Name of Author Withheld
Story of the sea turtle
I had been training the close protection team for Morgan Tsvangirai who is the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe, the opposition party to Robert Mugabe’s regime. The contract meant I had to train eight men for ten consecutive days a month and to continue for six months until they were up to speed. These men had been recruited from people loyal to Morgan, which meant that they came from an extremely rural background; this is an important facet in this wonderful story.
Now being a bodyguard for an opponent to Robert Mugabe is not conducive to a long and distinguished career in public service let me assure you. I left after the first ten days thinking that the recruits were willing to learn, but really raw and that I would probably be able to drag this contract out for at least an extra two or three months before I could successfully pronounce them fit to protect a future head of State. My first quandary arose when I got paid before getting on the flight back home. For obvious reasons in this business we like our money in cash. The rate of pay I had agreed to was duly given to me in Zim Dollars – now for those of you that follow this pitiful currency you will realise that this was not the wisest move I ever made. The exchange rate in Zimbabwe is in a terminal freefall. Once converted back to Rands the money had halved in value over the ten days that I had been away! Shite – suddenly this was not nearly as lucrative as I had anticipated and all visions of champagne were rapidly changing to beer as per normal. Eventually this became so bad that I resorted to barter transactions involving Harley-Davidsons and ....but that is a story for another day.
A month later I returned to Zim, expecting to find eight familiar smiling black faces only to be confronted by eight new recruits. The previous volunteers had foolishly gone home and boasted about their new found skills and positions in life – and in true African politics tradition – had simply disappeared off the face of the earth. This pattern continued for the next course and the one after that as well. Now whilst this was slightly making up for the problems I had with the exchange rate by insuring that I had what seemed like a never-ending series of courses, it was not solving the problem of providing close protection officers for the MDC, plus it is rather awkward explaining to the extremely wealthy and anonymous donor and custodian of the purse strings why the silent killers you are supposedly training rather annoyingly don’t appear to be able to look after themselves, let alone anyone else. A close brush with the authorities one night scared me shitless, one thing to loose the students – another thing entirely if yours truly is threatened; so in an endeavour to retain my worthless white skin and enjoy the fruits of my ill gotten gains, I made preparations to move the latest bunch of recruits south across the Limpopo river to a monastery (don’t ask) in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Preparations were made, student visas successfully applied for and the lucky recruits duly arrived at the monastery where the training commenced in all earnest. I felt like Clint Eastwood; imagine all these nuns, eight hired guns........
Ten days later I decided to treat these lucky fellows to a break, actually I felt that some of the younger and prettier nuns needed the break more than they did at this stage, human nature being what it is; so I decided to take them to the beach. Remember what I said at the beginning of this story about them being from an extremely rural background? Well these gentlemen had never seen the sea - not ever. In fact, they had hardly ever seen a tap with running water in their lives.
We crossed the ridge at the new Sharks board offices in Umhlanga and stopped for a moment on the bluff where for the first time they saw a dam bigger than anything the imagination could conjure up. From that perspective, being 500 metres above sea level and looking onto the golden mile in Durban, we may as well have been on Mars. The sparkling Indian Ocean stretched endlessly to our left before merging with an equally brilliant blue sky. Where the ocean met the coast the apartment blocks and high rises shimmered in the half crescent of the bay as the rays of the rising sun reflected in millions of windows, the chill morning breeze which had blown down from Madagascar raising the odd goose bump. Ships bobbing in the harbour and the city quiet before the morning rush.
From that vantage point there is an optical illusion whereby it appears that the ocean flows at an angle onto the coast, also remember that you are seeing these things from a perspective where you associate what you’re eyes are telling you with past experiences. Well if the only water you have seen in anything near such volume is the annual December flooding of the Limpopo River, the logical question is how do you contain all that water and who built the dam wall? You try and explain that one when your eyes tell you that the water is definitely flowing into the coast.
In African terms the next question was approached in a round about way. Firstly could I confirm that in all that water, surely an abundance of fish must live? After replying in the affirmative I was then asked to clarify a myth they had heard. Rumour had it that the sea was full of salt!!! Without hesitation I told them that it was extremely salty, so salty in fact that you could not drink the water. This was met with howls of laughter. An African, particularly the really dark tribes have beautiful teeth. These guys were rolling with laughter as only Africans can, they were dabbing tears from their eyes and they were holding their bellies they laughed so much while giving me a full view of an orthodontist’s nightmare. Whose leg did I think I was pulling – everyone knows that fish need clean fresh water to live in, so therefore the sea could not be salty.
Either the sea was salty and had no fish, or not salty and had an abundance of fish – clear African logic.
In an endeavour to retain some credibility, I bundled everyone into the Land-Rover and headed off to the Aquarium. The Durban Aquarium is a wonderful place, particularly as two of my bar ladies, perhaps I should mention that at this stage in my intrepid career I also owned the biggest night-club in the country, worked at the aquarium during the day. These poor guys were gob-smacked. Imagine walking into this huge tunnel with glass windows through which you can see creatures you never even dreamed existed. You know how your voice resonates in aquariums, well it was completely silent, not a word, they were totally speechless. Fish as big as cars, flowers that grow under water, big floppy grey blankets with long tails gliding effortlessly through the water, thousands of smaller fish that are still ten times bigger than the biggest fish you ever imagined.
I left them alone in this wonderland.
Half an hour later, Ice (her stage name and in no way a reflection of her considerable talents in other areas) called me to come and look. These people were walking round and round the aquarium speechlessly following the most amazing creature they had ever witnessed. The largest bloody tortoise you have ever seen and the damn thing can swim as well!!! Imagine that? Big as a donkey and a hundred times larger than your normal tortoise.
In the interim Zoë (the other one) had arranged to feed the sharks which are kept in another tank. To say they were impressed with the feeding frenzy would be an understatement.
Now, having proved that fish lived in the water, I was about to raise my credibility to new heights. I promptly marched these guys out of the aquarium, after prying Ice and Zoë of my body, and across the beach to where the morning tide was coming in. At last I was going to prove that I never lied, here was the Indian Ocean in all its salty glory and they were going to experience first hand the truth of what I had told them.
Well in theory in any event – having just seen what lived in the sea, there was no way in hell anyone of these guys was going anywhere near that ocean. Despite pleading with them, threatening them, beating one up and eventually unsuccessfully attempting to bodily carry a hysterically kicking and screaming body-guard into the ocean, I abandoned all hope of proving my point. Nothing on earth would convince them it was safe to go into that water. They would rather die an agonizing death at my hands than dream of setting foot in that water.
After calming everyone down and informing the nice policeman that this was not a racially motivated attack on defenceless street urchins, I was sitting on the promenade catching my breath after the scuffle when the next broadside question was fired at me. Those ships on the horizon – how far was it to them? The answers of at least a mile, brought knowing smiles to their faces – if that was so- how big were the ships. I should have known that I had somehow infuriated one of the ancestral Witchdoctors that morning. Well, I replied, they are at least 200 meters long. If that was so they responded, then what were they made of as no trees that they knew of grew to that length?
My answer convinced them I was certifiably insane – everyone knows, even the youngest umfaan (child) in the remotest village - that metal cannot float...........................
Last edited:
