Sahara

The hatching of a wonderful new day. She walks along the familiar bush path, trailing her hands in the long savannah grass still wet with dew. The morning is golden, imbued with an unspeakable quality reflected in the sand and straw hues of the bushveld. It is like a breathing sea, this colour expands and retracts with the stroke of her fingers. The smell is distinctive, grass mixed in with animals and wood smoke.

Two creatures scamper ahead, exploring the sights and smells. The female cub, older and slightly larger, pounces on her unsuspecting brother and they roll into a white lion blur—all paws and claws and flicking ears. Thaba laughs at their games. The cubs get bored with their wrestling and separate, slinking their feline bodies forward through the cleared land—hips paws, hips paws and the dark paintbrush ends of their tails.

A black and white spotted bird with a long banana-like beak flies across the path and lands on a branch hanging over the trail.

That one is a Yellow-billed Hornbill, Thaba says. They are often on the ground in the dirt foraging for food.

Sahara studies the large beak that curves into a sharp point and the plum-red skin around its eye area. What do they eat?

Mainly ants and termites. Wait, Thaba freezes and cocks the rifle to his shoulder.

The cubs are sitting in the middle of the track, both staring intently ahead into a thicket of bush.

What is it? Sahara whispers.

Thaba shakes his head and makes the signal for her to be silent. The intensive training she underwent has prepared her for moments like these, but still, she finds her legs shaking in her hiking boots.

Slowly Thaba creeps towards the cubs, rifle at the ready. There’s a noise in the bush, something crashing through trees. Thaba puts a finger up to check the wind. The cubs inch forward, their bodies pressed low to the ground. Thaba hisses their names, but they do not look back to him.

Is it lions? Sahara asks, then shoves a hand over her mouth. She pleads forgiveness with her eyes for breaking the code of silence, but Thaba isn’t watching her, he is fully focused on what’s up ahead.

She has never felt so vulnerable, utterly exposed on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere with unidentified animals approaching. Her mind is wired to high alert, adrenaline pumping, each sound of breaking branches and the thud of steps magnified to a hyper- reality. She pleads silently with the cubs to come back. Suddenly, a form breaks through the foliage. A buffalo emerges, sniffing the wind; it has come to a standstill, but the sound of breaking brush confirms there are others behind it.

The cubs scatter at the sight of the black face and colossal horns. Thaba calls their names in a harried, hushed voice, but they run in the opposite direction, forging a path to the left of the buffalo and into the bushes. The buffalo bull sniffs the wind again, he begins to snort and his hooves rake the ground. That is all the warning they have before the buffalo charges out of the bushes and straight for them. The vegetation bursts open as his herd pushes on behind him, charging.

In six seconds, Thaba has Sahara in his hands and he pushes her into a large baobab tree. The branches are too high; she can’t get up but he grabs her feet and lifts her to his shoulders. She’s clambering, grappling for a handhold, falling over him. He plants her feet on his shoulders and shoves her up. She latches onto a branch and heaves herself up; she reaches down for him but the stampede creates a dust cloud she can’t see through. Their noise is deafening, a thunderous bellowing of hooves and bodies sweeping under the tree. She clings to the branch for safety as the tree shakes.

The cloud clears and the last buffalo moves below; Sahara sees its dark hide and horns under her. She scans the trampled earth for signs of Thaba; his precious binoculars are smashed to a mangled mess, twisted and crushed in the path.

She scrambles down the ancient baobab, her hands and knees rubbed raw from the climb up. There’s even less now to protect her than before; she picks up the remnants of the field binoculars, so disoriented that she doesn’t know the direction of the camp. It’s all thorn trees, bush and the path is a strewn mess, leading in two directions, both unfamiliar.

She hears a soft mewing to her left; the cubs tumble out of the scrub and rub against her legs. They’ve survived, their coats are sandy and no longer white, but they’re unscathed. Grateful, she bends in the dirt and clutches them to her. They swat at each other, roll onto their backs and then, shaking off the excess dirt, the brother and sister head confidently down the path. The female looks back to Sahara as if to say, ‘Come on now, let’s go home’.

Sahara is unsure of what to do. There’s no sign of Thaba, the cubs are defenceless, but out here in the bush she is more so. She decides and walks after the young lions. Into the wild, she thinks, as she wonders how this will pan out. Then she hears her name and turns to see Thaba running to catch up to them.

Thank god! Are you okay?

No stresses, lady, he says. Those things are blind as bats, we lucky we got out their way, hey?

I feel so alive out here, she says.

Ya, dis true, hey? It is Africa, lady, there’s more life here than anywhere else. Ag neer, man, Thaba takes the fragments from Sahara’s hands. These my best pair of binocs.

Sahara shrugs. Could always be worse, at least you’re okay. We should hurry, those guys are nearly out of sight.

Thaba and Sahara race after the lion cubs and, together, they all walk back to the camp.

Thaba shuts the gate to the enclosure. You sure you don’t want to stay for feeding, lady?

No way, she says. All that blood freaks me out.

It’s natural, man, don’t be such a sissy, Thaba says, grinning.

Mmmm. I can’t, Thaba.

Ag, but it’s your best today. Impala, fresh as can get. Thaba walks towards a white truck, parked with the flap of the tray down. We can save the skins and make you a lekker carpet for your rondavel, hey?

The bakkie is stacked with slain antelope. Sahara sees blood pooling and fat flies buzzing around the eyes of the dead animals.

Oh my god. Don’t even joke, she says. I’m done. See you later, thanks for the adventure.

She walks past the flame trees near the camp kitchen; two women are having their tea break in the shade. Sahara joins them. It’s so hot today.

It’s not hot as this in Australia?

It is in the desert, but I haven’t been out there. This is the hottest I’ve ever been in my life. Sahara moves the air in front of them with her hat.

Shoh. Australia is very, very far away, one of the women says.

Yes, it is, Sahara says. Fourteen hours in the aeroplane.

The woman nods. You hungry, sister?

It’s too hot, Sahara says, gazing to an anthill of red earth that must be taller than she is.

No, come, you must eat. You too skinny. The woman hands her a shallow metal dish, scoops hot maize meal into it and ladles it with gravy. She gives Sahara a spoon of cabbage and red beans.

You have mealie meal pap in Australia?

What’s mealie? Sahara asks.

Mealie is corn, like this. She sticks a finger into Sahara’s food. Tomorrow we do your hair again, okay?

Sahara burns her mouth on the hot food and nods.

The heat is intolerably oppressive; even the air seems to burn her nostrils as she breathes. Sahara walks through the primitive camp. There’s no point in showering now to cool down; the heat will zap the moisture from her as soon as she steps from the reed walls of the outdoor washroom. She shudders, thinking of the potential surprises in there, slithering around and cooling down on the stone floor. She decides to lie down for a moment back at camp to see if being still can cool her off.

She wakes, drowsy. She’s slept through dinner and it’s dark outside. She can hear voices by the fire singing. She listens to the beautiful mix of English, Xhosa, Afrikaans and Zulu songs. When the singing dies down the solitude is tangible. It’s the kind of bone-breaking aloneness that she’s longed for but avoided all her life.

A rush of the gas from the paraffin lamp is met with the spark of a match. Out here she has found that simplicity bides well with her spirit. She never thought she could live like this, but as she opens her sketchbook and fans out her array of pencils on the makeshift desk—a slab of wood atop milk crates—something very close to tranquillity rises up. Outside the sounds of the bush are loud, much louder than those where she’s from, or anywhere she’s been since, but after three months here she’s used to it.

It’s four hours after sundown and the mud walls of her rondavel have finally let go of the heat they incubated all day. Sahara breathes in the distinct smell of the thatched roof. There’s a swallows’ nest in the eaves of her hut, the parent birds fly in and out through the small window she leaves open for them. No eggs have hatched, but she hopes they do. She begins to sketch, drawing from memory the beak of the hornbill she spotted this morning. Her body’s engaged, but her mind is restless, waiting. There’s something snuffling in the undergrowth behind her tent, something small. These night sounds are now normal and expected, no longer sending her fleeing her tent for the main area of dwellings further back from the hill’s edge. The camp, unlike most others, is unfenced. Only the cubs’ enclosure is surrounded with high wire walls and a similar roof, to protect them from the existing lion prides in the area. Their camp is fully open to the wilderness; danger lurks nearby but in her time here the predators have kept their distance and she’s grateful no shots have been fired.

She flips open her Roberts Birds of Southern Africa, searching for an image. Then she hears it—the deep-throated growl echoes in the night, sending shivers up her spine. Each time she hears the lions begin their nightly ritual her body reacts the same way, never getting used to their primal roar.

The hiss of the lamp and the call of the male lion from the grasslands at the bottom of the hill inspire a nostalgic longing for someone to share all this wonder with her. Thoughts drift to an old friend and Sahara abandons the bird drawing. Turning to the back of the sketchbook, she smoothes her hand over the fresh page and begins:

To my dearest Rachel,

How are you? It’s been so long since I saw your face, but, in my mind, I talk to you often. I have long conversations with you and tell you all my news. I don’t really have an excuse for not writing sooner, except that I have needed to disappear from the world for a while. It’s been so liberating not having a phone, email, Facebook. I sent Mum a few postcards along the way to let her know I’m alive, but that’s about it. I guess I just needed to get away. But you just crossed my mind so I’m going to tell you my stories.

India was just as I expected. It well and truly sorted me out. I got so sick I thought I was going to die. I literally spent five days and nights lying on a bathroom floor. I spent a month in an ashram in the Himalayas, meditated every day, did yoga, chanted, it was unbelievable. Ultimately, the guru thing is not my gig, as you said it wouldn’t be. But I learned so much in that country. It saved me.

South America was next. I did the Inca trail and that place is exceptionally beautiful. To think they built all those structures, perfectly aligned giant stone blocks with none of the technology we have today. It’s a mystery! You can tell Jaimie I danced with those shamans of his. I sat in some very powerful ceremonies, had the plant medicine, walked in the mountains on San Pedro. I thought of him often, tell him to get his arse over there. Ayahuasca is wild—like meeting the depths of yourself, the deepest fears in a nightmare almost, but it all cleanses out of you. The things I saw I will never be able to describe or speak of, but it changed me.

Now, lovely one, I am somewhere unexpected. I’m in Africa, volunteering at a lion conservation place. I walk lion cubs every day through the bush. Can you believe that? White lions that are so rare and beyond beautiful. I don’t know how I ended up here, but I am so glad I did. This is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I’m drawing again. I’m madly obsessed with the birds here. They are so different from the parrots we get back home. Their colours are more earthy and pastel, but I think I love them even more because they are all so new to my eyes. How are these for names: Grey Lourie, Hornbills, Hoopoo, Lilac-breasted Roller (my favourite). The other day I saw an African Fish Eagle, and it was exactly like an eagle I saw walking one day along Broken Head beach. So it’s different, but also similar in lots of ways. I’ve seen so many animals—lions, elephant, rhinos, cute little pumba warthogs—everything. Zebras, big herds of them, except they get fed to the lion cubs too, which I really can’t handle, seeing that black and white hide all bloodied around the open flesh of a sawn-off leg. No thank you!

What else? One of the park wardens tried to kiss me by the fire the other night, I said no. You’d be proud.

The summer lightning storms here are truly something to behold—great sheets of lightning that light up the sky and forks that crack right into the earth. Sometimes there’s literally 360 degrees of lightning circling you. It’s like being at the end of the earth.

I heard about a sangoma—a witch doctor, a wise medicine woman who lives in a village a few hours away. Thought I might go and get some African healing to round off the journey.

I wonder sometimes how Sean is. He probably has a new fabulous woman by now—or several. I feel so wretched knowing someone witnessed me at that time in my life. He saw me at my worst and it just sucks, it makes it harder to forget because we shared some low moments. Anyway, maybe we’re not meant to forget. Maybe we’re meant to carry our scars and battle wounds and we try to scrub ourselves too clean. Maybe we’re meant to fail and stumble and learn disgracefully, maybe the suffering is just as important as the ecstasy, it’s all part of it. It shapes us. At this point in my life, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here—in this little tent writing to you—so how can I regret anything that happens? Sometimes I get this strange sense that it’s all meant to be, that it’s all orchestrated in ways we can’t plan. And it all fits into the puzzle. When I think like that, I feel better about a whole lot of things. I feel like it’s okay, like it doesn’t matter that much in the end.

I want to send you all these dried flowers and seedpods for your dreamcatchers, and some of the huge white acacia thorns that are everywhere—they’re strong but brittle like old bones—but I know Customs would have a field day and burn the lot. I am sending you this giraffe made by some local kids. They’re so talented, what they can do with beads and wire puts us all to shame.

I feel like I’ve changed so much. I had to really face myself and realise what a shit person I was. That was hard, but the only way. I really didn’t like myself that whole time. It’s a strange thing. And I feel kind of mortified about so much—how wasted I always was (I refused to take malaria tablets the whole time here and told the people I have had so many chemicals in my day, the mosquitoes would die if they even tried to bite me)—everything that happened with Sean, how I treated people.

Mainly, I feel I wasn’t really a very good friend. I was always obsessed about a man—Rip or Sean or both—and it was always about me. I feel like I need to apologise to you and thank you for sticking by me and looking after me. I must have been hideous and I’m sorry about all of it. Life just got crazy. I know we wanted to be mad free-spirited bohemian artists, but I took it too far. I don’t want to be as mad as that again—ever. I will probably always be a bit rebellious or something, but I’m learning that craziness is not conducive to happiness. Spontaneity is great, but you also need balance and calmness. Yes, I really uttered those words. I became a nightmare to myself. So maybe I’m finally growing up or something. I don’t know, but it’s all good. It’s been a long crawl upwards, but I’m finally seeing the light. I feel like I am finally coming into my own, coming down to the earth.

I’m learning that life is simple and this makes me happy. So does nature. I need it in my life like breath. How could I not have known this vital thing about myself?

Have to go, I can hear the Land Rover coming to get me for the night drive!!!

Lala Kahle (goodnight in Zulu)

Love you,

Sahara

She snuffs out the lamp and runs to meet the Land Rover idling at the entrance to the camp. She climbs over the back wheel, hoists herself over the door and joins the other program volunteers.

I want to see a leopard! she calls to Thaba, who’s driving.

Okay, I do my very utmost best for you, lady.

And they roll into the night, spotlights at the ready.

When she gets back, cheeks flushed from the night air and excitement, she wraps the little beaded giraffe in newspaper and puts it into an empty rooibos tea tin. Next to the lamp is her letter to Rachel, pages and pages long. She begins to read her words and already they are old to her; everything they speak of no longer exists in this present moment. Sahara tears the end off the last page and writes:

Rachel dearest,

Here I am, in Africa. Did you know your favourite tea, rooibos, means ‘redbush’ in Afrikaans?

I love you to the moon and back.

Sahara

She folds the note into the tin and squishes down the lid then takes the letter over to her canvas stretcher bed and lights the white taper candle in the bottle on the floor; she holds the letter to the flame and watches as the edges curl and turn black. There is a moment, before the fire reaches the ink when she can stop all this and pull her letter to safety, but she doesn’t. She feeds it graciously to the flame until her grey blanket is littered with burned scraps and only the phantoms of her stories remain.