The Orchid Poacher

“Your judgment day is here,” sneered the guard. He was quite proud of his position as sole gatekeeper. Thazima gate obstructed the only road into Nyika and the only way back out of the wilderness into civilization. He retained the power of permission and though a fool, he was a prideful and well-ranked fool. The gate was always closed and though he rarely inspected passing vehicles, he had made a particular habit of stopping foreigners. Falsified park entrance fees can be embezzled from even the most well-read travelers. You can’t blame a man for trying. It was Saturday and he was out of uniform on duty, which was unfortunate today, of all days. For today, a poacher in a vehicle full of foreigners had been brought to his gate. What to do? Aggressively jabbing the poacher’s shoulder through the window, questioning him, had not satisfied the appetite. No, he craved a more drastic gesture, worthy of his rank. In skinny blue jeans and a checkered blue short-sleeve shirt, he sauntered to the back door and hopped in. Squatting on the spare Landcruiser tire, the continued interrogation of the poacher provided mere meek responses. Still not enough. The hunger for power turned his insides until he back handed the poacher in the face. The man cowered into the back of the seat, protecting his head under his hand-cuffed arms, writhing in fear of being hit again. Enough. Adrenaline and euphoria coursed through his veins and satisfaction warmed the muscles under his face.

Why did I say nothing?

We hadn’t seen any animals for miles; the plains seemed void of life. Someone had been through there earlier. Controlled burns and invasive grass species left patterned markings on the hills. It seemed like the drive would never end; hill after hill, the tall pines of Chelinda eventually disappeared into the horizon. We stood in the back, clinging to the cab, as the Landcruiser shuddered over the dirt road. Maxon sat behind us, on the back wheel, in his new blue work suit. Another man contained the unfastened, clanking shovels with his feet. Brino scrutinized the landscape, perched on the edge of the bed, clutching the M16 against his calf. The safety was on. It wasn’t until we had reached the Juniper forests that the men jumped up behind us, hollering into the distance, pointing and yelling at two obscure dots scurrying over the hills about a kilometer away. Poachers. The vehicle jerked to a halt and the dust trail amassed a cloud in the rear. The men behind us hopped out in a frenzy, pointing into the distance and commenting to each other. Geoff scurried out of the passenger seat and pulled out his camera from the satchel. The three of us scanned the distance in confusion trying to discern what all the commotion was about. For a moment, everything was quiet as we watched, broken only by Patsy’s inquisition from the driver’s seat.

Brino fired three rounds into the air. Unsilenced, coupled with the side-effects of an old weapon, the shot rung in our ears. The sound echoed throughout the plains for a long moment. One of the dots vanished into a patch of forest and the other ran over the side of the hill. Geoff had missed the thrill of the action and asked Brino to fire again, this time on camera. Two more shots pierced an invisible enemy in the sky. In a flash of fire the moment passed, blood coursed back to a constant pace. The dots had escaped out of sight and everyone boarded the vehicle. Brino unclipped the magazine and mechanically removed the bullet in the chamber, pushing it firmly back into the clip. Maxon was smiling as the others commented excitedly about the sighting. Once we reached the edge of the Juniper forest, Brino led a party into the hills to search for any remaining poachers or any meat they may have left behind in frightened haste. They walked over the hill and disappeared only to return an hour later valiantly escorting a man with a feeble demeanor, his hands tied with shoe laces and trailed by a flour sack full or orchid roots. They sat together on the rocks by the creek recounting the catch to an eager audience, followed by a photo shoot. The photos reminded me of those taken after a successful animal kill.

We are often delighted by learning what we don’t know. One of our most human faults is believing what we’re told, information we ingest for lack of interest in the truth or a fear of further complicating life. Every story has three sides: his, hers, and the truth. And in no place on earth is that more accurate than here: a story is more than just a tale of a sequence of events; it is someone’s truth, someone’s belief. It is easy to believe poachers are bad people that hunt and deplete the abundant natural life in the plateau. It is easy to believe rangers are knights of nature, protecting defenseless creatures and plants. It is easy to side with what the village perceives as good in the fight against what the village perceives as evil. As many officers like to preach: “thou shall not steal,” right? Officers and villagers believe you have God on your side, ammunition powered by the great Unknown, expelling enemies with the aim of the angels themselves, in that eccentric Malawian religious fervor. But where does God reside in the villages bordering the protected areas? In the CCAP church? The Catholic? The Seventh Day Adventist? One would hope that the faith of the congregations in Phoka is equally as good and innocent as the faith of the congregations in Chelinda. This isn’t a battle between good and evil. In truth, it is much simpler than the complex and contorted reasoning people construe to actions driven by desperation.

It is a war, like any other war: fought for purposes unclear and problems inevitably unsolvable by violence or taking prisoners. Rangers, backed by the Malawi government and various western wildlife NGOs, on one side and the elusive, poverty-stricken, poachers on the other. The rangers seem out of place against the vast grandeur of the plains in their vehicles and weaponry. Though, any human presence seems out of place in these lands. The rangers are technically armies, military trained and armed with the aim of catching or eliminating poachers. Originally a program piloted in Kenyan parks, armed rangers have become a norm in parks throughout sub-Saharan Africa, though much seems to have been lost in translation. A poacher catch has numerous benefits to park officers: expensed trip to Rumphi to submit all necessary paper work and registering the criminal into jail, free meals expensed at the most expensive Rumphi restaurant, perhaps a night stay (should the paperwork take longer than anticipated), perhaps some allowances, and an opportunity for shopping with free transport home. Officers and rangers are taught that poachers are scum, sub-human enemies worthy of mistreatment and abuse. With an expensed kicker, this isn’t a fight for the wildlife; it’s a fight for their livelihoods, protecting a way of life rising up to the highest ranks of government.

About fifty kilometers oriental of Chelinda is Phoka. Phoka, like many other villages along the northern border in Chitipa, is home to many poachers. Skilled hunters and laborers that design and produce some of the most intricate and beautiful weaponry in Malawi. Some of the confiscated guns, bows and arrows, made entirely of locally scavenged materials, rival fine occidental arms. The poachers journey into the heart of the plateau by foot, tracking to kill reedbucks, bushbucks, perhaps roan and elon, or to harvest orchid roots and flowers, which they carry back. The meat is then sold and consumed locally, while the orchids are sold in a linked trade route smuggling them through Chitipa into Tanzania. Each journey is not an aimless hunt; it is a calculated risk of one’s life and the livelihood of one’s family. In one of the toughest years for tobacco and a country ranked among worst poverty-stricken nations, poaching isn’t a hobby or a spare source of income, it is a necessity. Some poachers are shot, killed, and injured, along with many rangers, in gun-fire battles or ambushes. Many more are caught and imprisoned in Rumphi. They pay hefty fines or bribes and return to their villages, their families, make new weapons and try again. More carefully next time. People aren’t inherently bad; it’s the world that makes them that way. Somehow, we forget that because it is much easier to assume otherwise. It makes our lives simpler.

But who am I write about good and evil? When a man was being mistreated, even though a criminal by law, I did nothing. I said nothing. Am I not equally as guilty and malicious as the officers that abuse their powers or poachers that destroy wildlife? I sat there with a dumbfounded look of indecisive bewilderment on my face, akin to that of a fool, as a man cowered into the back of my seat. I glanced to the rear, never turning around. I looked to Zebra to my left and Bear to my right, as if asking: what should we do? What should I do? It was dark and cold by the time we returned to Chelinda with the poacher. He was to be transported to Rumphi in the morning. For the night he was placed in the care of Brino, a humble, quiet ranger. Brino escorted him to his house, shared a meal of rice and relish with him at the dining table with his family, and provided him a warm place to sleep. In the morning, while transport was being arranged with the necessary paper work, officers came to offer their astute advice. Jarvis, the head of Peace Parks, an NGO solely dedicated to the eradication of poaching, had come to check on the prisoner and to his astonishment found Brino and the poacher eating breakfast together at the family table. Furious, he lectured Brino on his imprudence and shoved the poacher to the floor. Once he recovered, crawling to a corner of the room, Jarvis harangued him: “You are a poacher; you don’t eat at the table, like humans. You eat on the floor, like an animal.”

Bear: http://murphyinmalawi.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-orchid-poacher/

Unripe Bananas

My yard in the dry season is decrepit, exactly as it was this time last year. The grass fence I had built during the rains has fallen apart, except for the sections near the front of the house. Pigs, goats, chickens, guinea foul, dogs, cats, pigeons, winds and children each played their part in the inevitable demise of the little semblance of privacy. Gaps turned to passageways, turned to missing sections, turned to fire kindling. It doesn’t matter anymore really. Things from the earth here have a tendency to ultimately return to the earth. There are about five pigs and piglets scurrying about my back door at the moment, oinking, snorting, whining in search of food. The Zyambo’s livestock seem to grow in number exponentially with each passing month, most endearingly evidenced by the increasing number of guinea foul banging and squawking on my tin roof at five in the morning and the farm animal a cappella in the yard. It’s humoring to waste hours watching the animals scuttle about the yard, interacting with each other without a care in the world. Especially the mother hen and her line of chicks in close pursuit. Equally humoring are the spastic, alien geckos watching vigilantly from the rafters, as if in a constant state of panic and anxiety.

There is a banana tree in my yard, between the kitchen and a decrepit piece of fence adjacent to the Zyambo’s bafa. Its leaves hang over the trash pit and it’s managed to grow abundantly during my service. A testament of resilience, having survived dry seasons, flocks of farm animals, my general lack of knowledge and interest in gardening, and a burning trash pit. It’s still the only green growing in an otherwise dry, barren environment. A channel of water leads from the drain of the Zyambo’s bafa to the base of the banana tree, keeping it constantly watered. About two months ago two large flowers of bananas appeared and the burgundy purple flowers at their ends fell shortly after. Benedicto informed me that they should start ripening within a week or so, as all the water was now feeding just the fruit. Weeks passed into months and the unripe green bananas clung stubbornly to their stems. They did not even slightly shade yellow, instead remaining a lush green. We can’t figure out why. It’s as if after expending months of effort in fruiting they just gave up, so near the end. It’s as if they thought: what’s the point in ripening, in completing a cycle, when we can just cling verdantly to this tree, ever fed by water and still face a similar fate? Perhaps they are tired, or perhaps they need to have their faith restored; that by ripening they will feed a mouth, improve a life even if only for a moment. So near the end they simply have to turn and while they may be eaten by an unscrupulous goat or never appreciated, they will have finished what they started. More than what most can say for a lifetime.

Bear (Wellesley) recommended putting them in a sealed plastic bag, so I picked four of them and tied them up in a People’s jumbo. Last Saturday, we threw a month-belated birthday party for Bear. Belated because we were both at Kamp Kwacha and Zebra’s mom and sister were visiting. It was a celebration of surprisingly good success; she seemed happy and liked the food. We made burgers, luckily procuring ground beef at Rumphi Metro, and fries, with plenty of Greens – one of several of Bear’s favorite meals. And Zebra and I baked successfully on our own, on a mud fire stove, for the first time. We made yellow cake, from scratch, filled it with custard and topped with a chocolate icing improvised from a Hershey’s chocolate bar from a parcel and milk, icing sugar, and Blue Band. Zebra carved a birthday candle out of a large Moonlight and I topped the whole thing of with crushed macadamia nuts. We were trying to replicate a Boston crème cake with what we had and quite proud of it. A slice of home for Bear, one of the best people I know, probably my closest friend who knows everything about me, who cares unconditionally, loves almost limitlessly, and melts even the most hardened of moods with her mischievous big blue eyes and a laugh as infectious and delightful as her smile.

With one camp successfully over, planning begins for the next camp. The inaugural Kamp Kwacha was a success. Hobbit handled all the logistics and I handled all the curriculum and classes. Together, the camp was near perfect; not a single hitch that wasn’t easily solved. Zebra, Bear and I are hosting an all new, revamped, restructured, and renamed environmental camp, now called Camp RENEW (Revitalize, Enlighten, and Nurture Environmental Wellness). It will be hosted at Chilenda Camp, as before, but the camp will be molded on the Kamp Kwacha model: few students, more interactive sessions, more difficult material, and better food. We want to provide a greater variety of knowledge, at a faster pace, to a more selective group of top students. With about eight staff members for twenty students, we provide greater attention for each student. We will teach topics ranging from environmental protection to business to building local windmills. And as essential to any good camp and happy students, the quality and variety of food will be better (especially if we can secure a particular local chef who previously served as chef to the French embassy). All of these qualities are the opposite of the current Peace Corps camp models, which prefer many students (upwards of 80), leading to less learning, attention, course offerings and general enjoyment.