Wednesday, July 24, 2013

With Moses in the Wilderness

Here in Africa, many African-Americans - sorry, I mean African-Africans - have interesting names. On yesterday's game drive, the driver, before setting off, launched into a long introduction. He spoke with the slow manner of speaking that some Africans use, in which they draw out each syllable in a painfully long amount of time. "Myyyyyy  naaaaame," he said slowly, "is Civilized. C - i - v - i - l - i - z - e - d.  I  am  your driiiiii-veeerrrrr for todaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay." 
"Hi, Mr. Civilized," I said, "My name is Impatient. Can we get going?"

On this morning's game drive, the driver was called Moses. He led us through the wilderness, starting before dawn. We didn't see as many species as yesterday, but we did have the rare thrill of being in the midst of a huge buffalo herd, seeing a herd of elephants, and watching a leopard and her cub roaming around. The cub kept on launching surprise attacks at the mother, which she tolerated as only a mother can. Here's a picture that I took of the cub:


We watched them for quite a while, then headed off to meet up with the other jeeps, in order to make a minyan for shacharis out in the savannah. Meanwhile, two people on my jeep were quite desperate to go to, er, attend to a call of nature. But Moses didn't want to stop, because he was in a rush to meet up with the other jeeps. "Moses!" I thundered, "Let my people go!"

Later, back at the ranch, I took the following photograph of an impala at the water-hole by the dining room, which brought a certain passuk to mind:


And finally, here's a video clip of the leopards:

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