13:50, Monday, 17 June, 2013

Late November – Mid December (Continued)

There are many things we did that could finish the sentence, “There’s nothing quite like…” in the Mara.  And truly, there’s nothing quite like standing on a fallen log that juts out from a riverbank over a pool of hippos.  I had been to this particular pool before, but it had been 3+ years now, and the feeling upon returning was one of those strange ones that makes you feel like life is just a nostalgic search for good times and places of the past, and here was one such gem I had been searching for.  All four of us were out together, and Benson suddenly stopped by the pool.  I didn’t know where we were at first; all I perceived was a well-worn track off to the side of Fig Tree territory amidst a bushy area of the Talek’s riverbank.  But as he got out of the car and led us over toward the water, it clicked.  Beneath us, a pod of the most dangerous animals in Africa, so goofy-looking and acting as to make you wonder how an animal that makes smiles so effortless is also the one most likely to bite you in half.  I still remembered the first time I was there, on the Behavioral Ecology of African Mammals study abroad course the summer after my freshman year of college.  We were crouched down taking notes on hippo behavior.  Suddenly we heard the crazily loud, characteristically throaty belch of an enormous hippo, sounding as though it was right behind us.  Even one of our instructors admitted that she briefly thought we would die.  Thankfully the noisy big male we knew would take us to whatever comes post-Earth actually resided in a pool around the bend, one we were previously unaware of, still safely in the water.  I chuckled at the memory as I ventured further out upon the thick log, appreciating this new vantage where such scares seemed unlikely.  It seemed to me (perhaps erroneously) that a hippo would not venture onto a fallen tree.

The little things make each day its own, no matter where you are in the world.  Likely the same morning we went to the hippo pool, we saw a wee baby tommy fussing about.  It ran around within a herd of adult females, craning its head beneath each one’s udder in what looked to be a questioning manner, before moving onto the next individual.  At last, after several mistaken udders, he found his mother.  The little one knew her the moment he checked her, beginning to fiercely nurse from his beloved and long sought-after udder.  What a beautiful illustration of the biological bond between mothers and their offspring.

The frustrating lack of rain throughout November caused unwarranted excitement and expectation every time the sky showed even the smallest sign of cloudiness.  Early morning after early morning followed by evening after evening of work, no days off without self-imposed guilt, were enough to wear us out and beg God to shed some tears. One evening we were positive it must rain.  The entire sky was blanketed in bluish-gray clouds, a feat even in the rainy season.  Maybe the much closer, very white clouds that strikingly stood out from the blue-gray, drifting over it in the most ethereal, eerie and exquisite way should have clued us in that these weren’t normal rain clouds.  Indeed, they gave us not a drop, but what a show and a feel that blanket with thick white wisps gave to the savanna.  It felt like the sky was a warm ocean over our heads – an ocean with sustained white-capped and slow-moving waves.  It was all so otherworldly and peaceful, giraffes’ necks reaching up so that their heads were even with the lowest of the cloud waves.  Then, out of nowhere, we were attacked.  Don’t worry though; it was an attack of cute.  Because it just doesn’t get cuter than nursing and yawning baby bat-eared foxes.  Little puffs of love with gargantuan ears – what a find that was, back on one of the short grass plains that used to be long pre wildebeest and drought.

The morning following the white-capped heavens brought fog.  We couldn’t see over 10m ahead and behind.  Droplets jeweled more spider webs in the tall red oat grass of Fig Tree than you would think could possibly be woven sans an overpopulation of the eight-legged carpenters, and yet somehow the silky whorls didn’t seem at all crowded.  Billows of pure cloud visibly diffused into the windows of the car, floating through and filling it, surrounding us in chilly mist and serving to keep us awake.  Not a great day for chasing down an alien male in an attempt to get pictures, so of course we found one.  His left ear was damaged wonderfully, reduced so that it appeared to be a lopsided “3” with its innards filled in.  Alien 413, and we all hoped he’d stay with such a telltale ear.