Secrets of the Savanna by Mark James Owens

Author:Mark James Owens [Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

12. The Commerce of Understanding

Mark

"Time" has ceased, "Space" has vanished. We now live in a global village.

—MARSHALL MCLUHAN

"THEY SAY YOU NEVER got a permit to run the project." Trish Boulton's thin high voice, salted with a British accent, fought through the hiss and crackle of the HF (high-frequency) radio. Trish, a soft-spoken teacher raised in Zambia, supervised our project's educational program and ran the office in Mpika. She handled everything from producing children's coloring books to ordering trucks from Germany and airplane parts from America and buying mealie meal with the fewest weevils. We'd hired her husband, Malcolm, a Brit with an impish face and a personality to match, from a photo-safari camp, where he had been a guide and naturalist. Now he was the project's field manager, who kept our trucks running, spare parts and supplies flowing, and solved just about every logistical problem that can possibly happen in the bush. I keyed the mike, watching Long Tail sweep the ground for marula fruits just beyond the window of our radio room at Marula-Puku.

"Says who?"

"The warden brought me the message this morning; it's from senior officials at Parks headquarters in Chilonga."

"Nonsense. Jan Zehner at the U.S. embassy arranged our permits, along with those for the National Geographic film crew, when we entered the country. It took a year to get everything. We have them on file—and Parks must have them too." Beyond the window in front of me a great elephant turd hit the ground with a resounding thud.

This query wasn't really about permits; it was a setup by someone much more powerful than a senior Parks official.

"Okay, so what do I tell them?"

"Tell them we'll send them copies of our permits shortly."

We did that and heard nothing more. Our enemies would have to think of some other ploy to get rid of us.

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