Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Locks in the Box Volume 1 Episode.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: 5.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: He betrayed his own dad. Betrayed me. As if our lives were nothing before his own ambition.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: So your brother definitely has the peace now. Correct.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: Your brother has the peace. How do I get in touch with Harris?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: They still treat us the same.
Doesn't matter if we relate it or not.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: The government and its greedy rangers.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: So many animals killed, so many hunters murdered.
So much money made.
And I'm still struggling financially. That is this gotta stop.
It must stop.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Not aside with the bad guys here. But you're a poacher. You're not a saint either.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I'm a hunter. There's a big difference.
If you ask me, people killing hunters are the real poachers.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Well, I wouldn't call them poachers.
What do they take from you that is so valuable?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Our lives first.
Our livelihood, our tradition, our way of living. Our identity.
For what?
To get by a few dollars here and there?
[00:01:25] Speaker C: I wouldn't say just a few dollars.
I mean thousands and thousands of dollars wouldn't be more accurate.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: This industry is about hundreds of millions of dollars.
I don't have any ivory in my house. Do you?
The rangers themselves think they're getting ahead with couple of hundred dollars from the government or tourists just like you.
So who's getting richer and richer? Not me for sure.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Last year I went straight to another safari house.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: The one your mother used to work?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: No.
There are dozens of these in Africa popping left and right. Like McDonald's or KFC.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: You guys have McDonald's and KFC?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Unfortunately it becomes a food colonialism here.
But these safari houses, they basically are grocery stores for foreigners searching to score deals on big games.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: What do you mean deals?
[00:02:20] Speaker B: The upfront items such as clothing and survival kits are on display.
Anything you need to endure the harsh condition of savannah. Tents, clothes, boots, insecticides, you name it, they're all there.
But what makes display strive are all in the background.
Animal's head on display with the price for each catch.
Very competitive price. Mostly dead or alive.
The part of the black market or what you guys call games.
My God. I saw.
I saw the price we get paid. Peanuts compared to what this safari house makes.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Peanuts.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Peanuts? Yeah.
$25 here. $50 or $100 if we're lucky. Working as a guide.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Check this out.
A budget for a two week safari costs between 3,000 to $5,000 per day.
Then you add the gear, the clothing, the rifles, bullets you flew from whatever place to here, right?
[00:03:25] Speaker C: La.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: The price of the plane ticket, insurance, in case something bad happen.
You get Sick food poisoning or malaria.
Then transportation to your hotel or whatever accommodation you will live in.
Paperwork to bypass the rangers or to pay them to get to the safari house.
Add to that whatever price you need to ship.
How much do you think this will cost you?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: The rangers squeeze so much that foreigners don't even want to hear anything about money. As soon as they land on the African ground, all their focus is is that buffalo head, that gazelles horns, the baboon's head or the tusk of a rhino of an elephant.
How do you want hunter to compete against that?
We barely have anything to put on our backs to put food on our table.
You're asking a hunter. No, you're forcing a hunter to be a poacher.
Because he has no choice to survive.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: All right, okay, okay.
Let's keep focusing on our story.
If you don't have the peace anymore and your brother has it, how would you be able to help me then?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: When you mentioned $3,000, I knew you were not here for a safari.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: I told you I work for a newspaper.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: We are in Africa. It doesn't mean we are ignorant.
We know about cnn, Washington Post, New York Times. Never heard about your newspaper, the Lighthouse. Something, something.
[00:05:02] Speaker C: We're an online subscription. Only online.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: You must have a lot of money or. Or you are either after something or someone.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: Are you implying that our deal is dead?
[00:05:23] Speaker B: As I said earlier, they still treat us the same.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Every other week my brother comes to get his bag.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Bag?
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah, you got to keep feeding the beast to get the monkey off your bag.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Strange metaphor, but I got it.
May we continue please?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: As a matter of fact, Harris came last week wearing some dark sunglasses.
He's so infatuated in being the best African ranger.
As usual. I brought in a bag of tusks that he put in his old SUV trunk.
He looked at me, paused for a second, walked towards me and handed me a half closed dirty envelope.
The usual peanut. Peanut.
As I put my hand out to get the envelope, Harry swiftly held the envelope and put it on his chest as to tease me.
He paused, smirked, then slowly and purposely dropped the envelope on the ground.
He stared at me as to challenge me.
All I could see on his sunglasses was my dad's face telling me to let it go.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: He smiled and he left the premises.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: That's some coach.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: Excuse my French.
Caron, please.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: I am the son of my father and I will always be a proud African hunter.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: Can you tell me more about your brother, Harris?
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Sure.
He tries to put his hand in everything I do now or Try to talk to people I work with.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Like spying on you. Why? I thought he had a piece.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Who knows? The peace is just a piece. It's not the locks.
You always thought that my dad favored me.
Retribution, jealousy, I don't know.
He thinks that I will go after him and avenge Baba. And get what he deserves.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: How long has it been since the passing of a father?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: 30 plus years or so, I think.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Shh.
That's a long time. Can you guys drop it?
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Africans love to hold on grudges.
A very long time.
Unfortunately not sure why.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: When you said trying to talk to people you work with, what did you mean?
Influence them or get information from them?
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Precisely.
It's after the locks for sure.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: I think I might know why.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: What is.
[00:09:19] Speaker C: Has been more than 30 years.
No one has been able to see it. Your brother has not been able to find it either. Blocks.
The price on the black market has definitely gone up.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Tell me more about the people you work with, if you will.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Well, for starter. Yousef.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Yousef?
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Youssef? Yes. Yousef. What?
Do you know Yusef?
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Um. No.
Should I?
How important is he in finding. What are you looking for?
[00:09:54] Speaker B: He's my right hand man.
Well, my brother, he was.
For whatever reason, I think something has happened to him.
He's not returning my call. I.
I can't find him.
He's a good man now.
A great man.
A reliable hunter.
He believes in the tradition.
He always got my back.
But a bit too gullible. Especially with women in politics.
But good hearted men.
[00:10:27] Speaker C: I see. And so what happened?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: I have a bad feeling about it.
[00:10:34] Speaker C: Oh my.
Is anyone enjoy being around still alive?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: I don't know.
The whole industry is all upside down.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: I'm sorry.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: Could you tell me a bit more about Yusuf?
Maybe the good time you had with him.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: I mean, days before.
He acted strange. As if he knew something would happen.
It started with a visit.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: A visit?
A who?
[00:11:09] Speaker B: After a long day of hunting and visibly exhausted, Yousef went home late.
He told me as he shut his door. Someone surprisingly pinned him on the door with his forearm, pushing under and against his chin.
It was dark.
[00:11:32] Speaker D: Where is this task, Yousef?
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Huh?
[00:11:40] Speaker D: Where is it?
[00:11:42] Speaker D: You know I can kill you right here, now.
And no one would even care.
Such a naive little boy.
[00:11:54] Speaker D: Imbecile.
Not even your boss.
Do you know that?
Question for you.
Where is the locks?
How do we find it?
I got the piece with me, you know.
Did my brother mention anything about it?
Anything?
Nothing.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Harris applied more pressure. He looked Yusef in his eyes a few seconds Then released him.
Harris loudly laughed and friendly, tapped Youssef's shoulder.
[00:12:36] Speaker D: It's okay.
It's alright, little fella.
Breathe.
Breathe. Do you need water?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Harris poured some water from a bottle into a glass, then gulped it himself.
[00:12:54] Speaker D: Nah.
You're a hunter. The pride of our land.
Hunters don't drink. Hunters, haunts.
[00:13:04] Speaker D: Sooner or later, I'll find it. You know.
You know that, right?
I'll be more than powerful. Everyone will respect me.
Two things from you though, Youssef.
First, you'll keep hunting elephants until I have told you to stop.
I don't care what the epi, their mama, their grandmama said.
Second, I want you to follow every move that Kwame makes. Let me know anything and everything about it. New girlfriend? Ex girlfriend. What he likes to eat, drink after hunting. Anything.
Especially about the locks.
Your life depends on it.
You hear me, right?
[00:13:51] Speaker D: I'll be in touch. Soon.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yousef finally regained his normal breathing and worryingly and madly looks at Harris.
Harris left the hut without closing the door.
Yusef skeptically approached it, checked for any more, surprised at the door, then closed it and locked it.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: What? What's epi?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: EPI stands for Elephants Protection Initiative Foundation.
It's basically a Pan African organization trying to protect elephants from becoming a disappearing species.
But again, everything we're trying to accomplish, we need white people to assist us.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: White people?
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Where do you think all the resources come from? Finding, tracking, counting the animals, migrating, surviving behaviors, eating habits.
Where do you think all the money to do that comes from?
[00:14:51] Speaker C: I see.
All right, all right. Let's go back to your story.
So you don't have the peace anymore. Your brother has it.
And he's officially on my most wanted list.
[00:15:08] Speaker C: You know, I must confess. We call you.
I called you a poacher. And I'm sorry. You actually said that? You're a hunter. I respect that.
Could you tell me more about what hunting day looks like?
I'm trying to light up the mood cause. Anyway.
Could you please?
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: We usually leave our hut around 4, 5am Youssef and I.
And we walk across the high grass of the savannah for a good hour, hour and a half searching for footprints or anything else Dupree left behind. Showing the path.
The last time we went hunting, we came across something strange from a far distance. Before us, something was laying across the dirt road under a tree.
We usually mark trees to track elephants.
We pick specific trees that have bark because they love eating them.
At first we thought maybe it was a big branch or a dead antelope.
And we noticed that the animal was covered with some kind of skin.
Stretched skin with a very lean end, like a tight end with rope of a huge sack at each end of the corpse before us.
[00:16:31] Speaker C: Corpse.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: He moved slowly, then stopped moving as he heard us.
He halted its crossing.
To be honest, he sends us a mile away.
But I think it was herring feeding itself and was searching for a quiet, safe and warm spot to digest what he gulped under that tree.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: We halted our work too.
Do you want to sell belts, bags or shoes today? I nodded. No. Then Youssef and I sat on the ground.
We waited.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Any other shortcut was nearly impossible due to the thicker bushes on each side of the dirt road.
The animal's abdomen slowly inflates, then slowly deflates for a good 10 minutes.
Then we saw more clearly the skin of a python covering the entire impala.
We saw the skin slowly crawling and finishing its trip across a dirt road.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Its length seemed endless as it took a while to see it completely disappeared into the bushes.
By the way, after they eat, python are usually prone to catch as they're defenseless while digesting.
That's the reason Yusef asked about belt or bags or shoes.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I was wondering why the job to Macy's.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Macy's?
[00:17:59] Speaker C: Never mind. Please carry on.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Anyway, a hunter can see and appreciate the skin of this prey if he decides to catch it.
No less than 1 meter in length to make a good sail. That's approximately four feet in length. I think this one was easily twice that length.
Gustav finally stood up and we both continued our walk.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: We saw a sort of bloody sac on the ground indicating one or two things.
The impala was in the action of giving birth. Or her and her calf got caught by surprise and snatch from the tree.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: You mean the python fell off the tree and.
Wow.
Hunting Africa is chilling.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: We then arrived in the heart of the savanna with thicker trees and bushes.
Yusef and I took our arrows out and armed our bows. Now quietly walking because we saw footprints. Small and medium sized footprints.
Could have been a rhino, but there were several. So definitely a matriarchal herd.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: Why Major Arco?
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Because of the size of the footprints and generally speaking, the herd is made mainly of a lead female and her younger daughters.
When the lead female dies, the eldest daughter takes over.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Elephants are really something.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yes.
They are not just big animals.
There is a natural order in the wild.
Nothing to do with our crazy world.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: We kept walking and and searching for clues just to confirm.
At this point no one knew for sure.
We kept fixating on the ground while working.
We saw a lot of Arundo plants.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Arund what plant?
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Arundo plants. Elephant grass.
Almost like gigantic sugar cane. They love eating these.
They are a treat for them.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: Sugar cane. I love it too.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Something was odd with Youssef though. He kept gently huffing, puffing. Many times he was bothered by something.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Then he momentarily jumped in and out of it. Anyway, he kept going.
Then he set back to be a hunter again.
He adopted a semi push up position, slow, slowly lowered his upper body and sticked his ear to the ground. A bull for sure.
It is after a female maybe. Yousef listened for footsteps on the ground.
We suddenly heard a buzzing sound.
Yusef rose under my pensive look.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: I don't think it went that way.
There is a beehive close by.
Then out of the blue he asked that new customer of yours, did you even negotiate the price?
How many tusks did he want?
I ignored him, looked at the path for a moment, then looked in the air and listened to the buzzing sound.
Yusef was right indeed, elephants don't like bees. So we took a different direction.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: Customer? What new customer?
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I will tell you more later.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: You have been listening to Locks in the Box Volume 1A Patrick Cavarty presents Production Locks in the Box has been created, written and produced by Patrick and Wendy Cavarty.
Recorded at Soundbox LA West Hollywood, CA executive producer Wendy Cabertee Original sounds by Pixabay and upbeat IO Edited by Miguel Soul at Soundbox LA Casting by Patrick Caberdy Directed by Patrick Caberty.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Starring Kirk Taylor as the Priest J Teddy Garces as Young Baba Baba and Tony Joanima Diaby as Harris Frances Edemobi as Youssef Shanglimar Garba as Mother Fatima Young Woman and Catalia Emma Garba as Young Kwame Omri Cavarty as Young Harris, Mel Uche as Sharpteeth and Huliao AJ Lubeskin as Suggests Charlotte Chang as Zhao, Patrick Capperty as Kwame and narrated by Patrick Cabertee.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Credits read by Sydney and Omri Caberty.
Special thanks to Tim, Michelle and Miguel at Sandbox la, West Hollywood, California.
Box in the Box is a Patrick Caberty Presents production.
For a full cast list, go to PatrickCabertypresents.com and listen to the next episode.
Follow us on Social Media thank you for supporting Patrick Cavarty Presents Production and thank you for listening to Locks in the Box.
