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| Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
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Home  Musings Lions Tigers & Beers |
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Kate is off on a three night camp out as training for a
possible Kilimanjaro attempt. At
19,500 feet, Kilimanjaro is not only the highest mountain on the continent, it
is about 12,000 feet above the point at which most of us begin clamoring for
air. Everyone I know who has
attempted or accomplished the climb speaks of it tones of reverence and respect.
Kilimanjaro is a very serious mountain, rising in solemn isolation from
the heat of the Serengiti plains to its ostentatious and improbably snow crested
peak.
The school offers students a graduated, self-paced, program that needs
to be accomplished in order to earn a slot on the annual ‘Kili Climb’.
Kate has completed the initial tryout, which consists of an overnight
in the school soccer field. The main exercises for that first one are
communal cooking and the handling of tents and other essential
supplies. I am expecting her back shortly from the second step, a long
weekend of camping and hiking in the Morongoro mountains, three hours
to the west of here.
With overtones of that ominous bumper sticker: ‘24 hours in a day, 24
beers in a case…coincidence? I think not!’, Kilimanjaro is also the
name of our preferred local beer. And here, where the drinking age is
apparently unspecified (I have yet to order a drink in public and not
have the waiter assume Kate – at fourteen – was going to partake), Luke
retrieved one all on his own in a personal first for the
day…(admittedly, not a great milestone as those things go, but it is a
trick I have grown tired of trying to get Alika to do and I was perhaps
overly encouraged when Luke did not give me Lika’s ‘cocked head of
confusion’ at my request). Then again, it is possible that the young
man would have been at less risk had he joined his sister on the Kili
try-out (though he is not eligible to try until next year)…
Which all brings to mind the article in yesterday’s paper…I quote from
it here: Headline: Tunduru Lions Strike Again. The wave of attacks by
lions on human beings in Tunduru District continued this week when the
beasts killed and devoured a ten-year-old boy. Selemani Ali was
attacked after coming out of his parents’ house to answer the call of
nature…the lions pounced on the student as he was walking to the toilet
20 meters from his house…the boys remains have not been found yet but
the villagers saw the traces of his blood and the footprints left by
the lions. It was the third time in under a month that the lions had
devoured a human being in the district. The animals attacked a man as
he was chopping wood earlier this month and only his skeleton was
discovered after the beasts ate the rest of his body.
Here, ‘the ghost and the darkness’ remains very much alive. While the
article ends with the note that ‘game wardens have cautioned Tunduru
residents against venturing out in the dark alone’, it does not repeat
the story of the man whose wife was killed a couple of months ago. He
chased the lions away after they killed his wife but then had the stoic
bravery to lure them back and kill them – although to do it he had to
use the remnants of their fresh kill as his gruesome lure. Man-eaters,
they say, must never be let get away.
Got to run. Kate has just walked through the door – filthy, but
inspired to do more. StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter |
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Chovya - chovya yamaliza buyu la asali.
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Constant dipping will empty goud of honey. |
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