MORNING GAME DRIVE.

Clare wants to see a lion and asks Jonathan to find her one. He laughs. The lion researcher, the defeated Shamus, has given us the sad statistics on the disappearing lions of Kenya.

We drive through the open plains, the tall grass disappearing under our wheels as if we are the sole people on earth. A tiny black cloud appears in the sky.

“What’s that?” asks Clare.

“Vultures,” says Jonathan pointing.

“I want to see,” says Clare.

As we draw near, we see the birds. Their wings span 8 feet and the shadows darken the ground. When they spread the tips of their wings it looks like fat fingers are tearing at the sky. They circle a spot below.

“What is it?” Clare whispers.

Without replying, Jonathan drives closer and stops. He turns to us.

“Take out your cameras now,” he says. “Once we get closer, the vultures will take off at the same time.”

He drives forward and dozens of huge birds reluctantly leave the ground with one flap of their wings.

There seems to be nothing where the buzzards were but swirling dust. Then a reddish spinal column emerges as the air clears. The ribs are stunted along the spine and completely disappear the further away they get from the column. There’s a head.

Jonathan, Pamela and Craig jump down from the jeep. Jonathan picks up the horns of the perfect head for us to see, the bloody spinal cord hanging to the ground.

“Grants gazelle,” he says. Clare and I look away.

Pamela tells Craig they should take the head back for the skull.

“In a few days, animals and ants will pick the skull clean,” she says.

Clare and I peek through our fingers. Jonathan has a machete at Pamela’s throat. Craig takes photos and everyone laughs.



I feel sick but can’t take my eyes off of the gazelle. Jonathan holds up the head with its light brown coat and black markings. Even the horns are intact. Only the hollow eyes tell you it’s dead. That and the skin of the neck hanging loose around the spine. It looks like two animals: the body eaten to nothing but bones and the head a fresh kill.

Jonathan starts hacking at the spinal column at the base of the head with the machete.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Ew. That’s disgusting,” says Clare. We both stand up and turn around. There is another jeep pulling up behind us. This is the big event on the game drive today. I wave and saw my hand over my neck pointing at the activity on the ground behind me.

It seems to take a long time to cut the head away from the bones that are left of the gazelle.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Pamela takes an empty box from the back of the jeep and Jonathan places the freed head into the box.

“You can’t put that in here,” says Clare.

“Ok,” says Pamela cheerfully. “We’ll put it in their jeep” and walks to the Range Rover behind ours and puts the box under the back seat.

“That was disgusting,” says Clare as Jonathan, Pamela and Craig step into our jeep and sit down.

“Do you still want to see a lion?” Pamela asks Clare.

“Yes!” says Clare.

“Be careful what you ask for,” I say.

ZEBRA.

Grants Gazelles stand in a patch of sun with perfect twisted horns. Moses says that they lose their black stripe as they get older.

We’re a little tired after an afternoon game drive under the African sun. Driving toward Kilimanjaro, Ron yelps as a butterfly flies into his face, searing his cheek. We’re looking at Ron when tiny specks in the distance suddenly grow. Our first herd of Zebra. And Gazelle. Wildebeest. Hartebeest. There were none and then there were many. I know Zebra from zoos and pictures. But they look more unnatural in the wild. Like black and white striped cartoon animals sticking out from the green. Moses points out the Wildebeest and Hartebeest before giving us a lesson.

Kongoni or Coke’s hartebeest can go up to two months without water. On the open plains we see two light brown and white rumps. The one with the bulging sides is pregnant. The other might be the mate. We like to think they are partners.

Zebra are non-ruminant animals like horses, and wildebeest are ruminants like cows. The animals graze together because they eat different parts of the grass. Their teeth grow in the opposite direction so they aren’t competing for the same food.

Zebras live in family groups with the stallions at the head. Their call of flight and call to gather the herd sounds like a donkey’s bray. At least the movie donkeys that I’m familiar with. Zebra stripes are like fingerprints. Moses says that the black stripes have fat underneath them that absorb heat and the white stripes repel heat so they regulate their temperature, making them drought resistant.

Africa is an evolution soup.

Bethlehem skies flood the plains as light filters through the clouds. We are surrounded by hundreds of Zebras. Two little ones wag their striped tales against their striped butts. We drive closer and a group of black and white heads looks up and walk toward us.

Everyone can’t help but squeak, “They’re so cute.”

Another mighty and goofy wildebeest shows up and bucks and twists as he runs. It’s a crazy, energy wasting way to move, more like be-wilder-beast, comic and outrageous. Legend has it that the wildebeest was the last of God’s creations so was made with the spare parts of other animals. Its head is a buffalo’s. The lump on its back is a cow’s. And it runs like a horse.

The herd is on the move as a low thunder of hooves surrounds us like wind would sound if it landed.

Moses tells us that the Burchell zebra, or common zebra, were named after the first naturalist to visit South Africa in the early 1800s, William John Burchell. The Grevy zebra was named after the President of France in 1882, Jules Grevy. I have lots of questions, but I let them go not wanting to break the spell the zebras have over me.

On our way to the lodge, back to the now-familiar trees of the Chyulu Hills, we see a bright blue roller and an orange bird with a long beak. Moses picks up a dung beetle for Ron.

From the elephant to the beetle, it’s as if the baffling worlds of cosmology and molecular biology surrounds and confounds us at every turn.