My Hand is Stuck!
by Lesley Mukwacha
"So, Lez," the young bloke from New Zealand said when I was just about to say good night, "you ain't got no other stories besides the lion ones?"
"What stories do you wanna hear?" I said, settling back in my chair. I had prayed that no one would request a story from me tonight. I just wanted to go to bed before midnight. Tomorrow would be an early start for us and the 320km waiting to be done was no joke. I checked my watch; the time was 8:45 pm. I could do another forty to sixty minutes.
"I don't know," he said, "maybe an elephant, hyena, hippo, or any other interesting stories."
I cleared my throat and thought for a second. Then I said, "Well, a few years ago, I was gonna catch an early morning bus to Victoria Falls to prepare for a Vic to Cape trip that I was starting in five days." I paused for a moment, then decided this wasn't the story for tonight. I had to think fast.
I found the story I was looking for tucked away in the archives of my mind and smiled. A story that even I find hard to believe. A story a Grade Seven classmate of mine shared with us many years back.
"Two marijuana traders crossed the Zambezi River from Zambia into Zimbabwe in the early hours of the day," I began. "They could not use the Kariba-Siavonga border coz marijuana was very illegal in those days. Because they couldn't find somewhere shallow enough for them to cross below the dam wall, they had to walk 10km downstream before they could cross, which made their journey much longer than it was supposed to be. Once on the Zim side, they had to find food as soon as possible or they would collapse from hunger. From the river to the beginning of Nyamhunga township, where they could get food, it's about 25km of thick forest and it is also a game reserve with potentially dangerous animals, but these guys had lived in Kariba, where these animals are a common thing, all their lives, they weren't worried about that. It was the hunger they dreaded the most."
There was total silence around the campfire at Twyfelfontain camp. All twenty-two clients were sitting with me around the fire. On arrival from Spitzkop, they had all chosen to get beers and other drinks from the bar and bring them to the fire. This was also to avoid having to walk back from the bar, in the dark, drunk, and risk walking into desert elephants that had been spotted nearby just before sunset.
"Eh, Lez," one of the clients had asked me early on, "you say desert elephants are more temperamental than the other elephants. Why is that?"
"Well," I told him, "Since these guys live in the desert, where water is very scarce, they have to walk long distances before they can find it. This makes them very angry and usually aggressive. Just like a hungry man being an angry man, a thirsty elephant is an angry elephant."
"I see." He had nodded before continuing to pitch his tent.
Back to the marijuana boys.
"After walking for about two hours up and down hills, occasionally stopping to rest under big trees, they struck it lucky. A dead rhino lay beside a big patch of acacia bushes. They looked at each other momentarily and smiled happily. How they concluded that the rhino was dead, I have no idea, but I would like to think that it looked dead. This was mana from heaven right there. Meat on a silver plate, and I’m talking tonnes of it, over 1.5 tonnes of meat." I paused and couldn't help chuckling with the rest of the group as they started to assume where the story was going. They were wrong.
"Now," I proceeded when the laughing subsided, "wild animals, especially rhinos, have an acute sense of hearing and smell. Their eyesight is bad, so in compensation, nature gave them excellent hearing and smell, such that you could never walk up to them without being detected unless you are downwind from them and extremely quiet."
"Interesting." Tanya, the quietest of them all, spoke for the first time since we finished dinner. "Rhinos are part of the big five, aren't they?"
"Yes, they are," I answered her, but felt the need to explain a bit more. "You see, rhinos can be very dangerous, they are huge, they have sharp, deadly horns that can drill a hole through you quite easily, but they aren't as aggressive as they are often made out to be. Having had several encounters with them during walks, I have concluded that, more often than not, they either hear or smell you before they see you, and they react by just bolting in any direction, which could be where you are. Many a time a rhino has had to brake just a few meters from me, turn, and scurry off in the opposite direction coz it only saw me when it was very close. Now, imagine a situation where it doesn't see you at all. Wouldn't it just run you over?"
There were silent murmurs of agreement.
“So," I continued, "the rhino wasn't moving, it didn't seem like it was breathing. The one eye that they could see was lifelessly open and white. Its rectum had slipped outside the open end of its digestive tract, a condition known as rectal prolapse, and this alone could have convinced the guys that the rhino was dead. They had matches, but they didn't have a knife with which to cut the meat, so one of them climbed up a nearby hill to see if they were anywhere near a village. They weren't. In the distance, about five or so kilometres away, gleaming objects caught his eye, and suddenly he knew what he was looking at. It was Barotseland, a huge dumping area close to the Kariba-Harare highway. He knew if he ran there, he would find some sort of sharp object or piece of iron sheet that they could use as a knife. After giving a thumbs-up sign to his friend, he broke into a run towards the dumping site."
"Excuse me, guys," Mr. Boombastic, our driver, who had heard this story several times before, called from the bus door, "does anyone still need anything from the bus? I’m about to lock it and go to bed, we’ve got a long drive tomorrow."
"No, we’re good,” the clients answered in unison. "Good night, Mr. Boombastic!"
I chuckled. They sometimes sounded like school kids, but we loved it. It always sent us to bed with smiles on our faces.
"What seemed like a short distance to the dumpsite turned out to be much longer than expected,” I continued with the story. "After about an hour, the guy who had stayed behind, watching over the rhino, grew impatient. His hunger was suddenly unbearable. There was only one thing he could do: push his hand through the rhino's anus and find soft organs like the liver and the lungs. If he managed to rip them out, by the time his friend got back, they would be roasting on the fire."
There was a loud chuckle from the clients.
I laughed out loud too, rising to my feet, coz this part needed me to demonstrate with my whole body for a better understanding.
"So, without hesitating, the guy pushed his hand into the rhino's backside, through the rectum, all the way up to his elbow, and started groping around. This must have tickled the rhino, which suddenly woke up, its whole body shaking violently, and leaped to its feet."
I paused for a moment while they all laughed.
Some guests camping next to us, who had been following the story, couldn't hold back their laughter as well. Before the laughing subsided totally, I continued. "The rhino did not take time to investigate the cause of its internal discomfort, it just knew it had to get away. Whatever was stuck in its backside had to be shaken off somehow and the best way would be to run as fast as possible through the bushes. So, it ran. The guy, on the other hand, could not pull his hand out coz, upon waking up, the muscles around the rhino's anus had tightened in an attempt to suck the rectum back in, resulting in making it impossible to free himself. So, as he was dragged around in the forest, he started yelling, "The animal is getting awaaay!"
His friend, who was now nearby, heard the yelling and responded by yelling back. "Let it get awaaay!"
The guy yelled, "How can I let it get away when I've got my hand stuck in its backside?”
"Hold onto a tree or somethin’!"
"How do I hold onto a tree when the animal is running so faaast?”
Oh my God, now there was a chorus of laughter, the best time for me to disappear without anyone noticing, or I would be coaxed into telling another story. I surreptitiously slid around the bus and tiptoed to my tent, got inside, and zipped up.
I could still hear them laughing long after I got into my sleeping bag.
The next day, as we drove to Etosha National Park, I told them what had caused the rhino to appear dead.
"Rhinos enjoy eating euphobia plants, sucking on the poisonous milk latex they produce. Now, although the poison has no deadly effect on the rhinos, it intoxicates them to the point of motionlessness, where they sleep for hours without moving a limb. This rhino had helped himself to a lot of that drink.”
"What happened to the guy, eventually?" one client asked.
"His hand is still stuck, and the rhino is still running around, trying to shake him off."
We all chuckled as we drove through Henderson's gate of Etosha. The real game drive had begun. Everyone went for their camera as I said, "Welcome to Etoshaaa!"
"What stories do you wanna hear?" I said, settling back in my chair. I had prayed that no one would request a story from me tonight. I just wanted to go to bed before midnight. Tomorrow would be an early start for us and the 320km waiting to be done was no joke. I checked my watch; the time was 8:45 pm. I could do another forty to sixty minutes.
"I don't know," he said, "maybe an elephant, hyena, hippo, or any other interesting stories."
I cleared my throat and thought for a second. Then I said, "Well, a few years ago, I was gonna catch an early morning bus to Victoria Falls to prepare for a Vic to Cape trip that I was starting in five days." I paused for a moment, then decided this wasn't the story for tonight. I had to think fast.
I found the story I was looking for tucked away in the archives of my mind and smiled. A story that even I find hard to believe. A story a Grade Seven classmate of mine shared with us many years back.
"Two marijuana traders crossed the Zambezi River from Zambia into Zimbabwe in the early hours of the day," I began. "They could not use the Kariba-Siavonga border coz marijuana was very illegal in those days. Because they couldn't find somewhere shallow enough for them to cross below the dam wall, they had to walk 10km downstream before they could cross, which made their journey much longer than it was supposed to be. Once on the Zim side, they had to find food as soon as possible or they would collapse from hunger. From the river to the beginning of Nyamhunga township, where they could get food, it's about 25km of thick forest and it is also a game reserve with potentially dangerous animals, but these guys had lived in Kariba, where these animals are a common thing, all their lives, they weren't worried about that. It was the hunger they dreaded the most."
There was total silence around the campfire at Twyfelfontain camp. All twenty-two clients were sitting with me around the fire. On arrival from Spitzkop, they had all chosen to get beers and other drinks from the bar and bring them to the fire. This was also to avoid having to walk back from the bar, in the dark, drunk, and risk walking into desert elephants that had been spotted nearby just before sunset.
"Eh, Lez," one of the clients had asked me early on, "you say desert elephants are more temperamental than the other elephants. Why is that?"
"Well," I told him, "Since these guys live in the desert, where water is very scarce, they have to walk long distances before they can find it. This makes them very angry and usually aggressive. Just like a hungry man being an angry man, a thirsty elephant is an angry elephant."
"I see." He had nodded before continuing to pitch his tent.
Back to the marijuana boys.
"After walking for about two hours up and down hills, occasionally stopping to rest under big trees, they struck it lucky. A dead rhino lay beside a big patch of acacia bushes. They looked at each other momentarily and smiled happily. How they concluded that the rhino was dead, I have no idea, but I would like to think that it looked dead. This was mana from heaven right there. Meat on a silver plate, and I’m talking tonnes of it, over 1.5 tonnes of meat." I paused and couldn't help chuckling with the rest of the group as they started to assume where the story was going. They were wrong.
"Now," I proceeded when the laughing subsided, "wild animals, especially rhinos, have an acute sense of hearing and smell. Their eyesight is bad, so in compensation, nature gave them excellent hearing and smell, such that you could never walk up to them without being detected unless you are downwind from them and extremely quiet."
"Interesting." Tanya, the quietest of them all, spoke for the first time since we finished dinner. "Rhinos are part of the big five, aren't they?"
"Yes, they are," I answered her, but felt the need to explain a bit more. "You see, rhinos can be very dangerous, they are huge, they have sharp, deadly horns that can drill a hole through you quite easily, but they aren't as aggressive as they are often made out to be. Having had several encounters with them during walks, I have concluded that, more often than not, they either hear or smell you before they see you, and they react by just bolting in any direction, which could be where you are. Many a time a rhino has had to brake just a few meters from me, turn, and scurry off in the opposite direction coz it only saw me when it was very close. Now, imagine a situation where it doesn't see you at all. Wouldn't it just run you over?"
There were silent murmurs of agreement.
“So," I continued, "the rhino wasn't moving, it didn't seem like it was breathing. The one eye that they could see was lifelessly open and white. Its rectum had slipped outside the open end of its digestive tract, a condition known as rectal prolapse, and this alone could have convinced the guys that the rhino was dead. They had matches, but they didn't have a knife with which to cut the meat, so one of them climbed up a nearby hill to see if they were anywhere near a village. They weren't. In the distance, about five or so kilometres away, gleaming objects caught his eye, and suddenly he knew what he was looking at. It was Barotseland, a huge dumping area close to the Kariba-Harare highway. He knew if he ran there, he would find some sort of sharp object or piece of iron sheet that they could use as a knife. After giving a thumbs-up sign to his friend, he broke into a run towards the dumping site."
"Excuse me, guys," Mr. Boombastic, our driver, who had heard this story several times before, called from the bus door, "does anyone still need anything from the bus? I’m about to lock it and go to bed, we’ve got a long drive tomorrow."
"No, we’re good,” the clients answered in unison. "Good night, Mr. Boombastic!"
I chuckled. They sometimes sounded like school kids, but we loved it. It always sent us to bed with smiles on our faces.
"What seemed like a short distance to the dumpsite turned out to be much longer than expected,” I continued with the story. "After about an hour, the guy who had stayed behind, watching over the rhino, grew impatient. His hunger was suddenly unbearable. There was only one thing he could do: push his hand through the rhino's anus and find soft organs like the liver and the lungs. If he managed to rip them out, by the time his friend got back, they would be roasting on the fire."
There was a loud chuckle from the clients.
I laughed out loud too, rising to my feet, coz this part needed me to demonstrate with my whole body for a better understanding.
"So, without hesitating, the guy pushed his hand into the rhino's backside, through the rectum, all the way up to his elbow, and started groping around. This must have tickled the rhino, which suddenly woke up, its whole body shaking violently, and leaped to its feet."
I paused for a moment while they all laughed.
Some guests camping next to us, who had been following the story, couldn't hold back their laughter as well. Before the laughing subsided totally, I continued. "The rhino did not take time to investigate the cause of its internal discomfort, it just knew it had to get away. Whatever was stuck in its backside had to be shaken off somehow and the best way would be to run as fast as possible through the bushes. So, it ran. The guy, on the other hand, could not pull his hand out coz, upon waking up, the muscles around the rhino's anus had tightened in an attempt to suck the rectum back in, resulting in making it impossible to free himself. So, as he was dragged around in the forest, he started yelling, "The animal is getting awaaay!"
His friend, who was now nearby, heard the yelling and responded by yelling back. "Let it get awaaay!"
The guy yelled, "How can I let it get away when I've got my hand stuck in its backside?”
"Hold onto a tree or somethin’!"
"How do I hold onto a tree when the animal is running so faaast?”
Oh my God, now there was a chorus of laughter, the best time for me to disappear without anyone noticing, or I would be coaxed into telling another story. I surreptitiously slid around the bus and tiptoed to my tent, got inside, and zipped up.
I could still hear them laughing long after I got into my sleeping bag.
The next day, as we drove to Etosha National Park, I told them what had caused the rhino to appear dead.
"Rhinos enjoy eating euphobia plants, sucking on the poisonous milk latex they produce. Now, although the poison has no deadly effect on the rhinos, it intoxicates them to the point of motionlessness, where they sleep for hours without moving a limb. This rhino had helped himself to a lot of that drink.”
"What happened to the guy, eventually?" one client asked.
"His hand is still stuck, and the rhino is still running around, trying to shake him off."
We all chuckled as we drove through Henderson's gate of Etosha. The real game drive had begun. Everyone went for their camera as I said, "Welcome to Etoshaaa!"