The African Savannah – A tale of beauty and beasts
Anyone who knows me or has read my work can attest that I write extensively about my morning walks in every neighborhood I live in. Morning walks not only let me work out my body but also nurture my mind, spirit, and creativity—especially when I bring my camera for sunrise photography. Because my current neighborhood borders Nairobi National Park, the savannah has become my favorite place to sit, engage in self-reflection, watch planes overhead heading to the airport, see the SGR train roll by on the elevated rail track, observe wild animals from a distance, or even talk with the Maasai goat herders living nearby. The savannah is usually very quiet and breezy, and if it has rained in the days before, it’s especially lush and beautiful.
Sometimes I sit on the rocks beside the small river in the savannah. Aside from the occasional sound of planes and the train passing by, the silence is soothing.
On one visit to the savannah, I recorded the sound of water flowing over the rocks with my phone. I play it back now and then just for enjoyment. It’s such a beautiful, relaxing sound.
This riverside spot is incredibly calming for the mind and great for fostering creativity. If I were a painter, I would definitely camp there and create some masterpieces. It’s the perfect place for meditation. But you can’t tune out for too long, because wild animals—like hyenas—could sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention.
So, while the savannah is a breathtaking masterpiece, it’s also a battleground of dangerous predators that wouldn’t hesitate to taste human flesh and blood.
The beast showed up, and the beauty left.
Just two months ago—in April, to be exact—a fourteen-year-old girl was attacked, mauled, and eaten by a lioness at her homestead on the savannah near the park. That’s around the same area where I take my morning walks.
In fact, on the morning after the lioness incident (which had occurred around 7 p.m.), I went for my regular walk in the savannah.
On my way to my spot, I noticed fresh big cat footprints on the wet, muddy road. The large paw prints stood out, and I knew they weren’t from a dog. I suspected they might belong to a lion or a large hyena. So, I took photos of the prints and decided to follow them to see where they led. Further along the same road, I spotted a smaller print near where the larger ones disappeared.
Not giving too much thought to the paw prints, I went and sat in my favorite spot by the river. I even took some nice photos of the water, which was flowing strongly that day because of the rain of the previous day.
This spot where I sat was about 500 meters from the homestead where the attack occurred that evening.
When I heard the news about the girl’s attack, I felt awful. In my head, I thought that perhaps when I saw those prints that morning, I should have contacted the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) personnel stationed near the park’s border. Maybe they could have warned the neighborhood or even tracked down the lioness before it caused such tragedy.
It was a heartbreaking story, and I offer my sincere condolences to the girl’s parents and their community. But someone might wonder why I didn’t simply turn back when I spotted the lion tracks, just to be safe. Honestly, my curiosity to see how lush the savannah had become after the rains outweighed any fear of the lion that left those prints. In fact, the idea that I might actually encounter a lion that morning never even crossed my mind.
What about our lives?
Some believe that life is a jungle, and thus they embrace the “survival of the fittest” theory. But is life a jungle like the wild savannah with beastly animals who only care about food, mating, and producing babies for the next generation of beasts? Or did human life and existence on earth take a rather jungle-like path because we, with our insatiable greed for wealth and our uncontrollable self-preserving tendencies, made it so? I am not seeking an answer, though I’m sure you get what I mean.
However, there is beauty in every beastly situation we find ourselves in, we just need to have a perspective that sees more of the beauty than the beast.
Am I advocating for recklessness in the face of potential danger? No, I am not.
All I am saying is that life on earth in itself carries with it both beautiful and beastly moments, and this is irrespective of whether you are sleeping on your comfortable bed or if you are walking in the savannah full of lions and bare-teethed hyenas. The girl who was killed by the lioness was not even attacked on the open savannah; it encroached on her safe space, jumping over the fence of her homestead, entering the room where she and her companions were and taking her.
What do you do?
When life comes at you with a beauty or beast moment, what do you do?
We have somehow created a very dangerous and fear-inducing world system that mostly sees human lives in terms of numbers in a database and not as humans deserving of the sanctity of life and truth. We have filled our media airwaves with all manner of hate, jealousy, pride, kill or be killed ideologies, and the various thought patterns that have created a very dehumanizing environment for all of us. But the question remains: what do you do when faced with a beauty and a beast moment?
Choose life and live
Every single day that we wake up with fresh breath in our nostrils provides us with opportunities to make choices and decisions that could alter our lives and the lives of the people around us forever. And most of the time, these choices and decisions that must be made don’t come with options or alternatives or an easy way out. They just have to be made.
So, what must you do?
Choose life as against death. Choose truth over lies. Choose boldness as opposed to fear. Choose love as against hate, jealousy, envy and the other things that come with a broken heart. Choose wisdom as against foolishness. Choose hope over depression. Choose to see the beautiful flowers and the green landscape within the Savannah instead of the dry bones and carcasses of dead animals lying around. Choose to see and also appreciate the sweet-sounding flow of the water as it runs over the savannah’s rocky river. Choose to see the beauty instead of the beast in everything. Choose to see and also acknowledge the needs of others, even as you do the same for yourself.
The world is in a very volatile stage right now, and things are not going to change for the better. The life one will live going forward will be very much dependent on the choices and decisions one will make.
So, make it wisely and also choose with wisdom. You owe yourself that much.
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