16 14 | BOOKS
22 May 2019
The elephant in the room… er… kitchen Writer Elaine Davie
C
learly, elephants are front of mind for a large number of Overstrand residents at the moment. The Onrus Dutch Reformed Church Hall was bursting at the seams last Thursday evening (in fact people were turned away at the door when even standing room was no longer available), when Françoise Malby Anthony presented the remarkable story of the Thula Thula Game Reserve in Zululand which she and her late husband, Lawrence Anthony started 20 years ago.
Through his bestselling books, Babylon’s Ark, The Elephant Whisperer and The Last Rhinos, many readers will be familiar with the tale of the conservationist’s commitment to wildlife protection and especially the very personal relationship he established with the seven rescue elephants which came to live at Thula Thula in 1999. The story of how they walked to the Lodge in procession to pay their respects after Lawrence died suddenly in Johannesburg in March 2012 and how they return every year on the anniversary of his death has been re-told many times. In her recently-published book, An Elephant in my Kitchen, subtitled ‘What the herd taught me about love, courage and survival’, Françoise picks up the tale of Thula Thula since Lawrence’s passing. “It didn’t ever occur to me to return to France, my homeland,” she says. “Instead I came face to face with the depth of my attachment to this country and particularly, of course, to Thula Thula. Lawrence was an idealist, a visionary, and I was determined to fulfil his dream for this place.” She quickly realised, however, that she had
three immediate challenges to overcome: She knew absolutely nothing about conservation – that was Lawrence’s preserve, while she took care of the hospitality side of the project – she was a foreigner and a woman. The book describes her successes and failures of the past seven years, the disappointments and the heartbreak, as well as the triumphs and the joy. And always the elephants were there. The title of the book, she explains, derives from a real-life experience when a seven-day-old baby elephant found itself in her kitchen. It had somehow got separated from the herd and had apparently been wandering around on its own for a couple of days. It was dehydrated and starving. Named after the Lodge’s chef, she was called Tom and when she was strong enough after being hand-fed and given lots of TLC she could be returned to her mother. She is now a strong, happy five-year-old. When the original seven elephants arrived at Thula Thula, they were terrified and uncontrollable, but thanks to the perseverance and love of elephant-whisperer, Lawrence and the special relationship of trust which developed between him and the matriarch, Nana, the herd flourished. There are now 29 of them, led by Nana’s daughter, Frankie. Each one has a name and an ID card, showing its place on the Thula Thula family tree. Apart from the elephants, there are, of course many other species on the reserve, including rhino. After they had successfully hand-raised two orphaned baby rhino, Thabo and Nthombi, Françoise opened a rhino orphanage on the reserve in 2014. But in February 2017, tragedy struck. One stormy, rain-lashed night, poachers attacked the orphanage and killed two 18-month-old rhino calves for their tiny, tiny horns.
Poaching is Thula Thula’s biggest challenge and against her will, Françoise finally agreed to the de-horning of the rhino, and still more of them keep coming. In fact, just a week ago an 11-yearold mother and her baby arrived. “Their names are Mona and Lisa,” says Françoise, “and we are hoping that Mona will become Thabo’s girlfriend and teach him how to make baby rhinos.” Unless the rate of poaching is urgently addressed, the experts say that 20 years from now there will no longer be any elephant or rhino left in the wild anywhere in Africa. Her passion is both to protect the animals which have been given refuge at Thula Thula, and to educate young people, South African and foreign, of the need to conserve them as a legacy for the future. “We have become completely obsessed with protecting our animals,” confesses Françoise. “We maintain a mini-army at the reserve, with armed guards following the animals 24/7, as well as cameras strategically placed in the bush and regular air patrols in the skies above. “We have also established a residential Volunteers Academy, mainly for young people from overseas, who pay to work on the reserve alongside our 60 permanent staff members, and then become ambassadors for conservation in their own countries.” The five local
What’s new in review
Françoise Malby Anthony, Executive Director of the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve and widow of the ‘Elephant Whisperer’, Lawrence Anthony. PHOTO: www.courrierinternational.com tribal chiefs, each also select a young person from their communities to participate in this programme, free of charge. “The most important thing I have learnt during these seven roller-coaster years,” concludes Françoise, “is that no matter how tough the going gets, the secret is never to give up – believe in the impossible and never give up.”
Compiled by Hedda Mittner
Who was the real Wallis: an opportunistic American social climber, a master manipulator or the true love of Edward’s life, for whom he gave up the British throne? Anna Pasternak's new book is the first to give Wallis a voice to show that she was a warm, loyal, intelligent woman adored by her friends, who was written off by cunning, influential Establishment men seeking to diminish her and destroy her reputation. Far from being the villain of the abdication, she was the victim. Untitled is an intimate biography of one of the most misunderstood women in British royal history. – amazon.com
Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London, where Alan Turing has just achieved a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence. When Charlie comes into money, he and Miranda, the bright student he is in love with, buy Adam, a near-perfect synthetic human that is beautiful, strong and clever, a love triangle soon forms and these three beings confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions about what makes us human and warns of the power to invent things beyond our control. – goodreads.com
The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of threats and lawsuits. In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, a brilliant Stanford dropout, was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs, with an estimated worth of $4.7 billion. Bad Blood is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley. – goodreads.com
Full of her trademark mix of unforgettable characters and heart-breaking secrets, The Butterfly Room is a spellbinding, multi-generational story from bestseller Lucinda Riley. Posy Montague is approaching her 70th birthday and knows the time has come to sell her beautiful family home in the Suffolk countryside, Admiral House. Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken 50 years ago. Posy doesn’t know that Freddie – and Admiral House – have a devastating secret to reveal… – panmacmillan.com
2010: Sixteen-year-old outsider Willem just wants to be left alone with his books and his dog. Worried he's not turning out right, his ma and her boyfriend send him to New Dawn Safari Training Camp. Here they 'make men out of boys'. Guaranteed. 1901: The height of the second Boer War. Sarah and her six-year-old son are taken from their farm by force to a British concentration camp where they are promised: ‘You will be safe’. Damian Barr's heart-wrenching debut novel weaves these twin narratives together in a devastating tale of cruelty and redemption. – bloomsbury.com
This is the first biography of the major South African novelist who came close to winning a Nobel Prize for Literature. De Kock’s eagerly-awaited account of Brink’s life and work is richly informed by a massive new biographical source – the previously unavailable literary treasure of Brink’s journals that were written over a period of 54 years. Here topics that Brink skated over in his memoir, A Fork in the Road, such as his rebellious politics, five marriages and numerous affairs, are narrated in detail and subjected by De Kock to searching critical analysis. – jonathanball.co.za
William Collins
Jonathan Cape
Picador
Pan Macmillan
Bloomsbury
Jonathan Ball
