The elephants of thula t.., p.10
The Elephants of Thula Thula, page 10
He looked at the little scrap and said dismissively, ‘We call them Maurichien.’
It was a pun on the word Mauritian – Maurice, French for Mauritius, and chien meaning ‘dog’. I did not take that as a compliment! Basically, it means she’s no breed at all – she’s just a dog, a nobody, a regular Mauritian street hound. That may be so, but she left there with a full deck of vaccinations, all the blood tests, and a nice fancy collar and lead. I engaged a pet travel company to arrange the details. Poor Tina, she looked so confused to find herself shut up behind bars – in a five-star kennel, mind. I put my sarong in her cage, hoping that she would be comforted by the smell of me, and left, feeling very sad.
Two months later, on 30 January 2019, Tina arrived in Durban. She recognized me straight away and ran towards me wagging her tail and looking for pats and cuddles. We were both so delighted to be reunited! She is still a very happy, good-natured and affectionate dog, who seems to know that she got very, very lucky.
When we fetched her, I thought about all the trouble we had to go to to get a dog into South Africa, and I said to Clément, ‘What a performance. Imagine if humans had to get all those tests before we travelled anywhere.’ Little did I know that a year later, a virus would arrive that would require just that.
Like me, Lynda is a crazy dog-lover with a soft heart. She hadn’t been here long when our local animal shelter called to say they had a mother Labrador with seven puppies, some golden and some black. We went to take a look. The mother didn’t look well, and we wondered how she would feed those puppies, and whether they would all survive. I said to Lynda, ‘If you want one, get one, and I’ll get one. We can’t save them all, but we can save two.’
Lynda, being a clever farm girl, chose the biggest, strongest one, a golden Lab who she called Miley. I got a little black one and named her Chéri. Both puppies soon became very sick with parvovirus. Miley survived, but poor Chéri died within a week. We later discovered that the rest of the litter and the mother got very ill and had to be put down. Our Miley is the sole survivor, a big, friendly girl and a typical Labrador. She might be fast asleep at the other end of the garden, but if I open the fridge, she’ll be right next to me with her big brown eyes, pleading starvation and hoping for a treat from the big white box from which delicious snacks seem to emerge. If you ever meet Miley, you will see that she is certainly not being starved!
Thula Thula might be famous for its elephants, but it’s the dogs that rule my life. Every one of them has their own cushion or bed. Even so, the sofas in my house are covered with blankets, because our dogs sleep, sit, walk and jump on the furniture. I cook them special soups and stews – free-range chicken, mind you, no battery hens for me or my doggies – and I keep a big glass jar of dog treats on my desk just in case anyone needs a snack. I am always letting a dog out or letting a dog in, cooking for, feeding, patting or talking to them.
I often have eight dogs in my bedroom, which doesn’t make for the most peaceful night as they take their chances trying to jump up on the bed. Inevitably, someone will start barking at a buck in the garden or an imaginary intruder and then they’ll all join in in a great cacophony. But this is what we signed up for when we decided to adopt these little innocent and abandoned creatures. We are all part of the pack, for better or for worse. And I have no regrets – even after a sleepless night.
Every time I leave home to go down to the Lodge or the Tented Camp, the dogs look at me with sadness in their eyes, as if they fear being abandoned. And when I come back to the house, some half an hour later, they welcome me as if I had been away for days. Witnessing this unconditional love, I just tell them softly, ‘No my little angels. You know I will never leave you.’
The dogs benefit so much from the communal lifestyle here at Thula Thula. They move between the houses in the compound at main house, or visit the ladies in the office. If I go away, my dogs just move in with Lynda or Kim. I look after their dogs when they go on leave. There’s always someone to give a dog a treat or a pat.
I wish that the animal shelters could be empty of the abandoned creatures they care for, and that every dog in the world could be as happy and spoiled and loved as the dogs of Thula Thula.
14
Thabo vs The Big Digger
As well as the sanding, scraping, painting and polishing, there was one huge maintenance job that needed doing during lockdown – fixing our dirt roads. They were in shocking shape and getting worse by the year. There were potholes and dongas, teeth-rattling ridges and rocks, and slippery sandy bits that were quite treacherous when wet. After a hard rain, we couldn’t drive on some of them for hours or even days – it was just too dangerous. The roads were empty of guests and game drives, and it would be the perfect time to work on them. But fixing up roads isn’t like sanding furniture. It is a big and expensive job. And besides, surely guests would be coming back soon?
As summer came to an end, and there was no sign of the easing of travel restrictions, I decided to bite the bullet. I would dig into our savings and take the opportunity that Covid presented me with. The dry winter months stretched ahead of us, and there were no guests and no game drives. There would never be a better time to fix the roads. In May 2020, we got to work on this mammoth task. We used the enormous excavator, a TLB, to dig quarries for the stone and gravel we needed.
Thabo hated that excavator. Rhinoceroses look big and tough, but in some ways they are actually very sensitive creatures. They have some of the keenest hearing in the animal kingdom, and can hear sounds and frequencies that we humans can’t. They also pick up vibrations through the ground. The rumbling, digging, grinding and crashing of the earth mover drove Thabo mad. Imagine your next door neighbours having a week-long all-day, all-night dance party, with maximum bass, whilst simultaneously using the leaf-blower in the garden – that’s how poor Thabo felt!
Vusi came to me halfway through the road building process and said, ‘We have to do something about Thabo. Look at this.’
It was a video of the TLB on a mound of sand, with Thabo standing with his feet on the top of the mound and his big head looking into the cab. He seemed to be having a stern word with the driver. I imagined their conversation.
Thabo: ‘Who are you and what do you think you’re doing making all this racket on a Sunday morning?’
Driver, waving his arms in a panic: ‘Fish! What the hell? Get away from my excavator, big fellow!’
Thabo: ‘How about YOU move away, unless you want me to push you away. This is my territory, little human. Now stop making that horrible noise!’
The driver, realizing he was dealing with a very unusual and determined rhino, turned off his engine.
Thabo: ‘That’s better. Now please don’t make me come back and ask you again!’
And with that, Thabo turned on his heel and trotted off, leaving the poor driver shaken but unharmed.
Thabo hates diggers, tractors, rollers, trucks – but he has a particular loathing for the sound of a chainsaw. And honestly, who can blame him? As part of our lockdown maintenance plan, we had a team clearing sickle bush, an aggressive plant which quickly becomes too thick and takes over the grassland. We wanted to get rid of a big area of it to create a more savannah-like terrain in some areas. Hence the chainsaw.
The endless irritating noise got Thabo’s attention. He went in search of the source of this racket, perhaps to have a word with its owner. After all, he had successfully shut up that noisy TLB. What he didn’t know is that we were prepared for his arrival. We couldn’t risk having men on the ground with noisy tools getting a visit from our big boy. Wherever they worked we stationed a whistleblower up a tree. He kept a sharp eye out and if Thabo was spotted – as he often was, attracted by the noise – the whistle blew and the men hot-footed it to the safety of a nearby vehicle. Thabo must have thought he had magical powers. He arrived to investigate the dastardly noise and, poof, it stopped! Just like that. Well done, Thabo!
On one occasion, the whistleblower didn’t get down from the tree in time to join the rest of the team in the car. Thabo made a slow circle round the tree and then looked up, surveying this strange arboreal human with great interest. It was nice and quiet by now – thanks to Thabo’s magical powers. What better time for a nap? That poor man was clinging to the tree for an hour while Thabo dozed, before he finally trotted off, refreshed, to see if any other noisy machines needed to be exterminated.
‘The guys are scared,’ said Vusi, and honestly, who wouldn’t be, with a big rhino appearing at their vehicle’s window or under their tree? ‘If we don’t do something about Thabo, they’re going to quit. And besides, the noise is going to drive Thabo mad!’
I could see his point. We needed to keep Thabo and the workers away from each other, for both their sakes. But what to do?
‘He’ll have to go in the naughty corner,’ I said. ‘We need apples!’
A plan was hatched to entice Thabo to the boma, lock him in, and keep him there while we finished the road maintenance. He would have peace and quiet, and the workers could go about their business without being disturbed by our little hooligan. I bought a big bag of apples – his favourite treat from when he was little. The idea was that Promise would drive the vehicle and Khaya would toss out the apples. Thabo would follow the trail of apples all the way to the boma, just as Hansel and Gretel followed the breadcrumb trail through the forest in the fairy tale. Kim would document the whole adventure in photos and videos. Brilliant plan.
But first, they had to find him.
They set off bright and early. I stayed home and waited for news. Regular WhatsApp messages from Kim kept me updated on their progress:
We found Thabo!
OK, he’s eating an apple
Slowed down. Doesn’t want the apples
I think he suspects it’s a trick
This went on for hours, slowly, slowly enticing Thabo across the reserve to the boma. He lost interest in the apples, and Khaya had to lure him in by pretending to put something down on the ground behind the vehicle. Thabo was suspicious but couldn’t resist coming for a look. He’s a curious chap and he loves to see what the humans are up to. Metre by metre, they edged towards the boma.
And then I got a message:
Thabo has blocked us inside the boma and we can’t get out!
I didn’t know whether to laugh or rush over there in a panic with reinforcements. What had happened, I discovered, is that they finally got Thabo right up to the open gates of the boma. Promise reversed the vehicle slowly into the enclosure, with Khaya still tempting and cajoling Thabo to follow them in. The plan was that when Thabo was inside, they would scoot round him and out of the gate, shutting it behind them.
Except that Thabo hadn’t approved the plan. In fact, Thabo had ideas of his own. Once the vehicle was inside the boma, he lay across the open gate and settled down for a snooze. There he stayed for the next hour. Promise and Khaya and Kim sat in the open vehicle in the blazing sun while Thabo had a nice nap after the day’s exertions. Kim got lots of pictures of a sleeping rhino. Two hours later, the three of them arrived home tired and hungry, but with their mission accomplished. It had taken them the whole day to get that wily boy into the boma – and themselves out.
Khaya described how, when Thabo finally woke up, they started the engine and reversed, gunning the engine to annoy him a little, so he would come in after them. It was a risky plan – as a general rule, you don’t want to annoy a rhino! – but it worked. Thabo trotted inside. They managed to manoeuvre around him and out the gate. Khaya jumped down, slammed and locked the gates, and the job was done. Thabo inside the boma, the rangers and Kim outside, the excavator driver and bush-clearers safe. Everyone happy.
‘Thabo is one smart rhino,’ said Kim with grudging admiration. ‘Never a dull moment with him around!’
15
We All Depend on Each Other
Thula Thula is in the north of KwaZulu-Natal province, in a rural area of Zululand dotted with small villages. It’s a beautiful place, with rolling hills, brightly painted little houses and the round, thatched ‘beehive’ huts traditional to the Zulu people, but it is very poor and with few jobs or government services. As the lockdown took hold, and the weeks and then months passed, the people in the villages suffered terribly.
As well as the humanitarian crisis, this was a conservation crisis. Larry came to me with worrying news from the security and anti-poaching team.
‘Our foot patrol guys are seeing more activity, Françoise,’ he said. ‘We’re finding breaches of the fence, and more snares … It looks like people are poaching for food, or to sell the bush meat for cash.’
‘They are only just getting by in the best of times,’ I said, ‘but with no tourists coming and jobs being cut during Covid, people are literally starving. We need to do something to help them.’
Help came from far away on the other side of the world.
We are very lucky to have loyal, supportive guests – or I should say dear friends – who have a long and deep relationship with Thula Thula and have taken us into their hearts. Some, like the Simonsen family from Denmark, have been staying with us for three generations. They have good relationships with the staff at Thula Thula and support our conservation projects most generously. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when I heard that Susanne Simonsen had been in touch with Mabona and Promise to see how they were doing, and how their communities were faring in these difficult times.
‘I told her that people in Buchanana have no work, and families are trying to survive on a small government grant of a few hundred rand,’ said Mabona, who comes from that village. She has a very special relationship with the Simonsen family – they had invited her to spend her holiday in Denmark the previous year, showing her a marvellous time.
‘Susanne says the family wants to help,’ said Promise. ‘They want to give us money to buy food parcels for the people who are suffering.’
I felt tears come to my eyes. It was extraordinary to me that in these times of great need and great difficulty the world over, this kind woman had thought about our little village in Zululand and reached out to see how she could help.
Before the week was out a generous donation had arrived from the Simonsen Foundation. It went straight into the Conservation Fund, Thula Thula’s non-profit organization, to be used to feed families in the surrounding area. We immediately set to work to put the money to good use in the community.
‘I want to give them nice food and some treats, not just the most basic necessities,’ I said to Victor and Promise, our volunteer academy leaders, who were in charge of buying the food for the parcels. ‘And each parcel must be enough to feed a family for a month.’
They organized food parcels from a big supermarket in Empangeni, our nearest town, loading up on cooking oil, long-life milk, orange squash, bulk bags of chicken pieces, samp and beans, sacks of rice, and more. We packed it all into hampers. It was a big job, but it was very pleasing to see those big food parcels piled up, ready to go out to our community. The five amakhosi identified families who required help in their tribal areas, and we set out to find the needy families. Some of the little homesteads are so remote that they are not even on a road, and we had to carry the food through the bush or up a little footpath. Sometimes the family would spot us drawing up on the main road and come running down a dirt track with a wheelbarrow to collect their provisions. It took days to make the deliveries. And what joy when we arrived! They couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the bakkies arriving with the food parcels.
Little children came running out of their huts to welcome us, calling, ‘Sawubona … Hello’ and clapping and laughing.
The ladies waved their hands and ululated, sending the high-pitched, trilling ‘lalalalalala …’ sound ringing across the rolling hills of Zululand.
Many hands arrived to help unload the bounty. The men and women happily shouldered the sacks of rice and maize, the children running after them, carrying bottles and bags. The response was incredible, and so heartwarming. They live with so little – and with even less since Covid – that getting a bag of food was like winning the lotto.
‘Ngiyabonga … Thank you … Ngiyajabula … We are happy …’ they shouted, waving us on our way.
The people in the villages have a lot to teach us about life. They will share what little they have with a neighbour who has less. In spite of living in poor circumstances, they still sing and dance, and find moments of happiness and joy in difficult times. This work in the community was an extremely emotional experience and quite an eye-opener for many of us. Victor came back quite shaken after coming across a man living alone in a makeshift shelter in the bush.
‘He had nothing,’ he told me. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘A blanket, surely?’
It was winter and the nights were very cold.
‘No bed, no blanket, nothing. What can we do for him?’
Mabona the Lodge manager collected blankets and towels from our stores, and even managed to find him a mattress. Victor delivered them, along with some food. We all felt better knowing that he would at least sleep warmly that night, with something in his tummy.
As much as the smiles and happiness brought me joy, it also brought tears. Most of the people in the villages had little or no education, and most had no job. If they do have work, it is probably in Richards Bay or Empangeni, a long and expensive trip that would eat up most of a miserable salary. Their prospects for a better life were slim.
I thought of my staff at Thula Thula, young ladies and men who were being trained and educated, had a roof over their heads and earned a decent salary. I was proud of them and wished I could employ more of the villagers. I couldn’t help but feel disgusted and furious at the lack of care from the authorities, and the corruption that contributes to the extreme poverty in South Africa. The disparity between these rural people who don’t have even the barest minimum to eat, and the people driving Bentleys and Ferraris and living in mansions in Cape Town or Johannesburg, is sickening. I tried not to dwell on that though. I would rather we put our energy into making a difference where we can.
