Sundowner Ubunta (18 page)

For the next while, the action and noise of the place was so overwhelming all we could do was sit back, enjoy the ambiance, and stuff our faces. The buffet was a veritable free-for-all of African delights:
bobotie
80 of 170

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

(ground lamb topped with egg custard with yellow rice), mealie bread,
samp
(a boiled corn dish with sugar beans),
chakalaka
(a sweet and spicy blend of cabbage and beans),
snoek
fish, and plenty of
amagwinya
(tiny balls of chewy fried bread).

Much later, when we could eat no more, Joseph suddenly disappeared. I gave Cassandra a questioning look. She returned it. We scoured the room, noting that ours were the only white faces in the crowd. No one seemed to care, so neither did we. There was no sign of our guide. Then, just as quickly as he’d gone, Joseph returned to his seat, setting Cassandra’s lens case, all the lenses in place, in front of her with little fanfare.

We stared at our driver with samp drooling from our open mouths.

“H-how…?” was all Cassandra could utter.

“My friend brought it back for me,” Joseph said simply, mopping up the remaining stew on his plate with some of the mealie bread.

“I don’t understand.”

“
Ubuntu
,” he said as if that one word would satisfactorily explain everything.

Cassandra nodded with a knowing smile on her face. “Of course.”

Of course? Of course? “
Ubuntu
,” I repeated the word to get a feel for it on my tongue. It wasn’t easy to say at first. “What does it mean?”

“It’s an ancient African word,” Cassandra informed me. “It means ‘humanity to others’ it also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’
Ubuntu
brought back my case.”

Uhhhhmmmmm…. “Okay. But how? Why?” I wasn’t getting it.

“For the same reason these people in the townships live so harmoniously together, for the same reason the children were not scared of us today, for the same reason everyone waved at you as we passed by,”

Joseph told me. “They know that without the community, without the care and watchfulness and help of their neighbours, they are nothing. If a man takes a thing that is not his, such as the young, foolish boy did today, he cannot get away with it. The community cannot let him get away with it. To let him keep it is to say it is okay for this boy to steal from others, and if you steal from others you can also steal from me and my brother and my cousin, because we are all the same.” He looked at me hard. “Even the two of you.”

“But we’re not part of this community,” I countered.

“But you are. You were there today. Do you realize that most visitors to our country never visit a township? They are afraid. They don’t understand. You will be surprised to learn that many city people, people who live right next to us as neighbours, many Afrikaners, have never come to our townships to see what it is to live here.” He downed some beer, then continued. “The people in the community know that if they see you with me, they know you are paying me to bring you, and they know the money you pay me is returned to the township and the community.

“So today when that boy stole the case, many others saw this thing happen, there are always others who see, and there are always those who know who did this thing, so I simply told these men where we would be having our dinner tonight and I knew if they could find this boy, and the thing that he took, it would be returned to us, just as they would want us to do for them in return.” He smiled. “
Ubuntu
.”
Ubuntu
. I would not forget it.

Tuli Block is the name given to a small, rugged block of land that pokes out from the far eastern tip of 81 of 170

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

Botswana. It is bordered by the great Limpopo River with geography oddly reminiscent of parts of Arizona or New Mexico (except for the herds of elephants and giraffe that roam wild there). From Tuli Block one can see South Africa to the south and Zimbabwe to the north.

Tuli Block was where Piksteel and Thandile Chikosi had told me I’d find Matthew Moxley.

Tuli Block was where I had to go.

Getting back to the hotel after experiencing
ubuntu
at Lelapha in Langa (not a sentence you hear every day), and bidding Joseph and Cassandra a fond farewell, I returned to my room to do some work. First I called Darren Kirsch. I hadn’t heard back from him before I left for Africa, and I wanted to find out what he had for me on the licence plate belonging to the ninja turtle in the balaclava. But I only got as far as the constable manning the front desk phone who told me Darren was out of town at a training seminar.

Hopefully he was learning about making timely responses to the requests of sexy private eyes.

Next I reached Clara Ridge’s answering machine and left her a message telling her what I’d found out so far and that I was, one way or another, on my way to some place called Tuli Block in Botswana, hot on the trail of her son. Finally, I contacted Roy Hearn and asked him to perform some magic. He definitely came through, getting me a seven a.m. South African Airways flight to Johannesburg, connecting to a 12:30 flight to Tuli Block on Botswana Air, and a reservation at the main camp of the Mashatu Game Reserve in Tuli Block.

I was set. I packed my carry-on and large, soft-sided duffle, arranged a wake-up call, admired the twinkling lights of the V&A Waterfront for the last time, and fell into bed for a deep, deep sleep.

The flight to Joburg-as Johannesburg is sometimes known-was two hours long and uneventful. When I checked in for my connecting flight to Tuli Block, I was pretty pumped to see that Roy had gotten me assigned to seat 3F on the Air Botswana flight. It seemed his connections had gotten me bumped into first class and I wondered what first class, Botswana-style, would be like. I could have kissed Roy Hearn.

Eventually Flight 216 was called and, keener than I sometimes am, I was first at the gate. The woman there took my ticket and directed me through a door behind her which put me outdoors where a white-gloved man pointed me to a huge, waiting bus, the kind with an accordion extension at its back end, like one of those Slinky dogs. I figured, as at many large airports around the world (almost all of which seem to be under interminable reconstruction), the passengers for certain flights had to be ferried to their plane rather than the plane coming to them. Hoisting my bags in front of me I boarded the bus, found a seat and waited for the other passengers.

And waited.

And then the bus doors swished shut.

There were no other passengers.

Maybe they’d taken an earlier bus?

Several minutes later the bus pulled away from the terminal and began its long journey past a United Nations of planes with tails, wings and noses painted in countless patterns and colours denoting their airline or country of origin. As time passed and the bus rumbled along, the planes gradually became smaller and smaller, from jumbo jets to smaller jets to propeller planes until we finally lurched to a stop in front of a wee little white plane about the size of a dragonfly with a blue stripe and no more than seven windows down each side. At the back hatch, opened to reveal a set of Munchkin-land steps, was a young man in a white shirt with official-looking insignia on the chest and shoulders, smiling widely and at-the-ready to hand me a bottle of water as I boarded. I did my best to return the smile, accepted the 82 of 170

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

water, scaled the steps and crouched down to avoid hitting my head as I entered the plane’s body.

Somehow I couldn’t quite believe that I was about to fly across South Africa and into Botswana in this…this…tsetse fly.

Seat 3F was not only in the back row, it
was
the back row.

I could have smacked Roy Hearn upside the head.

I generally like to fly. I like what it accomplishes for me. In a matter of hours I can be transplanted from freezing prairie plain to golden sandy beach. Who wouldn’t love that? Sure, if I had access to
Star Trek
technology and could be transported from place to place without having to fly, I’d probably do that. Until that happens, I’m okay with planes but not when they weigh less than I do. I like big planes. The bigger the better. Somehow, for me, when it comes to aircraft, size does matter.

The captain did some kick-the-tires-check-the-windshield-wiper-fluid type stuff and eventually squeezed himself into his seat at the front of the plane which was, incidentally, within arm’s reach of my own. He looked back at me with a welcome aboard nod and smile. Yeah, sure, okay, ahoy and all that, but I know you’re the same guy who was handing out water and stowing luggage a few minutes ago and I’m not happy about it. I watched as he took off his captain’s hat and regarded the instrument panel in front of him while sipping from a half-empty bottle of Orange Crush. I was being piloted by the Doogie Howser of Botswana Air.

It seemed as if I was to be the only passenger when, at the last minute, through the magnifying-glass-sized window, I saw a tiny van, not unlike Joseph’s combi, pull up next to the plane with an admirable screech. For some reason I had the feeling I was about to see Cassandra Wellness again and a smile cracked my waxen, I-don’t-like-this-plane face.

The smile was short-lived.

A cold sweat painted my forehead as I watched a familiar figure step from the vehicle and head for the aircraft.

83 of 170

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

By the time our putt-putt plane bumped to an anticlimactic halt outside the Limpopo Valley Airfield’s sole, open-air, thatch-roofed building, the only things I knew for sure about the other passenger on the flight from Johannesburg to Tuli Block were that his name was Jaegar, he was German, and he was the same tree trunk of a man who’d boarded my South African Airways flight at Sal Island. In the time since that hazy, middle-of-night, middle-of-flight experience, I’d actually begun to doubt myself, considering that perhaps I’d been overly paranoid in thinking that this complete stranger was giving me the evil eye. I hadn’t seen him since and really, how likely was it that some fellow on Sal Island could have anything to do with me or the case I was on? I’d been painting him with a wide brush of discrimination, thinking he was a bad guy just because he was big and muscled with beady eyes, had a mean slant to the thin line of his mouth, and a permanently disagreeable expression on his face. But now I was back to thinking maybe I hadn’t been so far off base after all. What was the probability, on a continent of over eleven million square miles, that he and I would end up being the only passengers aboard Watch-Your-Head Airlines heading for Tuli Block without there being something more to it? Of course it was possible-but not bloody likely.

When we were safely harnessed into our seats and high above the scrub of the African plain, I had tried to engage him in conversation, but he had only responded with grunts or nods or shakes of his melon head in the manner of someone who does not really speak the language he is trying to use. He did say a few guttural-sounding words at the beginning of the trip, but that was about it. I suppose it could be that he only spoke German. But then how did he expect to get around this continent in which English and countless African dialects were the major languages spoken?

Once we landed, the pilot directed us to the thatch-roofed terminal. I got the distinct impression that the airport officials-of which there were only two-had been at home tending cattle or working in their fields only minutes before the plane arrived, at which time they’d slipped into their well-worn uniforms, hopped aboard whatever transportation was available, and headed for the airport to do their job. After being processed through Botswana customs by these two fellows, we were greeted by a big black man, who told us his name was Garry (even though his name tag said Ghakarhi), and had us sign a waiver (which I read very carefully and which did nothing to ease my discomfort).

Garry led us out the front of the open-air building to a waiting Land Cruiser Jeep. The uncovered vehicle looked as if it’d come from the set of
M*A*S*H
. It had two tiers of blanketed seats behind the front one and an easily accessible shotgun strapped to the dashboard. I wasn’t anxious to know what that was for.

Jaegar was first to climb aboard and took the rearmost seat. The way he spread out his gear I took to mean he did not want me joining him up there, so I settled into the middle tier seat. Garry dumped his massive bulk behind the right-side steering wheel and off we went. Seconds after we took off, I noticed another, exceedingly thin, man hop up onto the back rumble seat behind Jaegar. A stowaway? An African desert pirate? I craned my head to look back at the young man. He gave me a thumbs-up sign along with a wide, gap-toothed smile. I later found out the guy’s name was Tumelo, and he came with the vehicle, much like any other accessory. He was referred to as a “tracker,” but his job entailed everything from vehicle maintenance to meeting the varied whims of the guests to helping Garry spot wildlife during safari.

We were told the trip from the landing strip to the main camp of the Mashatu Game Reserve would be forty-five minutes over dirt roads. The journey took us up and down deep gulleys, over dried-up riverbeds, and through an obstacle course of ring- around-the-acacia-tree-bushwillow-and-African-wattle-rosie.

Although the sky was run through with high, wispy clouds, the sun was beating down on us with ferocious intensity, and I soon pulled from my knapsack the Tilley hat Anthony had convinced me to buy. It had seemed ridiculously expensive for a hat I wasn’t convinced I’d really need or ever use again, but my mentor had assured me it would become my best friend in Africa, and I was beginning to see why. It also afforded me a jaunty, Great-White-Hunter-ish look that I rather fancied. I quickly forgot about the heat and Jaegar and the bumpy road when, less than ten metres from our vehicle, I spotted my first elephant!

84 of 170

3/15/2011 11:02 PM

For the balance of the trip to the camp I was transfixed and awed by the sights and sounds around me: elephants, impala, wildebeest and too-numerous-to-count varieties of birds. None of which were behind the bars of a cage. Oh my, Aunty Em, I’m definitely not in Saskatchewan anymore.