Soon two male lions came running,
trying to take the kill over while Hyenas circled, waiting for their
share. One female Lion jerked off a large chunk of meat, and ran off
with it, chased by a male.
Water Buffalo had another Lion
treed, and each time he would try to come down, they ran at him with
their sharp horns, trying to protect their young. He just went back
up the tree to wait them out. These kind of encounters continued for
a while, then Wesley drove us back in some woods along a river bluff,
overlooking a river full of Hippos, and set up a table for our
breakfast. I picked up a huge bone, and brought it to Wesley. "Never
do that. There could have easily been a Black Mamba under that."
He got a call, someone had spotted
a Leopard, and we were off, scattering Water Buffalo as we went. Sure
enough, a Leopard was treed. We got photos. We got many good photos
that morning. One of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen, many
animals in the deer family, then a herd of Elephants. Next was a herd
of Zebras rolling in the dust. "That's why nobody ever rides a
Zebra. Their first instinct, with something on their back, is to lie
down and roll over on it," Wesley said.
When we got to Lunch, back at
camp, we only filled up one table of many in the lunch room. "It
is just hard to get tourists to come in," Wesley said,"
when someone's getting hacked to death over the hill with a machete."
Our group consisted of a war
crimes recorder, with the UN, her two sisters from Canada, two missionaries, and us. Using my trademark charm, I told
the ladies, "I would have been here long before, if I had only
known I would be dining with 6 beautiful ladies." I know they
all were inwardly swooning over that, but outwardly, It looked a
little more like they were gagging.
The waiter, not very busy, sat
down and talked to us a lot. He was explaining how his generation of
Masai were trying to change old customs of his tribe. The old customs
largely stripped them of their wealth, and also contributed greatly
to the Aids problem. Their Dad wanted to buy yet another wife, but
his sons told him he didn't need another wife, he had given far too
many of the cattle they had for the group of wives he already had.
The dad was pouty about that, but he didn't get the wife. A dead man's wife was traditionally
taken by his brother, helping further spread the Aids problem.
A Masai leader of some sort came
to talk to us that afternoon. I think he sorta expected our women to
swoon at his full dress costume, But these were strong, outspoken
women, and they had their own agenda. "Why do you circumcize
your women?" was their first question. Well, all he could tell
them was, "It's just our custom." The UN War Crimes woman
stated, "Well, its a bad custom, and you need to stop it."
Poor guy. He was just never able to get around to his prepared
speech, and was happy to see us go. He did manage to ask me if anyone
in America had cows. When I told him many people do, he said, "Tell
them we will be coming for them." The Masai feel they own all
the cattle in the world.
Wesley got a big scare on the
afternoon outing. He saw the end of a woman's toe in the corner of
his vision when driving, and I thought he was going to dive out of
the moving Jeep. He later told us Black Mamba's, when ran over,
sometimes wrap around the axle and get into the open Jeep, and by
then it would be very mad. If that happened, it could take out a lot
of people.
We flew back to Nairobi. When we
stepped off the plane, our regular driver was waiting. I proudly
introduced him to the five new women, my five new "wives,"
and told him I had spent all my cows.
Back at Rafiki, we had e-mails
waiting. Corey and Kinley, our children, were on pins and needles, and wanted to
know it as soon as we were off Safari.
I had befriended our guards, and
regularly sat around and talked to them at the gate, before they
started their nightly rounds. The women missionaries, they said,
offended them because they never came out and visited them like I
did. I told them it was a cultural thing. In America, a lone woman
just does not normally go out in the dark and sit around with a group
of strange men. They laughed at that.
One asked me if there were people
like him in America. "Yes, many." "Well, how did they
get there?" I explained to them they would not like to get there
the way they did. I told the whole story, and I had to start way
back.
Well, it was way after dark, and
we all knew they should be patrolling now, but I had one more story
to tell them, and they listened eagerly. Suddenly, right in the
middle of my story, I realized they were no longer listening to me.
They were staring off down the road toward the middle of the camp. I
stared also, but could hear or see nothing. Fully three minutes
later, I began to hear footsteps coming up the path. I looked around
at the guys, but they were just gone. Every one of them had melted
off into the darkness, with nary a sound. Turned out, Doug, their
boss, was coming, and they should be out patrolling now. They must have heard him when he came out his door.
I think we have lost our "night hearing" also.
Continued Thanks for reading!
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