My Life in Africa

The sun rose burning my back, mocking my efforts to find shade as I walked along the banks of a perennial stream, today a trickle of its former self, burnt and almost exhausted by what had been an uncomfortably dry season.

The thundershowers usually so dependable to bring life to the parched bush had stayed hidden in the north this season, unmercifully dropping all their life force over the highlands of Zimbabwe, the great plains of Zambia and the unfortunate low lands of Mozambique to ensure that the sinners in the South once again understood that they were not the creators.

Those northern tributaries had swollen and rushed down the valleys as far away as Malawi turning the lazy Zambezi into a raging torrent that had swept all living in its plain before it. But here, two thousand kilometres south of that great spectacle even the air burnt hot as one inhaled it into ready leathery lungs, depleted by the exertion of this ramble.

A confused Water Monitor looked up at me almost to say, "What have you done with it, where is my water", and I thought of Al Gore and his recent documentary. I stopped and watched it as it half rolled in the small trickling pool of last seasons excess.

The "Sonbessies" (Sun Beatle) started the spluttering of what would climax and settle into their high pitched song, their invitation to mate reverberating through the thick bush which over the years, in search of sustenance threatened to invade and colonise the dry river bed. The smell of the drying bush herbs was overpowering, and as the sweat of the exertion of this walk trickled through the head band of my old salt stained leather hat and into my eyes, I stopped to survey the path I had walked.

As I once again quenched my seemingly undying thirst from already my second tepid water bottle, I noticed a movement around two hundred meters down stream. I brought the field glasses up to my saline overflowing eyes and there filling my now magnified vision was a leopard, walking along the exact same path that I had walked but five minutes before.