have an entirely different concept of time. Whereas in the West we are a slave to it, conditioned to its bidding and governed by dates, schedules and deadlines, to the African it is an altogether more fluid, malleable and accommodating affair, one which they are on friendly times with. For them the maxim ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ is a completely alien concept. Time is neither fast nor slow. It simply is. I had just willed myself into a suspended state of Zen-like acceptance of events when I recalled another pressing problem. The previous evening I had dropped my laptop which had landed screen side up on the floor. On turning it on, the screen display remained obstinately blank. There could be half a dozen reasons, I knew, why it wouldn’t light up but I hadn’t a clue which of them might be the problem. Memory? the motherboard? Some kind of malignant virus..? All enquiries to Augustus and his assistant as to where I might get it fixed had drawn a blank and I had begun to worry that my data base was irretrievably lost. Divine providence however was on hand in the shape of a young woman dressed in sky blue jeans and a soft yellow cotton shirt who, after greeting Augustine, advanced confidently towards me.

  “Hello I’m Kristine.” She smiled and extended a slender, well-manicured hand. “You must be the insect man waiting to go to the national park.” Her café au lait complexion and almond slanted eyes radiated good health and vitality.

  “Insect man?”

  “That’s right. My aunt said she had this lunatic staying at the hotel who was planning to spend the next two weeks crawling around the jungle looking for insects.”

  “Your aunt?” I said bewildered.

  “Auntie Florence. She asked me to stop by and see how you are.”

  Florence was the manageress, an immensely fat and good-natured lady with whom I had enjoyed innumerable cups of hot, sweet tea whilst waiting for news of my transport. She had not mentioned a niece, one moreover who as I was to shortly discover had just returned after four years in England with a BSc in zoology and was currently working at a primate rehabilitation project on the outskirts of Calabar.

  “You’re English?” Kristine asked, as if this somehow accounted for my eccentricity.

  “Anglo-Irish,” I amended.

  “So, we’re fellow half-castes then,” she smiled mischievously. “My dad is from Calabar and my mum’s Danish. What do you say to a change of scenery?I’m on my way to buy a charger for my computer. We can have a coffee somewhere.”

  Computer. Had I heard correctly? Hope bloomed in my heart like a desert rose and I told her about my laptop with ill-concealed anxiety.

  “Don’t look so defeated.” She gave me a quick, reassuring smile. “Come on. I’ll take you to High-Tech Corner.”

  She left instructions with a relieved-looking Augustus and within ten minutes I found myself at High Tech Corner, as it was known, on the corner of the bustling central market.

  “If you have a problem with computers, laptops or your mobile, this is the place to come,” Kristine assured me as she introduced me to a wiry young man with long dreadlock hair wearing a floral pink shirt. “Sammy and his friends are some of the finest unschooled technical gurus anywhere.”

  I handed Sammy my laptop and gazed around me at the Sargasso Sea of market stalls crowding the long street from one end to the other with a dazzling display of goods, staggering in their variety and profusion – hessian sacks overflowing with tomatoes, onions, peppers, okra, plantains, sweet potatoes and coco yams; wicker baskets piled high with avocados, mangoes, guava, pineapple and paw-paw; sacks of chillies, rice, lentils, maize and guinea-corn. There was an entire area devoted to endless rows of skin care creams and lotions, moisturisers, cleansers and toners, hair dyes and skin lighteners. Chanel, Yves St Laurent, Nina Ricci and Givenchy perfumes were al
l on display next to me-too brands, lipsticks, nail polish, mascara, eye liners and a multitude of other beauty products. Heaped piles of Kente cloth, a silk and cotton fabric made of interwoven cloth strips in sumptuously coloured geometric designs, competed for attention with exquisitely embroidered lace fabrics, tie-dye garments and wax prints.

  In between what looked like a square mile of multicoloured shirts, blouses, T-shirts, trousers and jeans, was a seemingly never-ending assortment of men’s, women’s and children’s shoes and sandals. I recalled the apocryphal story of a young Englishman who had been sent out to Nigeria by his shoe manufacturing company in Northampton at the turn of the century to assess the market. After two or three days, he cabled them back. “No market for shoes here. No-one wears them.” At approximately the same time, an excited American was wiring his company in Boston. “Fantastic opportunities. No-one here wears shoes.”

  I gazed around me. Like all West African markets, it was a confused melting pot of colour, noise and joie de vivre. Stall holders traded cheerful abuse with each other and chaffed their prospective customers, tailors busily sewed and repaired garments on ancient foot-powered machines and everywhere, exhorting and imploring by turn, were the ubiquitous food vendors with their trays of dried fish, fufu, grilled spicy chicken, bean cakes and fried plantain.