A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare Page B

evangelising Development in place of God. As an adventurer, seeking near-misses to prove his existence. As an explorer, searching for miracles to take home. As a trader-plunderer, with hard currencies on his side, instead of the rifle’s guarantee. As refugees from the world we have made; as boys, resolved to become men.
    The camp emptied of other guests, and the staff and I had it to ourselves. There was a floating cage on the river, for sunning and cooling off and not being eaten; there was a shower to redecorate; a staff auction to organise; there were meetings held – a post-mortem of a recent canoe trip – and someone had to go to town to pick up some diesel and other treats.
    Mark, whose brain-child all of this was, is keen that guests should not miss the souvenir shop. He is a South African, an engineer who had spent much of his professional life building roads in Botswana, he said, which seemed ironic, given the appalling state of the road to his camp.
    â€˜Ah,’ he said. ‘But that’s no accident.’
    The souvenir shop’s stand-out item was not for sale: a long polemic on six sheets of paper, pinned to the wall, called ‘Mister Westerner’.
    I had a look, then he summarised it for me.
    â€˜It says, Mr Westerner, you are welcome here, but stick your hands in your pockets and keep them there, we don’t want your money, and shut your mouth, and look around and learn.’
    Mark was looking forward to the crash that the world’s media was then predicting that world was about to face. As far as he was concerned, Caprivi and the environs of the camp had been miraculously conserved from the predations of modernity by years of war, and now represented an opportunity for a redrawing of the terms of business between locals and incomers.
    â€˜You’ve got kids here who go away and come back and now won’t go near their parents because suddenly they say they smell. Who don’t respect their parents because they live in a hut, not a house. Do you know what the Human Rights Act did? It killed the traditional structure of law-enforcement round here – they used to just take you into the middle of the village and hit you with a stick: not any more. So the old respect is going.’
    â€˜So what do you do?’
    â€˜You give everyone a basic standard of education, to the point where they can make an informed choice: do I want to join the rat race or do I want to stay here? But what you don’t do is tell them that one is better than the other . . .’
    He was planning to defend the area with three strategically placed checkpoints. ‘There will be a hut, with display boards showing how people live here, and something like Mr Westener: we don’t want your bloody aid here, your bloody values! We’ve already got the values of — here!’
    â€˜So this is an environmental re-education camp masquerading as a holiday?’
    He laughed. ‘Look, I’ll show you something.’
    It was a tree stump.
    â€˜What’s this?’ he asked.
    â€˜. . .?’
    â€˜I say it was the tree of knowledge. And when I came here I cut it down.’
    All the other trees and the grass needed a lot of river water pumped up to them, and soon he went off to see about it.
    Byron appeared in his underpants with Cristoph, who was as tall and lean and black as Byron was brown: they were like brother warriors; they looked as though they could run all day, catch their supper and disappear into the vastness without a care.
    â€˜Bird walk?’
    â€˜Yes!’
    â€˜Might get a bit wet. OK?’
    â€˜Sure.’
    â€˜And it’s still very hot. Have you got sun cream?’ Margie asked. She would be coming with us. She was wearing her sun hat. We set out.
    We left the camp and bent left, following a path through tall golden grasses. We passed huts and a stockade; a village grouped around a great tree. Soon the path was twisting gently through