KIDS ON SAFARI

“Mommy, can we please ride with André? We will behave!” This from a four-year-old on our first meeting at the Kaingo entrance gate. The lure of the big game viewing vehicle proves just too much to resist.

“Hop aboard” I reply.

Mom looked worried in the vehicle behind us. We briefly stop for a giraffe. It is a bull. The first question states: “is that a boy or a girl”?

“Boy” I reply.

“Why?”

“He is big and has a big neck and” … I hesitate on the next sentence … “and he is bold on the top of his ossicones… his little horns.”

“O; mommy said you need to look under his legs…”

Kids on safari can be brutally truthful. For us as guides it is refreshing to be challenged on a level where people do not just accept the knowledge that we impart on the group.
Children see the world in a different light. They see the wonder, the beauty and possibility for learning far better than adults do. Too many adults are afraid to ask a ‘stupid’ question; even though ‘stupid questions’ does not exist. Not in my world…

Kids, on the other hand, will ask the all-important question: “WHY?” And they will not relent until satisfied with your answer.

We were stopped at a sandy intersection looking at some very large and reasonably fresh lion tracks. I had two children next to me in a safe position to look at these tracks. They were of an impressive size, easily swallowing the handprint of a four-year-old human.

“Where did he go?”, one of the grownups asks.

“That way” replied my apprentice tracker, pointing down the road at the pugmarks. “…and he was walking slowly” added his sister.

“How so?” I ask. I get a quizzical look. How could I, the master of the bush, ask such a dumb question?

“Easy”, comes the answer. “Look.”

At this the lithe little body hops from one track to the next. “See?” comes the answer triumphantly. “If he was running, I would be running too!”

How can you argue such logic?

That same afternoon we had a sundowner stop near the Mokolo river. After quickly fixing a drink for the adults, I was lured to the children. They were on their hand and knees in the sand.

“What are these?” came the question, referring to a conical shape divot in the sand.

“Antlion larva”, I replied. “Watch this!”

Carefully a feather of grass became an ant. A few grains of sand rolled down the slope of the trap. A few more. The sand exploded with two razor sharp mandibles grappling with the grass in my hand. The children sat transfixed. I wrestled the small predator to the surface. In my hand it looked minute; not at all the savage monster it really is.

“Cool!” exclaimed the kids. “Yuck!” exclaimed the adults.

The rest of the afternoon was spent peering down the wrong end of our binoculars. Inverted, binoculars work very much like a crude microscope. We looked, dissected, touched, felt and smelled various seeds, leaves and other biotic material. We had a whale of a time!

After packing the rests of our sundowner stop and firing up the spotlight with both children now safely ensconced in the front seat, we made our way homewards. The therapeutic chuckle of the diesel motor, the rocking of the vehicle and the monotony of the spotlight’s left and right journey through the bush proved too much.

Both the young ones gently fell asleep, dreaming of tomorrows adventures and the questions they might ask.

BUSHVELD GREETINGS