The Salmon of Doubt

If the rhino ambled along in a genial way, then it was Tom inside. Tom was a tall, Wodehousian man with exactly the wrong complexion for Africa. He had the amiable air of a member of the landed gentry, and when I asked him where he lived he said, in a vague kind of way, “Shropshire.”

If the rhino bustled along busily, it was Todd inside. Todd was not a mad Englishman because he was Welsh. He was in charge of the rhino costumes, had worn them originally in the opera for which they had been designed, during which he had had to carry enormously heavy sopranos on his back. He told me that he had originally wanted to be a vet, but had ended up being a succession of animals instead. Any time you see a film or TV show or a commercial that features someone dressed up as an animal, it’s probably Todd inside. “I was in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” he told me. “Guess,” he added,

“which one I was.” One evening he showed me pictures of his family. Here was a beautiful picture of his wife, another of his young daughter, a sweet picture of his baby son, and here was one of Todd himself.

Todd was done up, very convincingly, as a bright blue centaur.

Gradually the whole point of the rhino suit was beginning to dawn on me. The arrival of the rhino and the Rhino Climb team was something that the village had been looking forward to and preparing for for months. It was the biggest event of the year, a carnival, a festival, a holiday. Being visited by a rhino was something that would be remembered by the villagers, and particularly the children, for years in a way that being visited by a bunch of English toffs in hats would not.

We were then taken to see the village school. Like most of the village, it was made of breezeblocks, and was half-finished. The doors and windows were empty holes, the furniture was just a few rickety benches and some trestle tables, and laid out on these were dozens of pictures of the local wildlife that the children had drawn, and which we were to judge, and give prizes for. The prizes were Rhino Climb baseball hats, and, whoever won the prizes, we had to make sure that every member of the village actually got a hat.

And once we have collected our sponsorship money, we will be able to complete the building of their schoolroom for them.

When at last we left, the children danced along with us for several miles, laughing and singing improvised songs—one of them would start, and the others would quickly pick it up and join in.

The words seem oddly dated, don’t they? It all sounds rather naive and sentimental to be talking about children laughing and dancing and singing together when we all know perfectly well that what children do in real life is snarl and take drugs. But these children/kids/youths, and all the ones we came across on our journey, were happy in a way that we in the West are almost embarrassed by.

The last of the children drop away from us. Our support Land Rover drives slowly past, distributing Cokes and Fantas. Jim, our photographer, is sitting on its tailgate, taking pictures of us with his Canon EOS 1, which I’ve been coveting ever since I saw it. Keis, our Dutch video cameraman, hoists his lightweight Sony three-chip up to his shoulder and pans along the line of walkers. I wonder if there’s anywhere in the West that you could find a hundred children to sing and dance like that.

The following day is my first stint in the rhino suit. I’m much too big for it, and my legs stick out absurdly from the bottom, so that I look like a giant prawn tempura. Inside, the heat and the stench of stale sweat and old Dettol are almost overpowering until you get into the swing of things. Todd walks along beside me, determinedly keeping me engaged in conversation. After a while I realise he’s monitoring me to make sure I don’t faint. Todd’s a good man and I like him a lot. He takes good care of people, and takes even better care of his beloved rhino suit.

Esquire, MARCH 1995

For Children Only You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It’s quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a hen. Like most things, of course, it isn’t quite that simple. The fried egg isn’t properly a fried egg till it’s been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn’t do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It’s all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.