Skukuza Noah’s park
It’s early evening in Skukuza on a weekday in early spring, yet it’s sweltering. The aroma of braai-vleis permeates the sultry air but it’s utterly quiet in Bosbok Street. And then the sounds of the night begin: cicadas chirp, a bushbaby scampers across the roof, a lion roars in the distance…
Hyenas visit Skukuza often, especially in the evenings if there’s meat on the braai. The rickety wire fence around the house sags under the weight of a heavy creeper – it’s a safety measure that would barely contain a Jack Russell, let alone a hungry scavenger. There are other sounds, too: a group of people singing (the park choir practising), a hyena calling its mate.
“Those hyenas ate the golf club’s tablecloths again last night,” sighs LinMari de KlerkLorist as she ends a phone call. If the staff at the club don’t put away the tablecloths and chairs in the evening, the hyenas regard them as snacks. “If only they’d pack the stuff away, there would be no reason to refer to hyenas as ‘damagecausing animals’,” LinMari says.
LINMARI IS A STATE VET who has lived in Skukuza since 2000. “I pretty much arrived with the floods,” she tells us as she pours coffee on her large stoep. The stories of the 2000 floods are still fresh in residents’ minds, especially among those who have lived here for 18 years or longer.
