Authors: Caitlin O'Connell
The road to Hippo Lodge was badly flooded, just as Draadie had warned, but I was able to drive around the deeper potholes. When I got to Hippo Lodge, the same waiter who had greeted me two days before was there to meet me again. I looked around nervously. There was no sign of Jon, but Dr. Geldenhuis was sitting at a far table near the window with a huge black man dressed in a white suit. “Is Alvares here?” I whispered, not wanting to draw attention to myself.
The waiter shook his head. I hesitated and looked at the two men, who were engaged in a tense conversation. Instead of leaving, I asked to be seated outside, within earshot of the doctor's table, overlooking the Zambezi. I could see them through the edge of the window.
I held my hands so they wouldn't shake. This was a little too close for comfort. I turned my chair sideways so I could still watch them and turn my head if necessary. I could easily pass for one of the many tourists who had just arrived in an overland truck, but not if the doctor saw my face.
There was nothing subtle about the doctor's guest in his raw-silk suit, his knuckles bulky with diamond-encrusted gold rings. He was engulfed in a veil of cigarette smoke. Two empty glasses sat in front of them, and they sat as if in a stalemate.
The man looked at his gold watch and cracked his knuckles. “I've got to catch a lift back to Lusaka with the reverend.”
“Hadn't known you to shack up with conventional religion.”
“Haven't you heard about my monogamy campaign?” He smiled and a gold tooth glistened in the setting sun. “Very lucrative.” He stretched and then smoothed down the pockets of his suit. “But hectic. I've had to sleep with each wife for a month to demonstrate the virtues of a single partner.”
I remembered Nigel's story about the Zambian witch doctor's fertility treatments and realized that this must be him.
A voluptuous black woman with very little clothing sauntered up and winked at the black man. “Two of the same?”
Geldenhuis looked at the waitress and nodded. “Windhoek draft for me.”
The waitress nodded. “And Castle for you?”
The witch doctor nodded and folded one hand over the other. “Of course, Windhoek. The good doctor always loyal to the home front. It makes me wonder why I give of my country's wealth so freely. Zambia's riches deserve better. There's no trading without favors.”
“So is that what this is about? You came all the way from Lusaka to complain about testicles?”
“I wouldn't have put it in such crass terms.”
The doctor scoffed, “Your arrogance astounds me.”
“And using your little
humanitarian effort
as your distribution arm is not arrogant?”
The waitress returned with two beers, and the man slid her a fat roll of bills. She smiled and walked away with his eyes glued to her rear end, each cheek peeking out of her impossibly short white booty shorts. The thought of working here was becoming less and less attractive.
The witch doctor took a healthy sip of beer, then tapped his cigarette box on the table, removed a cigarette, lit it, took a long drag, and exhaled. He clucked his tongue. “You should know by now that your dark African brothers love to bargain. You want to increase volume and keep the price down, I expect something in return.”
I had no proof that their conversation was about ivory, but I was pretty sure it was.
“But you are getting a great price.”
He twisted the fat ring on his ring finger. “It's the game that intrigues me.”
“Game?” He took a long angry gulp and placed his mug down hard on the table, his knuckles white on meaty stumps.
The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a group of boisterous European tourists seating themselves throughout the open
lapa.
Geldenhuis whispered, “Is this meeting on my property part of your little game?” The veins on his neck strained as he spat, “Show up at the old Sioma Falls airstrip tomorrow night at eight. I have to deliver supplies to Lusaka and will stop on my way back. I need that inventory.”
The witch doctor glared at him in silence, got up, and left.
Before Geldenhuis could turn around, I leapt up and hurried down the path to the river and took the long way back to my car. I got in and headed straight for the Mpacha airstrip. I had to figure out where the Sioma Falls airstrip was located and gas up for the following night. Craig said he had clearance for me to fly across the Zambian border, so if I wasn't able to contact him, I was covered.
After spending a day reading, studying maps, and preparing my airplane for a night mission, I met Nigel on Thursday morning at the Kongola Community Care office as planned. Since we were going to meet with the induna, I had decided to buy a local skirt for the occasion. I parked in the lot next door at a little craft stall to buy a rectangular piece of thin material that the local women wrapped around their waist as a skirt. I picked out a wavy pattern of green and blue on a black background, gave a sleepy-looking old woman a Namibian fifty-dollar note, wrapped the material around my shorts, and tied a knot in the side, making a long skirt.
As I stepped into the dark Community Care office, I surprised Nigel just as he was dropping thick wads of money into a filing cabinet drawer. He quickly closed and locked it, then spun around. “Ah! Hadn't heard the telltale chortle of a VW Bug.”
“Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.”
“Not a problem. Just doing some bookkeeping.”
“Bookkeeping?”
I couldn't help chuckling, seeing as I had just seen him holding fistfuls of local currency.
“I like to keep my own records of what goes on around here.” He put a key into his shirt pocket. “That way, I can trust what goes into the reports to Windhoek.”
“Are your reports so valuable that you have to lock them up?”
“Sometimes the things that look least valuable end up having the most value.”
“And the cash?”
“At month's end, I end up with an inordinate amount of cash on my hands.”
“Why is that?”
“People don't have bank accounts. I have to pay all the game guards in cash.”
“Is it dangerous to carry all that cash?”
He shrugged. “Never had a problem yet.”
“That's good.” I looked around. “Is Finnius here?”
“Finnius!” Nigel called loudly, and then whispered to me, “He had the courtesy of showing up sober today.” He teased, “Just for you, I imagine.”
I smiled and sat down, pulling out a stack of blank ETIS and MIKE forms that WIA had given me. “Is it okay if I review how to fill out these forms with Finnius? The rangers are hoping that the game guards can keep better records of elephant mortalities outside the parks.”
As Finnius walked in through the back door, Nigel looked over my shoulder. “What does MIKE stand for?”
“Hello, Finnius.” I nodded and handed Nigel a form. “Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants.”
Finnius clapped one hand over the other and bent his knees slightly before sitting down.
“That sounds horrendously bureaucratic,” said Nigel.
“It is a bit. But that's exactly the problem. These forms are not getting filled out. There's no way to know how bad the poaching is across Africa if we don't have a standardized way of keeping track between countries.”
Nigel yawned. “Like I said, horrrrrribly bureaucratic.” He sat down and smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “Please”âhe gestured generouslyâ“proceed.”
I frowned.
“Hey, I'm just kidding,” said Nigel. “I know how important this is. That's why ol' Finnius here is going to help you get this reporting off the ground.” He looked Finnius up and down. “Isn't that right, Finnius?”
Finnius squinted anxiously at a form that I had placed in front of him.
“And by the way, what's the difference between an ETIS form and a MIKE form?”
I didn't know how to respond, given Nigel's shit-eating grin, so I ignored him, placing my finger at the top of the form to start explaining it to Finnius.
“I'm serious,” said Nigel. “I asked myself that question recently and then Googled ETIS and got âextraterrestrial intelligences.' Surely that's not what it means in this context?”
“Look, as you say, it sounds horribly bureaucratic, but ETIS stands for the Elephant Trade Information System.” I ignored his narrowed eyes and continued. “It differs from Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants in that it focuses on the actual trade in ivory rather than the poaching event.” His eyes narrowed further, and I found myself getting defensive. “It's subtle, I know, but the distinction between ivory movement versus a killing event is important.”
“So, why bother with the ETIS forms in this area? Why not just focus on MIKE?”
“Because it's not just the killing that we're worried about. It's understanding how the object of value that is removed from the dead animal is moving at a global scale.”
“Humph.” He shrugged. “Now you're getting all complicated on me.”
I continued to walk Finnius through each line of the form and asked if he used a GPS when he went out on patrol.
He shook his head.
Nigel pulled a map out of a drawer in the table and placed it in front of me. “They use this grid system.” He pointed at the squares. “They estimate which block they are in and write it down.”
“Oh, okay, that's good.” I looked at the map. “I assume this grid is geo-referenced in some way so that GPS coordinates could be added later?”
Nigel nodded. “We have one GPS, but the whole region needs access to it, which is why the game guards don't take it out on patrol.”
“So, you could add in the coordinates when you get the reports each month?”
Nigel scratched his scalp under his cap. “If that would be helpful.”
I looked around. “Is there a computer in the office?”
Nigel shook his head. “I requested one a year ago so that I could enter forms electronically, but I haven't received one yet.”
“WIA might be able to help with that.”
“That would be great.”
I put my finger next to another line on the form. “Here's where you write details about the number and sex of elephants, possible cause of death, approximate age of the carcass, and whether ivory had been removed or is still intact.” I moved down to the bottom of the form. “This section refers to any biological samples that might have been taken for testing, and where the samples were sent.”
I looked up at Nigel. “It's all pretty basic stuffâstuff you guys probably already collect. It just helps to have a generalized form so that data can be maintained on a continent-wide basis.”
Finnius held the form and nodded. “We can do this.”
Nigel stood up. “Great! Saving elephants one form at a time. Now, let's go pay the induna a visit.”
We got into Nigel's truck and drove in silence for a good long while, all lost in our own thoughts. I appreciated the quiet, which gave me time to psychologically ramp up for my flight that evening, not having any idea of what to expect or what potential dangers lay ahead.
When we got to the kraal, the same crooked old man was sitting on a bent metal bench waiting to receive us. He got up and slowly walked over to us as we got out of the Land Rover.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the dense bush on the other side of the kraal. A distraught young boy burst out of the foliage.
“Leto! Leto!”
The boy cried out the Lozi word for elephant, and then stopped in his tracks at the sight of us. He stared at me. Then he looked to the old man.
The old man nodded and opened the door to the kraal. The boy disappeared behind him.
Two wailing women then burst from the acacia thicket wearing faded native wrap skirts, each holding a watermelon on top of her head. They, too, stopped short upon seeing us. They brought their watermelons down and held them to their chests, seemingly half embarrassed and half angry at our intrusion on their privacy.
The old man spoke curtly and motioned them to enter the kraal. As they disappeared, the wailing began again.
Nigel leaned over to me and whispered, “The induna's wife. And his wife's sister.”
I nodded as we stood listening to the loud and rapid-fire complaints.
Finnius clucked his tongue and whispered an interpretation. “Elephants ate everything. Banged drums, but the elephants chased them. When the farmer ran out of shots, elephants chased again.”
There was silence beyond the door again. Then the door creaked open. The little boy spoke to the old man, who, in turn, spoke to Finnius and Finnius to Nigel. “The induna will speak to you now.”
As we walked into an open courtyard, the two women carried a tiny shriveled man from his dark sleeping hut bundled in blankets. They propped him against the outside wall of the hut on a reed mat. He was fighting a malarial fever of sweats and shivers. The boy placed a long wooden bench at the other side of the reed mat as the women sunk into the shadows.
After a long silence, the induna collected himself, eyes still adjusting to the bright daylight. He looked up at Finnius and pointed to the bench for us to sit.
Nigel knelt down and performed the local hand-over-hand clapping greeting before taking a seat, as the induna looked away shyly, one hand over the side of his face. Finnius and I followed suit in clapping.
“
Musuhili,
Induna Munali,” Nigel spoke loudly, reaching to shake the induna's hand in between his hand-over-hand clapping.
The induna shook hands weakly, clapped, and rebundled himself.
“I understand you have malaria.”
The induna nodded.
“Do you have enough chloroquine?”
Finnius interpreted and the induna spoke, and then Finnius relayed the induna's words to Nigel. “Don't you have any better medicines?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“There is too much itching with chloroquine.”
“Yes, it is a problem.” Nigel cleared his throat. “Induna, I came to introduce Catherine Sohon, our elephant census pilot. But I can see that you are still not well. Perhaps we should come back another day?”
The induna nodded for them to proceed.
“Right. Catherine has also offered to work with the game guards to help them fill in the required forms on elephant mortalities when they go out on patrol.”
Finnius whispered into the induna's ear, and the induna listened earnestly. Then he spoke to Finnius for a long time, gesticulating weakly.
Finnius finally turned and spoke to Nigel again. “She needs to keep those elephants on the other side of the river.”
I looked to Nigel to see how to respond.
Outside, a group of wailing women approached, and one burst into the induna's courtyard, crying hysterically.
“Leto!”
she screamed and fell into the induna's wife's lap. “Lubinda,” she whimpered. “Moffit is dead.”
The women tried to soothe their friend.
The distraught woman took a deep breath and glared at Nigel. “That elephant killed my husband!”
The induna scowled and spoke tersely to Finnius, and Finnius interpreted. “The induna would like you to go out to the field right now to see what the elephants have done. He is very upset. This is the second time an elephant has killed a farmer this season, and nothing has been done. He wants you to see for yourself and report this incident to the minister.”
I looked at Nigel and we both nodded.
“Of course.” Nigel bowed his head. “We want to help you solve this terrible problem.” He looked at the widow. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
Nigel stood up clapping his good-bye, and I followed suit as we left the somber courtyard. The induna's young son followed us out and jumped into the back of the truck. He guided Nigel down a narrow track that led to a series of patchy cornfields far in the distance.
“How often does this happen?” I asked Nigel.
“At least once a year.”
“Really?”
He lit his pipe. “Same outside Kruger, I expect?”
“Not so much. The fences along the South African border are pretty effective at keeping elephants in. Lots of money for management. A lot of dedicated folks.”
“Sounds refreshing.”
“Maybe I could have found a way to stay if I was in a different mental space.”
“That's the way I feel about this place.”
“Let's hope that's not contagious.”
“Oh, it is.” He looked at me ominously as he took a big puff on his pipe and exhaled. “It bloody well is.”
We drove through a Terminalia woodland that opened out onto the floodplain with Susuwe just across the river. There were cornfields planted all up and down the Kwando River just across from the reserve. I couldn't help but wonder how people thought that they wouldn't be attracting elephants with fields this close to the river and no buffer zone to separate their food from a hungry elephant.
We got out of the truck and stood in a sparse dry cornfield with very few stalks standing. A crowd of women and children looked on while the trampled body of a man was being wrapped in a cloth. We watched the body being carried away by two of the other farmers.
I kept my head down reverently as the body passed by, finding it impossible to imagine the horror of the poor farmer's last moments. An elephant following through with its charge was not something I wanted to envision.
This was not the introduction to the community that I had hoped for. I felt that I was intruding on something that I had no business being a part of and wished that I could leave. But if I left, it would have seemed as if I didn't care. I had to stay to pay my respects and remind myself of the deadly dilemma that these farmers faced on a nightly basis.
Some of the women walked back and forth, weeping and wailing in anguish. Others had formed a circle underneath a small thatched roof and wavered between humming and moaning as smoke wisped away from last night's fires around the crop, lit to keep elephants away.
Finnius shook his head. “They were in the middle of harvest when the elephants came last night.” He pointed to a partially eaten pile of corn on the ground. “The farmers chased them, but they came back very early this morning. Moffit ran at them and shot his shotgun in the air. One charged but didn't stop. Moffit was crushed.”
I shook my head just as a small young woman approached me in a bright orange and yellow wrapped skirt, similar to the one I had just bought at the local market. Her hair was straightened and curved around her moon-shaped face. “You will not find anything here but the elephants' dinner.” She folded her arms aggressively. “And their kill.”