Tresspassers in Tanzania
by Mike Chambers
“What’s that?” Judy looked up from her book. She was sitting in a comfy arm-chair facing out onto the porch. It was a great view looking out over Lake Duluti, a small volcanic crater lake fifteen kilometers or so east of Arusha, Tanzania. We had equipped the house with a satellite dish and I was preoccupied with England vs the New Zealand All Blacks on TV. I had heard the noise coming from the kitchen, a kind of awkward banging, and figured some kind of local wildlife was raiding the leftovers.
The house was modest in the extreme but it was in a world-class location. There was a rough forest to the west but the view north framed Mt. Meru perfectly and the south looked over a small but spectacular crater lake and then out over a limitless savanna. But most spectacular was the east where Mt Kilimanjaro effortlessly dominated the horizon.
We only had one on and off neighbor and the hillside down to the lake was forested and an official protected-area, so interaction with wildlife was common. Snakes slithered, hawks circled watching for their prey and on wet mornings we tried to decipher the muddy tracks that made their way across the parking lot. Many of the smaller varieties could make it through the bars in the mudroom and raid the kitchen. Normally that might be a local rodent but on occasion, something more interesting like a mongoose or civet cat managed to slip through the bars. I must admit that we did resent losing an anticipated dinner to such a thief. Concurrently, and completely illogically, we loved it —the magnificent views, the closeness of the wildlife, the fact it was real and home and only shared with other people on our terms.
Judy left the living room into the kitchen and a second later responded with a three-word cancellation of the peaceful seclusion of our Tanzanian retreat: “They have guns!”
I jumped up, but instead of heading for the kitchen, I went straight for the bedroom, opened the drawer of the bedside table, and grabbed the 9mm Browning automatic lying in hiding under my current book. Judy and I had had a long history of adventures in Tanzania and one of them had dumped a small arsenal of firearms into our proverbial laps. We worked our way out of that illegal and awkward situation but decided to keep one weapon just in case a situation like this ever arose.
I was out of the bedroom in a few seconds and headed for the kitchen. As I did, the dogs burst out in a combined chorus. The black dog club, like the guns, were part of past adventures. All five broke out into alarm mode as I made my way through the kitchen and out into the mudroom. As I did, I saw Judy out of the corner of my left eye making her way across the parking lot. It seemed there was blood on the back of her head.
Stepping into the mudroom, I was presented with a strange scene. In the foreground was a small rectangular space roughly furnished with coat racks, toolboxes, and the electrical power board. The width of the eastern wall was open to the elements and protected by a secure grid of re-bar welded into a crisscross pattern. Through the bars, there was a magnificent view of Mount Kilimanjaro, a landmark that dominated the landscape in every direction. Between the iconic mountain in the distance and the constrained domestic character of the mud-room was a huge void. Below the line of sight, the forest sloped down to the lake and then stretched out into the distance with all the village and farm details laid out like a detailed map. There was a two-foot ledge around the eastern side of the house where the mudroom vista stretched out to the east.
Two unknown rugged-looking men were standing there looking in. The one to the right was swinging down an AK-47 from the vertical position and the one straight ahead was swinging a similar weapon up from pointing to the ground. As I stepped into the scene they swung around from looking at Judy in the parking lot on their right, to me looking straight out through the bars.
I raised up the black automatic pistol.
At that second, the dogs arrived, aggressively blocking the left side of the ridge with a hedge of snarling teeth. The dogs looked and sounded ferocious but they were four or five feet to the left of the gap in the retaining wall that must have been the intruders' entry point. I could see they weren’t going to attack at speed as the ledge was only two dogs wide.
The AK’s were still swinging as I fired twice in quick succession pointing just over the head of the guy in front of me. I thought I had a small slice of time before they could swing their weapons right on me and I could fire again with more deadly intent if need be. But instead of bringing his weapon to the ready, the guy in front of me simply seemed to drop vertically straight out of view. It's true, the torn fence was on top of the concrete retaining wall and the tear led eight feet down into the forest. He just disappeared vertically with the AK still in hand. A split second later his companion scooted back to the same spot, never bringing his weapon to bear and dove through the gap headfirst, weapon and all.
As the second thief dropped out of view I turned and ran to see if Judy was OK. She was the hero that had spotted these guys before they got their bearings. Things would have been very different if they had gotten past the ledge and had a chance to shoot the dogs. I caught up with her a few meters down the road and we made our way back to the house and put a clean cloth on her head that was bleeding as head wounds do. I called the police who asked us to stay on scene until they came. It took them a while as the local station didn’t have a car and a team was requested from Arusha headquarters.
We were in a hurry to get to a clinic because Judy would certainly need stitches but we thought it best to make sure we reported properly. On arrival, the officer in charge asked a lot of questions and was reluctant to answer any of ours. We persisted though and finally got a few answers. There was no proof the culprits were the same people, but there was news that recruits at a local army camp had gone AWOL the day before.
The officer in charge was a crusty type and apparently quite concerned that the deserters had gotten away with their weapons. Ours was the second sighting and he seemed to dread a long chase to bring them to justice. He seemed to prefer a definitive end which he explained to us very succinctly.
“Mr. Mike you must keel them! You must keel them! Do you understand? It is very important. You must keel them!”
Once he seemed sure I had understood my responsibilities, he got his team together and they headed back to the station. We went to town to the hospital where the doctors stitched up the back of Judy’s head with twelve industrial stitches. We made it back to the house late that evening. The dogs met us at the gate without their usual raucous welcome. Security was their job, they were the first responders, but this time Judy had beaten them to it. There was a bit of guilt there but they would come around. Judy and I would as well. We were off the beaten track, but that’s how we liked it.
Mike Chambers recently returned to Canada after 30 years in East and Central Africa. He is now writing full time and fundraising for the Elephant Survival Organization UAV anti poaching surveillance service in Tanzanian parks and reserves. To learn more, visit http://michaelmargravechambers.blogspot.com/