Travels with Stanley

Many years later (December 2004) we set out on another African safari. This one was in Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana, probably the most famous of all our trips since it was written up in the Ottawa Citizen. The entire trip was organized by Mags Varley, whose sister worked at the Riverside Hospital and knew Stan very well. Leon, Mag’s husband, is a guide and Mags his wife runs the travel agency. We started with a walking safari in Zimbabwe, led by Leon and then returned to Victoria Falls where the Varleys lived. After visiting the Falls, we crossed the border into Botswana. At the dock, we were met by the workers from Ichingo Lodge who took us by boat to Impalila Island which was in Namibia. The owner of the lodge was Ralph Oxenham, a good friend of the Varleys, a former chemist, who had sold his company and opened this lodge as his retirement hobby. Our first two nights were spent on a magnificent houseboat, recently acquired by the lodge, which provided a great view of the animals, mostly elephants, coming to drink in the evening at the shores of the river in Chobe National Park. The next two nights were spent at Ichingo Lodge itself. Although mainly a fishing lodge for tigerfish, the ride down the rapids of the Chobe River was exciting and aside from catching tigerfish, we could view the animals on the shore. We didn’t know how exciting it was going to get when we set out that day to fish and view the animals. Our guide, Anton, heard screaming from across the river and saw many children running along the shore. He realized right away that a crocodile had a little girl in his mouth, taking her to deeper water to drown her. Anton managed to trap the crocodile with the girl between the boat and the shore and while Stan hit the crocodile on the snout with his fist, Anton grabbed the girl to lift her into the boat. I looked around the boat for something to hit the crocodile with while screaming. I realized then that we had nothing in the boat if that motor should fail. The crocodile let go of her shoulder and then grabbed her leg. With more hitting on the crocodile’s nose, it finally let go and the girl was lifted into the boat. We came to shore close by and were met by the truck from the lodge after Anton had called. We all gathered at the clinic that we had visited that morning. It was staffed by a nurse with almost no supplies. There was suture material to stitch the wounds but no sterile solutions of any kind and not nearly enough local anesthetic to freeze all the wounds. Sodra didn’t say a word as Stanley sewed her up. We found out that often the nurse didn’t show up and Ralph had never seen the doctor who was supposed to come to this clinic once a month. There were supplies at the Lodge and Nicki, an American woman who managed the Lodge with her husband for Ralph, had often carried out first aid. Stan brought our antibiotics to Sodra in the village which was nearby the Lodge. As we viewed the mud huts, no floors, no water, and no electricity we were able to see first-hand the extent of the poverty in that village. As we tried to explain when to take the antibiotics, we realized there were no clocks, no watches. How to explain every four hours? We mostly saw women. Sodra had a mother, grandmother and great grandmother. It turned out that she did have a father who accompanied her to the nearest hospital (350 miles away) after the wounds became infected. Stan knew that this would happen and it was fortunate that her father accompanied her and looked after her for a month while she healed. Ralph had offered many times to supply clean water from the Lodge so that they wouldn’t have to go to the river to wash but the men never came. After this incident, the men came to Ralph and a trench was dug for the pipe from the Lodge’s supply of water. This happened to be the same time as the terrible tsunami in Asia that killed so many. Money was raised to rebuild the areas affected many, that were resorts. Stan wrote a letter to the editor of The Citizen that the numbers of children dying from malaria and diarrhea every year exceeded the deaths from this tsunami by many orders of magnitude. This prompted an interview with Stan explaining what had happened which was published in the Ottawa Citizen . People kept sending money to us, unsolicited, which we sent to Ralph, funding for water and electricity. A patient of Stan’s nominated him for an award and he was recognized with a commendation from the Governor General of Canada in February, 2006. Friends of ours visited the same lodge a couple of years later and sent photos of the progress Ralph had made in the Village with the funds that had been sent to him from us. Sodra healed very well and continued in school until she was 16 which we funded ourselves. Although education is supposed to be free, uniforms and supplies are required. We lost contact with Ralph over the years, but recently (July 23, 2014) heard from the Varleys that he had passed away .