Just a slob like all of us . . . Just a some-some some-something ye-ah, ye-ah, God is Love, yeah, yeah God is Love . . .â
I could not help but look around and ask
What if God were one of us?
And the answer was standing there, half-smiling, not quite wide-eyed, not at all drunk, despite my efforts, and beyond bemused: he looked hornswoggled. Earlier he had muttered: âThere are two people â over there. I think they are women!â and indicated the sundeck which overlooked the floating platform around the swimming cage, the dark Kovango and the water monitorsâ reeds.
Everyone called him something else but he told me his name was Joseph: he was the brother of the day barman (of the same name), filling in for the regular night man, who was off, and being given his first taste of the Dionysian side of the camp. The casual, raucous and extraordinarily permissive antics of the white world had perhaps not offended so much as shaken him: he smiled tentatively, nervously, as if witnessing something forbidden but unexpectedly funny.
The next morning we said our farewells and I was given one pearl of advice for the road to Zambia.
âDonât hit an elephant.â
âWhat?â
âSeriously, donât hit an elephant. You will not come off best.â
----
1 UNICEF to 2005.
2 UN Human Development Report, 2002.
CHAPTER 3
Somewhere Like Zambia
Â
Somewhere Like Zambia
IN CERTAIN PARTS of Africa, in the game parks where there are still large numbers of wild animals, a good way of finding swallows is first to find an elephant. Ideally, several elephants, in grassland, and on the move. As they go, swaying along, in the gentle, heavy-hipped way they have, like fat ladies lost in thought, elephants will disturb and put up a great many small insects from the grass. The swallows know this, and so they follow the beasts, and hunt.
âCome on then you elephantine chickens, come out and fight.â
The endless DANGER! ELEPHANTS signs had worn me out. Another storm came up with a fantastic bang, lightning landing like artillery, much too close. The road was dead straight and dead empty. There were only tall trees and occasionally clearings on either side. This part of the strip is a game park and the wartime convoy habit is dying hard.
Byron had said there were hobbies along here, loads of hobbies, but of course until you have seen a bird once it is doubly difficult to see it for the first time. I wished Byron was there.
The Mousebird beeped disconsolately, I swore at her, changed gear, and began singing âFairytale of New Yorkâ to keep my spirits up. All my self-containment was drained: it was a lonely business, leaving half a dozen people who had become fast friends, and taking the wilderness in exchange. I muttered to myself, scolded the car and sang the songâs tune again, changing the words. â ââTwas the day aftervalentines, in Caprivi, and the signs said mind el-ephants, but there werenât any anywayâ . . . Holy mother!
â
There were elephants. Six young bulls, right next to the car. They were standing under a tree, sheltering from the storm and all but winking as we sailed past; I saw their eyes; one elephant looked right at me, through the windscreen. Its expression was amused and happy: that elephant was eating, chewing ruminatively, pressed up against its fellows as they waited for the rain to pass.
I met another, later. He stood in the road just long enough to stop us, a quarter of a mile short, before ambling off to the south. I craned to see him as we passed his spot, but though the cover there was not thick he was quite gone.
I spent the night in Divundu, a steamy dump of a border town with persistent and hungry mosquitoes. The car had a wash in heavy rain and I shivered in a sort of caravan that reeked of damp and rot. I cleared out the Mousebird, brusquely. I knew no good way to leave a beloved. Someone was making a great pilgrimage up
I could not help but look around and ask
What if God were one of us?
And the answer was standing there, half-smiling, not quite wide-eyed, not at all drunk, despite my efforts, and beyond bemused: he looked hornswoggled. Earlier he had muttered: âThere are two people â over there. I think they are women!â and indicated the sundeck which overlooked the floating platform around the swimming cage, the dark Kovango and the water monitorsâ reeds.
Everyone called him something else but he told me his name was Joseph: he was the brother of the day barman (of the same name), filling in for the regular night man, who was off, and being given his first taste of the Dionysian side of the camp. The casual, raucous and extraordinarily permissive antics of the white world had perhaps not offended so much as shaken him: he smiled tentatively, nervously, as if witnessing something forbidden but unexpectedly funny.
The next morning we said our farewells and I was given one pearl of advice for the road to Zambia.
âDonât hit an elephant.â
âWhat?â
âSeriously, donât hit an elephant. You will not come off best.â
----
1 UNICEF to 2005.
2 UN Human Development Report, 2002.
CHAPTER 3
Somewhere Like Zambia
Â
Somewhere Like Zambia
IN CERTAIN PARTS of Africa, in the game parks where there are still large numbers of wild animals, a good way of finding swallows is first to find an elephant. Ideally, several elephants, in grassland, and on the move. As they go, swaying along, in the gentle, heavy-hipped way they have, like fat ladies lost in thought, elephants will disturb and put up a great many small insects from the grass. The swallows know this, and so they follow the beasts, and hunt.
âCome on then you elephantine chickens, come out and fight.â
The endless DANGER! ELEPHANTS signs had worn me out. Another storm came up with a fantastic bang, lightning landing like artillery, much too close. The road was dead straight and dead empty. There were only tall trees and occasionally clearings on either side. This part of the strip is a game park and the wartime convoy habit is dying hard.
Byron had said there were hobbies along here, loads of hobbies, but of course until you have seen a bird once it is doubly difficult to see it for the first time. I wished Byron was there.
The Mousebird beeped disconsolately, I swore at her, changed gear, and began singing âFairytale of New Yorkâ to keep my spirits up. All my self-containment was drained: it was a lonely business, leaving half a dozen people who had become fast friends, and taking the wilderness in exchange. I muttered to myself, scolded the car and sang the songâs tune again, changing the words. â ââTwas the day aftervalentines, in Caprivi, and the signs said mind el-ephants, but there werenât any anywayâ . . . Holy mother!
â
There were elephants. Six young bulls, right next to the car. They were standing under a tree, sheltering from the storm and all but winking as we sailed past; I saw their eyes; one elephant looked right at me, through the windscreen. Its expression was amused and happy: that elephant was eating, chewing ruminatively, pressed up against its fellows as they waited for the rain to pass.
I met another, later. He stood in the road just long enough to stop us, a quarter of a mile short, before ambling off to the south. I craned to see him as we passed his spot, but though the cover there was not thick he was quite gone.
I spent the night in Divundu, a steamy dump of a border town with persistent and hungry mosquitoes. The car had a wash in heavy rain and I shivered in a sort of caravan that reeked of damp and rot. I cleared out the Mousebird, brusquely. I knew no good way to leave a beloved. Someone was making a great pilgrimage up
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