WHEN CULTURES COLLIDE...

Patch Hayton

Patch had been barking all morning. A high-pitched, seal-bellow “arff” that made me reach for headphones and close the windows. When noise-cancelling devices failed, I huffed out of my room, cross that the dog was incessant enough to disturb my morning, his teenager-behavior culminating at the chain-link fence, where he was engaged in a skirmish with the bamboo. 

“Iwe, Patch!” I scolded him, Duncan – our old gardener, watching my ire, and feeling the heat of my disappointment for his lack of discipline on the Jack Russell, lowered his head and defended his garden companion. “Pepani, Amayi, Patchy – is no trouble” he stated, picking up the white fur ball and handing him to me. “Zikomo, Duncan, but he must have a time-out”, I tucked Patch under my arm and whisked him away to the garage for his punishment, leaving Duncan and the bamboos, and the source of Patch’s irritation, which wouldn’t take long to discover…

Skulking, Patch endured his time-out. Then, he was released. Within 10 minutes the barking had begun again...Ignoring it, thinking Duncan would now know what to do with him, having a ‘time-out’ model to follow, I returned to my work.

“Mom! Come quickly – Patch is tangled with a MONITOR LIZARD – MONITOR, MOM – it’s huge!”

Benson’s voice was urgent, and his excitement was tangible. We see plenty of wildlife sweeping through our yard, silvery-cheeked hornbills, snacking in the papaya trees, hedgehogs caught by the dogs, puffed up like a blowfish, snakes of all varieties –usually wrangled by our Jack Russell, quicker than we can yell, “NJOKA!” But we have never, in 7 years, seen a MONITOR LIZARD in our yard!

Benson was faster than me, and led the race to the lower garden, where I saw Patch, jaws gripping the back right leg of a large monitor lizard, who was desperately trying to climb up the Eucalyptus tree. Hampering his escape, our fierce JR clung to his hind leg; calling him off the hunt was useless. He had already proved that in the face of a spitting cobra, he would rather take the venom to the snout, than give up the chase.

“GRAB him, Duncan!!” I yelled, slightly irritated that a mob had begun to gather on the fence line. Suddenly, I realized, there was something else going on – while I was worried about Patch hurting the Monitor Lizard, Duncan and the villagers on the outside of my fence, were desperate to kill the reptile. Men picked up large rocks and blocks of red brick and pitched them at the lizard with force. He struggled to scratch his way to the other side of the trunk, but he was not safe from Duncan who crashed a thick branch onto the lizard’s tail, making him lose balance and slip further towards Patch’s bite. Maxwell, dodging the flying bricks, nimbly picked up our spitfire JR and took him to his familiar spot in the garage. With Patch gone, it was just the monitor lizard, Duncan, and the villagers left in the garden corner.

“STOP IT!!” I cried, throwing my fingers into the my mouth and whistling so loud, even tea pluckers near Makwasa could hear me. Another stone was hurled, and Duncan smashed the stick onto the lizard, glaring at me and saying “Dangerous, Madam!” “He’s NOT going to hurt anybody! He’s NOT like a snake!” I insisted, but nobody was listening to me. I ran towards the lizard, Duncan and the villagers stepped back. The lizard swung around and lurched in my direction, but I had finally managed to subdue the stubborn crowd, and the monitor lizard lay at my feet, wounded, struggling for breath.

With the situation calmed, I turned to my neighbors and, feeling like a protector of the wildlife, I reproached them, “why would you kill this creature!? He’s NOT dangerous.” They nervously laughed, but stood at the fence, almost leaning over it. “NDIWO” one brave man said, motioning to his mouth as he spoke. “You want to KILL this lizard, so you can EAT it?” I must have sounded disgusted. A debate broke out, as my Malawian neighbors, seeking strength in numbers, pressed together, shoving a spokesperson to the front, “We are ALL sinners, Madam…” the man said, his hand pointing to the lizard, who was still sucking air at my feet. They felt judged by me, and I was offended by their disregard for wildlife. “If you eat ALL these lizards, they will become EXTINCT” oh how I wished I could rattle in the vernacular. “Yes, but it is good eating. We eat everything. Even your dog” the woman assured me, as Nala launched toward the boundary. Now, it was personal, I retaliated “you eat MY dog, and you get MFITI”…”EEEEEEE, MFITI,” they recoiled at the thought, and quickly passed off the remark as a joke. One thing was clear, as we bartered in the yard, they wanted to EAT the lizard, and I wanted to FREE it. Certainly, we were experiencing a moment of “CULTURE COLLISION”…

The lizard, still breathing, twitched slightly and I wondered if it could be rehabilitated. I told the neighbors, there was no NDIWO right now, and that I was going to release the lizard. But soon it became clear that he must be in terrible pain, his neck was broken, and blood was spilling from his jaw.

“His neck is broken, he won’t make it.” I told Duncan, who poked the lizard gently, confirming what I thought. “Give him to US!” the men demanded, hearing the debate and relishing the taste of lizard for supper.

“He lived and died in MY garden” I said, almost eulogizing the demising animal. “I will let Duncan and Maxwell decide what to do with him.”

I began to turn my back and walk up the slope that led through our fledging orchard, where orange trees were fighting to thrive and where passionfruit vines creeped, heavy with ripening fruit. I looked over my shoulder, at my two gardeners, who seemed ‘caught in the middle’, and beyond their blue cotton drill overalls, stood my neighbor, quizzically watching my exit.

Surrendering my unofficial role as ‘protector of the wilderness’ I softened and asked Duncan and Maxwell if either of them wanted to eat the lizard. “Ayi, No, no, no, no, no…” they both stuttered, as if the idea was suddenly ludicrous. “Then give him to the people”…I declared, feeling a sense of loss as I spoke.

I wasn’t going to win, either way. And neither was the lizard for that matter.

I resigned myself to the numbness that results from a ‘collision of cultures’ where, as humans, raised in different parts of the world, we simply fail to understand each other.

I did the only thing I could think of in the moment, I put the kettle on, and made a cup of tea.

Titch and the Monitor Lizard