The red dust of Tanzania’s iron-rich soil still clings to my athletic shoes. I’ve been loath to clean them, wanting somehow to preserve the way the country touched my soul.
My two-week game-viewing safari was life-changing in the fresh perspective I gained. And, well worth the nearly 24 hours in flights to this East African country.
In the language of the Maasai, a predominant tribe in the area, Serengeti means “endless plain.” As far as you could see, all the way to the distant horizon where they appeared as dark dots, herds of animals cavorted on the flat grasslands.
Near our jeep, two young wildebeests, so inelegant in their beards, high front haunches and horns — some say God created them out of leftover parts — kicked up their rear legs with joy at the fresh green grass. Though it was only October, the rains were a month early and the annual migration had begun of wildebeest and zebra from the woodlands where they spent the dry season back onto the Serengeti. It’s the largest single movement of wildlife left on Earth.
It was like coming upon the Garden of Eden, a place where the animals rule, not man. The only humans allowed are tourists with guides in permitted jeeps like ours and park rangers who work to stop poachers after meat and trophies. The animals seemed oblivious to us, restricted as we were to the rough gravel roads that traverse the park.
The plains were thick with strings of the moving animals, the striped flanks of the zebra jostling into the browns and grays of the wildebeest. Some park officials estimated the number of wildebeests at 3 million, double earlier counts, and nearly half a million zebras.
The two species enjoy a symbiotic relationship. The wildebeest smell that the rains have come but they don’t have the zebra’s brain power to remember how to get there, so they team up. They come for the grasses that contain the minerals needed for their soon-to-be-born offspring. They stay until May and June, when they again move on to greener pastures.
There was a palpable feeling of relief among the dust-covered animals, with the odors of their sweat and fresh dung everywhere. They joined the year-round resident antelopes, giraffes, lions, elephants and Cape buffalo.
But this was not all paradise. Leopards were stretched out on the limbs of the tall, thorned acacia trees, waiting for nightfall and the hunt. In the tall grass, a cheetah patiently eyed a Thomson’s gazelle.
We encountered more than one lion sleeping off a heavy kill. One male, his mane ruffling in the wind, lay spoon fashion with his scarred mate in a small sequestered area among rocky outcroppings.
The scenes stirred something in my bones, my blood, my very genes. This sense of witnessing how the world must once have been. No cattle drivers or farmers here. The animals were doing quite well maintaining nature’s balance all on their own. I felt humbled and reverent.
But I also recognized how raw and dangerous all this was. The camp for our group was in a clearing along a river. We stayed in movable tents erected over wooden stays. Each came with a flushable toilet and a shower of sorts. But they were still tents.
The first night, after our meal in the dining tent, I asked one of the camp staff, “You do patrols during the night, don’t you?”
“Oh, no,” he answered. “We don’t have any guns. If something attacks, then we are doing something very wrong. You’ll be safe. Just stay in after we zip you in.”
Then the camp staff walked us to our tents, sweeping the dark path with their flashlights. Right before I was zipped in, the guide asked me, “Do you hear the lion?”
I had no choice but to trust the staff. Once I turned out the weak solar-powered lamp overhead, my world was totally dark. I didn’t move for hours. Yes, I heard the “hrumph, hrumph” of lions calling to each other. Followed by the skittish “whoop, whoop” of the hyena. Parts of the tent flapped in the wind.
Finally I got up the courage to go to the toilet. I sat on the contrived seat looking out a small screen window, sure that those lumps were Cape buffalo, among the most dangerous of animals. My throat tight, I scurried back to my bed.
By early morning, I must have gotten some sleep. Drowsy, I heard the gentle urging from outside. “Jambo, Jambo,” hello in Swahili. We needed to rise for our game drive. When I went out, I saw that those humps were nothing but bent-over grass.
I don’t know if it was fatigue from the long hours on dusty roads or trust in the guides’ reassurances of our safety, but by the second night, I fell asleep listening for the animals. It came to me later that I would not have felt as close to the animals if we hadn’t camped that way. We were truly guests in their home.
I returned home elated but exhausted to a washing machine on the fritz. At first, I was dismayed. Then, I thought of the Serengeti. I looked at the red dust on my shoes and smiled.
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