One from the archives

I know it’s a bit early for nostalgia, but here’s a letter I wrote to the one-time lion of Africa eight years ago.

 

To: Zimbabwe President His Excellency Robert Mugabe

1 Feb. 2009

Dear Mr President,

As per your request, I examined your wife, Grace, upon her recent return from China and may I say what a lovely woman she is. You are a very lucky man.
Having said that, however, I would be failing in my duty if I did not admit to having detected one or two interesting anomalies in her psychiatric make-up.

While Grace admits to having attacked a man upon leaving a Hong Kong shopping mall, she maintains that she was stricken by an episode of snow blindness and mistook the photographer for a Ninja assassin working for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

I find her version of events entirely plausible. History has shown us that the Chinese cannot be trusted. You only have to ask the Japanese. Or place an order at my local takeaway. You ask for stir-fried shrimp and they give you chicken that smells like fish. But I digress.

During our session, Grace used her lipstick to draw several organograms on my office wall, proving that the triads are controlled by the House of Lords. This makes perfect sense given that Britain ruled Hong Kong with an iron fist for 150 years.
 Grace told me her primary concern was that Hong Kong, her preferred shopping destination, would now be closed to her.

I assured her that these fears were unfounded. All it would take is a call from you to President Hu Jintao threatening to cut off their rhino horn and close down the shoe shops.

I am, therefore, pleased to inform you that Grace is a healthy, normal woman. Well, she will be once the operation has been performed. If you are interested, I can put you in touch with a good man in Pyongyang.

In the meantime, I would like to suggest that you keep her indoors, preferably away from the windows, for the next 12 months.
 As far as medication goes, not that she needs it, you may wish to consider slipping 1500mg of lithium into her Beluga caviar each morning.
And if there is any buspirone, propranolol or clonidine lying around State House, you could always stir it into her raw rabbit spleen and fish eagle foie gras.
 It is up to you.

Yours eternally,

Professor Benjamin Trovato (Dipso.M.Aniac Chimanimani Univ.)

Dead elephants tell no tales

US President Donald Trump is reversing an Obama-era ban on hunters importing trophies of elephants killed in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Are his sons planning another hunt? Here’s a letter I wrote to the little fuckers in 2012.

 

Hey boys!

Just wanted to congratulate you on your successful hunting trip to Zimbabwe.

Our papers have been full of pictures of you guys holding up dead leopards in a pink mist of vapourised waterbuck. You’re real heroes in these parts, let me tell you. There has been a bit of criticism, but it’s coming mainly from white bunny-hugging do-gooders who think wild animals are there to be photographed instead of destroyed like the vermin they are. Bloody liberals.

I see you managed to bag three of the Big Five. Well done! But what stopped you from going for a full house? You got the buffalo, elephant and leopard, but missed the rhino and lion. And you call yourselves Trumps? Just kidding.

I’m sure it’s not your fault. I bet the organisers of the hunt failed to tether them securely and they escaped before you could drive up and shoot them in the face.

Donald Jr., I particularly enjoyed the picture of you holding an elephant’s tail in one hand and a knife in the other. You can even see the legs of the elephant lying on the ground to prove that you got it off the animal and not from a curio shop.

I bet you also cut off its trunk and poked it through your zipper and pretended you had a giant willy. I certainly would have.

I liked the shot of you guys posing next to a crocodile strung up from a tree. It reminded me of those old pictures from your Deep South. Now that the darkies are off-limits, croc-lynching could be the next big thing in Alabama. Wanna be partners? You gun ’em down, I string ’em up.

By the way, did you know that we also have a Small Five that are tremendous fun to kill? Meerkats are my best. If you’re quick, you can run up and kick them before they bolt for cover.

Your brother, Eric, could have been waiting in an imaginary end zone to catch the flying ‘kat. Touchdown! American football, Africa style. What’s not to love?

Another of my favourites is the tortoise. Hunting tortoises is usually done when you have a hangover. I’m sure you had lots of those on your trip because the only way to survive Africa is to drink heavily while firing blindly into the night.

So what you do is set up your chair within shouting distance of a reliable servant – you don’t want to run out of Bloody Marys – and wait for a tortoise to come along.

Put your foot on his back to stop him from getting away. This is where it gets tricky. He will have retracted himself, making a clean head shot impossible.

Don’t shoot him in the shell if you plan on using him as a paper-weight. They shatter easily. Rather take a leaf out of your father’s book: cut off his lights and water and starve him out.

You said the local villagers were overjoyed at getting the meat from your hunt. And why wouldn’t they be? Leopard carpaccio garnished with a sprinkling of civet cat and drizzled with crocodile jus doesn’t appear on the menu in the Matetsi area all that often.

When I read that the hunt organisers were called Hunting Legends, I thought they were offering legends like President Robert Mugabe. Now there’s a trophy you should have on your wall.

But I suppose he would put up too much of a fight. Not that you lads aren’t bok for a fight. Far from it. A kudu is a hell of an adversary. You were just fortunate to come across one that was drugged.

To be honest, a lot of the wild animals in southern Africa are on drugs these days. They also lack any real work ethic and spend most of the day sleeping. Smelly freeloaders. No wonder we kill them.

You were also lucky to have survived shooting a tusker. Many elephants, particularly in Zimbabwe, are known to explode without warning and, even from a distance of 300 metres, you could easily have lost a leg. Or worse, had your hair messed up. Gel is hard to come by in the bush.

I’m not much of a hunter myself, but I think I know why you boys enjoy it. For a start, Eric is a girl’s name and he has a lot to prove. And your name is Donald Jr., and yet it is Eric who looks more like your father. No wonder you’re angry.

You said the money you paid for the hunt will be used to fund nature conservation in Zimbabwe. I presume by “fund nature conservation” you mean “arm Zanu-PF veterans”. That’s okay. We understand code in these parts. No names, no pack drill.

My wife, Brenda, says you’re both latent homosexuals. As my Uncle Pervy used to say, “Better latent than never.” Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that I beat her soundly for her insolence.

I must say, though, Eric, you do look pretty damn sexy with that leopard draped over your shoulders. It brings out your eyes.

And Donald Jr., seeing you straddling that dead buffalo makes doggie style seem positively Christian.

Y’all come back again!

Amazing Grace

Dear Comrade Grace,

Congratulations on achieving what nobody else has been able to in 37 years – get Robert Mugabe to stand down. This is especially remarkable at a time when it was becoming increasingly difficult to get him to stand up.

Looking back, it might have been a tiny miscalculation on your part to get your husband to fire vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa. Who would’ve thought a war veteran with strong military ties would have had the army in his corner? I’m no political strategist, but it seems to me that you might have moved a little quicker with your plan. If Bob had abdicated last week and installed you as president, you could have had your defence force rounded up and jailed by now. You could have borrowed our army to imprison your army. We’re not using ours at the moment. Give our soldiers a mutton curry pie and a Coke and they’ll do anything.

I was astounded that half a dozen armoured personnel carriers could simply drive into Harare and instantly put an end to life as you know it. Is it possible that Bob himself was behind the coup-that’s-not-really-a-coup? I read somewhere that you had started beating him. I always assumed he enjoyed it. Perhaps he only said he did to keep you happy. Some husbands are like that.

When President Zuma called for calm and restraint, do you think he was talking directly to you? After the awkwardness of having South Africa captured by an overweight immigrant family from Uttar Pradesh, the last thing the region needed, as the Zimbabwean army gently eased the passage of the new national democratic project, was to have you burst from state house shrieking and swinging a nine-plug extension cable at anything that moved.

I believe Zuma is sending his state security minister, Bongani Bongo, to have a chat with Bob and the new boys. Try to get in with Bongo. He’s a good man to have on your side. His predecessor loved massages. You must have all manner of oils and unguents lying about the palace. Bob doesn’t get to look like that without lashings of intensive skin care. Roll up your sleeves and give Bongo a bit of a rub. You don’t even have to pretend to enjoy it. Talk about espionage when you’re doing it. He likes that. Slap him around a bit. We’d like that.

Apparently Zuma spoke to Bobbles this morning. He said he was fine. Or fired. Or on fire. It was a bad line. I don’t suppose his health matters much to you any longer. What a tremendous weight off your mind, let alone your hips. It couldn’t have been easy being married to a 138-year-old man. Does he still wake up in the middle of the night and order Winston Churchill to be shot?

I hear you’ve, er, gone off for a bit of a holiday. You certainly deserve a break. One minute you’re shaking your booty to a North Korean marching song on ZBC while picking out an outfit for your inauguration and the next you’re in the boot of a loyal lackey’s car racing for the Vic Falls border.

Apparently you have a farm in the south of Namibia. You’ll love it there. Okay, Keetmanshoop isn’t exactly Singapore in terms of shopping and health care, but there are a lot of bottle stores and, well, that’s about it.

Do your two gorgeous boys realise they’re going to have to get real jobs now? Poor little things. They must be devastated. Still and all. Keetmanshoop is a far healthier environment for Robert Jr and Bellarmine than, say, Chikurubi Prison. Try to interest them in sheep farming. It’s better than alcoholism. Not really, but don’t tell them that.

Anyway. Don’t let the fire go out of those crazy black eyes of yours. I’m a big fan. Not big enough for you to come and live with me, I should point out. I am partial to the mad ones, but, Grace, you’re next level and I’m just not ready for that right now.

Pamberi ne chimurenga! Pameberi ne karakul farming!

A buffet called Africa

China, eh? Funny old business. I had one of them Chinese in the back of my car once. Well, he was in the boot, actually. Come to think of it, that wasn’t a Chinese at all – it was a spare tyre. Probably made in China, though. It’s a slippery slope. Starts with tyres and next thing you know you’re marching in lockstep and quoting from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.

As a precaution I am learning Mandarin. I have learnt how to say, “Please don’t eat me.” This is all the Mandarin anyone needs. They are very big eaters, the Chinese. Well, they’re small eaters, but with big appetites. When Chinese babies are teething, they are given rocks to chew on. This is why there are almost no rocks left in China today. We export a lot of our rocks to Beijing. The Drakensberg will be gone in a few years. Good riddance, I say. It blocks the view and does nothing to help feed the poor.

Did you hear about the Chinese fishing fleet sailing under the radar off our coast? Apparently they snuck in under cover of darkness in the hope of pillaging our sardines. Well done to them, I say. Sardines are the work of the devil. They are slippery customers who will betray you the moment your back is turned. The only honourable member of their family is the anchovy, a humble little fish who is happiest when neatly arranged on a pizza.

Countries are meant to report to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the agency that keeps track of global fisheries catches. For instance, Spain might report having caught five million tons in foreign waters in any given year, while the Chinese government is more likely to tell the FAO that its 3 400 vessels operating in the coastal waters of 94 countries caught three swordfish, two mackerel and a snoek. This is nothing more than creative accounting and, in my book, any form of creativity is to be applauded.

Greenpeace, that ragtag bunch of neo-liberal jumper-wearing do-gooders, says that sub-Saharan Africa is the only region on earth where per capita fish consumption is falling as a result of foreign fishing fleets nicking all the aquatic edibles. I don’t know about that. I was at John Dory’s a couple of nights ago and watched a Cro-Magnon family from the hinterland stuffing so much fish into their fat prehensile faces that the only thing in danger of falling was the toddler choking on a giant piece of hake.

A few weeks ago Argentina’s coast guard opened fire on a Chinese trawler fishing illegally in its waters. The trawler sank. Maybe we should bring out the Corvettes. I’m not talking about the patrol boats we bought in our squeaky-clean arms deal, obviously. Those are up on bricks at the moment. I’m talking about the Chevrolet Corvettes I saw driving around Simonstown last time I was there. They could park down by the waters edge, facing the Chinese, and frighten them off with a display of synchronised hooting and revving.

Meanwhile, China appears to have eaten everything in Zimbabwe and gone home. Our appalling neighbour’s annual international trade fair ended this week in Bulawayo. Hall 1 was always China’s turf. You wanted to flog a rhino horn or buy a second-hand Shenyang J-31 fighter jet, you went to Hall 1. Not this year. This year the Russians had occupied Hall 1. I won’t say anything more about this lest Vlad the Impaler calls in an airstrike on my house.

On a more positive note, Zanu-PF commandeered Hall 5 where officials tried to encourage people to join the party. Because no trade fair is really complete until men in dark glasses start rabbit-punching visitors in the kidneys.

Anyway, let’s not be churlish. There aren’t many international trade fairs that can boast of being officially opened by the likes of Togo’s President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé. There were no Togolese exhibitors at the fair. Perhaps he took the country’s only plane. Either that or the Chinese have eaten Togo.

Deputy President Squirrel Ramaphosa said last year he wanted to see more South African companies expand into China. Distell has already established a presence. This is good news because alcohol lowers inhibitions and if there’s one thing this world needs, it’s more Chinese people.

The Queen of England was caught on camera this week saying she thought the Chinese were “very rude”. That’s rich. Do you know what’s rude? Hogging the throne while your son is desperate to have a go. And having your daughter-in-law whacked. That’s way ruder than the Chinese. On the other hand, stealing Tibet and harvesting the organs of political prisoners is also quite rude.

Right. Enough about the Chinese. Moving on to Oupa Bodibe, a man who sounds more like someone’s avuncular grandfather than a raving jingoistic loyalist. To be fair, he is only the spokespuppet for Gauteng’s education department, so the idea of having South Africa’s coat of arms on every school uniform by 2017 is probably not his. Why stop there? Why not make the uniforms from South African flags? While we’re at it, let’s make sure the kids’ gardens feature nothing but the national flower and they eat nothing but the national fish. Boiled galjoen for breakfast. Yum. They should also have nothing but the national anthem on their iPods and they must replace their pets with the national animal. Council bylaws might have to be amended to accommodate the influx of springboks – a small price to pay if we hope to raise a nation of ANC-voting superpatriots.

Speaking of which, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said last week that the defence force was “making progress” in recruiting young white people. There were 103 white recruits in the 2016 intake. This might not sound like progress, but we’re talking about 103 of the best and brightest the white tribe of Africa can offer. Absolute cream of the crop. Don’t for one minute think the army is the only place that would have them. We should all sleep easier at night knowing that they are out there.

And not here.

Ben Trovato takes a leaf out of China’s little red recipe book and eats anything that moves.

A blast from the past

A Letter to Eric and Donald Trump Jnr

 

Hey boys!

Just wanted to congratulate you on your successful hunting trip to Zimbabwe. Our papers have been full of pictures of you guys holding up dead leopards in a pink mist of vapourised waterbuck. You’re real heroes in these parts, let me tell you. There has been a bit of criticism, but it’s coming mainly from white bunny-hugging do-gooders who think wild animals are there to be photographed instead of destroyed like the vermin they are. Bloody liberals.

I see you managed to bag three of the Big Five. Well done! But what stopped you from going for a full house? You got the buffalo, elephant and leopard, but missed the rhino and lion. And you call yourselves Trumps? Just kidding. I’m sure it’s not your fault. I bet the organisers of the hunt failed to tether them securely and they escaped before you could drive up and shoot them in the face.

Donald jnr, I particularly enjoyed the picture of you holding an elephant’s tail in one hand and a knife in the other. You can even see the legs of the elephant lying on the ground to prove that you got it off the animal and not from a curio shop. I bet you also cut off its trunk and poked it through your zipper and pretended you had a giant willy. I certainly would have.

I liked the shot of you guys posing next to a crocodile strung up from a tree. It reminded me of those old pictures from your Deep South. Now that the darkies are off-limits, croc-lynching could be the next big thing in Alabama. Wanna be partners? You gun ’em down, I string ’em up.

By the way, did you know that we also have a Small Five that are tremendous fun to kill? Meerkats are my best. If you’re quick, you can run up and kick them before they bolt for cover. Your brother, Eric, could have been waiting in an imaginary end zone to catch the flying ‘kat. Touchdown! American football, Africa style. What’s not to love?

Another of my favourites is the tortoise. Hunting tortoises is usually done when you have a hangover. I’m sure you had lots of those on your trip because the only way to survive Africa is to drink heavily while firing blindly into the night.

So what you do is set up your chair within shouting distance of a reliable servant – you don’t want to run out of Bloody Marys – and wait for a tortoise to come along. Put your foot on his back to stop him from getting away. This is where it gets tricky. He will have retracted himself, making a clean head shot impossible. Don’t shoot him in the shell if you plan on using him as a paper-weight. They shatter easily. Rather take a leaf out of your father’s book. Cut off his lights and water and starve him out.

You said the local villagers were overjoyed at getting the meat from your hunt. And why wouldn’t they be? Leopard carpaccio garnished with a sprinkling of civet cat and drizzled with crocodile jus doesn’t appear on the menu in the Matetsi area all that often.

When I read that the hunt organisers were called Hunting Legends, I thought they were offering legends like President Robert Mugabe. Now there’s a trophy you should have on your wall. But I suppose he would put up too much of a fight. Not that you lads aren’t bok for a fight. Far from it. A kudu is a hell of an adversary. You were just fortunate to come across one that was drugged. To be honest, a lot of the game in southern Africa is on drugs these days. They also lack any real work ethic and spend most of the day sleeping. Smelly freeloaders. No wonder we kill them.

You were also lucky to have survived shooting a tusker. Many elephants, particularly in Zimbabwe, are known to explode without warning and, even from a distance of 300 metres, you could easily have lost a leg. Or worse, had your hair messed up. Gel is hard to come by in the bush. Poachers probably stole his detonator. With elections coming up, they are worth more than ivory these days.

I’m not much of a hunter myself, but I think I know why you boys enjoy it. For a start, Eric is a girl’s name and he has a lot to prove. And your name is Donald jnr, and yet it is Eric who looks more like your father. No wonder you’re angry.

You said the money you paid for the hunt will be used to fund nature conservation in Zimbabwe. I presume by “fund nature conservation” you mean “arm Zanu-PF veterans”. That’s okay. We understand code in these parts. No names, no pack-drill. Whatever the hell that means.

My wife, Brenda, says you’re both latent homosexuals. As my Uncle Pervy used to say, “Better latent than never.” Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that I beat her soundly for her insolence.

I must say, though, Eric, you do look pretty damn sexy with that leopard draped over your shoulders. It brings out your eyes. And Donald jnr, seeing you straddling that dead buffalo makes doggie style seem positively Christian.

Y’all come back again!

Kruger Park To Become Las Vegas of South Africa

The Kruger National Park will soon be adding hotel accommodation to its list of attractions. SANParks says the hotels will bring more people to the park and increase revenue to pay for biodiversity projects. However, critics say the hotels will destroy the natural character of a park that has been in existence for over a hundred years.

Boksburg resident Bokkie-Bok van der Bok said he had been coming to the Kruger Park since he was ‘knee-high to a demijohn of Paarl Perlé’.

‘Hotels in the Kruger Park? Are they out of their fukken minds? Look, I have nothing against change. It’s a good thing. But this is what happens when the communists take over.’

Brümhilde Sukscok, a visiting medical student from Schönau im Schwarzwald currently doing her internship with the eminently charming cardiologist, Dr Wouter Basson, said she would stop going to the Kruger Park if hotels were built.

‘How do you think I would feel sleeping on a broken bed in a hot, overpriced rat-infested rondhovel decorated like an East German prison cell while knowing there is a luxury hotel on my doorstep that I can’t afford? Either everybody suffers in the existing accommodation or nobody suffers and we all stay in the hotels. For free.’

Other critics felt it was the wildlife that would suffer most during construction of the hotels.

SANParks chief executive David Mabunda disagrees. ‘Suffering is very 1980s. Who doesn’t love a nice hotel? Maybe the giraffe. But who are we to say? Let’s not be giraffist.’

Pretoria property developer Varkie de Vetket said he supported SANParks ‘one thousand million per cent’.

‘This Mabunda oke sounds alright for a darkie but maybe what we need is a big fat Sol Kerzner thing happening here.’ De Vetket said he would like to see more of the Kruger Park being developed.

‘It’s open space. Wasted. You think the animals appreciate it? Please. Have you ever seen a happy buffalo? This place needs golf courses. Race tracks. It needs casinos. Who wants to go to a game reserve and not stand a chance of walking away with a million bucks? And I don’t mean springbucks either.’

A spokesman for the Sandton Triads said if hotels were going to be built, he saw no reason why processing factories shouldn’t also be built. ‘With factoly we take lhino and erefant horns one time chop chop.’

One regular visitor to the Kruger Park said he would like to see ‘at least five or six shopping malls’ scattered around the reserve.

‘Have you ever tried to buy stuff at a shop in Kruger? Jissus. It’s like shopping in Zimbabwe. The wood is wet. The beer is warm. The frozen meat has been in the fridge since the Ice Age. It’s a helluva thing.’

Mabunda said he had taken the opinions of the public into account and then discarded those that didn’t agree with him.

‘The entire process took – what was it – three minutes? Let’s be honest. People are like sheep. They say they don’t want something, so you give it to them anyway, and then they want to kill you when you try to take it away. Maybe I’m thinking of lions.’

Mabunda gave the assurance that the animals would not be affected by the new development.

‘If they cooperate and hang around the hotels in large numbers, a few lucky ones will be rewarded with a free night. Maybe not a suite, but certainly one of our ground floor rooms.’

He denied rumours that SANParks would start offering drive-by shooting packages for overseas hunters.

‘If anyone is going to kill animals in the Kruger Park, it’s going to be us. Conservation is a dangerous business. There is a huge problem with wildebeest gangs. I can’t confirm or deny anything, but don’t be surprised if there is another one of our “controlled” burns very soon.’

Mabunda said speed traps would continue to operate through the park.

‘Nobody will be exempt. Not even cheetahs. We will also be using tazers to encourage slow-moving animals to pick up the pace. With the new hotels, there will be a lot more people wanting to see some action. Obviously we can’t have game standing in one spot browsing for six hours. And this sleeping during the day will also have to come to an end. A lot of our animals seem to think they are in Mexico.’

Mabunda said SANParks had conducted an extensive visitor survey with a couple from Madrid, and found considerable support for the construction of amphitheatres in which kills could be staged. ‘People come to the Kruger Park for three reasons. To have sex, get motherless drunk and see an animal get killed. In an amphitheatre, we can give them everything. Cheap beer served by topless Ndebele girls, a herd of drugged gemsbok and three or four hungry lionesses. It will be like ancient Rome, without that whole awkward Christian thing.’

Plans to build flyovers to prevent congestion at waterholes are in the pipeline.