Life is like a game reserve

 No Forest, it’s not like a box of chocolates - unless  they’re the new Quality Streets which have left the soul of South Africa very perplexed at Christmas time. Remixing packaging and leaving the fruitier flavours out has left many guessing as to what they’re gonna get…but no, life is like a game reserve. 

I wouldn’t say I’m a game reserve fundi. I don’t go all ‘when Harry met Sally eating a sandwich incident’ when I smell the unique aroma of thatch and bedspreads that haven’t been updated since the 80s and immediately fall into a reverie imagining lamb chops on the braai at Satara. 

I also don’t need to stop my vehicle for every brown bird that comes along. Give me the big show birds like a secretary bird or a kingfisher or anything with flashy colours and I’ll say, ‘That’s naas.’ And move on with my life.

I have, however, had the uniquely South African experience of growing up in a country littered with game reserves. Travel a few hours in any direction and you’ll stumble across a fenced piece of land that stands as a reminder of how kiff this place was before we built shipping centres. parking lots and Virgin Actives. And because of Stephen’s work as a travel journalist I have had the opportunity of staying in some pretty swishy spots.

And so the first reflection I would like to make is one that fits into my initial category of game reserves mirroring life.

1. The Five Star Experience. If you’ve had this experience you’ll know what I’m talking about. The one where game drives are orchestrated extravaganzas of game viewing. Where you will flit from a lion kill to a nursing rhino in the flick of a magical ranger’s wrist. The one where you have a tracker who can smell a leopard five kilometres away and who can tell you that the spoor of that eland indicates that she’s carrying a little extra weight on her hindquarters because she overindulged in the acacia forest last week Thursday. This is the kind of experience where the wild dogs have individual pet names and the ranger is one with the daga bull of the buffalo herd. At some point in your foray you’ll stop in the most secluded spot of the wildest part of the reserve to discover a romantic picnic set out for you under the stars with lanterns and snacks and a bottle of champagne. Nothing is left to chance in this kind of life - if you’re paying the big money you deserve to only see the best and the radio between rangers is sometimes the only soundtrack you will hear as they desperately seek to ensure that you get the experience you paid for. I remember at the end of a couple of days of truly astounding sightings of leopards and black rhinos and unicorns the American woman on our drive eventually sighed and asked, ‘Please can we see some zeeebrahs?’ What I’m talking about is privilege. And there’s a lot of that going around in the upper echelons of any society, but in South African it is more pronounced. It speaks of those who feel that because they have money and power they deserve everything immediately and often with very little work. It means that they feel entitled to roar around from one spot to the other without truly understanding the joy that can be had when one documents an ‘own leopard’. It is a sad reflection that life at the top is often about instant gratification, laziness and the belief that others must do the heavy lifting for you.

2. Then there’s what I like to call ‘The Mkuzi Experience’ after my recent foray there. The area has always been wild. It’s not some nouveau reserve that is actually mainly reclaimed farm land where you can still see the contour lines of an old irrigated maize field, it’s the real deal. And the animals take their aversion to people seriously. We had friends who went there and all they saw was a tortoise, literally. If you see an animal of any major description at Mkuzi you must take it as sacred. We spent the last of our holiday budget on a night game drive with one of the resident rangers. We did it mainly so that Gray could have a full game reserve experience because pickings were slim during the day unless you’re into impala. Our first sighting was of a bunny. Eva’s year was made and she ticked her one animal viewing request off her list. We then managed to catch a glimpse of an elephant’s bum before it disappeared into the thick bush.  It went full ninja on us in the definition of a split second. Gray then went to sleep on Stephen’s lap. We were then charged by a hippo, saw three rhino (they are hardly ever spotted in Mkuzi) and came across two male lion ambling along the road. And Gray missed it all despite our literally trying to shake him awake. And so, as with game reserve experiences, sometime you miss out on something. Sometimes what everyone else experiences is not what you experienced. Sometimes maybe the charging hippo might have been a bit too frightening for you and so maybe it is best that the experience for you was the comfort of sleeping with your dad as a land cruiser cut its way through the camouflage that is Mkuzi.

3. The Smarties In The Back Experience. When we got to our first hide at Mkuzi my kids hadn’t quite grasped the whole silence thing yet. We arrived at the hide where several retired twitchers were marvelling over malba finches. Eva then lost her… sense of humour and we promptly had to leave again. A lady whispered that when they had small children and were driving around a game reserve and they spotted anything worth stopping for she and her husband would throw a handful of Smarties into the back of their vehicle and leave their children to fight it out so that they could do some good game viewing. After that chat we put down all the seats of our Pajero and left the children to their own devices. Our children experienced vehicular travel as we did in the 80s. Very little rules, many wine gums and the odd impassioned lecture from their parents. We saw very little and it was very hot but one lives in the hope that the planets will align and the fantasies that you have built up with your children for the past six months will come true and they will actually see a pack of wild dogs killing an elephant. But life isn’t like that either and parenting can be gruelling. It can be about finding silver linings when you don’t actually have any yourself. It is almost always about self-control. And it’s about being ok that the Leap Pad is playing ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ for the 17th time.

4. The Fear Experience. The first thing I noticed when unpacking into our safari tent (that was positioned in an unfenced section of the reserve) was the massive snake skin dangling from the wire mesh that served as a ceiling for our bathroom. It wasn’t ideal. If you’ve read any of my previous blogs you’ll know that I’m not into snakes, particularly if my children happen to be in the same vicinity as a possible serpent. I was also not wild about the idea of hyenas regularly raiding the camp - and there were several warnings dotted around. There were also baboons, scorpions, lions, malaria   mosquitoes and bush babies to consider. And sunburn. And dehydration. And arm bands. As I’ve also said before with holidays like this - they’re not exactly intended to be relaxing for mothers. But neither is life. At the moment I have a friend who has just begun the incredibly challenging journey of facing and fighting her little boy’s cancer. And another one marked the one year anniversary of the still birth of her perfect son yesterday. And another regularly sends me pictures of her baby boy who she lost to a terrible dose of pneumonia last year. Game reserves bring out what is already there for mothers. The intense fight or flight response one is constantly on when trying to work out how one can possible keep them safer. And the terrible reality is that we can’t - sometimes the hyenas come and we just have to have faith that we will be brave enough to fight them.

5. The Hidden Gem Experience. Some game reserves aren’t what I would call ‘buga mina’. They don’t have The Big Five and the most exciting thing you’ll see is a nyala. They’re just a patch of beautiful, protected land that isn’t trying to be anything other than that. They are nice for picnics and gentle camping trips. They are humble and sedate. And sometimes in life that is all one should wish for. There is something deeply powerful about contentment, about enjoying a moment for what it is without rushing off to find the next big thing. Being still and present and appreciating an experience (or life) for what it is holds deep sway at a cellular level of our souls.

6. The ‘I Brake For Birds’ Experience. Yes, it is a bumper sticker. Yes, I’m considering getting it as a stocking filler for all my in-laws this Christmas. Yes, I forced them to create a separate family Whatsapp group that I am not party to that purely discusses birds because I got over having to scroll through bird banter on the family group. Yes, I have on occasion fallen asleep when they start talking about birds. But there is something to be said about appreciating the small things. There is a fine art to moving slowly and carefully and deliberately so as not to disturb a delicate little feathered thing. Birders in my experience are gentle people, observant people, funny people. To them a watering hole can be devoid of all animals and yet be an enchanting place of tremendous potential and discovery. When you’re a birder your verandah in the middle of a Maritzburg suburb becomes a spot worth watching. And birders never run out of things to look for because there’s always that Pel’s Fishing Owl that got away and that sneaky bat hawk and that ever illusive twin spot. (Obviously this is all verbatim from Stephen - I’m still really not into birds). But I get why you can be into birds because if you can find small things to celebrate in life that may seem inconsequential to some but everything to you then you are doing well. If your patience, silence and ability to sit on a hard wooden bench for hours results in a moment of rare victory then I can get on board. If you are prepared to brake for the small things maybe you’ll have more chance of seeing the bigger things too.

And so, whether it is the lessons you learnt at Kruger under the sycamore fig at Lower Sabi, or as a child waking to the sound of rhinos munching outside your tent at Spionkop or crossing the river mouth at Kosi Bay these wild places teach us so much about ourselves and who we are. Life is indeed like a game reserve because nature, and the great spirit that lives within nature, are perhaps our greatest teachers.