Call From the Wild

I’m sitting outside my tent looking out over a broad stunning valley of yellow grassland interspersed with Umbrella Acacia trees which give way to a string of Sausage trees disappearing in the distance as the valley deepens and meanders towards Speke’s Gulf of Lake Victoria then on into the Nile. Overhead a Flappet Lark claps away while a procession of birds including Von der Decken’s Hornbill and Magpie Shrike land in the grass nearby feeding off some emerging and confused termite hatch. It’s overcast and humid and a Tse Tse Fly, unaware of the fact that it’s just about to die bites me in the…….shin. Whack!

A copy of Old Africa (stories of East Africa’s past) lies by my laptop. The clouds shift and sunlight melts the shroud with golden light that is as always quite mesmerizing and I sit back daydreaming. The valley comes alive. Cautious Zebra head down the far slope single file. They halt as a Kongoni bounds-by coming from nowhere and going nowhere it seems, although such behavior out here is often one of alarm. The Zebra look around, satisfied that all appears safe put heads down and continue plodding along unaware that they have not seen the three lioness and five cubs that are resting in the shade of tree down in the valley bottom below my tent. They tried to grab a Warthog this morning as I was heading from my tent to the land cruiser for the morning game drive. They must have missed because I saw no scavengers upon my return.
It’s getting hot. Skimming through the magazine I come across a sepia picture of the Governor General of the Belgian Congo in Dar-es-Salaam. It’s 1958 and he is shown inspecting a guard of honor of the Tanganyika Navy while the Union Jack flies above. He is dressed in full white colonial suit sporting a pith helmet adorned with a brilliant plume of white ostrich feathers. It brings back a story I’d been told of my father; I drift away again and in a bizarre twist of mind-set wish I had a large frosty Ice-Cream.

I’m not sure who my father was to others but to me he was dad, hero, hunter, fisherman and swashbuckling pirate. He traveled so much that when I knew he was coming home I’d find myself hovering around the door waiting for the sound of the car. These days I find Tara doing much the same when I arrive and she manages to knock the wind out of me when I walk in the door.
He loved cars to such an extent that it was always a bit of a treasure hunt figuring which one to get into when heading someplace. Throughout our history together as portrayed by

photo albums there are pictures of cars: Cars and us, cars and him, jeeps on hunting safaris, Chevy with parents and friends draped across them dressed in Pedal Pushers with beehive hairdos smoke rising from the ends of slim cigarette holders, a Dodge upside down in a ditch with him standing there dressed with silk cravat smoking a pipe resting a dusty boot on the upturned bumper of his American big block V 8 smiling. A Baptist minister and longtime family friend who married Annette and I, told us of how he had never prayed so much as he did during a ride with my father from Mbeya in Southern Tanzania to Dar-es-Salaam in that Dodge with white walled tires. He apparently took the train home. It’s very possible that some of you pray when I drive you around on safari because like him I’m not one to like the dust settling behind the car.

A movement is caught out of the corner of my eye, I turn. My tent steward nods and I know my guests are moving towards the land cruisers. I pack it all up lest some baboon take to the keyboard and am off for a drive. We’re going to look for a leopard on the Wandamu ravine, the conditions are perfect. Sun is at its mid afternoon hottest and will soon turn the Seronera Valley golden. The leopard is sneaking through the grass land just testing scent and as she meanders down the line of trees wanders over to the track within a foot of the car and sprints up a fallen tree not 12 feet from us without a concern in the world. The setting sun in its absolute splendor silhouettes her with umbrella acacia trees beyond to the west. This moment of magic beside the equatorial ball of fire is only interrupted by the cascade of cameras going off at a blistering pace. Then, over the radio I hear a whisper from Rama. “Dawaaaaa”. It’s the call to sundowners and off we trundle back to camp where Max waits by the bar dressed in white Kanzu sporting a less elaborate traditional Muslim cap without a plume of feathers.

I was a year old when my parents were driving out of the city in dad’s red Alpha Romeo convertible; he sees a sky blue Pontiac Parisienne pass in the opposite direction. He apparently looks over his shoulder as it goes by, turns to see all is clear, spins the wheel, guns the motor, burns rubber and in blast of determination speeds after the Pontiac. Within half an hour he had bought the car from the Governor General of the Belgian Congo who was visiting Dar-es-Salaam. No doubt the very same guy I now see in this picture from the past. I still have a picture of three Maasai and myself sitting on the hood of that car somewhere in southern Tanzania. I do not know what happened to it.

Back at my tent I reach down to open the zipper and hear something, turn on my flashlight and scare off a hyena boldly approaching. I open my windows all the way letting a breeze drift in with the starlight, turn on the reading light and pick up the magazine. Sometime during the night I wake up. The magazine is on my chest and the lions are roaring. This is my world, my everyday.