Dressed to Kill

The fact that I've not been given the keys to the Land Rover is no surprise to me. Evidently John Varty took note of my bush-driving skills a couple nights ago when I steered the vehicle into a rut of Grand Canyon-like proportions and gave its shock absorbers the ultimate test. (They performed admirably, I thought, even as my head banged hard against the steel roll bar on the roof, shattering my sunglasses and leaving me with a seriously smarting lump.)

Much to Varty's dismay, and mine, we will miss visiting the tigers today. John had to get up and out at 3 a.m. to drive a couple of hours to Bloemfontein to catch a two-hour flight to Johannesburg for a 9 a.m. meeting with Cambodia's minister of parks.

I am curious about the purpose of this meeting, of course — Cambodia's tigers are in a very bad way because of seriously depleted prey — but no more so than about Varty's planned attire for such an important appointment. Call me trivial, but I've noticed in this past week that the filmmaker has one set of stripes. And they're not nearly so Hollywood as Ron's or Julie's.

This is the same man who played himself in "Running Wild," a 1995 movie (starring Martin Sheen and Brooke Shields) about saving two orphaned leopard cubs. He flattens his curls, now graying, with a sweat-stained cap and favors slip-on suede shoes (CAT brand, no less) sans socks, no matter whether he's traipsing around in the bush or town. He has an affinity for tattered camouflage pants cinched tight around his trim waist with a series of belts (one holds a pistol holster) as well as the tiger leash that is, in part, a heavy chain.

His "good" glasses, which hang onto his one ear with a lone silver arm, are kaput. He wears them taped around his neck so he doesn't lose them, but Ron and Julie (as well as his equally rambunctious 4-year-old twins, Sean and Tao) have trashed more pairs than he can count.

"I don't have 'work' clothes and 'good' clothes," Varty says, humoring my inane interest in his wardrobe but ever so more interested in the Black eagles that he just spotted on a distant hill. "I just have clothes."

Philippolis is far from Milan. However, this town closest to the tiger sanctuary (about 20 miles) has, on its graveled main street, a fashion stronghold called the Boetiek Elegant. Having finished my grocery shopping — I've developed a taste for South African staples such as Rooibos (red bush) tea and rusks (hard, dry biscuits) — and having attempted to do my banking (a teller will come fetch me in an hour or so when my dollars have successfully changed into rands), I feel compelled to shop.

Suzanne, the middle-aged owner of the boutique, greets me on the porch and invites me inside. I'm her only shopper. When she finds out I'm working at the tiger sanctuary, she makes a beeline for one of two sparsely filled racks and pulls out a pantsuit of a leopard-print material. She says she bought it special when she found out about the tiger sanctuary. She figured that people who visit it might enjoy dressing the part.

I doubt that it's my size, I say. Her challenge, she admits, is having a small shop that must cater to not only "fat old women and fat young women but also slim women, young and old." She invites me to the other side of the shop where local handmade items are featured.

I purchase a quilted baby bib on which wild animals of the bush march gaily around its perimeter. It's for James, the owner of the Philippolis Lodge, a hotel/pub that anchors the main street. Actually it's for his unborn baby, due later this month. James proudly announced in the pub last night that he found out it was a boy: his third.

"Well on your way to a soccer team!" one patron deadpanned.

James yawned. He and his wife had made the long, dusty trip to Bloemfontein earlier in the day and waited at the government hospital for a free sonogram and then to reserve a room in which the baby could be born.

"If you don't make a reservation, what happens," I ask. "Would they turn you away after you'd driven for two hours on bumpy dirt roads?"

James shrugs and slides me my usual: a Greek salad and a bottle of Castle Lager, whose label proclaims it "The Great South African Beer."

James is a pale, good-natured man with a dry wit. He used to let patrons pour their own drinks until recently when some trouble-makers started pinching entire bottles of his best spirits. The story goes that when he told the town policeman, the cop retorted: Well what'd you expect?

James is a white Afrikaans in his 40s. His wife is of mixed race and referred to as "colored." Philippolis proper is a straight-laced sheep farming village of two parallel paved roads and a handful of gravel cross alleys. Whites have lived since 1823 in the town's neat, flat-topped Karoo houses, all fenced and gated. Blacks live on the outskirts of town in abject poverty. The fact that James' pub attracts a mixed-race clientele (of mostly males) is evidence of the passing of apartheid, even in the most remote, conservative corners of this country.

At the far end of the bar, wearing a loud shirt, gold necklace, and mass quantities of aftershave, sits a smiling Ethiopian man who owns a clothing shop on the edge of town. The town's one lawyer is standing nearby, chatting in Afrikaans to the town's one doctor. The town's one accountant is here. Missing tonight is the town's policeman, Henny.

"If a place has more than one garage and one supermarket, it's too big for me," Varty had remarked when we first drove through Philippolis on our way from Bloemfontein airport to the tiger sanctuary.

In its heyday, Philippolis used to be on the main north-south route between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Then the main drag was moved and Philippolis became the sleepy little place that it is. James, for years, has listened to promises from bureaucrats for a connector road to the new highway, but it has not come to pass.

Philippolis' claim to fame is being the oldest settlement in the Free State. Its famous son is Laurens Jan van Post, an adventurer writer who was a mentor to Charles, Prince of Wales, and godfather to William, future king of England. Its most idiosyncratic attraction is a water labyrinth in the heart of town.

Of course, the tiger sanctuary threatens to pre-empt all other lures as it gains fame and notoriety. The town brochure, available for free in Boetiek Elegant, is a treasure of understatement: "The area is rich in wildlife where various species roam underneath the African Sun. The vast landscape also provides a sanctuary for tigers and endangered wildlife like the blue crane. ..."

Having no more stores left in which to shop, as is my habit when I have a day to fritter away, I stroll to the labyrinth and walk its serene maze of water, first inward, then outward. I contemplate the fact that this community of 7,000 people is a mere speck in a province that's a mere dot in a country that's a mere fragment of the continent of Africa.

The population of Philippolis is, coincidentally, about the same as the number of wild tigers believed to populate this entire world — optimistically speaking. That's not many. Not many at all.

<< Previous Dispatch | Next Dispatch >>