Babylon's Ark (15 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Anthony

BOOK: Babylon's Ark
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But even Ali couldn't get what I wanted most: a pump to ease our endless quest for water.
One night, while drinking coffee strong enough to stop bullets at the Al-Rashid with a bunch of soldiers, I casually remarked that I needed some heavy-duty batteries to start the zoo's pumps.
A man with sergeant stripes on his arms whom I had never met before nodded. “You're from the zoo, huh?” he drawled.
I nodded.
“Well, I've got two spare batteries in my Humvee that I may just be able to loan ya.”
Gold dust. Without us even asking, a gang of soldiers deposited the batteries at the zoo the next day, and Husham got to work, pirating parts from whatever bits of broken machinery he could scrounge.
Several days later he told me it was ready. Well … except for one thing; he still needed a dynamo to charge the batteries. Without that, the entire contraption was useless.
Once again we faced frustrating reality. Where in God's name do you find a dynamo in a ransacked city?
What happened next was unquestionably a miracle. During one of his jaunts downtown foraging for animal fodder among the pavement stalls now springing up with looted goods, Husham discovered what we had been praying for: a dynamo. At first he couldn't believe it, blinking his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
But this was no mirage. Nestling alongside pillaged Nike sneakers and Ray
Ban sunglasses was a machine more precious than anything else for sale.
And exactly the fit we needed. In fact, it may even have been the zoo's original one stolen by looters; we didn't know. Nor did we care. Dollars again changed hands and Husham connected the final piece to the pump's jigsaw.
He pressed the starter button. The batteries sparked, the motor
spluttered a few times, and with a tubercular cough it started ticking over. A few minutes later a trickle of water beaded at the pipe's nozzle, then a thin stream, then a gush as the pump got its momentum cranking and began to suck water from the canal as voraciously as a thirsty camel.
Suddenly, like a wildcat strike, water started spouting everywhere. Then the sprinklers sprang to life, spraying water all over the sun-baked soil. The pipes leading to the canal were so perforated from being ridden over by tanks and armored vehicles that anyone standing nearby was soaked to the bone.
As if on cue, everyone ran into the heavy spray, shouting and wildly applauding the beaming Husham.
Then we turned the water onto the animals, especially the shaggy-coated bears and Bengal tigers that particularly felt the heat. Each creature got a long, cool shower, with dirt and grime sluicing off in solid chunks. The bears even changed color, from sooty black to chestnut; the tigers, from brown to orange and golds.
For us, the men of Baghdad Zoo, the look of bliss on the creatures' faces was reward from heaven itself.
 
 
NOW I HAD ADDITIONAL HELP, I could start planning ahead further than twelve hours at a time and begin cementing some basic administration into place. Even though the Iraqi staff received regular rations, some of the food destined for animals was still being hijacked for their families. Although understandable, this posed a major problem and Stephan and I decided a daily communal meal should in future be cooked at the zoo to ensure everyone was eating at least once a day. It was vital the staff know that even though our primary mission was to save the animals, we still placed humans first. This may sound obvious, but chronic insecurities die hard in a country as brutalized as Iraq.
Stephan also offered for WildAid to pay ten dollars per month to all staff members while he was there. This may sound small, but when you consider that professionals in Baghdad such as Adel and
Husham probably only earned thirty or forty dollars monthly, it was well received.
I also asked Stephan to be responsible for feeding Uday's lions, which were still being caged at the palace. Stephan was happy to do so, and so I introduced him to the SF soldiers who had taken such an interest in Brutus, Heather, and Xena. This took another immediate problem off my back. Stephan soon became part of the team and made a valuable contribution in difficult times.
Finally we got some good news. The Coalition Administration decided to share some of the Hussein family's billions with the people of Iraq and everyone was to receive an instant payout of twenty dollars, the equivalent of a month's salary to most citizens. Thanks to Sumner 's persistence, the zoo staff would be among the first to receive the gift.
We heard the members of the media were scheduled to arrive at the zoo with the paymaster to record the big event, and on the morning of bonus day we worked feverishly trying to spruce up everything as best we could.
Unfortunately, Kazim, our butcher, decided to have a private celebration and arrived at the zoo staggering drunk—most unusual for a Muslim man. Shoving his way forward, shouting and singing, he had everyone's attention when for some bizarre reason he pulled his white caftan over his head. This graphically revealed to all, including the cameras, that perhaps Kazim had some Celtic blood in him, for he wore nothing under his desert kilt.
To make matters worse, he got his head tangled in his clothing and, unable to see where he was going, stumbled around like a vaudeville clown, basically stark naked. This certainly provided some lighthearted entertainment for the rest of us until Adel led him away.
The Coalition Administration also announced that in a bid to get civic services up and running, all municipal workers—which included zoo staff—would be placed on an official payroll as soon as bureaucratically possible. With this announcement most of the zoo employees returned to work, including an amiable old man
who knew just a single phrase of English: “I am Salman; I work tiger, lion, thirty years.” He would repeat that whenever he saw a white person, which in my case was up to twenty times a day.
Salman was, frankly, not all there, and I am amazed that he had survived working with lions for so long. I once watched him walk into the giant cats' outside enclosure and bend down to pick something up, as if on a Sunday afternoon stroll. To my horror I noticed a couple of lions about forty yards away loping rapidly toward him. I screamed at him to get out, but he couldn't hear me, and as I sprinted for the gate I somewhat absurdly reflected on the statistical life span of an aging, deaf, slightly bonkers lion keeper. He couldn't have shuffled any slower if he tried as the felines, ears flat in classic hunting mode, sped up behind him.
Somehow Salman reached the gate first and sluggishly closed it with scarcely a heartbeat to spare. He was completely oblivious of what had just happened.
We swiftly changed his duties to keep him as far away from the lions as possible, but he would still absentmindedly keep pitching up at the enclosure. I am sure he is back there today—that's if he hasn't been eaten.
Even though we now had an almost full staff complement, the daily search for fresh meat was becoming more and more arduous. At times we'd have to travel far into the desert to find donkeys for sale, and with the lions from the palace we now needed at least two a day.
This increased food load presented another problem all of its own. We urgently required our own transport—otherwise our animals would starve. I badgered Pat Kennedy, the chief of staff of the ORHA, to provide a car, but he regretfully refused, saying every vehicle was needed for the war effort. I pointed out they were daily removing scores of shot-up and abandoned cars from the streets of Baghdad.
He looked at me incredulously. “You mean you want one of those?”
“You bet.”
The next day we had two beat-up old jalopies, but at least the engines turned over. Things were looking up.
As with everything else at the time, we had to rely on our wits when it came to obtaining fuel. There was a depot at the far end of Al Zawra Park and we would drive up and say we were from the zoo and desperately needed gas.
We would then be asked for authorization. We never had any.
Without fail, the soldiers at the pump would look around to see if the coast was clear, unscrew the cap, and fill the car up to the brim.
They knew they could get into serious trouble for fueling unauthorized vehicles, but whenever we thanked them, they would shrug: “You're from the zoo. That's for the animals.”
Some sleepless nights, when the frustration got to be too much, it was people like those soldiers who kept me going, ordinary people who couldn't stomach what had happened to the traumatized creatures we were caring for and did what they could to help.
But the most magnificent gesture of all was one afternoon when a soldier drove a truck up the zoo's office, asking for me.
“You're the South African?” he asked when I came out.
I nodded.
“I gotta take a leak, which I'm gonna do by that tree over there,” he said, pointing to a eucalyptus. “When I arrived my truck was empty, and I intend to leave with it empty—please check that.”
I looked at him uncomprehendingly. He surreptitiously motioned to the truck and walked away, unzipping his pants.
In the back was a brand-new generator still in its wrappings; something we needed more than food, gas, or even gold.
I quickly called the rest of the staff and we off-loaded it. It was damn heavy, but we were so excited we would have lifted a battleship if we had to. This would at last provide power for deep freezes and desperately needed security lights at night around the office.
The soldier came back and climbed into the driver seat.
“I want to confirm that your truck is as empty as when it arrived,” I said to him. “Thank you. Thank you very, very much.”
He nodded and drove off. I had never seen him before. I never saw him again. I still get goose bumps when I think of it.
Later that afternoon I mentioned to some South Africans doing VIP bodyguard work that at last I had a generator and now all I needed now was some deep freezes.
The next day they arrived with two brand-new freezers in the back of their SUV.
“Where did you get those?” I asked, scarcely able to believe my good fortune.
“We liberated it from one of Saddam's huts,” said one bodyguard called Jeremy, referring to the palaces.
At last we could freeze surplus animal food that beforehand would have gone rotten in the heat. It's almost impossible to describe how fantastic that was.
Scores of these professional bodyguards by now were starting to arrive in Iraq with lucrative assignments to protect foreign civilians doing reconstruction work for the Coalition Administration. Much of the rebuilding of Baghdad was done in extremely hostile sections of the city, and the military didn't have the manpower to protect the hordes of foreigners now in the country. The press referred to the coalition-contracted “hired guns” such as Jeremy as mercenaries. Jeremy and his mates, however, called themselves executive bodyguards. But there's no doubt their preferred description was “warriors.”
The South African contingent mainly came from the crack Reconnaissance Commandos, or Recces, as they were colloquially called. They were serial adventurers, but they would do anything for you if they considered you a friend.
I was fortunate to have them on my side, as they were a tight-knit group; intense camaraderie fused in the fire of many battles together, and they didn't readily accept outsiders. But they respected what we were trying to do against overwhelming odds at the zoo, and one day Jeremy put his arm around my shoulder and said to the others, “Listen up! This is Lawrence from the zoo; he is my brother from another mother.”
That was their colloquialism for “he's okay by me,” and after that I was totally accepted.
From then on they drove past the zoo each day to see if we were okay, and would often stay for hours. There is no doubt that the dire looting problem before Sumner arrived would have been even more serious without their presence. Jeremy actually offered “as a favor” to shoot a couple of looters dead, just to teach them a lesson.

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