It’s a story I tell to my kid, he likes it. Let me put it down here in a different version for you.
It was twilight the western sky had shades of red, orange and yellow. we were in my 4x4 off road Express, with me were a mother Mrs. Jassani and 3 kids, 2 of her own Kaamil and Fiza and a cousin Alkarim with a young boy Martin from Kabale, we were on a rough road in Queen Elizabeth National Park, far away from any town, careful not to dash with any guinea fowls or francolins, who would charge in air when disturbed during their evening walks. The kids loved to watch them and every individual bird on its way against the front screen would make each one of them throw in cheers “waoow”. Soon the sun retired for the night and we were left with the rough road, rougher ride and even rougher driver.
While making through the rough road, and the fine dust coming in from slightest open windows, we talked about our checklist of the day and how happy the kids were from our safari experience during the day.
We had a good day with 25 others on board including me and the 3 kids. The group had taken a boat ride at Kazinga channel in Queen Elizabeth-Mweya Penninsula. We spotted exhilarating wildlife during the day, including Wild buffaloes, Elephants, Uganda cobs, Hippos, Water bucks, wart hogs, crocodiles and monitor lizard. A bounty of birds including kingfishers, herons, egrets, spoonbills, cranes, cormorants, stilts, pelicans, thick knees, francolins, eagles, lapwings, etc. The cherry on the ice creams was witnessing Pied kingfishers at their nests, we must have seen not less than 300 pied kingfishers in less than 2 hours and finally the trophy of the day was to see two climbing lion cubs on fig tree; found only in two places in the world the second being Ngorongoro- Tanzania. What more can one expect?
Every time we would see a new animal, the kids would almost jump out of the boat in exclamation. Even the elders were so blown up on seeing climbing lions that they wanted to jump out of the bus window, so you can’t blame the kids a bit. A part of us will always remain kid !!!
Nature and its wonders have amazing pull on human hearts and have the capacity to surprise the most serious personalities amongst us. Every encounter on the checklist would involve every other member of the group, pulling them far apart from their seats and the worries of missed calls, meetings, traffic jams, pollution, world wars, riots or any other ill effects of civilized world. Within a half day of discovering ourselves in the wild, most of the members of the group were in a different world. Cause, discovering wonders of the wild at some point; lets us discover ourselves, as we are one of the wonders of the wild.
At midday, sharing our lunch with weaver birds, literally, as weaver birds flew into the plates with leftovers and then encounter with a charging elephant made us come really far from our homes and truly enrolled all of us with nature.
But nature and wilderness have their own challenges, a lot of heat, sweat and getting covered with dust, not to mention the rough ride. In the evening we started from Mweya to Kihihi, an off road ride for 4 hours. The Kids and Mrs. Jassani decided to take a ride in my 4x4 and let the remaining group be in a mini bus following us.
I was now on 4th gear and at speed of 80, only an off road express could do that on such a road and mine was one. I am proud of the vehicle. The slow speed would give us a lot of bumps and jerks and high speed would save us from jerky ride but could put us in one of the big pot holes, which we so dearly tried to avoid, apart from talking about lessons from the day and what every encounter taught us.
“Life is all about balance, between the good and the bad. It’s about the decisions that we make every day and every minute; that really determines our future. A mind can turn out to be the most beautiful and so also the much evil gift of God depending on the decisions we make, There are rewards for our choices or there may be consequence of our choices, as a result of our decisions we make at every stage of our lives. And they are these rewards or consequences, which will determine how we live our life. It’s on us to take responsibility of our choices and accept its rewards and consequences and deal with them or to blame it on others or situations. It’s really on us how to balance the rewards and the consequences”.
I had similar conversations from Mr. Jassani, the father of the kids and my mentor when I was a teen and now I had the responsibility and the pleasure to make similar discussions with his kids as their mentor.
The rough road and balancing through the pot holes and changing gears up and down were all controlled by those tiny little choices and decisions and would finally decide if we accomplish our journey safely or get stuck up with no technical help, abandon our car and take lift in minibus following us. The way we move through every pot holes and reduce the speed and the way we bypass some of them, would ensure that we reach at the right time, at the right place and get our rewards.
Life has its own rewards, counting the lovely little hares or wild rabbits and witnessing them when they are shocked by the lights of the approaching car and the way they fled in confusion, jumping, running, changing directions and finally bouncing out of the road into the dry grass on the road side and disappearing, would bring a different sparkle on the kids faces and showed us how even a rabbit decides its way through sets of choices. How well and how fast the hare determines his way out through those choices will really determine his survival in the wild when attacked by the predators.
So as planned by nature and as it was meant to be, we approached a broken bridge and after a short delay and discussion, decided to try our way out through the bypassing river, there were some rocks to help the car remain as much up as possible through the river. We decided to use this crude road across the river, if the small car can’t make it through the river there was no point in trying the minibus. We made it through slowly and steadily hearing the tingle of river water below us; and just as we crossed the river and were going up the river side, we caught our eyes on an animal which was equally surprised as us. It tried to cross the road and then stopped on seeing the lights of the car. It starred through the 15 feet distance between us through its shinning bright eyes, immediately I turned the fog lights on to reveal the one and only: It’s at this point I ask my kid Aarish when I am telling him this story: What did dedu see ??? And he replies pleasantly: A Leopard !!!.
I have spent Eighteen years of my life, trying hard to see a leopard in wild, face to face. I have got glimpses of leopards in wild before during daytimes, but not face to face, not in its element. Leopards are mostly shy and one of the most elusive animals in the wild; they try to make their way out on slightest signs of approach.
This juvenile male leopard came after a meal from a nearby carcass which had its decaying smell further ahead on the roadside; he must have killed a buffalo calf, because in this part of jungle there are only wild buffaloes, monkeys and elephants, a wild buffalo calf would have been a likely kill as the Leopard was a juvenile and not capable of taking down a grown up buffalo by himself, the monkeys were not likely to give such pronounced smell, Uganda cobs and warthogs are never seen in this part and elephant was out of bounds. The suspected victim buffalo calf which was killed by him at least before 4 days was eaten by some portion of it and was hidden on some tall trees which were in plenty around that river side, to protect it from other scavengers like hyenas on ground and vultures from sky as the thick canopy of trees would avoid them. So after a good meal he seemed in no rush or ambush and stood on the road for a while as if greeting us, walked across the road exchanging eye contacts and then decided to continue on his way.
There are many a people who don’t struggle or bother much to see leopards and some who see them by chance. But to encounter a leopard when you have struggled to find them around four countries (India, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda), over eighteen years, whenever it is possible to steal time from routine and whenever the pockets would permit, after spending many a hours and many a nights outdoors in jungles, over trees, over machaans and watch towers, along the river beds, tracking their pugmarks, listening to alarm calls, sometimes hearing them breathing close, seeing them disappear along jungle road sides, seeing a glimpse through the deem lights of camp fires, across the bamboos with spot lights, reading through the books of Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson in effort to learn more about them, Participating in Forest departments censuses, talking to locals to know their habits and finally encountering one in the wild, is for sure a different experience altogether.
So, life has its own rewards and nature has its own. We finally reached Kihihi, at the resort, took hot showers and a great meal was ready for us. Some were rewarded by going away from rough road and getting in comfort of luxury, while some were rewarded by talking about the rough road, their experiences of hares and their encounter with a Leopard.
- Ashif Dadwani
- Photographs on www.facebook/aadad_a@yahoo.com/mweyapeninsula
