It is Sunday afternoon, and I am enjoying the luxury of just sitting in my room and watching life go by peacefully.  I look out of my window past the car, and across the driveway, and see grant gazelle peacefully grazing.

It is so quiet; I can hear the fridge hum, and the birds chirping.  If only I could understand what they were saying.  As they carry on their conversation, sometimes animated, sometimes in fits and starts and sometimes peaceful, another set of birds flies past in formation. Theirs is a loud cackling, as if to say: “We are bigger than you, so we have much more to say and much louder vocals to say it with too.”

The lions were calling last night.  In fact, this weekend has been an altogether awesome weekend.  2 nights ago, as I went to sleep, the tree branches started cracking and crashing.  There was some rather heavy breathing accompanying it. By now I know what this means.  I did not need to look out of my window to know who my guests could be.  When I did, I confirmed it.  The elephant herd was gently walking through the garden, eating the branches off the trees. One of them noticed me and made a sound.  Another turned to look at me.

I wondered why they were so interested since I had remembered to switch off my lights before going to see.  There was no moon that day… or perhaps it was covered by the clouds.  Anyway, they could clearly see me.  So I moved away and prepared to sleep again. Oh yeah…my window was open…

Elephants eating peacefully in the Garden

The Grant Gazelles have now moved away, and as I look outside, Waterbuck have taken their place.  I wonder who will be next .  The Waterbuck have really liked this place recently.  There seem to be more and more each day grazing around the house.  This morning they took the trouble to wake me… with some more loud munching outside my window.  It must have been a genius who planted that tree there.  But then, in the garden there is no artificial planting of trees… they just grow in place. So I guess the genius must be God.

The munching this time was different, so I learned something new today.  There was a lot more cracking than I usually hear with the Zebra, so I had to look to see.  There weren’t two or three, they were more than ten.  So I turned to pray, and say:  “Thank you God, for making my day.  Thank you for this peace and the gift of your creation before me each day.”

The Waterbuck are gone, and the Grant Gazelles are back…

Yes, this is a very peaceful Sunday. Thank God again for peace.

Come… Walk with me in the garden.

A drive in the garden is always a good way to spend your Sunday… a good way to relax from the hustle of the week and spend some time with the creation of God… come face to face with His reality, and escape the one that we human beings create for ourselves daily.  So we decided with a couple of friends to go on a game drive last Sunday, and went searching around for predators for a while but could only find Zebra, Impala and Thompsons gazelles… oh, and a warthog…all by his lonesome self.

We also went to the watering hole in the hope of finding some but none were there to be seen ..just the ever attention-seeking hippo and the myriad of birds that roam the garden.  We drove away seeking the elusive predators.  Searching for lion, leopard, cheetah, we drove on and on, trying this trick and the other … anything that we have been told we could use to find the elusive cats… ‘Try in the bushy areas… leopards are usually found around the trees we told our colleague who had taken the task of driving us through the garden.  But they were proving rather elusive.

2 hours later, after much searching around the garden, we drove back to the watering hole.  Maybe the hippo would perform some acrobatics and we would call it a day.

There were lots and lots of Zebra by then, all around the watering hole, peacefully grazing.  As we approached them along the dirt road, the Zebra parted to give us way, only to reveal the pride of lions behind then only 10 meters away.  We exclaimed: ‘Look how close they are!’  We were all so surprised we exclaimed in unison: ‘I have never seen predator and prey so close together in peace!’  The Zebra were more irritated by the sound of our vehicle engine (and possibly our loud exclamations) than they had been by the presence of the lions, and they began to move away.

The lions behind the Zebras were 5 in total.  Cubs that were rather large for their age my colleagues said.  If asked, I would have called them adults, they were so big.  They were still spotted which apparently indicates youth.  They were so spotted that they could almost be mistaken for leopard.  But 2 of the male cubs were already sporting a young mane.  It was almost unnoticeable, but was there all the same.  As we pulled off the track and sat watching the cubs laze about in the grass we realized that we had probably passed right by them earlier as they hid in the tall grass.

Lions in the Garden

Across from us on the other side of the watering hole were 4 more lions under the shade of another tree – 3 cubs on one side of the tree and one lioness on the other side.  A few meters in front of the lioness right at the edge of the bank, a crocodile was basking under the glow of the setting sun… and the hippo was still playing in the water.  There were birds of all types, that I cannot name (spare me, I am still more of a techie, you know J), and the crocodiles just stayed on the bank of the watering hole with their jaws wide open apparently ‘waiting for the birds to come and clean their teeth’. Hmmm…?

Lion cub in the Garden

As the sun continued its long walk to the other side of the garden, the Zebras queued to the watering hole to take a drink, perhaps in preparation for the dangers that lie ahead, when the predators come to life again… ready for the hunt.  They wouldn’t be able to come to the watering hole again, until the morning.  It was too dangerous to drink in the dark I think. There were hundreds of them… and yes, we knew, that night, at least one of them would go down and into the mouth of the king of beasts.

The lioness on the far bank began to take an interest in the herd of Zebra and raised her head.  It was almost meal time…  She was inching closer yet the Zebra did not seem to notice they were about to become dead meat… perhaps she was still too far away?  The lioness inched closer, and closer… and to the disappointment of the Zebra that had not yet taken a drink, the whole herd had to move away.  The distance between predator and prey was now counted in hundreds of meters.

The lioness gave up. Her belly was still swollen from the meal she had eaten earlier that day, so this was just a game.  These lions were certainly well fed.  We drove round to the other side of the bank and stayed close to the lioness clicking our cameras away.  The cubs converged on their mother, who then led them to the bank of the watering hole where the Zebra herd had just been.

Thirsty lion in the Garden

They drank and played like cats and kittens would while the hippo kept up her antics –  making as if to come out of the watering hole, just to make sure we were still watching her play … as if to say: “I am still here, you know!  Look at me!”. The other cubs and lioness came round to join their friends at the watering hole, playfully swatting each other as they jumped and called. And the crocodiles, you ask?  They were still by the bank on the other side of the watering hole with their mouths open… ‘waiting for the birds to come and clean their teeth’.

All three in one

As the orange glow of the setting sun covered the lovely scene, I prayed in my heart and said: ‘God, thank you for this wonderful experience filled with love and a true sense of wellness within and all around me’

Another sunset in the Garden

Come – walk with me in the garden

When I woke up this morning and prepared to go to the village church just across the reserve boundary, I thought to myself, how lucky I have been to have spent this much time in the garden.  Where else in the world will one find a place where human beings actually live in peace with the wildlife to the point where there is no fear between them? 

Reminiscing, I remembered driving down the road from a meeting with my boss last week, when we almost ran over a giraffe. He was there all along… just so well camouflaged and so still, we did not see him.  And as we slowed down to a sudden halt, he just gracefully and calmly walked off the road as if to say: ‘Ok, I know you need to use this place.. here you go…’ No fear from him, even though by the time we stopped we were no more than 3-4m away from him. 

Even the Zebra grazing right by the side of the road only moved off when the giraffe seemed to want to walk over them… totally unconcerned about the human beings in the strange creature that we call a vehicle.

Giraffe and Zebra in the Garden

Where in the world would a human habitation area be in the middle of the wild, have no fence surrounding it, and still be considered safe enough by its inhabitants to go jogging in the evenings? I would love to hear that story.  Only in the garden, I tell you.  Only in this big old garden called Africa… and so my wild little piece of it so close to the middle – Serengeti, Tanzania.

Let’s be honest here.. I have not yet got the guts to go jogging through the bush, but I will walk to the mess or office some 2-400m away from my house on a good day.  So as I watch my colleagues jog for miles round the hill I marvel at their confidence and strength. My thoughts are: ‘What will you do when you come across something dangerous and you are already tired of running?…’ Hmmm… I guess the most dangerous thing alive is ourselves… but that is a topic for another day.

…. As I drive past one jogger one day I slow down to reduce the amount of dust they have to swallow from my vehicle wheels, and cheekily offer them a lift… devil that I am… Of course they would like a lift, but how strong is their will?  They smile and keep going, without missing a beat, and I wonder how much further they have to go on their obviously over 3-4km run through the bush. Clearly their urge to be fit and healthy is stronger than their fear of the wild.

So I drive on home as I think: “Today is a good day.  There are no technical emergencies, and I can run on the spot in my house thank you very much… and do my 15 minute workout in total safety, then settle down to a good movie on one of my satellite TV movie channels.”

I thank God for paradise, where high tech and wild all blend seamlessly into one, none interfering with the other, and where I can turn to bed each day for a deep contented sleep through the night… to the sound of my favorite Dikdik couple chewing on the fallen marula fruit under the tree outside my bedroom window, to the sound of lion calling some distance away, and to dreams of the Seacom fibre optic link finally getting here…

Wanna share my life?

Come, walk with me in the garden

Every night I get home, tired, sometimes even exhausted from the desk-work or field work.  It gets too hot, or too dusty or too muddy, and a good shower, dinner, and a really good night’s sleep is the only cure.  Thankfully sleep is to the sound of lion calling in the distance, hyena laughing, and birds snoring in the tree outside my window (well, it does sound like they’re snoring and I’m no wildlife expert.. I just enjoy them J)… oh, and the Dikdik forever chewing on the Marula fruit that has fallen from the tree… munch, crunch, munch…

So, when I decided to keep the noise level down and listen to the sounds of the Serengeti instead of blaring horror stories on the TV in the name of news, the sound of the truck bouncing and careening down the road that goes past my house was really rather loud. I wondered what the driver was up to driving at what seemed to be faster than 40km per hour knowing the speed limit was less than that.  Whatever were they thinking?

Anyway, that was their business… Until they seemed to turn directly for my house!  I looked out the window and could not see the truck.  It was too dark and the lights of the truck were not on.  Also, there was no way the truck would have gone past the rocks off road, so something was not right.  Put off the lights and get a torch! Quick!

Yeah, this was no truck, even though it initially sounded like one .  The famous wildebeest migration was thundering by at great speed, reminding me of where I was.  Surrounded as I am and managing all information technology gadgets and systems as I do, this was still the great Serengeti ecosystem, and the true owners of the land were making their presence felt.

No pictures this time, it was too dark… and putting on the lights outside would have confused them and scattered them with fright.  Oh well… they’ll pass by another day when it is light and I will film to my heart’s content.  After all, this was already such a treat – game viewing from the house?

 

Wildebeest in the garden

Wildebeest in the garden

They are late this year though. I guess the grass was still too wet.  Apparently they like it crispy and dry.  Only now can I hear them in their thousands… no… millions making a racket further down the hill.  Hope they will soon come up, and show us the age old God-given way through the Serengeti, into the next century…

Want to catch a glimpse?

Come… walk with me in the garden…

It wasn’t the sunrise that woke me up, nor the alarm that usually rang at 6:00am in the morning. Rather, it was the loudest munching and branch breaking sounds you ever heard…. And they were not on the rampage at all… This was a rather ‘quiet’ stroll through the garden, past my house, one fine Monday morning, by a herd of elephants. zht7emnwxv

Yes, the breaking of tree branches was what woke me up. It was still quite dark, but I could just make out the silhouette of the elephant herd as they made their way through the garden, in no hurry to get anywhere at all. After all, this is their territory, and I am just a visitor. They have been in and through this garden for generations.

As the sun rose gently in the east, the size of the herd became clear… there were more than 50 elephants – young and old, male and female. They were all round the house, and no matter which room I went to, they were outside that window or door, seemingly oblivious of the fact that I was by now cluttering about the house taking pictures and then getting ready to go to work… and I had left my windows open overnight… if I was lucky they would not smell me or stick their trunks into my bedroom. The first whiff of human and they would most likely panic, though, so no worries about that. We are the super-predeators after all… or not?

Elephants in the garden

 

As I downed my breakfast, I wondered if they would let me get to work on time … they were visiting rather late … or early. I had filmed enough… so now what? Some network issues needed my attention, and getting late to work was not looking exciting at all.

Hmmm…. In typical God fashion, an angel must have spoken to them, for 5 minutes to 8:00am and they casually walked away into the now fading distant sunrise… and 3 minutes later I was in my office!

Wanna share my life?

Come – walk with me in the garden….

Serengeti Sunrise