Wednesday, July 24, 2013

With Moses in the Wilderness

Here in Africa, many African-Americans - sorry, I mean African-Africans - have interesting names. On yesterday's game drive, the driver, before setting off, launched into a long introduction. He spoke with the slow manner of speaking that some Africans use, in which they draw out each syllable in a painfully long amount of time. "Myyyyyy  naaaaame," he said slowly, "is Civilized. C - i - v - i - l - i - z - e - d.  I  am  your driiiiii-veeerrrrr for todaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay." 
"Hi, Mr. Civilized," I said, "My name is Impatient. Can we get going?"

On this morning's game drive, the driver was called Moses. He led us through the wilderness, starting before dawn. We didn't see as many species as yesterday, but we did have the rare thrill of being in the midst of a huge buffalo herd, seeing a herd of elephants, and watching a leopard and her cub roaming around. The cub kept on launching surprise attacks at the mother, which she tolerated as only a mother can. Here's a picture that I took of the cub:


We watched them for quite a while, then headed off to meet up with the other jeeps, in order to make a minyan for shacharis out in the savannah. Meanwhile, two people on my jeep were quite desperate to go to, er, attend to a call of nature. But Moses didn't want to stop, because he was in a rush to meet up with the other jeeps. "Moses!" I thundered, "Let my people go!"

Later, back at the ranch, I took the following photograph of an impala at the water-hole by the dining room, which brought a certain passuk to mind:


And finally, here's a video clip of the leopards:

5 comments:

  1. I assume that for some if not most davening in the savannah must make for a spiritually uplifting atmosphere.

    ReplyDelete
  2. (1) It's ironic that a black-African would take the name Civilized when black-Americans take names that they think sound African or some random joining of phonemes.

    (2) I'd rather have a driver named Moses than Muhammad.

    I'm curious what kind of food you are eating there. Bottled water only?

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great photo of the cub. Why does he have his tongue out like that? It almost makes him look like a heraldic lion.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope you didn't really say that your name was "Impatient". That would be quite rude, and possibly a chillul hashem.

    -Dov in NJ

    ReplyDelete
  5. if the leapord cub went for you and you had a club would you be concerned. would it be an easy win for you.

    what type of ratio body weight do you need to be succesfull. my guess is if you are twice the weight of the predator and you have a club, there is not too much to be concerned

    is that too optimistic. ?

    or does it depend on a lot on the predator? which ones pound for pound make the fiercest opponents.

    ReplyDelete

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