I remember as a small child, of
around five years that dinners were usually followed by a short drive by car
till Lemat, the Government Farm on the Arbaminch-Addis Abeba road. Sometimes we
were accompanied by another Indian couple Mr. And Mrs. Kingston in their car.
On these trips we were able to see the ubiquitous Jalada baboons, along with,
deer of various sizes and types , Hyenas, wild dogs, porcupines scurrying across the road, and of
course the usual pythons. Sometimes we
came across a Red-Indian American who used to hunt for deer with his bow and
arrow. I often wondered how brave he must have been to be in the dangerous
jungle with nothing but a bow and arrows, and a hunting knife. His name, I
remember was Mr. Delville ( He and his Nurse wife returned to the states after
the revolution. They had been allotted land to farm and set up a hospital).
My father carried with him a
Beretta semi-automatic on these trips having faith that it would be a good
enough deterrent should a wild animal attack us. That the forest close to Lemat
was dangerous became clear on one particular trip! After having an early
dinner, we bundled ourselves into my father’s VW-Variant car and set off
towards Lemat. On the way we came across deer and baboons which according to my
father were behaving strangely! According to him, they appeared to be rather
nervous and shifty, because on earlier trips we had observed that the deer were
fearless! My father then declared that we would see some “big ones” meaning
that he was sure that there were lions nearby, and that was why the animals
were edgy!
After traveling a few more kilometers my father suddenly braked hard and pointed towards some very red
pairs of eyes off the road in the midst of a cotton plantation! He declared,
“Look, those are lions!” That was indeed a pride of lions, a whole family in
fact. There was a male, a female and two cubs and they were simply staring at
us from the distance! I remember that father carried in the car a sealed beam
which was connected to the power supply through a long lead. He then stepped
out of the car on to the road and pointed the beam towards the lions. I
remember trembling with trepidation how the eyes of the lions shone brighter
when the beam of light fell on their eyes! We all called out to my father to
return forthwith to the safety of the car, which he did rather reluctantly!
This was our first sighting of lions in the Arbaminch area, and boy, were we
excited!
We returned to the town, and my
father then told Mr. Kingston and his wife about the sighting, and then they
too decided to accompany us to see the lions, if they were still there! That
day we made a second trip in two cars and were pleasantly surprised to see the
pride of lions sitting on the road itself! After a brief moment, the male lion
leapt off the road into the jungle, while the mother and her cubs got up and
walked back towards the cotton plantation with all the dignity they had. The
moment is etched in my mind, specially the spectacle of seeing the pride of
lions reclining on the road, bathed in the beams of the car, hardly a few yards
away!
The next day, when my father told
the Director of the Arbaminch Comprehensive Senior Secondary School, it was
receive a scolding not to do such a foolish thing as to confront a pride of
lions even if within the protection of a car. He further told my father that
lions were known to jump on to the tops of even sturdy Land Rovers causing
damage and possible injury to those inside!
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