My name is Sicelo Cabangani Mbatha. I am coming from the Zulu Tribe under the Mbatha Clan. My wilderness name is Black lion. I am a wilderness guide, and all my life I have been a disciple of nature. I have had many teachers – from the smallest dung beetle to the ponderous elephant. But by far my cruelest – and yet most healing – lesson came from ingwenya: the crocodile.

On a winter’s day, when I was a young volunteer in the Imfolozi Game Reserve, I was walking with my patrol on the banks of the great Imfolozi River. We walked along a river parched by the dry season – a snaking ribbon of white sand, scattered with a few small pools, packed with water insects and desperate tilapias. Hovering kingfishers swooped down, feasting on the trapped fish and insects. A lonely waterbuck stood frozen, watching us as we scanned the reeds for signs of predators before entering – an exercise of intuition as much as sight, for the high, densely growing reeds offer perfect camouflage for these animals.

Soon after we entered the reeds, the warning calls of vervet monkeys and banded mongoose alerted us to a possible threat. The chorus swelled as birds joined the cacophony. Walking in single file, we cautiously approached the source of the noise. As we drew closer, the sounds died down, for now the birds and mongooses were frightened by our approach. Soon, the only sound was the soft sighing of the reeds, the suck and slosh of mud, and the laboured breathing of a heavy animal.

Then we heard a deep hissing, and jaws snapping against a soft body. When we came through the reeds, we were confronted by a shocking sight. A big male buffalo was sunk up to its belly in a mud pool, while crocodiles feasted on its flesh. The buffalo was still alive but helpless, utterly immobilised by the mud. 

It was a horrifying scene. But for me, the true horror lay in the images that exploded from my memory, to match the terror and agony of the buffalo before me. As the buffalo’s blood filled the mud hole, turning the grey water to red, one word filled my mind: Sanele.

He was my godfather’s child, two years older than me. A bright, lively boy, always laughing, my soulmate and my hero. Sanele knew everything about tracking birds and animals, about where to find the sweetest wild summer fruits, the bushman plums and sour plums and water berries, which sustained us on our daily ten mile journey to and from school. A childhood spent herding goats and running wild in the veld had made us all lithe and fit and strong. But Sanele was the strongest and fittest of all.

He helped to ignite my passion for nature, and ignited this in the other children too. In our district was a majestic umbrella thorn (Acacia Tortilis) on top of a hill, which could be seen for miles around. It provided welcome shade for us after the long hot trek up the hill, and it became a ritual to spend a few minutes enjoying the coolness under its wide canopy, before continuing on our journey. One day we climbed the hill and found, to our dismay, that the tree had been cut down. Led by Sanele, we children mounted a campaign of protest, writing on all the rocks around, who killed this tree? Our actions inspired the elders to declare that no trees that offered shelter to wayfarers may be cut down. This was my first taste of environmental activism – at the age of six.

Sanele was the best swimmer amongst us, and we relied heavily on his help to get across the rivers. There were three, between my home and school. In winter, they were little more than streams. But the summer storms could quickly turn them into raging torrents. When the teachers saw the rain come down, they would let the younger children out early to get home before the waters rose. But this act of mercy could also put us in danger, for we relied on the older children to help us across. 

Although young himself, Sanele was the one who would guide us through the water, and would rescue our ‘plastics’ – the plastic supermarket bags that we used to carry our school books – when we lost our grip on them and they floated away. 

One December day, just after I turned seven, the rain was coming down hard in our part of Zululand, and the teachers sent us young ones home early as usual. We crossed the first two rivers with some difficulty. The water was flowing fast and up to our waists – much higher than usual – and the going was slippery underfoot. We knew that it would be tough to cross the last river, as this was the deepest. 

We stood on the banks, contemplating the muddy water racing past. Some of us wanted to wait for the older children to help us. But they would not come for some hours, it was raining hard, and we were wet and freezing cold. We tried to find a better place to cross, but our minds were numbed by cold and exhaustion. At length we decided to cross at the usual spot, holding each other’s hands in a line. Before we ventured into the water, we scrutinised it for crocodiles. We knew that they might be around, for they occasionally caught a dog or a goat. If you see a log floating upstream, it’s a crocodile, the adults warned us. 

We could see no logs floating upstream, nor could we see any debris floating down that might knock us off our feet, so we stepped reluctantly into the cold, turbid water. Sanele was walking in front, holding my left hand, then me, then two or three girls. About halfway across, a log knocked against us as it swept past, breaking the line and causing one girl to stumble and drop her plastic. She lunged for it, and fell again, and we told her to leave it. 

Just before we reached the far bank, the girl at the back of the line cried, ‘Crocodile!’ As I turned to see where she was pointing, a powerful jolt came from Sanele’s hand, and it was wrenched from my grasp. I swung back to him, but he had disappeared under the water – only his hand was above the surface, clutching at the air. The water was churning, and I could see the crocodile’s back, thrashing in the foam. I grabbed Sanele’s hand again, and tried to pull him towards the side. One of the girls was also trying to pull him, the other was standing crying on the bank. Numb with terror, I clung to my friend’s hand. But it was slipping through my cold, wet fingers. Then I saw a bloom of blood, turning the muddy brown river red. A fountain of blood spurted out of the water, shooting up and spraying my white shirt. I felt Sanele’s hand grow limp in mine, as if his spirit had left his body. I knew then he had lost the battle with the crocodile, yet still I gripped it harder, as hard as I could, as hard as if it was my own life that I was clinging to.

But his fingers slipped from my grasp.

Sanele was gone.

We scrambled out of the water, and ran down the bank, hoping that the crocodile would leave him. But he was nowhere. All we could see was his plastic, spinning away with the current. Then that, too, was gone. 

The elders came with spears to find the crocodile, but there was no sign. All they ever found was his T-shirt, two weeks later, caught on a branch downstream. 

I had to go to school the next day. And the day after. I had to cross the same river, in the same place. I was consumed by terror, for I was so sure the crocodile would take one of us again. When I got to school, I had to write a ‘mental arithmetic’ test to pass into Grade Two. In what world can a child who has lost a friend like this be expected to get up the next day and perform mental arithmetic? For a while, the adults took it in turns to cross the rivers with us. But the rainy season is the busy season in rural Zululand. Fields must be ploughed; crops must be planted or harvested so that hungry stomachs can be filled. Within a few days, their work took them back to the fields, and we were left to cross the rivers as best we could. 

No one counselled me. No one cosseted me, or helped me to grieve. I felt like an iron, burnt red-hot in a fire, then hammered into shape and plunged into icy waters. Losing Sanele to the crocodile was horrific. But every day that I had to endure without him was worse. I felt as if I’d lost a limb, as if my heart had been torn from my body.

For weeks I was lost in a dark thicket of grief and fear. I could not sleep, I could not eat. How would I ever cross the rivers without Sanele by my side? How could I walk up the long steep hills, or eat our favourite food of imifino leaves and steamed corn bread, or track the guinea fowl and eagles, without Sanele by my side? How was even one day of my life imaginable without Sanele by my side? I almost walked into the valley of suicide, so devastated was I by the depression and fear that I endured. The shadow of his death haunted me with every breath I took. 

My grief morphed into anger, then swelled into a cold, black, bottomless pool of hate. How could one small boy hold so much hate? I hated the sun for bringing yet another day without Sanele. I hated school, and every step of the ten mile walk there, and every step of the ten mile walk back. I hated the rivers. I hated the adults who made me go to school, the children who weren’t Sanele. I absolutely, violently and vehemently hated all crocodiles, and swore to avenge my friend’s death.

Drowning in the centre of this deep black pool of hatred was myself. For I had failed to save my friend. His life was in my hand. And I let it go. 

It lived with me a long time, that hate. As the months and years went by, I learnt to push it aside. I grew a skin over it, but it lay deep within me, a festering splinter of pain. Until the day I saw the crocodiles tearing at the buffalo.

As I stood watching the crocodiles rip the buffalo’s intestines, I was again seven years old and back in that river. I could hear that last strangled cry of Sanele’s voice, as the crocodile pulled him under. I could see his frantic face, as he gasped for breath. I could feel his hand go limp in mine. And, again and again, I could feel his cold wet fingers slipping through my fingers. I had buried this pain, but here it was before my eyes, sinking its teeth into me as if it was my flesh being torn by the crocodiles. And I could not turn my head away. 

We watched the light dying in the buffalo’s eyes. His head drooped and his heavy horns sank into the mud. My patrol leader, an old wise ranger we called Induna, said softly, Now he is at peace.

His old life is ending now, Induna said, but his new life is beginning. The buffalo is at peace, but there are many people alive who have no peace. They may seem successful, but inside they are dying, for they cannot make peace with their past lives. We need to think about what this death of the buffalo can mean for us. 

Just as the buffalo had to die, before his new life could begin, so we need to understand that sometimes one part of us has to die to allow a new part to grow. You cannot have the old part and the new part living together. The sun and the rain cannot share the sky. For the sun to come, the rain must go. 

His words calmed the whirlwind of horror that my memories had raised. Vultures circled high above us or perched in a nearby Umkhiwane tree, waiting patiently for us to go. The soft whooping of hyenas in the nearby stream encouraged the crocodiles to eat faster. The buffalo’s life had ended, but it was giving life to other beings, and so the circle continued.

As we made our way back through the reeds, I understood that I needed to let go of that hatred and sorrow and anger that I had carried for all those years. I realised that I no longer held hatred for the crocodiles in my heart. For years I had associated crocodiles with fear and brutalism. But the crocodile that took Sanele was just taking the opportunity to get a meal; it was not acting from cruelty or vengeance. Finally, I could accept crocodiles as fellow creatures, even worthy of respect – for they are formidable survivors, able to live without water for several days, to survive without food for months. 

I followed the others along the river, my mind churning with thoughts and emotions. The experience seemed to be a reminder to walk across a bridge and leave my past behind. But it also helped me understand why this had been so difficult. Walking across the bridge demands a brave heart, a heart brave enough to face what is hurting your soul and make conclusion with it. I had not been able to face that pain, for I was just a young boy, and given no time or space to lament, no time to grieve. For fifteen years, I had been stuck in feelings of anger and hatred and sadness, but now these crocodiles were giving me a chance to be free. Just as they were freeing the buffalo that was stuck in the mud. For however much it suffered while they were eating it, if left, it would have suffered the much slower death of starvation.

I could not let my pain go until I had acknowledged it, had acknowledged its depth and breadth, had felt again its sharpness. The crocodiles had given me this cruel and beautiful gift. Perhaps only the crocodiles could bring this message to me. Just as the crocodile took Sanele, so it was the crocodiles which restored me to myself. The wisdom of the wilderness had enabled me to face what had been eating my soul for the last fifteen years of my life. It came as bitter medicine, but I knew it would heal when swallowed. I looked at the dry river bed – with its few, shrinking pools. The animals were suffering in those pools, but it felt as if the river was preparing itself for the new waters of the spring, for the new life that these waters would bring. I imagined the cool sweet waters rushing over the white sand, and felt forgiveness flowing over my soul. Forgiveness for the crocodiles, but most importantly for myself, for not being able to save my friend, and for not being able to heal, to create room for new wisdom until now. 

Nothing in life is simple. It has taken me many years to accept Sanele’s death, to accept that perhaps he was a light spirit, come to earth for a few short years to spread his wisdom before moving on. But I know that the crocodiles opened the way for me to heal myself. And I was deeply grateful, for had I not made space for forgiveness, I could have remained trapped in rooms contaminated by anger, hatred and grief. Eaten alive as the buffalo was, as I relived the violence that has been done to me day after day, perhaps for a lifetime. 

There is no shortage of pain and cruelty and violence in this world. I know that I need courage to face the darkness in my past and let in the light. But the wilderness showed me that forgiveness is an oasis of life, where emotional thirsts can be quenched and new life can grow.

Sanele has never left me. He lives in me still, and I speak to him almost every day. I am so grateful to him for the time that we had together, for he was like a true guide who came on earth to help my path through it. I am grateful to Induna, for helping me understand the lesson of the crocodiles. And I’m grateful to the crocodiles – for showing me how to let Sanele go.