I don’t know about orange suits and white-tailed deer and freezing my tootsies by the lake at dawn. I do know about waiting hours in a blind for the big cat who is lured by the stench of the dead zebra hanging in the Baobab tree. I’m not proud of it. That was when the world was new and I didn’t know any better.
Once Upon a Time in East Africa
When you had to have a license for anything you intended to kill. When those licenses were limited and you were monitored. No one dared slaughter animals the way poachers do today. Fact is, in those days the British ran Kenya and flat out killed the few hapless poachers they caught. The Africans had the greatest respect for animals and only killed to eat. The Masai didn’t hunt animals because they never ate meat. Their livestock was their only wealth. They lived on the blood from the large vein in the neck of the animal, mixed with milk from the cow. Only the white man had to have his trophies.
Long after Karen Blixen wrote “Out of Africa,” long after Hemingway’s adventures, and Joy Adamson’s Elsa the lion made headlines in “Born Free,” civil servants like me came along to work in what was still the clean, Jacaranda flowering town of Nairobi, a very livable place. Today you don’t go out alone at night. Today the government has herded the once proud nomadic Masai into shacks where they have lost their dignity and are forced into subsistence farming. Can a leoparad change its spots?
The Kenya That Once Knew Me
That time and place have vanished forever, almost like a golden dream. In the dream my friends are native Kikuyu Africans, and the privileged second and third generation white Kenyans who come from Britain and other European countries. A white Kenya boy of fifteen learns from his Kikuyan pals how to spot the triangular tip of a lion’s ear deep in the tall blond grass where the big cats laze. When the boy grows up he inherits his parent’s coffee and tea plantations in the highlands, and the lower drier areas of sisal plantations. He has a stable of horses for racing at the Nairobi track, and he learns how to hunt. Some of my close friends are professional hunters who take wealthy tourists on safari. On vacation days I go along as their guest. This is the beginning of my African safari education, when hunting in the wilds means having your own comfortable tent with a hot bath at the end of the day, brought to you in a large steaming tub of water.
Unlike the obsessed character played by Clint Eastwood in “White Hunter, Black Heart,” professional hunters held to the strictest etiquette and humane approach to big game hunting. That meant knowing the species better than he knew himself: his habits, what time of day he hunts, how long he can wait before he eats again, whether a lioness is pregnant or an elephant a dangerous rogue. By far the most important thing I learned was to love and respect these magificent animals. I never knew a professional hunter who didn’t mourn the death of every single species. Most tourists came for the excitement of the kill and bravados at the noisy Long Bar of the Norfolk Hotel. No gratitude for the noble prize that sacrificed its life to hang over a rich man’s fireplace.
The Romance of the Professional Hunter
You’ve seen the movies, read the books—actresses and protagonists falling in love with the professional hunter. Edgar de Bono, one of the finest professional hunters in Kenya, was the epitome of that image and he left a trail of broken hearts.
I had my own heartthrob; so big, macho Edgar with the Northern Italian blue eyes was my teacher, not my lover. He taught me the fine line between the sport of a hunting trip, and the sport for the sake of an ego-trip. He taught me about different types of ammunition and rifles and scopes used in African game hunting. There’s so much to know and I’ve forgotten most of it because I am not a hunter. In addition to single versus double trigger and double rifles there are different calibers and sizes of rifles like the big 450 magnum whose sheer weight will kill you. It’s meant for the so-called big five: elephant, rhino, hippo, buffalo, and lion. Edgar fitted me early on with an old light-weight medium bore 375—not too light, not too heavy and a recoil that didn’t leave me aching for massage therapy. Acutely aware there’s nothing worse than an amateur hunter who wounds an animal, I never shot so much as a hyena pup, and I don't like hyenas.
The Good Old Shotgun
I did, however, use a 12-gauge shotgun for fowl. One day I pointed my gun at three guinea hens that kept popping their heads up and down in a thicket. Tricky critters and fast, they were so close together I figured I’d hit at least one of them, which I did. The bird was one of many dishes served in the dining tent that night, expertly prepared by our African cooks who knew what to do with the Grand Marnier.
Some of My Favorite Things
Camping at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, before global warming when there was snow on top. Climbing it. Sunrises and sunsets that ruin you for life. Cold nights under African stars big as diamonds. Campfire gabfests about the herds we raced that day in the Land Rover across miles of savanna. Hearing a lion in the night that scared me to death as I stumbled to the loo (British for toilet). First words I learned in Swahili: Jambo Bwana. Memories of an Africa that once knew me.
Africa is Changing Fast. Go Now.
You can still go on an African safari, shoot with a camera, be in the bush and have the thrill of your life. Go now before all of it is just a dream.
Here’s Where
Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana, Southern Africa. Rattray’s Mala Mala Game Reserve, bordering on Kruger National Park in South Africa. The same company owns both. They offer very comfortable camp facilities, or more luxurious main facilities. Remember, prices include accommodations, great meals and seeing the animals up close and personal. Even if you can’t afford it, look up these places on the Web and Dream of Africa. I still do.
“Simplicity-Courage-Humor-Soul”®
A writer/editor, I work with one client at a time for a cost effective solution to your writing and editing needs. Visit me at http://www.susanscharfman.com My novel The Sword & The Chrysanthemum is available in paperback everywhere, and in eBook form at http://www.AuthorHouse.com | 
