4 - The Concession

26 Apr 2010

The next day was Sunday and it was the day we were to drive with Tokkie down to the concession to meet up with Johnny and Quinn. We woke up early and went for a shortish walk before breakfast. I then spent some time packing up our hut, as Tokkie suggested it might be better to move our stuff up to the house while we were away. So everything went back into the suitcases except for a few clothes and other necessities we’d need while on the concession filming the buffalo hunt. We loaded up a bunch of stuff Quinn did not have room to bring in his vehicle, including some camp mattresses, rechargeable lanterns, tents, petrol, asbestos roofing for Malakia’s house, and a dude and a lady with a baby hitching a ride.

David and I squashed onto the front seat of the Land Cruiser, and I had a kink in one side of my back for the next few hours from straining to one side to avoid being in the way of the gear shifter. The drive was nice, and Tokkie is always pleasant company. The entire journey was on bumpy rural dirt roads past little villages and cattle pastures and maize fields.

We stopped at Malakia’s house, which consisted of a couple rondavels and a roofless brick building. Amidst his wives and children we unloaded the sheets of asbestos roofing so the brick building could again be used by the family. While pulling away from the place Tokkie accidentally ran over some fruits spread out on a piece of tarp to dry in the sun. He cursed and apologized, but the smiles that were put on Malakia’s wives’ faces by the roofing material abruptly soured into looks of annoyance and repressed insults.

As we neared the camp we began noticing more and more of the remains of some white-made buildings every here and there. Square concrete buildings with porches and proper door and window frames, mainly without roofs from years of disuse, they were easy to pick out amongst the mud-and-thatch rondavels. There was also the broken-up remains of a multi-million dollar trench-irrigation system which was begun but never completed due to the bush war and “liberation”. The pump, still apparently in perfect condition, lay silent and unused in its cement shelter. This did not surprise us too much, but the fact that we expect things like this never does dull the sense of waste and uselessness, especially under the consideration of the drought-prone area in which we were. What did surprise me about it was that the pump had not been dismantled and turned into axes and cooking utensils.

Tokkie made one more stop in the middle of what seemed to be a community gathering place. He made small talk with the few men with enough moxy to come up to the Cruiser’s window laughing and carrying on, and then extending an open palm for a handout. Tokkie asked for the Chief’s son, who came forward eventually. He was a short man with a profoundly uneducated look about him. There was nothing about him to distinguish him as being a leader, or son of a leader, and I was doubtful about who exactly he was. Tokkie spoke to him about a request that had been made by the village for a bull to be brought for meat. He explained that he gives four bulls per year to the Campfire Council to distribute to the villages as they see fit, and that he had been assured one of those bulls would end up in this particular village. Tokkie handed out all his spare change and we continued on our way.

Three or four hours after departing Threeways, we finally arrived at the concession camp right on the bank of the Limpopo River, on the other side of which lies world-famous Kruger Park. Johnny and Quinn had just lay down for their afternoon siesta when we rumbled in, but were up and busy within minutes of our arrival. Johnny had not yet killed a buffalo, which suited us just fine as we were anxious to be there to film the action when it happened. His tent was a grand, canvas affair with room inside for about ten men. It was affectionately nicknamed the Taj. Quinn had been sleeping in a less glorious version of the canvas monster which apparently was too hot for him. So he dismantled it and set up one of the new polyester ones we brought in Tokkies Cruiser. He then set up our tent as well, and we chucked our bags in. David and I meanwhile set to work assembling a shelving unit for the cement-block kitchen.

When all was unloaded, settled and put away we sat around the dining table under the canopy and ate some canned peaches and chatted. The sunset was lovely over the muddy, flowing Limpopo and I was happy to be there. The plan for that evening was to wait until dark and then go walking in a nearby maize field where there had been fresh buffalo sign, and where Quinn had been assured by the locals that the animals frequented nightly. David and I tagged along with the cameras, hoping to catch some action. The night was noisy with insect, bird, amphibian and other life, and the thumbnail moon set behind us about halfway through our walk. It was somewhat difficult to keep my mind off snakes while I blundered after Johnny in the dark through the maize and grass but I did manage.

We came to a small clearing at the foot of a mound with a small lookout shelter on top, and Quinn told us to stay there and wait while he and Johnny went a small way further into the grassy field beyond. I was fine sitting there until the mosquitos found me and then I was anxious for something, anything to happen so that we could head back to the relatively bug-free zone of our tents. Eventually Johnny and Quinn returned without having seen or heard any buffalo, and we made good time back to the vehicle. Dinner was short and delicious, thanks to the miracle-working of Malakia, and it was off to bed.

The next day we got an early start and drove out on the main dirt road. We stopped to consult an old mdala on the side of the road. He directed us to where he said he was chased down by a buffalo the previous night and we headed that way. We walked for a few hours in the muggy heat without seeing any fresh sign. For David and I it was a lovely walk, and the heat and humidity hardly bothered us at all. Johnny however was totally tuckered out by the time we were at the end of the jaunt, and thoroughly soaked in his own sweat. He is an elk hunter in Montana for a living, and generally does all his hunting in weather below 40 or 50 degrees. This was a new thing for him and his body was obviously rebelling. Lunch back at camp was nice, as was the customary siesta that followed.

We took a short drive back out to the maize field we’d been in the previous night to have a look around and to plan our next move. There were again fresh sign and the trackers thought that the buffalo had been there the night before, probably some time after we had gone walking in there. Quinn decided we would get to the field shortly after dark and wait there until the buffalo came. We followed the plan that night, again walking through the darkness, and then David, myself, and the trackers hunkered down for the wait while Johnny and Quinn sat watch on the mound. The beauty of a distant thunderstorm kept me entertained for a time, but the mosquitos again found me, despite application of copious amounts of DEET.

I eventually dozed off to the whining of the deplorable creatures, and was absolutely astonished when I opened my eyes and Johnny and Quinn were standing in front of me. I had not heard them approach and was surprised that I could have fallen asleep so soundly. We had been waiting for only two hours, but the mozzies had gotten the best of Johnny and he was calling it a night. I can’t say I was ungrateful, but I was a bit sad that there would be no buffalo that night.

During the course of the rest of that night the distant thunderstorm grew closer and closer until it was right smack on top of our little riverside camp. A sudden gale of wind nearly tore our tent from its stakes, and the rain lashed so hard against it that it was driven through the zippers and collected in pools on the floor. At one point I was scared enough that a tree branch was going to crush us that I convinced David to run with me into the kitchen building, which had a sheet-metal roof and was a somewhat safer place to wait out the worst of the storm. We found Quinn there when we got there pulling things away from the windows and watching the canopy over the dining table flailing around in the wind.

Eventually things calmed down enough that I felt safe enough to return to our tent and we slept to the booming of the thunder and the torrent of rain.