11/24/06

The tranquil veldt. Silence...save for the South African brogue of other campers, the call of birds, sounding a bit like a child wishing to sound like a clown, saying "Hi."

HIIIIII-eeee. HIIIIII-eeee.

One calls from forward, toward the river, and rightward ahead of me. Another calls from my left, high in a tree. The sun is at about 10º above the horizon, still hot, and still bright, and that is all.

An hour passes, and the sun grows more orange over that time. It's halo widens. Seven elephants stroll on the far side of the river. Four are full grown, and three are younger. Now there are nine.  And the halo of the reddening sun is engulfed in a medium blue hue on the horizon, as dusk settles.

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I wrote this while sitting on the banks of the Luangwa River in eastern Zambia, on holiday from 11 weeks of intense work at the Centre for Infectious Diseases of Zambia. Jeff Davis, who is also a Community Advisory Board member (and a mentor in that regard), joined me in Lusaka for a month, and this was the culmination of his visit, a safari in South Luangwa National Park.

It was interesting to see the differences in South Luangwa from the first time I visited there, back in December, 1997. The place we stayed back then was called Chichelele Lodge. It is now a presidential-style, high-end place, charging over $250 per night. The buildings are painted white, and the yards are impeccably kept. When we stayed, it was grass-covered huts, and we were the only lodgers. The insect life was enormous, and I recall a snake being killed on the grounds when we were there. It was a Black Mamba, which can be quite deadly. No, we didn't eat it for dinner.

The location of Chichele is what makes it. It is atop a hill in the southern part of the South Luangwa valley. It's placement allows you to see for 50Km in all directions, if you walk around the grounds. I remember climbing over a protective wall, tearing my trousers in the process, and watching giraffes stroll across the pristine landscape. I was amazed at how fast they could cross the entire vista. And there were elephants, in that direction.

On one morning, we awoke and had coffee on the front patio while looking at a family of lions, in the distance, basking in the acutely angled sunlight of dawn. This was the Chichele pride, and seeing them up close later taught me that baby lions have faint spots, like a leopard's spots, along their torso. They grow out of them. This pride consisted of 3 mature females and 6 or 7 cubs. There was also one male, who stared at the vehicle that we were in with an intensity such that, when we all returned to the lodge in the evening, each of us talked about how we felt he was staring directly at us. I felt it. Don Decker felt it. Ülgen felt it. Such was the power of the stare of the King of the jungle. This is that lion.

This was separate from a night that Ülgen and I went outside the lodge at night later to look at the stars. We had to remove chairs that were propped against the handles of the back patio doors. I kind of joked about that. What? Is this supposed to stop an elephant? Retrospect tells me that it likely would stop the smaller stuff, mischievous monkeys, snakes...So we went out and the sky, in Africa at night, away from a city, is one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen. There are places you can get to where there is literally no light pollution. The milky way cuts its wavy, milky path across the black sky, and immediately one can understand why it's called what it's called. The stars number at least a hundred thousand, and they're clear and distinct. The brighter ones that we can see in a civilized sky, with all of it's intruding, man-made light, are still there, and provide landmarks in this new ocean of sky. It's beautiful.

However, in addition to the sky, Ülgen and I had a literally hair-raising experience that night. We ventured away from the huts of Chichele, and suddenly we heard the roar of a lion. I had never had the hair on my neck stand up until this time. The lion roared, Ülgen and I looked at each other and immediately jointly decided that running, not walking was the best course. We stormed back to the huts and put the chairs back to prop up the doors, with newfound attention to ensuring that the chair-backs fit snugly under the door handles. After, we laughed off the nervous burst, but man, that was scary.

It may have been that the sound of a lion carries farther in the still of the Zambian night, but we agreed that s/he was about 100 yards away from us when s/he roared. Running may not have been wisest. Just imagine the lions communicating to one another, Oh look, Honey. Prey. I'll never forget that primal fear and the hair rising up on the back of my neck. True fear.