African Outfitter is an independent international bimonthly publication promoting
fair hunting and ethical business practices within the hunting industry.
From a hunting perspective, the preservation of biodiversity on the
African continent is the first and foremost priority. The emphasis
is however also on the sustainable utilisation of wildlife.

Herman Jonker

The job stinks - Herman Jonker

The lies people tell. Advertising people that is, for hunters stick only to the truth, of course.

Keep bugs at bay with Buggeroff, they say.

Well, Buggeroff may have some effect on house-trained, urban insects but we all know that the only thing that curbs the man eating mozzies of the Shire or the Lower Zambezi is four inch armour plate.

Use deodorant A and you will stay fresh, no matter how hard your day gets, they tell us.

The copy writer who came up with that lame little line must have had in mind a day in air-conditioned comfort, seated on a comfortable copy writer's chair, with a water cooler just down the hall.

He couldn't have known long days on the hunting trail and he's certainly never been in the Zambezi Valley in October. He doesn't know that no amount of deodorant A, or even Z, will keep a hard working tracker from reeking and that there's no remedy for the odour you emit after getting yourself spattered with the contents of a crocodile's gut in the morning and then doing a five-hour march through rotting bogs with the sun frying the parasites off your perspiration sodden shirt. Nay, as any PH worth his salt will tell you; the job stinks.

It stinks when you have to siphon fuel amidst the fumes and it stinks when you struggle to get a broken down hunting car going and brake fluid or gearbox oil spurts all over you. It stinks even more when you have a client who excels at gut-shots and it rots when you find yourself in such a mess that the only way to keep the flies at bay is to light a fire of dried elephant dung and hide in the smoke. Even taking your boots off after a day like that stinks, despite the relief.

It's in the evenings that life in a hunting camp is at its best. Talk, laughter and the clink of ice cubes floating on an amber sea of Jack D. Over from where cook is tending his cauldron comes the tummy-rumbling aroma of dinner. Lazy evenings framed by a delicate sketch of baobabs against a western glow that matches the flames of the campfire. Heaven after a hellish day.

This is the kind of thing the ad guys have in mind when they sell us the Camel man or the Budweiser can: roughing it, but not too rough. Macho, without the misery. And that is what we sell the hunting client: adventure, but not too rough. The rough stuff is reserved for the outfitting crew, for while the client is lounging round the fire and adding yards to his yarns, they are still hard at it. Butchering, skinning, fixing flat wheels, scrubbing the stench off the hunting car, unblocking clogged drains and sifting through piles of guts to find the client's bullet so he can take a cursory look at it. There are lots to be done and often damage to be undone. Everything has to be prepped so that the show is ready to roll smoothly again in the morning.

But when the dust of the day finally settles and you emerge from the shower hut with your dirty clothes carried on a long stick, things get better at last. Now you too, fresh with deodorant A, can settle in a comfortable chair and shoot the breeze without having to track it down first.

There's the ever-tempting aroma of a frothy lager to quench your thirst, there's dinner and there's the company of the clients. It's time to relax and for the first time that day, life smells sweet. Should you be so lucky, there's also the fragrance of perfume in camp to add heat to the cool evening.

She's blonde, beautiful and 20 years younger than her boyfriend. She smells divine – so absolutely feminine. She's also out of bounds, for her boyfriend is the client.

Still, she seems to find you more interesting than her boyfriend's account of his hunt and she asks many questions about your life in the hunting business. You ask only one: what's that perfume she's wearing?

Yours, she says with the merest glint of a knowing smile; it's called Yours.

The client is on about bullet trajectory and striking too high. You nod and add the occasional hmm between sips of beer but your mind is on higher things than shooting high. You're dancing on fragrant clouds with a beautiful blonde woman staring into your eyes.

Then it's time. The cry of a far-off hyaena voices your thoughts as she rises. The fragrance that she leaves behind is irresistible, just like the ad men say in the perfume ads. Subtle, yet powerful. Compared to the stench of the old leopard bait you had to change earlier, it smells like heaven. Pheromones are rattling the gate of your hormones' cage, enticing them to howl at the moon that is by now almost overhead.

She bids goodnight and accompanies her boyfriend to their luxurious bungalow. Only her compelling fragrance lingers. You too, get up. You retire to your meagre hut where your bundle of foul smelling clothes lies fermenting in the corner. The very air in the stuffy place is honking to high heaven from croc shit, man sweat and Buggeroff mosquito spray. This is reality – the promise of her perfume will remain a dream, or rather, since it's called Yours; a lie.

This job stinks, I'm telling you; it stinks. But I suppose it still beats having to sit in an office every day where you have to think up lame advertising lines and sell lies to people.