WatSan pre-training - Part 2 : Ken Gibbs

WHICH BEAST IS IT NOW ?

For us in Southern Rhodesia (which later became Zimbabwe), water was essential for our very existence.  With it, we thrived, without it, our very survival was endangered.

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So strong was the desire to try anything that might result in getting it to rain, that one enterprising (white, Afrikaner) farmer decided to investigate whether seeding clouds with silver iodide delivered by rocket, could precipitate rain.  It was at the time that some groups in Australia and the United States of America were experimenting with silver iodide, with some success.

The farmer whom I will call van Schalkwyk was a devout Christian belonging to a branch of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa – which was viewed as being Calvinist/Protestant.  The congregation was led by a pastor – usually addressed as ‘Dominee’ - before embarking on this “modern” course of action to cause it to rain, something which is normally entrusted solely to The Almighty.  The Dominee indicated that he would have to consult with his manager and that he would get back to van Schalkwyk, presently.

We may laugh at this seemingly highly conservative approach to meddling with the environment but in reality, the advice that van Schalkwyk was given was very sound indeed.  The Dominee said that it wasn’t against the laws of God but that van Schalkwyk must not become jealous if the seeded clouds were blown by the wind and the resulting rain fell on a neighbour’s farm.  Envy is not a Christian value.

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When the rains started, the veldt blossomed – literally.  Not being a botanist, I must have missed many types of flora but two remain firmly in memory.

The first was the national flower of Zimbabwe, locally named the flame lily (gloriosa superba).  In 1947 when Princess Elizabeth (as she was then) was touring with her parents in southern Africa, she turned 21, and was presented with a platinum and diamond brooch shaped as a flame lily, from the children of Southern Rhodesia.  The flower in its natural state – in the veldt – outshines that gift to the Princess, for the mature flower has petals which look so like tongues of flame with reds, oranges and yellows all represented, with the edges of the petals often being rippled or curly much as a flame shimmers in a fire.  The flower appears to come in a number of different plant types with anything from a free-standing plant to a creeper being seen in the wild.  Naturally, the flower is protected in Zimbabwe which is not difficult as it contains some quite powerful toxins.

The second flower is one which occurs only in clay-type soils.  We simply referred to them as wild gladioli, and when they started flowering – for a period which was usually quite short – we would collect arms-full to put in vases at home.  The petals came in a range of different colours.

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When chatting about the weather with other Africans, one is always tempted to boast that “our” storm was fiercer than “their” storm.  This is quite easy to do because southern Africa is given to some quite violent and intense cloudbursts; hail is not very infrequent and there are times when the weather can cause considerable damage.

One summer’s day, our family was visiting the city of Bulawayo probably on a shopping trip when the sky darkened, lightning flashed ominously and a cloudburst proceeded to pour down on us with unaccustomed ferocity.  For us young boys, seeing the wide channels in the road beginning to flow was an invitation not to be missed – and we waded in and splashed about without a care in the world.  For us, any rain was good rain.

I think we were lucky in the timing of our completion of the shopping when mother called us back to the car because the flow of water in the wide channels became a flood and then a torrent enough to make the flash flood at Boscastle on the north coast of Cornwall look like a gentle stream.  Any one of us could so easily have been swept away.  Naturally, we were unable to move until the flood abated, but it took some considerable time because we were later informed that the cloudburst had produced 4 inches of rain in one hour.  The local river, the Matsheumhlope, burst its banks and caused substantial soil erosion.  To this day, I don’t think Bulawayo has ever seen a more intense downpour.

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Some of this downpour flowed towards a weir on our farm which was designed to divert water into the ‘big’ dam which held water well into the next wet season so it was used for fish farming and for irrigating some 25 hectares of – usually – alfalfa – which was fed to our dairy cows.  The dam was large enough to attract a lot of wildfowl, and we hosted a number of duck shoots during the summer, each year.

During and after such events, it was usual for one of us to use the boat to collect any injured birds, using a quite primitive dinghy with an outboard motor mounted on its stern.  ‘Stern’, by the way, for non-nautical readers, seriously means the back end of the boat.

If the motor was not securely clamped to the ‘stern’, it could propel itself free and sink to the bottom – something to be avoided because the water was muddy coloured and you couldn’t simply cast a hook over the side and hope to catch the motor to retrieve it.

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In fact, it was usual for the family to maintain a list of ‘To do’ items beside the telephone for whenever I arrived back from university.  On one occasion, the list included one item:  ‘Outboard motor’.  Naturally, I asked what was needing to be done to the outboard motor ?  “Find it”, was the answer, so I further asked where it was last used – had it been left on a neighbour’s farm ?  “No”, was the answer, “it was dropped into the dam”.  Now that intelligence was not very specific because the dam covered around 250+ acres when full and searching 250+ acres of muddy water would take a long, long time.

I asked the brother who had been so careless as to lose the outboard over-board to indicate as precisely as he could from the shore, where he had been when it happened ?  He obliged and I marked as closely as I could, the line along which I should start the search.  We moved some 30 metres along the shore and again, I asked for the line on which I should search ?  He obliged.  This gave me two lines which crossed about 50 metres from the shore where the outboard might possibly be.

Happily I had three things working for me:  I had a lot of string (normally used for tying hay bales); an old fishing ‘sinker’ to hold the string down; and the intelligence that the bottom of the dam had been cleared some years previously to ensure that fish nets wouldn’t become snagged on tree stumps.  Knowing that the dam was unlikely to be more than 2 to 3 metres deep, if I could locate where the outboard was, I could fish from the boat until I could hear the steel grapple hit something metallic.

SUNKEN OUTBOARD MAP

I tied one end of the string to a stake on the shore and then, rowing the boat to just beyond where we judged the outboard to be, I dropped the string with a weight on it, to keep it on the bottom.   Then it was simple enough to row around and back to shore where the other ‘line’ would be.  Then the strings were carefully pulled towards the shore from each end until it became taut.  Was it a stump, or was it the outboard that was snagged ?

With one person at each end of the string (on the shore), I rowed out till I reached a point where both agreed I must be immediately above the snagged item.  And so it was, the grapple struck the metallic shaft of the outboard and I was able to snag and lift it into the boat.

The outboard had been underwater for around six months and had to be stripped and dried and examined for rust and dirt, but as it was a British Seagull motor which had been designed originally for small boats used to bring soldiers from Dunkirk, it was so simple that it was easy to maintain.  However, I don’t think the family ever used it again as they realised that oars floated if they happened to lose one (or both) overboard.

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