DURBAN CALEDONIANS BURNS LUNCH

DURBAN CALEDONIANS BURNS LUNCH

24 JANUARY 2016

 

This document records the lunch organised in the Hunt Road Masonic Lodge by the Durban Caledonians on 24 January 2016, to honour the birthday of Scottish poet and intellectual Robbie Burns. It serves to show a South African interpretation of the ceremony, which is of course mounted each January in a great many countries across the world. This and other functions have been greatly enriched by participation of the Durban NMR Band.

The NMR band in action (Natal Mounted Rifles)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burns was born in Ayreshire on 25 January 1759 and died at the age of thirty-seven in 1796. The Address to a haggis, a paean to the traditional Scottish dish that is central to the commemoration ceremony, was written in 1786 when he was just twenty-seven years of age.

 

The haggis lying in splendour.

 

 

Our ceremony began at 2 p.m., with the piping in by Pipe Major Gordon Capper of the ‘top table’, whose members processed in under the leadership of Chief Margaret Gardner.

 

Chief Margaret Gardner welcoming guests       

Following the seating of the seventy members in attendance, Margaret introduced the top table and the Master of Ceremonies outlined the programme. The haggis was brought into the hall on a silver trencher to the skirling of a lone piper.

 

 

Entry of the haggis

It was held aloft and borne around the inner stage and thereby put on clear display to the assembly, before being set down on a small table in view of all.  

Piping in the haggis on its trencher

The wages of the piper and trencher-bearer were paid with a shot of fine Scotch whisky and a toast of slanja var! (Slainte Mhath, or Good health!) 

A brief explanation of the Address was given for the benefit of newcomers and the Address was then delivered unabridged with some animation, flourish and humour to reinforce its meanings.  The haggis was piped out to be served for lunch.

Following delivery of the Selkirk Grace, lunch was served. Consistent with Scottish tradition, it included haggis, tatties and oatmeal cakes, with ‘neeps and butternut to provide further variety.

 

 

Past Chief Alistair Mackenzie delivers the ‘Toast to the Immortal Memory’.

 

Glasses were charged and a toast was proposed ‘to the Immortal Memory’. Dessert followed.

Entertainment was provided by a musical group called ‘Friends of note’. The artists were mainly youngsters performing with guitar, violin, cello and recorders of widely differing sizes. As is usual with these functions, their performance was warmly received.

 

The violinist in animated action.

Poetry readings followed, and the assembled pipers played a range of traditional Scottish medleys.

The ‘Toast to the lassies’ followed in complimentary vein, with a spirited reply. A Vote of Thanks followed, with final notices delivered by the chief.

The pipers and drummers then led the assembly through Auld Lang Syne.

Members enjoying themselves at the gathering.

The Durban Caledonians have functioned since 1882 (for 134 years). Each year the Association offers five or six ceremonial/social functions. These are open to the public by booking.

Membership is open to people of Scottish descent (mother or father Scottish). Details of activities and membership can be obtained from past Chief Molly Gould (phone 031 7014148). Applicants can be assured of a friendly welcome.

 

Alex Coutts                

The South African School System Needs Rebuilding.

The South African School System  Needs Rebuilding

 

Letter to the Editor, The Mercury, 5 October 2015

 The Mercury and other newspapers have carried many insightful articles recently on the triumphs and travails of our national education system, including those dealing with the ANA debacle as well as much-publicised provision of various information technology devices to certain schools.

At the heart of any national system of education are located a corps of dedicated teachers drawn for all races and ideological outlooks who are wholeheartedly committed to the performance of their professional duties, namely teaching the  ‘learners’ under their care, within and outside the classroom.

These brilliant, committed people are indispensable to the quality of teaching and learning that distinguish the system. They are a foundation to build on. They can serve as live models to those teachers who have not the skills, insights, or commitment to engage as fully as they should with the educational endeavour.

Our system of state schooling needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. The following are a few suggestions on how to go about the process.

1.    Recognise that teachers are at the core of the system. Their critical work in providing role models cannot be supplanted by technology, although it can be amplified, and the overload of administrative duties that sucks the lifeblood from the classroom interactions can be reduced and the process made more efficient.

 

2.    Every teacher union should examine its constitution to establish the extent to which the welfare of the children, and not only its members, is served thereby.

 

3.    The South African Council of Educators guiding document should be re-written to incorporate criteria related to the processes of educating children rather than imposing constraints interpersonal relationships, important though these requirements are. One needs a reaffirmation of such qualities as punctuality, a work ethic, wide teaching skills, subject knowledge, vision, imagination and critical thinking, fiduciary responsibility, sound administration and much more.

 

4.    Hold teachers accountable for their performance, by the re-introduction of inspectors if necessary, by setting targets related to the mastery of subject knowledge, teaching skills and administrative procedures. Allow a period of grace during which professional criteria will be designed, published and implemented, but don’t let it drag on. Many children have suffered too severely already, and need their place in the sunshine. Focus resources on those most in need. The process will require courage.

 

Now retired, I spent forty years in education. What a special privilege it was! Why do so few now seem to share the excitement?

 

Dr Alex Coutts

Retired Deputy Rector, Edgewood College of Education.

Educate your child through sport

Educate your child through sport

Do your children play sport?

Do your children play sport? If so, are you as a parent aware of how educative the experience can be for them, if only an adult would be present to identify educative experiences as they arise, and point out a few educational truths the child might focus on? If you’ve not thought about the educational values of sports participation, would you like to know the basics?

If so, read on.

SO, what’s the article about?

This article explains how an average parent who’s enjoyed taking part in sports can become a role model and coach or teacher to educate his or her youngster(s) through sporting and other physical activities.

Some people spend years studying physical education because they aim to offer it in formal schooling. Unfortunately, many others are cast into the task of coaching sports with only some dabbling in the activity or else a bit of personal experience to back them up.

Also, parents crowd the sidelines of sporting activities without knowing much about the educative opportunities their kids are experiencing. Yet these experiences can be enhanced by encouragement and interpretations provided by dad or mom. Even if given from the sidelines, it can have a sound impact on their learning. This article has been written for parents who have insight into sport, but who might not wish to engage with active coaching. Why not encourage your youngsters to take part in sports activities that afford enjoyment as well as valuable, wider educative experiences?

Of course, the better one knows a sport, especially by playing it, the easier it is to spot ‘educative moments’ that might benefit your child.

The example of our forebears

For millions of years, humankind led a more active lifestyle than we do today. In a sense, their hunting and collecting bands gave a central place to physical education, or more correctly, physical training.

When ‘ancient’ mom went out to gather roots and berries for food the girls and younger boys of a clan would accompany her on the forays. They would learn many things that were useful to their survival in an often harsh environment.

‘Ancient’ dad would set out with the older boys and male relatives to fish, or scavenge from carcases, secure some sort of local small game, or join forces in stalking and attacking a large beast. During these excursions the children learned about planning, tactics, skills, co-operation, courage and their own physical capacities and limitations. It was a fundamental source of knowledge.

These enterprises all took considerable energy to perform. They involved much ambling and tracking, and perhaps a few short bursts of speed or a lengthy pursuit over broken terrain. Muscles would be used for power and speed, and the cardio-vascular system would come into operation with a vengeance as the hunters engaged with their quarry, or indeed ran from it.

More recently during recorded history, traders, workmen, labourers, and the military all used their physical resources more than we generally do today. Physical prowess counted for much.

We’re a lazy lot

In modern times, especially in more developed countries, sport has largely replaced the other physical earlier demands, but in recent years it has been professionalised to the extent that it is a spectacle to be followed on television more than something to be engaged with.

The advent of technology has exacerbated the problems of sedentary behaviour. We live in an increasingly virtual world. The real world of concrete reality including physical threats, climate and physics has been allowed to slide into the recesses of consciousness, whereas in former times it intruded so strongly that its dominant presence occupied our brain with a vengeance. We simply had to take it into account in a most fundamental way. And indeed, because of the planning we had to embark on to survive within it, it helped to form the impressive frontal lobe humanity now possesses. But we have become increasingly protected from physical challenges and therefore even complacent.

Virtual reality doesn’t help

The intrusion of virtual reality into the ‘real world’ now threatens to confuse that which is real (ontic reality) and that which is illusory (virtual reality), to the extent that they become indistinguishable, a fact promoted by commercialisation and its marketing.

For many middle-class people our televisions, cell-phones and ipads are the here and now, while receding glaciers, increasing flab, poverty, crime and the demise of wild creatures are remote things to pay lip-service to as we get on with our immediate, comfortable sedentary preoccupations. Many in the First World are losing contact with demanding physical reality.

Losing respect for our bodies

This also means losing respect for our physical bodies. We have tended to hand them over to the care of medical science rather than to accept them as something needing personal maintenance as intrinsically ‘US’. So, many people make no effort whatsoever to keep themselves in good health, nor do they value the old capacities related to powerful, extensive, repetitive or skilled movement. These are often no longer seen as necessary.

These trends are a few of the reasons motivating perceptive, modern educationists to propagate a renewed focus on physical education in the formal schooling or tertiary context, or pursued informally through enhanced lifestyles. With a bit of understanding, you can participate.

Below I’ll outline some of the outcomes one seeks from a physical education programme. The objectives that follow seek to cultivate a sound mind in a healthy body. A return to these outcomes is needed desperately in my country South Africa, whose population is becoming increasingly flabby and physically unskilled.

Physical development

Health

Let’s start with a focus on the health of the body. Whether you deal with schooling curricula or an adult’s home lifestyle, you’ll first need to look at the efficient physiological function of the bodily systems if you want to enhance physical well-being. This means taking a ‘medical’ viewpoint that ensures freedom from disease and decrepitude, rather than a ‘functional’ viewpoint by means of which ‘physical work’ becomes the focus.  

Good health can be achieved by engaging regularly and systematically with physical activities that will exercise the cardio-vascular system and musculature to get them working optimally, but also seeing to such things as bodily hygiene, dental hygiene, posture and diet. Your fifty trillion cells need to work reasonably in harmony; for that implies good health. Sport, especially such as require vigorous, total-body activity and the ingestion of oxygen, can help here.

Physical fitness

Physical fitness implies the ‘functional’ ability of the body to produce ‘work’. It’s the sort of capacities a pentathlon participant or military marine works towards. It is built on a foundation of sound health, as discussed briefly above.

It implies engagement with systematised exercises directed to the achievement of greater strength, power, muscular endurance, cardiovascular stamina and suppleness. The body becomes more capable of running at a reasonable speed, lifting or carrying weights, throwing projectiles, running reasonably long distances and so on.

Physical skills

Next in the physical domain are skills. Traditionally in Western societies, these tend to relate to gross motor exercises, educational and competitive gymnastics, individual and team sports and outdoor pastimes that require co-ordinated, accurate or precise movements capable of repetition at a good standard of accuracy.

With small children we offer generalised movements unrelated specifically to sports or other traditional contexts. These can include jumping, climbing, walking, running, twisting, turning, landing, taking off, throwing, catching, hitting, pitching slinging, kicking and so on.

The intention there is to get the psycho-motor apparatus of muscles, bones, nerves and so on working smoothly to lay a foundation of varied movements on which refined skills can be built. Increasingly, they will be used in defined contexts such as athletics, dance, cricket, rock-climbing, diving or gymnastics.

All of these basic movements and more refined, specific skills depend on a smooth integration of muscle activity with brain functioning, using the ability of that organ to motivate, initiate, provide motor control, and adapt to varying circumstances. These skills usually help the individual to achieve a complex outcome dependent on a smooth sequence of movement.

Cognition, or thinking

Now we move from the physical domain to the cognitive, or ‘thinking’ domain. We might first look at the acquisition of knowledge achieved through participation in physical activities. The range of knowledge to be obtained by this means is quite remarkable.

Information

There can be acquisition of information about the texture, weight, durability, softness or hardness of materials, the attitude of people, acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, aesthetic qualities that are to be admired or wondered at, societal norms, rules of games and other pursuits, good sportsmanship, management of stress, injury and competition, the behaviour of weather, the climate, environment and wild creatures in nature, even history if one wishes to include it, and much more.

Problem-solving.

Another cognitive capacity one can hone and enhance is problem-solving. Physical activities are replete with opportunities to generate problems one might solve by problem-solving. Team game tactics are essentially problem-solving activities, so are the composition of a dance, the scaling of a sheer rock wall and the negotiation of rapids in a canoe.

Creativity

Creative thinking can be enhanced and exercised during participation in dance, diving or gymnastics as one works out programmes and routines. One can also cite innovative approaches used in many outdoor activities such as rock climbing, or tactics used in such team games as soccer, rugby, hockey, and many others.

The social domain

The social domain is also amenable to development in physical education.

Teamwork

Teamwork and followership can be experienced, with participation in such things as rock-climbing, hiking and team games offering myriads of learning experiences leading to people becoming capable of working effectively in a group under leaderships.   

Socialised activities can enhance the learning of ethical behaviour. Many activities provide contexts for the exercise of actions showing fair play and empathy, revealing ethics and morality. Juvenile crime can be countered thereby.

Leadership

Leadership opportunities are numerous, giving individuals the opportunity to lead teams or groups, thus gaining experience in implementing a variety of styles before settling on a suitable approach to leadership. Most people will reject either blatantly autocratic or laissez-faire approaches, choosing a style that is best suited to the task, perhaps with an element of democracy in it.

Emotional responses

The emotional responses of people can also be honed. You can learn to control emotional responses when in tight situations, and to express emotions in ways acceptable to society. Finally, you can also learn to appreciate the emotional components of aesthetic movements found in such activities as dance, diving, gymnastics, and even team sports such as cricket and dare I say it, rugby, football or American football.

All of the above implies the adult being alert to opportunities that present themselves for children to identify emotional contexts, focus on them, receive guidance and learn to eventually self-educate themselves in the management of emotional responses.

Outdoor activities

Most outdoor activities such as hiking, canoeing, surfing, underwater swimming, rock climbing provide marvellous opportunities for educating youngsters. All of them also demand extra safety precautions and care.

Now list the outcomes as:

Physical

·         Health

·         Fitness

·         Skills

Cognitive

·         Knowledge

·         Problem-solving

·         Creativity

Social

·         Followership

·         Ethics/morality

·         Leadership

Emotional

·         Control

·         Catharsis

·         Aesthetics

What can you do as a parent or educator?

Write down and reflect on the dozen outcomes. Then reflect on how you can use physical activity to enhance these qualities or capacities in the lives of your own youngsters or those you teach.

You need not teach the activities yourself; indeed for safety reasons that is best left to qualified and accredited teachers and coaches. But you can always watch from the sidelines, and use incidents and events that you spot in order to educate your child.. It’ll of course take a bit of initial effort.

You can have the ammunition available to become a role model. You can use sport as a medium of education. Do, however, study safety rules and first aid if you become personally and actively engaged. Also, get a first aid qualification if you work with young sports participants!

How to clarify a problem

Have you sometimes tried to tackle a complex problem without being clear about what you’re doing? Unless you’re clear, you might even waste time on trying to fix the wrong problem, or you might tackle some apparent issue that is not a problem at all.

       If you’re embarking on some massive project such as a doctoral thesis, it’s essential that you spend time at the start, making sure you know exactly what you’re trying to resolve. You’ll usually be required to make a ‘Statement of the problem’.

       This initial clarification is one of the most critical steps in problem solving. It implies seeking to make the problem clear at the outset so that you know exactly what has to be resolved. You can then plan confidently how to resolve it. You won’t get far if you miss this important first stage.

The individual problem-solver will routinely seek to locate any gaps, disjunctions, incongruities, confusions, inconsistencies and irregularities in data that shows the nature of the problem. The early identification of a problem enables the thinker to assemble resources necessary to the further systematic elaboration of thinking. So, an ability to identify and define problems provides a focus for selecting and structuring the mental operations and processes that follow.

1.      Gain an understanding of the context and issues surrounding the problem.

2.      Get to the core issues and seek data relevant to them.

3.      Locate any gaps, disjunctions, incongruities, confusions, inconsistencies and irregularities in data that show the nature of the problem.

4.      Perhaps start with obvious incongruities when seeking information, but also seek obscure hints and clues where these present themselves as relevant.

5.      Describe the problem accurately, clearly and briefly. Determine the purpose and objectives that will help to guide the coming problem solving process.

6.      Clarify whether you should transform the objectives into criteria (questions) with which to evaluate any outcomes from the problem solving that is likely to follow.

7.      Once you have stated the correct problem clearly, get on with solving it. This means devising tentative solutions (hypotheses) you might try out, test or put into operation to see if they work. But don’t put this phase into operation until you know precisely what the problem is.

Perhaps practice by clarifying a typical problem relating to your health, clothing, home, personal security, family, social life, achievements, aspirations, occupation, vocation or profession.

Elephants! An excerpt from The big five, a children’s novel

Elephants!

An excerpt from The big five, a children’s novel

 

 

 

 

After an hour of trudging in silence, they saw a distant line of trees and sighed with relief. They would find water. The landscape had become a furnace as mid-day approached and they had sweated from their exertion, but soon a breeze sprang up quite suddenly to dissipate the heat. It helped to cool them as it dried the sweat on their arms.

They tramped on and at last came to a broad tributary, which had burst its banks during the night and was now almost dry. On the opposite side of the river, downstream, was an extensive bed of very tall reeds. The bed was four or five times the size of a football field. The river had torn reeds growing close to the edges from the sand, and swept them downstream to form jumbled and matted piles as high as their heads. Half-drowned brambles growing on the near side of the river hid some of the reed bed from the sight of the children.

They dipped their cupped hands into the water and drank.

“Ugh!” said Claire. “It’s still full of sand.”

Making wry faces, each of the children drank only as much as was necessary, while others kept alert to the presence of wild beasts.

“We’ll have to cross somewhere,” said Daniel. “It looks like better going on the other side. Follow me.”

Following Daniel’s lead, the group climbed the bank and walked a little way downstream to come out opposite the reed beds, which were swaying and rustling in the breeze. They clambered onto a ledge of rock and slid down a steep bank of earth to drop into the water below. To their relief it only came to their knees. During the worst of the storm, it seemed to have been at head height.

“The main river should’ve gone down a lot by now. I mean, look how this stream has gone down,” said Daniel.

“No, I don’t think so. The main river will take a lot longer to go down,” Siyabonga contradicted him, shaking his head. “It was raining hard up river even before we crossed from the camp. We should have known it would flood. There could be even more to come. It might take days, and the river might even flood again.”

“Yes, if only smarty here hadn’t been so stupid,” replied Daniel, dismissing John with a sneer and wave of the hand.

John was pale with fury. I should have expected that, he thought. Of course, I should have thought about the river before we left camp. I didn’t, so I suppose the big oaf’s right. Then, he was the one who … oh, what’s the use! Now he wants to be leader.

The children were sheltered from the wind but, across the broad expanse of shallow water, gusts had begun to sweep the tall reeds. There was a constant rustle and chafing as the stems brushed back and forth in the wind. The children entered the bed. They moved cautiously. There was now also the muffled sound of large bodies moving amidst the stems; but the sound was too indistinct to determine what was causing it.

“There’s something moving in there,” said John, his brow furrowed with concentration as he looked to left and right, “but I don’t know what it is.”

“It can only be buffalo or elephants,” said Siyabonga, his hands cupped over his ears.

“We’d better try and stop Daniel until we’re certain,” warned John. “I think we should get away from here. Go back.”

Before anyone could stop him, Daniel splashed across a shallow furrow and penetrated further into the swaying reeds to move onto a sodden game path rich with the spoor of antelope that had used it after the flood subsided.

“Daniel! Wait!” shouted John and Siyabonga almost as one, but their voices were lost in the stiff breeze.

Daniel ignored them. Whistling now, he followed the path. He was beginning to enjoy himself; relishing the role of leader. The two shouted again. Again, Daniel ignored them. Lashing out with his stick at the swaying reed stems on either side, he thrust his way forward.

Then, the reed bed exploded.

A huge grey bulk rose suddenly above them, crunching reeds underfoot as it tried to make out the position of the intruders amongst the long stems. Ears as big as car doors swung back and forward, as their owners tried to focus their hearing. Elephants! Now there came a shrill blast of sound! Trunks lifted in the air as the herd tested the breeze for the scent of the children. There was a mighty smashing and trampling of the reed bed as the great animals shifted position, uncertain of the direction from which they were threatened.

Tandi screamed and rushed deeper into the reed beds, lost amongst the stems as a huge cow swung on her from the flank. John grabbed Claire and pulled her towards the river. They burst out of the reeds pursued by a three-quarter grown bull and splashed their way through the water towards the bank they had just come down. John heaved Claire up the bank, pushing her towards the rock ledge, and shouting: “Climb! Climb!”

He turned to face the pursuing beast, only to find that it had turned from its pursuit to go after Siyabonga, who was some way up-river and making for a large boulder. Siyabonga gained the shelter of the rock and dodged behind it. He crouched there in waist-deep water, his chest drawing in great gulps of air. The elephant gave up its pursuit and returned, screaming shrilly, to the herd.

John splashed through the shallows to join Siyabonga and the two crouched side by side, peering at the massive grey shapes wheeling and crashing through the reeds.

At that moment, Daniel emerged from the reed bed further down-river and darted across a sand-spit to plunge into the water and flounder his way to the near bank. He clawed his way onto the rock ledge and scrambled up its face to dive past Claire, who was jumping up and down on the bank shouting: “Where’s Tandi? Where’s Tandi?”

Siyabonga stood up, peering towards the reeds. “John, I thought Tandi had got back,” he yelled.

“No, only Claire got up the bank.”

Siyabonga cried out as if in pain. He bent down and John could see him groping on the bottom for some of the smooth stones that lay embedded there. “I’m going to get Tandi,” said Siyabonga grimly, as he started to wade towards the reed bed.

“Don’t be a fool,” yelled John, feeling himself rising as if in a trance, heart pounding, to follow Siyabonga. “You can’t take on a herd of elephants!” He groped for rocks and started to edge forward in Siyabonga’s wake.

Siyabonga splashed to the middle of the stream, and with a long throw bounced a rock off the hindquarters of one of the blundering animals. It swung around at the irritation and moved towards the river’s edge, seeking the cause of its discomfort, and then plunged back into the reeds. Again, Siyabonga threw a stone. Again he connected. John found himself joining in the futile assault, yelling as he went. The boys were now close to the reeds, shouting and tormenting the big beasts to try to make them give way.

At that moment a large cow, leader of the herd, saw them and trumpeted. With her trunk curled under her massive head and ears folded back, she charged, sending scatters of spray across the shallows as she came.

The boys turned and ran. They churned through the shallow water with great bounds, their pebbles discarded as they sped. John reached the boulder a moment before Siyabonga, and dived behind it. Siyabonga followed with a great surge of water as he tripped and fell headlong behind the rock. The boys crouched low, clutching each other and frozen with fear, not daring to raise their heads. Above them, the cow stood screaming, swaying, and shifting its weight, its little eyes peering to catch a sign of movement near the rock.

Behind them on the steep bank, Claire stood transformed as she dared the very edge, waving a dry branch and shouting to attract the attention of the angry cow. It was enough provocation to enrage the matriarch further, and the beast moved from the rock to confront her. It tried to climb the bank, placing its massive front pads on the yielding earth and attempting to heave itself up. All the while, it squealed with rage.

Claire stood her ground, screaming with excitement and terror and waving her small branch in the air. In her panic, she teetered on the rim and nearly plunged down the slope. Daniel crouched, several paces behind, close to the trunks of two large trees. From their shelter, he also began to wave his stick, shouting.

The cow stood for some time in the water at the base of the bank, seeking their scent with her trunk and peering up at the girl, frustrated at not being able to mount the bank. Growing weary, and having lost sight of the boys in the water, she wheeled and strode back to the reed bed, moved through the milling herd and continued up the incline on the other side.

One after the other, the rest of the herd followed her. The children caught a glimpse of them retreating through the rank vegetation that lined the river bank. They made out two calves a metre tall amongst the big animals. Their mothers were close by, rumbling reassurance to the two little ones despite the fracas. Soon the herd was gone.

The reed bed looked devastated, with great swathes of reeds crushed underfoot as the herd blundered through it. Here and there, islands of reeds stood intact, their tips swaying in the breeze.

Siyabonga stood up, shaking. He looked stunned. “Here comes Karel, and he looks done in. He’s not hurt. Now where’s Tandi? Oh, Lord! Where’s Tandi?”

Karel joined the group. He had scrambled up the bank further down-river, he said, and got onto high ground from where he could see the unfolding events. He could not give any information about Tandi. No one could offer Siyabonga any words of comfort. John had seen Tandi run to his left as a cow advanced on them and, pursued by the animal, flee deeper into the reeds. The place to which she had fled looked devastated. The four children edged across the river, dreading what they might find.

There, lying in a mess of trampled reeds was a mud-spattered clump of red material. John could make out a sleeve of his anorak that he had put around Tandi when the first rain fell. He picked up the pathetic remnant. An elephant’s tusk had torn it from the jacket and trampled it to mush. Where was Tandi’s body, he wondered? The elephants would probably have crushed her. Claire started to sob quietly. Siyabonga looked grim.

Then they glimpsed it: a limp red object lying near the far bank, with broken reeds partly covering it. “Oh no,” thought John, “I’ve heard of elephants killing a person and then scattering grass on the body! Poor Tandi.”

With a cry of distress, Siyabonga ran forward, and sank to his knees, tearing away the scatter of reeds. He held the remains of a red anorak.

“It’s not her,” he shouted triumphantly. “She might be alive.”

John sank to his knees, not able to speak.

Then, from beneath the half-buried trunk of a dead tree, they heard a plaintive voice.

“Siyabonga … I’m scared. I want to go back … to camp.”

Overjoyed, Siyabonga ran to help his younger sister from her refuge, pulling her to her feet and reassuring her. Claire ran up excitedly and hugged the little girl.

All around the gnarled trunk were the deeply embedded footprints of the herd, and the mounds of dung they had dropped as they milled about in their confusion and anger.

Breathing hard and exhausted from their ordeal, the children sat down to recover. There was a feeling of relief that no one had suffered injury. Claire wiped her tear-grimed face and held Tandi’s hand as they rested, all talking at once.

“Did you see the big cow? Squealing and charging about … and the way she shielded the calves?”

“And Claire … jumping up and down like a yoyo.”

When they had calmed, John and Siyabonga spoke to Claire.

“You weren’t bad, Claire … for a girl,” John said.

“For a girl? What do you mean, ‘for a girl’?” responded Claire indignantly.

“Just joking,” said John laughing, his hands lifted in surrender. “You did a great job.”

“I also helped,” said Daniel, pushing forward. “I was right there.”

“You? You nearly got Tandi killed, that’s what you did!” said John.

“What did you say?”

“I said: ‘You nearly got Tandi killed.’”

Daniel got slowly to his feet, his eyes sparkling with anger. His face flushed, he strode over to where John sat and towered over him, his big fists clenched and the veins swelling in his neck.

“You’ll have to deal with me too,” said Siyabonga with quiet anger, his heart pounding in his throat as he moved to stand beside John.

Daniel stood there huge and menacing, a little muscle twitching near the corner of his right eye. He glared down at John. John stood up, his hands involuntarily coming up beneath his chin to take guard.

“No man, Daniel,” came the voice of Karel. “Just let it be. Admit it. You were stupid. We were all stupid. We need weapons.”

Daniel swung sharply on his heel and stalked off to throw himself down under a tree, cursing, brooding, and sulky.

“Ja Karel, a great friend you are.”

Karel just shrugged, and the tension passed.

While Claire and Tandi told each other about their experiences and Daniel sat in angry silence, John spoke to Siyabonga. Both boys felt the surge of a new confidence.

“You were pretty good out there,” said John.

“But you helped me,” said Siyabonga. “You were also right there … when it mattered.”

“Maybe, but that was all in a rush. You went back. You tried to take on the herd. You must be bonkers! You must’ve known you could’ve got killed.”

“Forget it,” said Siyabonga. “She’s my sister. Anyhow, you came with me. And, what about Claire! She’s got ‘guts’, as you would say.”

The two stood silent for a time.

“She has,” said John. “She sure has. Exactly as I would say.”