Gradually the whole point of the rhino suit was beginning to dawn on me. The arrival of the rhino and the Rhino Climb team was something that the village had been looking forward to and preparing for for months. It was the biggest event of the year, a carnival, a festival, a holiday. Being visited by a rhino was something that would be remembered by the villagers, and particularly the children, for years in a way that being visited by a bunch of English toffs in hats would not.

We were then taken to see the village school. Like most of the village, it was made of breezeblocks, and was half-finished. The doors and windows were empty holes, the furniture was just a few rickety benches and some trestle tables, and laid out on these were dozens of pictures of the local wildlife that the children had drawn, and which we were to judge and give prizes for. The prizes were Rhino Climb baseball hats, and, whoever won the prizes, we had to make sure that every member of the village actually got a hat. And once we have collected our sponsorship money, we will be able to complete the building of their schoolroom for them.

When at last we left, the children danced along with us for several miles, laughing and singing improvised songs—one of them would start, and the others would quickly pick it up and join in.

The words seem oddly dated, don’t they? It all sounds rather naïve and sentimental to be talking about children laughing and dancing and singing together when we all know perfectly well that what children do in real life is snarl and take drugs. But these children/kids/youths, and all the ones we came across on our journey, were happy in a way that we in the West are almost embarrassed by.

The last of the children drop away from us. Our support Land Rover drives slowly past, distributing Cokes and Fantas. Jim, our photographer, is sitting on its tailgate, taking pictures of us with his Canon EOS 1, which I’ve been coveting ever since I saw it. Keis, our Dutch video cameraman, hoists his lightweight Sony three-chip up to his shoulder and pans along the line of walkers. I wonder if there’s anywhere in the West that you could find a hundred children to sing and dance like that.