I feel the need for speed

I heard the sound long before I saw the speck. Like many objects, the sound of a big, vintage aircraft, powered by whopping big pistons with a straight pipe exhaust is unmistakable, you just know something wicked fast is headed your way, your blood starts to race as you try to discern what is making the ground start to shake. (Ladies it's a guy thing) My memory is pretty clear on the sound of a Rolls Royce Merlin, and Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp, but Friday I was hearing something new.

It was the weekend fly-in here in Omaruru where the Namibian flying community and sometimes pilots from the rest of the SADC come for a party, any excuse for some airtime is good enough, and if there happens to be some loud music, grilled meat and cold beer attached, so much the better.  Normally, it's a collection of small single engine, civilian aircraft, Cessna's, Pipers, and a motley mix of microlights. The sound of all these are familiar to me (and to you, even if you don't know it) Drifting into town, their tiny little engines screaming like a cage full of squirrels on crack, they float into our little dirt strip, pushed up and down with the winds, unable to mount much resistance in spite of their hopped up rodents.

Look don't get me wrong they're darling little planes, you can land them in a parking lot or on a dirt track if you have to and there is nothing cheaper to take to the skies with, unless you can sprout a pair of wings. Still though in a way, its very similar to the difference between a Hyundai Getz and a 67 Shelby GT 500. They both do the same thing, which, does it better, is a matter of personal taste and if the truth be spoke, wallet.  And so, a few moments after the little green bug above landed, this beast reared its head and said "Hi", at something approaching 300 kilometers per hour, about 3 meters off the deck.

This was new.... something I had never seen in all my hours of "research" on the history channel.  Turns out its a Nanchang China CJ-6A fully aerobatic  military trainer, based on the 1945 Russian YAK18, but believe it or not improved on by the Chinese, it is powered by a 9 cylinder radial air cooled engine. which is why it sounded and went far more like the Shelby then the Getz.

This somewhat primitive looking brute is owned by Jacques Jacobs of Bataleur Aviation in Swakopmund and he was in town for the above mentioned reasons and for the price of a decent meal, let people tie a white scarf around their necks and feel what it's like, if only for a few moments to rip the sky asunder. 

I suspect though that there were thoughts like these running through the new fearless WW2 fighter jocks frontal lobes...

Dear God in heaven, what madness has overtaken me and PLEASE O PLEASE let this guy  know WTF he's doing and SweetbabyJesus what possessed me to strap my sorry ass into something sporting this on its tail ??????

The answer to this rhetorical question lies in between this:

And this:

And looked a lot like this:

Post Script: No I didn't go for a ride, it had nothing to do the label and everything to do with my stomach. The worst thing about barfing in a plane is when you do and then you stall at the top of a loop, well you get the picture, and besides I'm a photographer and my job was to take pictures.......

Chris

Omaruru Monday 5:48pm

Life in the big sandy

Greetings from a very wet, very green Namibia. It's been a long time since my last post, lots of substantial changes in my insular little world at the deserts edge. I have also been making photographs, a lot in fact.

I'll start with today, with the rains, we get a stunning array of wildflowers and bugs (taxonomically incorrect I know, but I'm sticking with the simple nomenclature) a youngster came into the gallery and asked me if I had seen "the big worm", "no" sez I, down the street we went, wrestled him into submission and back to the new studio, (I'll get to that) here he is, end to end stretched out 10cm/5in.  According to Guy this one turns into a big yellow butterfly that lives in the citrus trees.

 [ Please note, while I was napping this afternoon he made a break for it and is MIA]

A week ago yesterday I went to Windhoek on my own dime to photograph a fashion show. (it's the first one I have ever attended in person, I think it proves all the hours doing 'research' on FTV were not wasted.)  I had one image run in The Namibia Star, one in Allgemeine Zeitung, and seven, count 'em seven in The Namibian, the national english daily!  Now if only I can start getting paid for this @#$%.

Our ephemeral Omaruru river has been running non-stop for almost 6 weeks now, varying from a trickle to a bank to bank muddy torrent, we average 25cm/10in/year, with the rain that's falling as I write, we will push through 60cm/24in with months of rainy season to come!

Here's the thing though, if you live on the other side of the river like I do, most of the year driving to town is a 60 second commute, if the river is running and you are not feeling brave, [some would say prudent], it's a whopping 12 minute commute, most of us that live on the other side, sooner or later tempt fate, last week I got a call from Jane the newspaper editor, telling me the town's health inspector had gotten the fire truck buried to the door frames and didn't I want to take a photograph for the 'PlanetOm' yes Loretta, we have a town newspaper and flush plumbing too!   Here's Lion, stuck as advertised, I am unclear as to how he managed to drill it in so deep.

Each year we have a road race sponsored by Otto and Bobby who own the local Spar, the race is an eclectic mix of the serious and not so serious, the official looking fellow on the English three speed is Jonathan Church, a loyal subject of Lizzie 2, a fellow geologist and resident eccentric. [it takes one to know one] The other guys are Team Toshiba (duh).

This is Hansen, the superintendent of the Tubussis School, in the shadow of Erongo Mountain.

Jean Pierre and his, soon to arrive baby sister.

Omaruru has an internationally ranked cyclist, Dan Craven Jr. his team provides him with the latest state of the art kit, which allows him to be competitive near the highest levels of the sport, it is however my considered opinion that it is more the man then the machine.  Here are two of Dan, first the mad racer  and second the man on my Chinese one speed with Martin my long suffering domestic landscape engineer.

And this brings me to the news, I've begun to consolidate my working spaces, I have taken over half the old bakery building on the Main Street, which I have turned into my very own first ever dedicated gallery/studio/office.  A change I am immensely pleased with.

I do hope this finds you all well, wherever on the ball you may be, we should all take a silent moment in whatever way we choose to send hope and salvation to the people of Honshu & Christchurch.

Cheers.

C. 

My own private rhino

Before Eddy arrived I  received a call from Epako Guy, “We have a new baby Rhino”. That simple sentence began a misson of sorts, the quest was to take THE white rhino mother and baby picture. I was after something photographically transcendent, something epic, an image I could turn down a pile of money from the National Geographic Society for (I may be waxing lyrical here). Six afternoons, two mornings and something on the up side of 30 hours later I think I got there.

This may be hard to believe but Rhino’s are damn hard to shoot. I mean photographically,  well not really except that generally, they are about as challenging as taking a photograph of a brick building and just about as interesting.   This is a typical rhino shot. 'hold still, don't move, Okay I won't....." You could take this shot all day long and into the next.

(A momentary nomenclature digression: as descriptive terms white rhino and black rhino are meaningless. It’s more accurate to refer to them as hook-lipped and square-lipped. Hooked eat brush and are commonly psychotic (Charles Manson), aggressive (Rambo), they are instinctively man, beast and vehicle stompers. Over the years here I have seen more then a few off road rigs that got skewered by a hooked lipped, for getting too close and pissing them off, the hole is unmistakable and funny enough it always seems to be very close the driver...Hmmm not as dim as they seem.  Hooked lips are the "smaller" of the two species at a shoulder height of 5 feet and around a ton. Their gentler saner square lipped cousins, eat grass and run away from trouble rather then looking for it.  But they are taller, 6 feet at the shoulder and much, much heavier, think 1950’s Buick Special and you’ll have a good idea.)

To be generous both are ugly, trying to capture an image that is flattering is trying. Day after day I always seemed to be too close, too far, they were going away from me, mom was blocking the baby, half in and half out of the sun, deep shade, blocked by a tree or an errant clump of grass, shrubbery, baby too far from mom, mom looking the wrong way, wind shifts blowing my “clean fresh scent speed stick” up her nose, poof ghost like, gone, and on and on and on, six days and about 1000 pictures later I had some good stuff but not “the shot”.  There were lots of these:

Don't get me wrong stalking a square lipped rhino and her baby on foot trough the African bush will get your pulse rate up, it is a thrill, somehow in retrospect the 30meters between use doesn't seem to be nearly enough and sadly this as most of my images from these days are ultimately disappointing from a purely photographic perspective.

Day three I got this, it was an amazing display, the baby just started running, back and forth around mom, through the trees, across the road in front of us, forward and back perhaps, she knew that soon she would lose her speed, her lightness of being, the joy of being alive and able to defy gravity if only momentarily, replaced by life's unavoidable weight.

I got this day 4, just as the sun went below the trees.

Day 6 started well, we got down wind on a river bed as they approached, as long as we were quiet and in the vehicle they largely ignored us.

A few minutes later they passed within touching distance oblivious to us and to the truck turning up the stream bank and around behind us heading for Baugh's water hole. We followed them to the water hole but once again I was on the wrong side of the light. The water hole only has one way in through a cut bank. I saw that I couldn’t get to the right side of the light but I thought I could get positioned to capture something special as they came back out the cut bank into the river. That’s where I took this which is the shot I wanted, steady mom, scale, texture, child in motion, sunset desert dust.

Then it got interesting, I had positioned myself across the river from the water hole down, low next to a burnt out tree. I figured they would come out the cut bank and turn up stream away from the truck; instead they came right at me. I froze next to the trunk until she was about 20 feet away and then I decided I needed way more tree between her and me and moved, like a sprung tarp she charged, stopping just a few feet away, the tip of her horn almost within arm reach.  I can report the following, their horns are well polished and the tip seems exceedingly sharp. Time stopped, she spun and left at speed. My heart started again.

My friend Guy took this shot an instant after she turned to run the other way. See how smart I was with my choice of protection.....Remember when this started I was on the other side of the tree...

This last afternoon was amongst the best days of my African life, all my pipes got flushed with a massive shot of adrenaline, fear came later in equal amounts with the elation of being alive and privileged to be so close to such a beast. On our way back to the lodge our paths crossed once more. I would like to think I was already forgotten, all the while certain they would never be.

Fundraising

This is from Alexsandra at Harnas:

We would like to thank you all sincerely for the generous contributions and interest you have put into Eddy. Eddy united people from all over the world with his story, and inspired all of us to stand together and fight for his life. With the permission from all the people who donated we would like to continue this battle for the lives of the African baby elephants in the memory of Eddy. It is a big problem all over the world that baby elephants fall into waterholes, and get separated from their mums and become easy prey. With your permission the unused portion of Eddy's funding will go to the rebuilding and restructuring of water points in Bushmanland Namibia, ensuring that there will be no more baby elephants at risk of falling in and getting stuck, and that more baby elephants can live happily ever after with their herd and mums. 

Once again here is the link to Harnas' main site and their Facebook page.

Bad News

Sic Transit Gloria Eddy

My Latin's pretty rusty but that should translate as, "So passes the glory of Eddy". When I went to bed last night,  all was right in my world, I was going to put up a small progress post this morning that Eddy's treatment was starting to work, for the first time since the 29th his poo had turned red brown and was the consistency of a cow flop, which weird as it sounds was HUGE.  A few minutes ago I received word Eddy went to sleep and didn't wake up. At the moment details are sketchy due to telephone problems, bad roads and floods. I just know he wasn't alone when he passed, he wasn't with his Mother, but he most definitely was not alone. Eddy's short time here has changed a lot of people lives, brought strangers together, created bonds of friendship that seem strong

For all of those who have been directly or indirectly involved in Eddy's story, I want to say thank you on his behalf, from the bottom of my heart .

Good-bye Eddy, forever dream, of your Momma's gentle touch,  of tall green grass, clean pools of cool water with silky mud bottoms, trees covered with tender young leaves, and take your place, running with the big bulls from long ago, let the earth quietly tremble as you pass.

I'll post more just as soon as I hear it!

Chris

Eddy catches a standing 8 count and wakes up in Disneyland.

It's not how hard a punch you can take that counts, it's how hard punch you can take and get back up.

R. Balboa

I think Mr. Balboa would've liked our Eddy, he is one tough, wrinkled,  little SOB.  He and we have been on a roller coaster of emotion and travel since Sunday mid-day.  This post will be lengthy and in parts very technical,  it is  informative in relating the difficulty in keeping a very young elephant alive and the extraordinary measures being taking by an increasingly  large team to make sure he does just that, stay alive.  

In spite of our (Betsy, Lionel, Kevin and myself) best efforts Eddy crashed again on Sunday.  Omaruru's private Veterinarian Dr. Otto Zapke, came to Epako Sunday afternoon, fully kitted out, to begin another round of emergency care. However, Dr Otto took just a few seconds to inspect Eddy turn to me and say quite strongly, we need to move Eddy and we need to it now or he's going to die.

Within minutes of Otto's arrival my Toyota Double cab was converted to an impromptu ambulance, Otto driving, me in the back with Eddy doing my best to keep him calm and at the same time not let him stomp the @#$% out me, sick or not, small or not he is very strong and fully capable of dropping my old butt to the canvas. 

We had a couple of choices of where to take Eddy and in the end mostly for security/control reasons opted for my garden.  On our way in from Epako, Otto phoned Johann du Plessis, and asked him to assemble the rudiments of an emergency enclosure. It was all hands on deck and it was up and ready in minutes.

Otto quickly and expertly got a new IV line in Eddy's ear and sutured it in place so it wouldn't get pulled out again and started pumping in the fluids. I more or less spent the next 36 hours with Eddy changing IV bags and feeding him orally. I had great help from Sanjke and Martin who work for me at my house.  It was an exhausting vigil.

Otto made it clear Eddy's stay at my house in Omaruru was very temporary and that he needed to move onward to the care of Dr. Ulf Tubessing.  Who according to Otto is one of the best Veterinarians in Southern Africa.

Tuesday morning Eddy was  stable enough to move to Dr. Ulf's farm outside Windhoek, we rode in the back of a Mercedes Sprinter, entirely less dangerous than the back of my double cab (for both of us).  We left Omaruru at about 9AM and arrived at Ulf's farm just after 11. I cannot say enough about the driving skills of Ms. Hillke Waldschmidt. She was a star.

Once we arrived Ulf climbed in with all the tools modern veterinary medicine can muster. Vitamins, hopped up IV, antibiotics, + oral fluids and 24 hour care.  I have known since the beginning that my day to day caretaking of Eddy would have to end. My main responsibility since Roberto, Paul and Guy had to leave  was to be this little guys advocate and do absolutely everything to insure he will survive to charm the pants off large gray girly elephants. So once Eddy was in Dr. Ulf's care we began to introduce a very selective, very skilled, sympathetic group of dedicated caregivers.  Ulf has a game capture business and his best guys from that operation were literally arguing over who would get to sit with Eddy for 8 hours at a whack, talk to him, touch him and make sure he got plenty of food.

Ulf's farm  Ongos is an amazing place just 20 minutes from Windhoek you step out of the urban into the wild. He has one of the rarest of all commodities in Namibia, a year round river, right below his house. At the edge of the Khomas Hochland it is a visually astounding farm, thus the Disneyland reference....

The speed with which Eddy recovered yet again from the edge of the abyss is incredible and leaves zero doubt as to his will to survive.  So much so, that by Thursday morning Ulf deemed Eddy well enough to come off the drip and go for a walk. Along the way Eddy explored his environment, a really good sign and made a new friend.  Yet again the little @#$% made me blubber.  Eddy meets Sampson the horse cat.

Ulf made it clear I had to leave and I understood the importance of doing so, I left my clothes that I had not changed since Sunday with Eddy's new caregivers to put in their laps when they feed him. Packed my bags and got ready to leave.  Overnight the rains had really come and the river on Ulf's farm had gone from running to running very high. We managed to get across, I got to my bus with about 10 minutes to spare and was on my way home to restart my life, happy that Eddy was on his way to a full recovery. 

But, not long after I got home, I received a call from Ulf with bad news, Eddy had crashed again. Ulf stayed with him all night nursing him with all his skill. As he did again last night.

In the 24 hours since, I have learned yet more about Eddy's situation. The short version is this. It goes all the way back to the first bottle of milk we were told to feed him. There is a mucous lining in Eddy's digestive track that is essential to his ability to metabolize his food, without it he can't metabolize anything that he takes orally.  Eddy can't get  stronger and reestablish his gut function without getting nutrients, without a functioning gut he can't get the nutrients, you don't need to be a Vet to see where this is going. 

Ulf and Otto spent a bunch of airtime today calling around Southern Africa looking for a 30 or 40cm central line to put deep  into Eddy so he can be feed nutrients by IV in the hopes he gets strong enough  to start his gut functioning again.

I'm going to take the liberty of including a e-mail from Ulf to other Southern African Veterinary Specialists that outlines the treatment problems and efforts being taken, to give you all some idea of the complexity of this.

Ulf wrote:.......Fortunately I am pretty up to date with critical care medicine as well as wildlife medicine/rehab. Eddy as a say 3 month old Elephant is a midget way underweight and not nearly getting in enough calories on a daily basis to maintain body functions, never mind growing and thriving. He is starving in front of our eyes and if that is not changed he has no chance – clinically it looks like he has given up but nobody can hang in there with hypoglycaemia, hypokalaemia and a hugely negative caloric balance! The fact that he has a diet induced osmotic diarrhoea does not help. He is currently getting the S 26 formula with added pancreatic enzymes (to aid in the lipid maldigestion he has) and Omeprazole (gastric ulceration) as well as supplemental potassium (which helped him a lot as far as muscle tone is concerned!!). I currently also have him on total parenteral nutrition (lipids, amino acids, glucose IV) which really made a big difference and turned him around in the past few hours. After being up and about during the day and still drinking 3,3 l of milk in the afternoon he was down and out, near zero muscle tone, not drinking and really close to death during the night. I spent the entire night with him gradually building him up again. I spent a lot of time speaking to various SA vets who have clinical (not just the orphanage care) experience and work closely with various rehab organisations. I also spoke to Karen Trendler whom I believe to be an excellent rehabilitator with really great clinical knowledge as well (as a vet nurse) and Rachel Murton (Zambian Elephant Orphanage). From all their advise and experience (together with info from the Knysna guys and Daphne (had stuff from her for a while) I now compiled a management and treatment plan which I honestly believe is optimal for Eddy right now.

Chris

When Elephants Sleep

It's a lovely Saturday morning in Namibia, rain clouds are building in the East, we are holding thumbs (crossing fingers) for rain late in the day.  There's no big drama today, Eddy has begun a slow climb to health, settling into a routine of sorts. Transitioning reluctantly out of the Gatorade mix, into a full strength milk formula every liter of S26 that flows down his big yap takes another knot out of my neck.  His fluid intake remains up and down from 10 liters per day, just where he needs to be. He's started to be more active, pushy, "I WANT IT NOW" we laugh genuine laughter, without the underlying stress, fear and hesitation of the last week.

Eddy drinks a liter of warm milk and much like any other baby, anywhere, when it hits his stomach, it flips a switch in his head and out go the lights.  Gratifyingly, he has started to lay down to sleep again, without the telltale lung rattle that was causing me great concern. I had a bottle of antibiotics ready to launch but Dr. Lionel and Betty held it back. I'm glad they did, it has a tendency to cause the trots which are on the wane.

There are a number of interactions with Eddy that I love, but none more than laying down with him as he drifts off to the land of nod to watch some eyelid movies.... I wonder what's playing?.....

From this morning.

Knee, neck, ear.....

After the noontime feed with Dr. Lionel, driftin away......

This last one strikes me as a child, deep in slumber, at complete peace with his world.....



I should tell you all, that just as things are calming down with Eddy's health, we're cranking up his relocation plans.  Lots of people in various places working feverishly to organize his passport, visas, transport, accompanying veterinarians and ultimate destination.  I have been asked by the parties involved not to give up too much at the moment, we really don't want this deal getting @#$%ed up because of overexcitement.   But this much I will blab, if it comes together the way I think it might, Eddy's most excellent adventure's finish, woulda made, Cecil B. demille drop his stogie and weep as the elephant angels sing.

YeeeHaa.