Last of a Thousand Year Flood

Of Land Grabs, Monitor Lizards and a Foolish Fisherman

3  March 2000

“There is always something new from Africa” — Ancient Roman Saying

A storm is brewing across the Olifants River, where I was writing this Dispatch.  Usually when there was wind or lightning, the phone lines would go dead and remain out of service for several days, thus shutting off communication to the outside world.

Outside it looks like there’s going to be a bit of a storm. Hopefully the phone likes will stay intact so I can send this off first.

Well, another week has flown out the window, never to return. Meanwhile the monitor lizards have been back several times. They’ve been formally adopted now as part of the domestic population, and as is common practise when one adopts something, they now sport names. The smaller one is called “Sandra,” because of her resemblance to Grandma’s hairdresser. The other one is called “Freddie,” in memory of the lunatic-psychopath from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” thriller series. Sparkplug hasn’t learnt that they are bad news yet. He still has his moments of bravado in which he tries to get at Freddie, but each time Fred sends him rolling with one powerful flick of the tail!

Here I am back on the old farm with a pet monitor lizard of mine - a pretty small specimen still. Notice the gloves. That baby could bite with incredible force. It never really tamed down, and neither did the second one I had. That was my school uniform and I was probably about 17 years old.

By this time the news about Mozambique has become like so much stale bread, but it seems that the saga continues yet. It is still raining heavily in parts of the country. There have been new floods in Natal, and of course, much of the water from South Africa is still added to Mozambique as the rivers drain to the Indian ocean. The neighbour’s brother-in-law is a commercial pilot flying supplies into Mozambique at the moment. He says that what we’ve seen on TV so far is not a fraction of what it really is like. He says it is too terrible to describe how you literally see people dying all around you, with your very eyes.

In the meantime, the foreign aid people in our little town of Hoedspruit has been welcomed with open arms. One lady reported that some American soldiers walked into her clothes shop, and promptly bettered her best ever takings by 300%. Of course, with the US Dollar buying almost 6,5 Rands, and the Pound buying about 10,5 Rand, South Africa is a shopper’s paradise for them, and they do seem to shop till they drop. One thing is sure, everybody will be sad to see the foreigners go. Hoedspruit airforce base has been crawling with giant Russian Antanov freight planes, American Galaxies, British Telstars and droves of helicopters, but I’ve seen some of the big boys leaving this week. I was glad to note that so far the foreigners have reported that they have been delighted by the way that the South African officers and locals have welcomed them with old-fashioned hospitality. Even the droves of reporters, photographers and other sensation-vultures seem to be getting along well with the locals.

But there has been once incident which has been rather sad. This week some Americans went to explore some of our gorgeous waterfalls in the mountains. They climbed to the top of one of them, where one slipped and hit his head. The waters carried him away, and his friends just couldn’t rescue him in time. One of them who tried to get to him, broke his leg, and before he could do more, the poor fellow dropped over the edge and fell 70 metres to his death. I hear he worked as an aircraft mechanic for the Mozambique rescue workers. How sad that this poor man had to die when having come to save others...

Over in Zimbabwe the trial for the remaining farmers is still continuing. By this time 600 farms have been invaded by land-grabbing war-veterans in a move which the courts have declared illegal, but which has been un-officially sanctioned and encouraged by president Robert Mugabe. The courts have ruled that the squatters are to be evicted, but so far the police have refused to obey the court ruling. So the saga continues. I’m reminded of an acquaintance whose father once owned two profitable gold mines in Tanzania. He was kicked out with the clothes he had on his back. The same thing happened to him in Zambia. And after the drama when Rhodesia fell to the communists, he walked into South Africa with nothing. A once very rich man of seventy years old, who had to start all over as a motor car mechanic. These are the silent stories which the world’s newspapers have ignored completely. Many people are now saying that they’ve drifted from Kenya from state-to-state and now that South Africa is going down the drain, there is just nowhere else to go for them anymore.

Zimbabwe in the good old days - here my dad is staring out over the Zambezi Valley - or MMOBA as the settlers would say - "miles and miles of bloody Africa." This was before the land-grabs and before the wildlife was so sadly decimated. We have many happy memories from that valley.

Closer to home, our roads have first sunk into a series of potholes, and now whatever has been left between the potholes, is crumbling away like cookies. I had to make a trip to neighbouring Tzaneen on Monday, but came to a dead end in front of a flooded bridge. With long lines of cars waiting on both sides, we just stood around and watched the water for a long time. Big trucks and high four-wheel drive vehicles could get through, but a few of the more dilapidated vehicles tried as well. Amazingly, all of them made it. They emerged with water streaming from all doors, fanbelts screaming, and clouds of steam billowing from the hoods. One or two died in the water, but were pushed through by bystanders who preferred a touch adventure to the monotony of just watching the water. Eventually I had to turn around and take a long detour via another route, which was just about as big a mess as I’d ever seen on any road before. That road is GONE! The road connecting Tzaneen to the highway leading to Johannesburg has also been closed by mudslides so big that it just took the trees from uphill and re-planted them all over the highway! Bulldozers have now cleared a two-track trail so that four wheel drive vehicles can get through. In places I had to drive through lakes of water that came up to the car’s belly, and in some spots it was as if there were rivers flowing across, as wide as a football field. On the upside though, are the numerous wonderful waterfalls in the mountains where hadn’t been any in probably 20 years of intermittent drought.

It is hard to say how all the damage will be repaired. With mostly sunny skies, we’re all finally beginning to wonder what will happen next, since our province has announced that it is basically bankrupt. There was talk of central government funds to be allocated, but now that there have been other big floods all over the country, this will probably amount to very little. I know in Zambia the tar roads are so completely wrecked that everybody just drives on the gravel next to the roads now. In the Free State, my neighbour tell me, they’ve already scraped the tar off some of the important roads, and turned them back into gravel. But there’s a funny twist to the story... Out of 150 graders that the government was supposed to have had on its books, they could only find about fifty at best. Nobody knows what had happened to the rest! Just one more example of what’s going on in government.

Not surprising when you consider that and automatic teller machine was stolen from the national police headquarters in Pretoria. Or that a coin minting machine was stolen from the national mint, where it is said that it is physically impossible to steal so much as one cent! Or that high court judges are constantly having their wallets, cellphones and valuables stolen by their own people in court, or that in the Union Buildings (our government headquarter buildings), the ministers have to lock their office doors when they go to the bathroom, because when they get back, they frequently find computers and personal items stolen. Our president talks a lot about the “Great African Renaissance,” but this seems to be the biggest pie-in-the-sky since the Great Communist Dream.

In 1988 I met a man who told me that his brother worked for the CIA and that he had told him that South Africa would follow the classic road of Africa quite soon. He wanted to know when the government would change and “it would no longer be possible to hunt in South Africa.” Like the naïve boy I was, I told him that that would never happen without a bloody revolution or civil war first. Well. It seems to be happening, and we never even came close to a civil war! Where hunting is concerned, the government seems to be intent on killing the industry with its new hostile firearm legislation. Indications are that the new law will probably pass relatively unaltered. Foreigners will no longer be able to hunt with borrowed or hired rifles. They will have to be able to prove that they are competent users of rifles when they get into the country (nobody seems to have thought about how they should demonstrate their abilities to customs). And professional hunters, ranch-owners and farmers will no longer be allowed to own large calibre rifles, or own anything more than the smallest number of weapons possible. Handguns are to be severely restricted and preferably eliminated entirely. So no wonder so many white South Africans are still leaving the county for colder climes where there still appears to be a long-term future for them.

Back on home front, Joseph has decided that it is fun to supplement his diet with fish. So every day after work, he heads down to the river to go and fish. He knows about the crocodiles, but he doesn’t want to listen to warning and stay away from the water’s edge. The fishing isn’t great now, but he’s happy with his little eight inch yellowfish. It makes me think of a guy we had milking the cows years ago. He always had a bit of a bad attitude and I never liked him much. But one day I saw him walking with what appeared to be a large goose. So I called my dad and we set out in pursuit. It turned out that he had one of our large spurwing goose underneath his arm. At the question of what he was planning on doing with our goose, he nonchalantly replied that he was going to eat the poor beast! The exclamations which followed next are best left unspoken, but suffice to say that he was very rapidly relieved of his meal and hastily sent along his way.

This is where Joseph would sit and fish. The picture was taken during the inter months when the Elephants River is at its lowest. But even so, crocodiles are stealthy creatures who are well-skilled at making a meal of unwise fishermen.

This poor spurwing goose was part of a whole bundle of little downy chicks which one of our game guards once brought home from the veld, all tucked into his shirt and wriggling around his tummy. (Incidentally, you don’t want to transport them like that if you’re of European descent, cause they frequently carry poultry-lice which most of us find distressing in our clothes...) We raised them by hand, and they all turned into beautiful big birds, tame and full of character. They used to fly away and return for years and years. Most of them actually became quite old. So it was with some disgust that we viewed this attempt at kidnapping a docile pet for the purpose of one cheap meal...                                               

Over the years, I’ve had all kinds of really odd pets. But none as odd as the guy not far from here who has got a young hippo. She’s taken over his entire swimming pool, and it is an odd sight to see the massive animals squeezing herself through the doorpost in order to go and lie with the dogs in front of the TV! Oh, and then there have been a couple of cattle ranchers who have had giraffes too. It becomes a bit tricky to feed them when they grow up. You just can’t hold the bottle high enough! One of our most successful wild animal pets was Lulu. She was a tiny little waterbuck when we found her, blind in one eye. But she grew up into a big animal who thought she was a baby still. She’s still around on the old ranch. Leave a door open and she’s in the house in a flash. Quite eagerly looking forward to the perverse adventure of leaving a gigantic puddle on the carpet! Quite a few guests have reacted with wonder at the sight of seeing Lulu asleep in the garden, with a dog sleeping on her back. (They liked that in winter, because Lulu was a warm sleeping-mat!) There was also a red hartebeest that used to love surprising people by sneaking into the house, and critters of all other kinds, but those are stories for another time...

Right now I think I’ve said enough. Time to go and do something constructive once more.

Best wishes for a really good week.
Herman