Page 38 - The Circle of Life

law if so desired but it happens very rarely. And it cannot be brought from

thousands of years ago without due consideration."

In our customary law a man must pay lobola to his wife or rather her parents

before he marries her and failure to do so may lead to false charges of rape. As
an example what happens in Africa regarding lobola I quote from my book Mean

Streets - Life in the Apartheid Police: "You should not think now this is normal.

Usually you will not find wild animals in our cities but that week we arrested a
crocodile in a flat on the third floor of a complex.

It all started when the caretaker called us to report a crocodile in a recently
vacated flat. Suspecting another member playing the fool with me I looked

around to see anyone smirking but they seemed normal enough. Since a
crocodile may be dangerous to the public we arrived at the flat in due course

and found the local Police Station members already there. According to them the
caretaker called them first and "Yes sergeant, there are indeed a f twenty (read

nine) feet crocodile and an f angry one at that. Well maybe more f obnoxious
than angry and he f refuses to consider himself under arrest. Can we kill him

then sergeant for he gave us the f evil eye without reason?"

Not believing them I looked and saw it lying on the floor and wondered what
now? We could not shoot it for being potentially dangerous but on the other

hand it is trespassing and the caretaker was unreasonable enough to press
charges. Still feeling sad about the cheetah and not so sad about the cobra I was

in no mood to murder another animal. That is admittedly hypocritical for I eat
meat now and then. I am not a vegetarian long haired liberal but really don’t

want to know about slaughterhouses and what happens there. Is just too
horrible for educated people! Regrettably from any view we were called on

sometimes to shoot a suffering animal which was not so bad for it is a mercy
killing. Hated to do it though! I remember one cat who just did not want to die

but being sensitive I don’t want to talk about it. I do not hunt either and
consider it fairly barbaric though I know I am wrong. Shooting criminals and

terrorists are much more fun and less harmful psychologically.

Still, at our crocodile everyone looked at me for leadership and for once I was
not sure. These were the days before the late Steve Irwin became famous for

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