It's the afternoon, and I am sitting with Henrik, nestled beneath the shade of some trees a few meters away from the electric fence that contains Shaka and Clyde, the park's two big male elephants. They are kept separately from the others because Clyde, a rescue case from an abusive circus, is too aggressive for tourists to touch and Shaka keeps him company out here in the orchard. I am noting their activity every two minutes.
There is silence for a while, and I try to ignore the pressure to say something, especially because it doesn't look like Henrik is even awake - he's slumped in a tire, head leaning back against a tree, eyes barely open. He has a very dark round face, wide nose and sleepy eyes, and he cooly watches me scribble on the clipboard. Finally he starts to make conversation by asking me my age.
Age is a big topic of contention in the park. All the guides make up their ages and will say three different numbers to the volunteers in a day. They seem to fluctuate from 24 to around 38 - and with their smooth, lineless faces it's hard to tell - but the general consensus is that most are in their 30s. Henrik tells me he is 34. He asks me a few questions about my life, what I'm doing here, where my parents are, etc, and I ask him a few questions about where he lives (the township near by) and how long he's been at the park (8 or 9 years, he's not sure). Shaka and Clyde graze peacefully in the background.
I become a little more confident and we chat for a while about our lives. I learn he is once-divorced, lives with his girlfriend, has two little boys, one adopted, one from his previous wife. He asks me about my siblings, and I ask him about his. Then the conversation starts to change.
He slips into stories about his childhood, almost by accident, but he continues to talk in his slow, deep voice. Four children, all from different fathers, all of whom have left or disappeared. His mother working constantly to support them but struggling, his brothers dropping out of school, his sister married off at sixteen. He talks about how he loves his grandmother more than anything in the world, but how sad he is that his son won't know any grandparents. He talks and talks and I listen for half an hour, then an hour. He tells me about how he wants to see his mother in Limpopo, and how he saves up to go every year but can't afford to take his girlfriend, who resents him for it. He talks about how he'd like to take her this year but will struggle to save the money, and throws around figures that make me gulp - not at the expense, but at how my family would spend that in a week.
He tells me: "It was terrible when I was young. Imagine you go to school and come home and there is no food in the house. You drink water and you go back to school but you can't concentrate. There is never food in the house. Four children and never food."
Then: "You get pocket money for school. Then you come home and there's food everywhere - the fridge is full. Then you can study hard and get an education." And he states it so simply, not at all accusingly but just as if it is a fact he would like me to understand. Shaka and Clyde are fighting in the background, grinding their tusks against one another and whacking each other with their trunks.
It's very quiet and I don't really know what to say. I haven't written anything in a while, so will have to make up a few figures.
He tells me he doesn't talk about these things, not to the other guides or to his friends, because they always laugh, or they tell him about their problems. He says he hasn't told anyone in a long, long time. And I wonder why he's telling me. Narcissistically, I think maybe it's because I am a good listener. Maybe because I know South Africa better than the volunteers, perhaps I could try to understand. But in hindsight, I think it's more likely because he knows I can't possibly understand. Because I could never laugh at him or compare my own problems. Maybe because when I leave I will take his story with me and blow away with the wind, off to a very different life so far from poverty or misery. So maybe it just doesn't matter to him if I know his story or not.
When another volunteer approaches in the distance, come to relieve me of my position, I thank Henrik for telling me all this. He says he'll see me later, and looks out to where Shaka and Clyde move in slow, mindless circles.
*
I see him again later in the day, out in the field. Thandi is wandering nearby, waving her trunk on the hunt for food, and he shoos her away and smiles at me. He pulls me up by the hand from where I'm sitting, asks me how I am, I say fine, and we exchange a friendly look. A secret between us? Maybe. Understanding? Yes. No. A little.
A baby step.
