An Elephant Bull Called Elizabeth and Other Short Stories from Africa

Crocodile

Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe's purged vice president has just risen, phoenix like, from the ashes.  Backed by the army he is 'routing out criminals' said to be taking advantage of an old man and making a power grab i.e. ending Grace Mugabe's malignant influence over her octogeneric husband, Bob.

What has that to do with tales of the bush?  Nothing really except that Mnangagwa's nick name is 'Crocodile' and, as such, he is not the only crocodile that has figured in the events of my life.  There have been others and those have very nearly left me with more permanent damage than the memories of a ZANU PF ruling class full of strangely wealthy marxists. 

I was young and it was exciting; though I must admit that most people would not find the endless scenery scrolling past the window as anything other than, occasionally, picturesque.  Never the less I was engrossed in the view as the bus trundled along.  To me it was a rich tapestry of farmlands interspersed by bush and, now and then, a somewhat less interesting sleepy town.  Karoi was dropping behind us and rumour was that it was the last decent sized town before our destination, the shores of Lake Kariba.  Of course others knew better than I, they had been to Kariba before.  Despite my yearning at the young age of thirteen, or was it fourteen at the time, to be out in Zimbabwe's spectacular wilderness my parents were townies, firmly rooted in their urban lifestyle and only venturing beyond the city limits to visit my grandparents out on the farm they ran for the government.  In contrast others on the bus, with more adventurous parents, would have visited Kariba often either to go fishing or to enjoy game-viewing from a boat along the shores of this huge dam.

'There'

Staring desperately out the window I tried to see where exactly 'there' was.  We had just reached the turn off for Kariba and somewhere out the window, in the distance there was, apparently, a couple of elephants.  To this day I convince myself that I saw them but in all honesty I would have had a hard time giving a description under oath.  I had never seen an elephant before and was desperate not to be the only one who hadn't.

A couple of hours later and finally the Scripture Union bus ground to a halt in the camp site that would be home for the coming week.  I was thrilled.  Not because I was religious and looked forward to a bit of prayer and worship but because I had finally made it to the bush.  There was no other reason for me to be on an SU camp to be honest.  However it worked for the parents to have one less child hanging around, bored, in the school holidays and it certainly worked for me to be out here.  I was more than happy to pay my way by attending the lessons etc. that would be required of me.

The next day and the SU teachers gathered everyone around as we tumbled out of the bus, trying to ensure that none went astray in such a dangerous place.  We had settled into camp quite quickly after arrival the previous day before being given the good news; the first full day was to be a day of outings, the first of these to the Croc Farm.  As you can imagine I was well chuffed to be driving through this magnificent bush to various places and then getting to see crocodiles up close to boot.

The croc farm owner greeted us and set down a couple of ground rules.  Fairly obvious ones to be fair but then perhaps he suspected that not all of us had much experience outside of the confines of a town.  What-ever my level of experience at that moment I was about to move up a category.

Setting off the owner happily chatted away explaining the ins and outs of croc farming; assuring us that despite harvesting eggs from the wild they were not harming the local crocodile population as, having safely incubated eggs that might otherwise have been vulnerable to predation, they put ten percent of the take back in the wild; far more than would naturally survive incubation.