The White Rhino Trail - Changing Lives

‘What do you think, Boss?  Can we go?’ It took merely a moment to agree to the proposal from Julian Taylor who proposed leading a group of boys on the White Rhino Trail in the Umfolosi Game Reserve.

‘There is one proviso,’ I said, ‘and that is that I have to be in the party as well.’ To his credit, Julian did not blink, swallow or blanch and eighteen months later, a party of 12 Wynberg boys and teachers were winging their way to Durban.  The mood at the airport was interesting – a mixture of excitement, apprehension and trepidation.

We were met at the airport by our guides and taken to the Wilderness Leadership School where we were to spend the night before tackling the Trail.  There we were given our rucksacks and equipment.  A demonstration followed on how to pack a rucksack. For example no spoon was to be packed with the enamel mug as the rattling would chase the animals away.  After we had picked up our heaving packs, all of us immediately reverted to Plan B and proceeded to discard spare shirts, jerseys and shorts.  I saw one boy look quizzically at his toothpaste but clearly he must have seen his mother’s face in his mind’s eye – and the tube was duly deposited into a side pocket. I can’t guarantee that it came out at any stage over the next five days to be used for the purpose of which his mother would have approved.

Before we left the next morning, I was called by Ethan to see the four adolescent male zebras grazing next to the kombis. They were totally unfazed by the comments and the clicking cameras  - barely raising their heads from the all-consuming task of tugging at grass.  It was only when Callum stuck his camera virtually under the snout of one of them, that the zebra objected in the time-honoured, adolescent way and let loose with a gentle eruption.

‘Sis, Sir,’ said Callum retreating at pace and waving his hand in front of his face. ‘Did you hear that?’ Clearly he thought it infra dig for young male zebras to behave in a similar fashion to young male boys.

‘And they have not even eaten hostel food,’ said a grinning Ross as he also backed away.

Leaving the flatulating zebras to increase the hole in the ozone layer, we departed on our three hour trip to the Umfolosi. At the main entrance, while the guides negotiated with park officials, some of the boys took out their ‘spotting’ note books and the competition was on.  In went all the buck we had seen so far. 

Chris grilled Rob, our Scottish Gap Year Student: ‘So what do you have to report?’

‘I saw a gecko in the bathroom,’ was the reply.

‘It doesn’t count unless you indicate the gender.’

At this point, the guide came to the rescue. ‘Oh, that is easy.  The male gecko has two penises.’

There was a stunned silence in the kombi and it was very clear what the boys were thinking.  Before the inevitable, envious, adolescent chirps could start, the situation was saved as two elephants, an adult and calf, came into view on the nearby hill.

‘That is a mother and her calf,’ announced Callum, the doyen of African wildlife.

‘Not so,’ said our guide who was determined to impress us early on. ‘Females stay with the herd, but they soon become exasperated with the high jinks of young male elephants so they boot them out of the herd and allow them to bond with an adult male.  This male acts as the adult role model, and shows the youngster the ropes and teaches him the lessons of life.’

Wow!  Elephant society is light years in advance of human society.  Now it was my turn to sit in stunned silence pondering what an easy job it would be in schools if all adult males accepted the responsibility of co-raising our boys.  Statistics in South Africa show that 85% of the prison population is male.  Where are the male role models?

Broken up into two groups, it was now time to leave the kombis and to set out into the bush.  Our two guides, Mandla and Vuyani, sat us down in a circle which they called their ‘indaba’ so that they could go through the non-negotiables:

• No talking at any stage.  Click fingers when an animal is spotted.
• Single file.
• No running if an animal charges – you then become prey.  (Later in the trip, this resolve would be sorely tested.)
• Their stated aim was to ensure that, after this experience, we would never again go into a game reserve in a car.

We saw plenty of animals – including our first rhino and her calf.  Mandla then decided to lead us across the Umfolosi River bed – which only had a few pools of water.  ‘Be careful of the reeds,’ he said. ‘That is where the lions hang out. So follow closely in single file.’

We did – very closely - unsociably close.  As I was the one at the back of the single file through the reeds, I was fairly keen that no lion be disturbed by those in front. I am sure that I had read somewhere that the Tail End Charlie was the first to be zapped in situations like this.  Only at the end of the trip, when we were safely back in the kombi’s, did the other group tell us that they had seen from their vantage point up on a nearby hill ‘about 15 lions’ leave the river bed at our approach and disappear into those self-same reeds through which we were blundering.

Best that we only found out that titbit of information on our return.

We made it unscathed through the reeds, presumably to the disappointment of the watching group in the hills, and filed across the sand of the river bed.  Suddenly a hiss from Mandla brought us to a rapid halt.  One buffalo bull was surveying us balefully from further along the river bed. 

Mandla called us together and in a whisper informed us that this was where he had once been gored by a buffalo and proudly showed us the scars on his thigh.  The buffalo had been lying in the mud and, to defend himself, Mandla had been forced to shoot it.  I expressed the fervent hope that the animal staring malevolently at us had no knowledge of the past incident or was not a close relative of the now deceased buffalo.

We encountered an elephant graveyard later that afternoon and Mandla erased forever the myth of where elephants go to die. He told us that once an elephant dies (largely because his teeth have been worn down), the lions, hyenas and vultures clean the bones thoroughly.  After this, the elephant herd returns and spreads the bones far and wide.  It is their farewell and their form of burial.

So now we know.

About half a kilometre from the camp, the guides started collecting firewood and passed it on to us.  Not any firewood, but tambuti wood as it was long lasting and aromatic. We all had to carry a certain amount to the campsite.

Our campsite

Our first campsite set the standard for the trip.  It was the Ritz of campsites set on a ledge above a pool with a view of the entire valley.  As dusk set, a large troop of baboons made its way towards the site and soon let us know in no uncertain terms that we were unwanted squatters in its personal bed and breakfast accommodation. The baboons kept up the racket at various intervals during the night as they hurled abuse at us from the branches alongside the campsite.

Everyone had to keep watch for an hour and a half every night. Most of us raided the surplus from the diminishing pile of tambuti wood to ensure a comforting illusion of safety beside the flames and the light. During this time, every boy had to write in the log book.  Temba said during his watch, ‘I keep hearing noises, but when I look, there is nothing there.  I am s-o-o-o nervous.  I have accepted that I am probably going to die.’

Ethan expressed a similar sentiment: ‘I heard a noise that sounded like a lion growling, but we were told by the guides that it was just frogs.  I don’t believe them.  My heart is beating so fast.  If I die, tell my family I love them. Oh… and tell Jessica too….’

The chorus of frogs was incessant all night and they clearly riled Matthew who said emphatically that he ‘used to like frogs – but not anymore.’

Julian Taylor showed that he was an old hand: ‘I feel safer here than in my own house in Cape Town even with the alarm set.’

David showed a depth of thought: ‘I think the biggest aspect of this exercise is the responsibility of knowing that you have other peoples’ lives in your hands.’

Perhaps the last word about our first day should go to Callum who told us right at the outset that he had been looking forward to this trip for over a year: ‘The wilderness has reawakened something in me – something the city has repressed.  I feel more alive here than anywhere else.  I feel at home in this land.  I drink in every sound, every sight, every scent on the breeze.  I am at ease in this wilderness which seems to have tapped into my unconsciousness.’

This Wilderness was well on course for changing a few lives.

A view from our campsite

Oops, Even Teachers are Human!

The Wynberg Staff  'Sorry Award'

Stalin’s show trials of the 1930s pale into insignificance compared to the staff’s ‘Sorry Awards' which take place at the end of every term. Andrei Vyshinsky, Stalin’s pet Prosecutor, would have been proud of the slickness of proceedings in the ceremonial ritual of the Wynberg Sorry Awards where the major Faux Pas of the term are laid bare for all to see.

Guilt is presumed from the outset and the sole object of the staff room Prosecutor is to lead evidence, tenuously based on selected facts, to confirm this presumption.  All of Stalin’s victims had been previously tortured to ensure a public confession for the benefit of the media, but in the 2015 Wynberg staffroom a confession is deemed totally irrelevant as the opinion and views of the accused are neither expected nor required.

'Prosecutor' Rodney Inglis

In an effort to rehabilitate the 'poacher', Rodney Inglis was assigned the responsibility of being this term’s 'game keeper' and appointed 'Prosecutor'.  In anticipation of this, he had been assiduously collecting material for weeks and the final staff meeting of the term promised to be a lengthy affair.

To alleviate this, Roland Rudd started off proceedings by raising a point of order – which would never have been tolerated by the original Vyshinsky in 1936 Moscow.  Roland wanted to know whether there was any point in carrying on with the proceedings when Rodney himself was so clearly the Sorry champion of the term.  Ignoring the protestations of the Prosecutor, he told the assembled teachers of the saga of the rugby programmes over the Grey Weekend.

Rodney was in charge of the gate where spectators were being charged to park on the school campus.  In return they received a match programme.  He retrieved boxes of programmes from the staff room and proceeded to hand them out – not realising that they were left-overs from the rugby festival which had been held the previous weekend.  Opinions vary about the number which had been erroneously handed out at the gate - from ‘maybe three or four’ (Rodney) to ‘hundreds’ (other boys at the gate). 

Whatever the number, scores of bemused parents were going around asking why their sons were now playing Tygerberg and St Johns when they had hosted Grey boys the night before in the expectation of playing them the next day.

Chris Moore

With the power vested in him, Rodney ‘Vyshinsky’ airily dismissed these allegations as ‘grossly exaggerated’ and proceeded to what he considered to be the ‘proper business of the day’.

Old Boy and English Teacher Chris Moore was first in the dock.  Clearly nervous, he wondered what grievous misdemeanour he had done to earn a ‘Sorry’ mention in what was only his second term of teaching. It turned out to be the same rugby festival weekend when he had been tasked to hoist the 175 flag at the ground.

For some reason he decided to hoist it next to the scoreboard at the Jacques Kallis Cricket Oval – which was being used for parking.  No doubt, Jacques would have appreciated the gesture - not to mention all the grateful motorists parking their cars who would have considered it an appropriate welcoming touch.

It wasn’t long before master in charge of rugby, Mike Engelbrecht, noticed the empty flag pole next to the rugby scoreboard.  He phoned Chris.  ‘Where is the flag?’ he said.

Chris was aggrieved.  ‘I put it up personally.’

‘Well, I am standing right here looking at an empty flag post,’ said Mike belabouring the point.

The conversation went back and forth at cross purposes until they eventually worked out that they were referring to different flag posts and Chris was dispatched to the Oval to retrieve the flag. 

Sadly it was not to be. 

Our 175 flag, the twin of the one currently in Melbourne, had been nicked. 

Presumably it is in some schoolboy’s bedroom in some far corner of the country.

We want it back please.

And it has also cost Chris Moore a Sorry nomination in his first year of teaching.

Callum Hobbes-Turner bravely posing
with Jacques Kallis (left) who played some
cricket with Graeme Smith

There has been a resurgence in New Zealand cricket of late – but that has been lost on our Kiwi Gap Year Student, Callum Hobbs-Turner. Graeme Smith, captain of the Proteas, holder of innumerable world cricket records amongst which is a record number of caps as an international captain, arrived to see me during the term.

Callum, who was doing duty in the front office at the time, came to call me.  ‘There is some man in the foyer to see you.‘ he said dismissively.

I seem to recollect Nasser Hussain, captain of England, saying something equally disparaging when Graeme walked out with him for the toss in his first test.  He soon found out who Graeme was when he was obliged to resign after the second test.  For the record, Graeme went to a century of tests as captain.

Fortunately (in contrast to Hussain), Callum has managed to hang on to his job – but instead earned a well-deserved Sorry nomination.  Not bad for a Gap Student – especially when one considers that there are those who have never received a Sorry nomination in all their years of teaching.

Callum was dead keen not to make any mistakes after that.  When a delivery was done a few days later, he came to my door with the parcel.  ‘This has been dropped off for you,’ he said. ‘They are pamphlets advertising a Tutankhamen Exhibition.’

As he left, he turned round and asked, ‘Did Tutankhamen also play cricket for South Africa?’

He scurried out before I could think of a suitable response about the state of New Zealand education. I am still wondering whether that was Kiwi humour.

Larry Moser

Music teacher, Peter Catzavelos, more commonly referred to as The Cat, was next up.  During the exams Larry Moser had found a full set of his matric music exam papers lying in the staff room well after the music boys had finished writing.  Clearly they had not been handed out. 

The Prosecutor tore into this with relish and asked a number of questions - Did the boys have the paper beforehand?  Did they even write a paper?  Were music marks merely a thumb-suck?

The fact that these papers were subsequently found to be spares was of no concern to the Prosecutor as, true to historical precedent, he refused to allow the truth to interfere with a good story.  The Cat reacted like any normal feline on a hot tin roof and howled his innocence.  The courtroom howled back and chaos erupted.

The Cat

The Prosecutor was quick to establish his authority. ‘Back to your basket,’ he instructed the Cat. ‘Court procedure does not allow any defence.’

The Cat nursed his wounded pride with bad grace. Lucky it was not Moscow in 1936.  He would have been taken outside and shot.  An hour later I found him in the car park – and he was still aggrieved. 

‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured him. ‘You can appeal the verdict next term.  I am sure your offence can be upgraded from runner up to first place.’

That was not the answer he wanted to hear.

He presumably was not mollified when he heard that Larry was next up – he of the trumped up music exam charge.  There had been a hair inspection during the term and all those who had not passed muster were lined up outside the door of the Deputy Headmaster.

As boy after boy launched into lengthy explanations why his hair was perfectly acceptable and how unfair the whole process was, one lad said he wanted to appeal.

‘Well,’ said an exasperated Larry Moser, ‘the Headmaster is busy, so you can just go and appeal to the Chairman of the Governing Body.’

‘I will too,’ said Matthew Cassells. ‘He is my Dad.’

Well, that was obviously an exercise in futility as he came back the next day, duly shorn and neat.

Matthew can take some modicum of satisfaction in knowing that his Deputy Headmaster was nominated for a Sorry Award for this incident.

The prosecutor then tried a few half-hearted attempts to bring charges against the Headmaster, but in comparison to the heinous indictments against the others, those were inconsequential and a mere slap on the wrist!

Anton Grobler, safely watching
his team in action at Saints, eventually

The winner, though, of the Sorry Award for June 2015 was never in doubt. Anton Grobler was in a class of his own and won it hands down.  During the Easter holidays, he had managed the first team hockey which was travelling to Johannesburg to take part in the Saints Easter Hockey Festival.  The team was on the same aeroplane as our rugby and basketball teams but all managers had made separate arrangements with their particular sports regarding transport from the airport in Johannesburg to St Stithians.

Out of the goodness of his heart, Anton decided not to trouble his hockey hosts and drew money so that his boys could take the Gautrain from O R Tambo Airport.  He thought nothing of it when the plane landed and the other sport teams were met and whisked off in various busses by their hosts,  waving fond farewells.  He certainly was not concerned as he led his bemused team to find the Gautrain.

He would have had a long walk.  The plane had landed at Lanseria Airport.

Even though the Cat had put in a strong bid, Anton had brushed aside all pretenders and accepted the Sorry Trophy with good grace.

Some time later after the Sorry Awards, Ben Thompson remarked to me in my office that ‘it had been a good term’.  As Director of Academics, he was clearly referring to the June Exam results. I concurred with him and commented that the insistence on the Wynberg Pass over the last few years was resulting in boys raising their sights so much higher.  However, I did observe that the same trend was also evident in the quality (and quantity) of Sorry nominees.

High standards have clearly been maintained in that area of school life as well.