Carol’s Column

Search is on to find – before 2000 – one aardvark

My beer mug runneth over. I am so happy and let me explain why. Happiness is an aardvark and for the whole of my life I have been searching for this elusive animal. When travelling to remote corners of the bush, while others would search for lion and elephant, I would investigate every hole in the ground. Desperately seeking for a glimpse of this strange and whimsical creature.

Once in Botswana, I found a perfect termite heap, purple in the setting sun. Beside it was a hole which beckoned. It seemed to say: "Peer inside me and you'll definitely see an aardvark." So I leapt down and stuck my head inside the large burrow. It was occupied. By an outraged warthog who shot past me screeching in soprano.

I read what I could about aardvarks from that classic Ethel the Aardvark to more serious tomes. Admittedly, not that much is written about them as they're so elusive. Most mammal books have a short section disposing of this handsome animal in a few paragraphs.

For a while, when government officials were debating abandoning the dainty springbok and searching for a new mascot to fit South Africa's new democratic status, I vigorously proposed the aardvark.

I still have the official letter I wrote to Pretoria in which I stated why I thought the aardvark perfect for the cause. Firstly, its colour was totally representative of the population of this country - black, brown, chocolate, yellow, grey and white around its rear orifice. There were the long upswept, superbly pointed ears denoting an ability to hear everything, while the elongated, tubular nose with which the aardvark foraged for ants and termites, was symbolic of determination and perseverance.

There was more in the same vein about its unquenchable ability to forage under the most difficult circumstances, its tenaciousness, its elegant lengthy tail which always created balance. "Think aardvark, think South Africa!" I ended my correspondence.

Typical bureaucracy, I never received an answer to my letter.

To be honest, for the past few years, I've believed more and more that the aardvark is a mythical animal. That in fact, there is no such creature. And then this week, I opened a copy of the magazine Africa - Wildlife and Environment, and there, across seven glorious pages is an article "Getting Antsy".

It tells how zoologist Andrew Taylor spent "an evening with an aardvark" and, what's more, the aardvark was photographed in every conceivable position by Nigel J Denis.

There's a full-on frontal of the aardvark emerging from its burrow, a side view depicting its curvaceous shape in profile. Best of all, is a photograph of a pair of wide-eyed, exquisite aardvark with their mating instincts aroused. Penthouse has nothing on this.

Studying aardvark, Andrew observed them at the Tussen die Riviere Nature Reserve in the southern Free State. I found his story mesmerising and followed it greedily taking in every aardvark schniffle and schnortle.

It seems that although aardvarks are classified as "vulnerable" in zoological terms, there are actually quite a few here and there. However, because they're nocturnal and shy of humans - can you blame them? - they are difficult to locate and almost impossible to see.

Yesterday I told my husband I was leaving home for an aardvark.

"What's his name?"

"No, no, an aardvark aardvark."

"How long are you going to sit at a hole and wait for one to emerge?"

"For ever if necessary." Life is short and one has to grab opportunities. Before the end of this century, I want an aardvark in my life. This is my dream.

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