Reflections on South Africa: Part One

     For the most part,  I don't care for writing that appears in a series format, the Part I, II, III-type thing.  And at first, I had planned to present this as words as a split page, the "good" version on one side and the "bad" version on the other.  But I felt that that would prove confusing, and besides I had more reflections than just the good and the bad.  Writing, at least for me, comes down to a few "styles," one of which is the almost purely emotional type that has little editing; this type of writing is the raw, the touching, the shocking thoughts that come flooding into one's head and have to be "dumped" quickly lest they be lost.  Often some writers will falsely convince themselves into thinking that they'll remember such feelings and relive the intensity of the moment; but such vivid initial writing usually becomes lost or diluted.  The other style (in my opinion) is the reader version, the draft copy that becomes a finished copy, one that is perhaps less personal but captures a more general view of whatever has happened.  Such printable versions are most of what arrives in these posts (admittedly, I shot out the last post on my outdated tablet and only now realized that it was filled with grammatical errors, errors which I have hopefully corrected...it was written in the first style, "on the fly").  

     This post, the bad, emerged for a few reasons...the last few days spent in the area of South Africa where we stayed at saw us witnessing the results of poachers, the graphic photos displaying the sheer number of animals taken down by snares and poisons and bullets; the discovery that money offered to poachers in the form of bribes to judges or cash to peasants, was peanuts overall to syndicates and those folks with no financial worries, but represented a fortune to animals...their lives.   Even with the tourist dollars bringing in far more than the trophy hunting fees-- the lives of animals in this part of South Africa are apparently basically meaningless to some, since photo after photo showed the brutality of it all (one anti-poaching unit told us that often some 50 snares will be set in a small area so animals would have little chance of escape; if 15 animals were snared and the poacher only needed the parts of two, then the poacher would take only those parts and leave the other animals to just die or be eaten by other predators, not releasing or killing them despite the ever-tightening snares that cut deeper into their throats and necks and cause an agonizingly-slow death).  I tried to "erase" some of those words and images, only to find myself watching a documentary on the plane ride home, one hosted by David Attenborough on extinction and which showed a trophy hunter spotting a rhino desperately trying to hide behind a bush; the "hunter" quickly pulls up his rifle and fires a shot which only grazes the rhino who tries to moves\ away but the guide fires a bullet that takes the rhino down.  The hunter excitedly runs up to the still-breathing rhino and cocks his bolt-action for what will apparently be "the kill" (the clip gracefully ends before the fatal shot or shots).  

     Adding to those biting images was yet another long flight home (putting together all the connections, flight times, and the waits in airports and it came out to be about 40 hours going down and 36 hours coming home) so yes, I was tired...I was also raw and cranky and dealing with a bad attitude invisibly floating around somewhere in my head; the words came out quickly and soon turned into this negative version of what I thought of our visit.  But as you'll read in other posts to follow, it wouldn't be long before I would realize that while the anger was there, anger at how such things could still be happening, it was only a fading ember compared to the wonder and the beauty of the rest.  So fair warning...if you think that you may also be affected by reading such words (nothing too graphic but also not much of it is uplifting) then just skip this post and jump over the post coming in a few days (the "good" part), which will be followed by a few other posts of the actual visit, the center we stayed at, the people we met, and the stunning amount to animals we witnessed in the wild.  South Africa was a long ways to go, and certainly not a perfect place, but a country truly loaded with memories, memories both good and bad...so that said

First, the bad (this was the original title I intended for this post)...

Lion rescued from snare, treated and set free

     Africa, at least the southern part of Africa --the animal part, the tribal dance part, the poaching part, the names you all recognize part (Kalahari, Kilimanjaro, the Zambezi, Kruger)--all of it will jumble your head.  The contrasts are everywhere: the beauty mixed in with the brutality, the hopelessness mixed in with the passionate dedication, the rural poverty mixed in with the sparkling beauty of the Johannesburg airport, the sleek grace of wild animals living in a wild we would never know as we comfortably viewed them 9-deep in our raised steel-plated vehicles.  You go to bed each night with wonder and awe that such wildlife can exist, and later have the thought that you may be among the last to see this "wildness."  We are killers and have been for a long time, killers of anything stronger or more powerful or more beautiful than us.  That spotted leopard coat speckled with those black rosettes?  I want to wear that.  That gaudy striped zebra skin of little practical use?  I want that on my floor or maybe someplace even more useless like hanging in my den.  I point all of this out because we tourists and scientists and lovers of nature want to see these animals in the wild, to have them block the roads and make us fear trying to pass them.  We want to see that it exists with our own eyes  But we don't really want to know that badly, at least not enough to slow our own human population growth and our hunger and our forcing out these animals into smaller and smaller areas.  Kruger has far too many elephants, but then so does the world.  No country or zoo or game reserve wants to pay to dart and ship them out (Kruger almost secretly culls the excess now and then in order to protect the area needed for other species). We saw a few dozen elephants in nearly 9 hours. Too many?  

Number of snares removed in past 6 months from just 4 small areas.

     What we did see were full railings of poaching snares, barbed and barbaric wire traps meant to snag an animal trying to flee; place 50 snares in a small area and take only the animal you want.  Leave the rest, even if alive.  The snares were from just 4 smaller reserves, and represented just those that had been found since the beginning of the year.  People want to eat, or get paid.  And the money is good.  Rhino horn is now the most valuable product on earth, worth more than diamonds or gold or ivory.  One field vet of nearly 38 years said that what he's found is that among most of the surrounding cities and villages, animal lives mean nothing, nada, zero.  So that's how you fall asleep, watching the numbers drop and drop. Lions in Africa, from 200,000 a hundred years ago to just a hundredth of that number today...90% killed in little more than as many years.  Passenger pigeons and buffalo on a grander scale.  But we want to see one; admittedly we came to see one.  A lion, a Cape buffalo, even an elephant, can easily outrun a human; but they can't outrun a bullet, at least not one that can cross four or five or six football fields in a single second. 

School meal being prepared...at a "wealthier"school

     And then you awaken, the sky so blazingly orange-red that you wonder if there is some fire happening just over the horizon.  This land is so achingly large that it makes Big Sky country seem small.  It is as if you could stand on a ladder and see the earth curve before you.  This is the beauty you crave and the wonder you want.  This is the wild, the primitive, but also the time you are glad that you can safely slide back into your car and not think about just what may be out there.  This is the time when big cats seek to earn their reputation as being the only two carnivores on the Big Five list.  The time when giraffes wake up from their quick five-minute sleeps, and elephants do much the same (although being larger they need an extra 15 minutes).  It is a time for the poachers to avoid being seen and for most of the animals to do the same.  Now it is also your chance for the bundled-up tourists are searching more for a cup of coffee than a zebra.  On the streets it is again a time for street vendors to practice their English, to learn to say "support me" or "I carve this myself," even if a hundred identical birds and drums and place mats sit in huts as far as you dare walk.  Children head to school and jam themselves three to a desk while teachers do their best to hope that they have enough chalk or pencils.  School is 8 to 4 and there is much to learn but little to feed, perhaps rice and a type of vegetable soup, but a few large pots of the mixture must make it to all 900 students.  Luckily, this is a primary school so even the 12-year old stomach will be small. The teachers will carry-on.

     There is that brightness however, that hope among those not wanting to stop fighting, to pick up the snares and to mend the wounds even if you heard that 60% of the rangers meant to be protecting the animals in Kruger are likely poachers themselves (talk to most anyone and they will tell you the same, but also throwing in the politicians and the police, the ministers and the justices).  The animals mean nothing, just a bribe to help pay for the mistress, or money for another car, or simply meat for their children.  But the animal itself...nothing.

Another lion snared; this lion also survived

      Depressing?  Yes, it is very depressing.  But that's how your mind gets jumbled.  You begin to lose hope.  You see the streets full of more and more people and wonder how will they eat when unemployment is near 40%.  But then how can you help, other than downing another beer and gobbling your steak until you feel that you can eat no more?  The anti-poaching teams work on minimal funds, or sometimes no funds, all while the syndicates recruit ever more willing and desperate helpers, dropping token money as they dry out another batch of pangolin scales or add a bit of lion-bone powder to their faltering bodies.  Something dead feeding something dying.  It is another contrast, another shock to your mind of how all that you believed, that justice would prevail, has been sold to the highest bidder.  The Saudis, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the high rollers with rifles far bigger than they'll ever be...the usual suspects.  The die has been cast, at least for now, and all you are seeing are the animals losing their bets at the crap table.  Rhinos, hippos, sables, leopards, each fleeing as fast as they can without realizing that the merry-go-round they're on is about to return to its starting position.  Target practice and the winner soon boards his flight home.  Let that thin guy go hungry.  Let that baby impala find another father.  Let the good times roll until next year's trip, the one where that polar bear is in that unbearably cold part of the world.  Running out of space on that wall, but then there's always those other houses to decorate.  So tough to choose.

     Africa does that, dazzles you with herds of zebras while making you wish you weren't hoping just one of them would be taken down in a chase; how cool a way would that be for you to tell you friends that you watched a kill, and one by a lion no less.  Yeah, now we're talking.  Hey, here come the hyenas, oh, and the vultures.  Cool.  And check it out, that Cattleman's restaurant in Kruger even serves a Beyond Burger.  Think I'll get that when I visit.  Gotta stop eating so much meat. 

     Someday perhaps the cars will break down as the animals charge.  Someday the rifles will jam.  But then the humans would come in blazing. Time to eliminate ALL the dangerous predators, maybe shift to robotics or some AI hologram.  Save the canned farms for the sportsmen, the only "sport" with the word men after it.  Now we're talking.  Okay Cecil, open that cage for Chuck here; let's hope that old bugger isn't too stiff from being crammed up in there and can still get a get 50-yard head start.

     I admire the people dedicated to fighting the fight, the ones wondering just how much longer they can make their payroll and rebuild their torn fencing.  Wondering just how many more days they can count on their 4Runner or be able to feed their animals.  Or how many more children they can convince that this is the right path and that they are the future.  Or how long before we add another animal to the extinct list.  I saw and admired and supported the many workers I saw, each as fiercely dedicated as the other.  They had a passion you rarely see these days, a true belief that things would turn around.  Soon the people of the world would come to their senses, perhaps right after this climate-change thing.  And I tip my hat to all of them.  Heck I'll even join them.  Theirs is a good cause, and I might add, a damn good cause.  Heck, I already eat Beyond Burgers.

     But Africa, this part of Africa.  Malaria pills and all, it messes you up.  How can all of it continue to exist side-by-side as if they go together.  Yin and yang.  The good and the bad.  I bring down my tourists dollars and pay forty-five cents for a beer.  How can you make money with prices like that?  And yet those tourists dollars bring in far more than those hunting dollars, Dick Cheney included.  So there's that.  That hope.  Perhaps those do-gooders are right, that they'll win in the end.  It may be a pyrrhic victory but a victory nonetheless.  So keep coming you gazers, come see the grazers...gazers for grazers.  It's pretty cool, and other than the grasses being trimmed, you can see full bellies without any blood.  Let's save that for the neighbors.  The "cool" neighbors....

WARNING: I purposely placed this last photo down a few marks from these words since the picture is reality but graphically so; it shows the number of rhinos poached in just this small part of South Africa, and just in the past 5 years. If you think that you may be find the photo below offensive, please STOP NOW and do not view the photo.  I decided to display this horrifying image because it will give you an idea of lack of value poachers and trophy hunters put on life (this picture represents only those rhinos killed by poachers, although the numbers killed by trophy hunters would be somewhat similar).  Need I mention again that rhino horn is now considered the most valuable underground commodity in the world?