XVIII. Toppling Giants

A Memoir in Animal Encounters

Welcome to Chapter Eighteen of my life story, as told through incredible animal encounters ranging from coastal Massachusetts to the plains of Africa to the Alaskan tundra.

Every Wednesday I write and release a new chapter in this unfolding narrative, and I am often as surprised as you are by what comes out on the page. If you’re new here, and would like to catch up, you can find the previous chapters here. However, each one is presented as a stand-alone story, so you can also just dive right in- I trust you’ll put the pieces together on your own.

I have no business having even one of these ridiculous encounters in my cache, let alone several dozen. I know, I know. Alas, this is my life, laid bare for you.

Chapter Eighteen: Toppling Giants

Donkey Valley Farm, South Africa, January 2013

The old men came in full of bluster and bravado. I disliked them immediately. Later, I would begrudgingly serve them the lemon merengue pie that I had fussed over all morning, picking and squeezing the lemons from the orchard and then whipping the egg whites into perfectly stiff peaks by hand, but I only did this because they were Hannes’ friends, and I adored Hannes. I cut his slice into a perfect wedge, the clouds of merengue balanced artfully on top, and I carefully placed it in front of him. Thier slices collapsed on the plate and melted sideways, and I did not make eye contact when the plates clattered down in front of them. Maybe they did not notice or care. But Hannes smiled and winked at me, and that put out some of the fire in my eyes and made the ache in my shoulder worth the effort.

My husband and I had been staying with Hannes VanDerMerwe, aka “Van de Man” or “The Gentle Giant” for nearly a month at that point, and I had become enchanted with him the way young women can sometimes fall for old men who pose no threat to them. He was 6’5” and almost as wide as he was tall. Every day he donned the same pair of khaki trousers that were two sizes too large, held up by striped suspenders over a wrinkled button-down shirt. He wore large spectacles that were taped together from the time he accidently sat on them, and he was always smiling. When he was pleased with something, which was often, he laughed loudly and clapped and announced, “That is MAGIC!” in his heavy Afrikaans accent.

He thought my lemon merengue pie was the most magic of all, so when he told me that he had invited three of his new friends from his local Free Mason chapter over for some South African barbeque (braai) and a bit of amateur astronomy in the yard, I jumped at the chance to make dessert for the lot of them.

I had assumed that I would love them as much as I loved Hannes. Instead, I came to understand why my friend was so lonely.

---

Most days, while Justin and I painted the out buildings on his farm, or milked the cow, or retrieved the donkeys that had run straight through the fence to get to the wildflowers by the river, Hannes would sit in his workshop on a small wooden chair, spectacles low on his broad face, carefully making a porcelain dental implant for some gap toothed soul in the nearby town of Volkrust, a small South African settlement on the boarder of the Mpumalanga and Kwazulu-Natal provinces.

He was proud of the delicate work that his large, calloused hands could still perform, even as his eyes failed, and his belly grew larger, and his knees and knuckles ached from all the farm work he’d faithfully done these past 60 years. He found joy in the small things more and more as he got older- the satisfaction of spinning his own alpaca wool, the meditative cadence he entered into while carving intricate patterns into leather, the peace he felt while filing down the hooves of his beloved donkeys.

When his wife had left him for a richer, younger man several years before we arrived, and his boys flew the coop to Australia to start their own families, he considered selling the property or at least getting rid of the donkeys and the cow and the ornery emu in the back field. But his blood ran through the creek behind the old wooden house and his heart beat in tandem with the wings of the industrious weavers who crafted their nests on the west side of the pond, and he could not bear to sever those connections. He did not know if he could survive it.

In a last-ditch attempt to remain on his beloved Donkey Valley farm, he put an ad in an online platform called HelpExchange with the assistance of his tech-savvy eldest boy, looking for volunteers to come lend a hand with the endless list of projects cropping up around the property. In exchange for six hours of labor each day, he would feed and house them. This seemed like a fair arrangement. Lord knew he had the space- there were several dry cabins scattered about the farm, and he had even installed an outdoor solar shower and composting toilet back in the days when his knees still had lubrication, when he thought there might be daughters-in-law and grandbabies coming to visit, there to fish in the pond and pluck fruit from the high branches in the orchard.

One night, over whisky, he confided in us that he mostly hoped that someone kind would turn up. He told us that the silence in the walls had become unbearable, and he wondered if he would ever find his way back to laughter.

---

We laughed all the time.

I laughed until my sides ached when he placed a glass in front of me one night while he was teaching me how to play poker and proudly announced that it was a local specialty called “Jesus Juice”- a surprisingly refreshing combination of red wine and Coca-Cola.

He laughed at my blotchy face several mornings later when I came into the house with an empty metal pail, wiping my eyes as I told him that not only had the cow kicked over the hard-won bucket full of fresh milk, but that afterwards she had eaten my favorite sweatshirt.

Before the incident

“Tell me what happened,” he said, patting my hand.

I told him that we had run out of grain in the middle of milking her, and that she had gotten agitated, and then we had fumbled the hobble keeping her back legs chained together once we were finished, and she had bucked, and the precious milk had spilled all over the concrete pavers. By the time we had cleaned up the mess, we went outside to find the only warm article of clothing I owned halfway down her gullet.

His face broke out in a giant smile. “Magic,” he said, shaking his head.

“But you need that milk,” I said, gesturing to the container we were meant to transfer it to after filtering and cleaning it in the shed.

“Toemaar,” he said, waving his hand (I took this to mean something like don’t worry), “that cow is possessed by the devil.”

“Let me make you my favorite pie today,” I said, putting my hand on top of his, and he looked away with tears in his eyes.

---

I do not know what it is that makes some men soften with age, uncurling the tight fists of their hands into open invitations, and what makes others stiffen and bristle, hardening protectively around their opinions and grievances like stone shells.

I suspect it has something to do with separation. From themselves, from others, from God, from empathy.

The men that Hannes had over that night were brazenly racist, full of hubris and self-importance. These were members of the “white boss” class that had benefited greatly from apartheid, and the more they drank, the more grossly disparaging their remarks became towards the Indian, mixed race, and black Africans that they refused to consider their neighbors.

I knew that Hannes had fought for equality all his life, and that it had cost him many friendships. He had just entered into a relationship with a lovely Indian woman who brought us delicious rusks each week- a type of biscotti that I crave all the time even now- a woman who he was not allowed to sit next to in many restaurants in town. His only real companion now that his wife was gone was a black man named Joseph who had worked for him for decades, a man he proudly introduced as his brother. Joseph was quiet and kind, and we left a pint of milk for him by the tool shed each morning after milking. Hannes told us that once he had thrown a birthday party for Joseph’s son and invited all the neighbors, but when they arrived and found out who was being celebrated, they all took their presents and left in a huff. When Hannes told these stories, all the joie de vivre left his body, and he aged right before my eyes.

I knew all of this that night that his friends came over, and still I watched him stare at the stars as those awful men prattled on, a distant look on his face. I wanted to tell him that I understood what it felt like to be alone in the presence of people throwing cruel opinions around like spears. Sometimes a person tries to be still and silent in order to avoid being hit, especially if they have scars.

The word apartheid means "separateness", or "the state of being apart", literally "apart-hood".

The institution of segregation had been legally abolished years before we arrived in South Africa, but that night, I watched it sink its claws into the old men in that group. I watched the darkness that overcame them, and I watched the light slowly leave the eyes of my gentle giant.

---

We are not always brave when we want to be. Sometimes we fail to speak up when we are shocked, or afraid.

The day after the gathering, Justin and I drove to Volkrust to pick up groceries for Hannes, and he asked us to drop off a loaf of bread and some milk to his neighbors.

We were happy to do so. They were grateful and asked if we would join them for elevensies after we passed along the parcels, and while we were sitting with the man and his wife eating biscuits and tea on the covered porch, the conversation drifted to their black workers.

“They are not even human,” the man said, gesturing to a small group of people in the field. “I do not know why I should have to pay them when I do not pay my animals.”

He laughed an ugly laugh, inviting us to join him with his eyes.

I looked at him with blood rushing in my ears and I realized that every other frightening encounter I had had with wild animals up to that point paled in comparison to this one, right here.

The cookie in my mouth turned to ash.

His wife said something to change the subject, perhaps sensing our discomfort, and I took a sip of my tea and tried to swallow the bile in my throat.

I wanted to say something- anything- to push back on the terrible words that had come out of his mouth. But I didn’t. I stared out at the land in shock and felt the light drain from my eyes. I don’t think I said a single thing for several minutes until I stood up and announced that we needed to leave, a rock in my heart, buzzing with anger.

There is an energetic severing that happens in these moments, but I fear that those that cause the split do not even notice that it has happened, as they are so cut off from their own humanity that they are incapable of noticing the shift.

Afterward, I thought of a dozen ways I could have confronted the man. I thought of calm, unemotional interrogations I could have delivered that would have forced him to own up to his disgusting beliefs and I also imagined myself slapping him right across the face. I eviscerated him in the past tense; I travelled through time and I stood over him and I held my ground.

I cannot go back and alter my response, but neither can I drown in my regret. What I can do, what we all must do, is remember that there is a pause in between reaction and response where anything is possible. Once we let the pulsing tidal waves settle into swells in our chest, once our breath comes steadier and the knot in our stomach loosens a bit, we can meet the moment with just enough courage to be heard.

Or, in the words of Ruth Bader Ginsberg:

“Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants.”

And what if they do not listen to what you have to say? What if they are as untoppleable as mountains? Well, at least you get to leave with the echo of your own sweet voice ringing in your head. You can let that music carry you right to the dinner table, where you can tell the story with your head held high, and pass the bread and the Jesus Juice to someone who has lost a little bit of their light, and maybe this will ignite a flame inside of them as well. This is how you find your way back to laughter and wholeness. You do it together.

Hannes and I delighting in the MAGIC of an unexpected visitor on our evening stroll.