Joe wished his parents had been able to choose window seats so that he could watch the plane coming in to land, but because there were four of them they often wound up in the middle rows on larger aircraft. He tried to see past his family to the window on the far side, but all that was visible was a small square of blue.
‘Are you OK, Joe?’ Peter asked him. ‘You look a bit glum.’
Before Joe could answer, the plane’s engines began to roar, there was a series of loud clunks, and a few seconds later a hefty bump shook the whole fuselage, followed by another. The engines screamed and Joe felt himself being pushed back in his seat, until at last the plane slowed enough for him to be able to relax.
‘That wasn’t the smoothest landing,’ his father said cheerily.
‘The pilot should have to take his test again,’ said Aesha, pursing her lips.
‘Shall I go and tell him?’ Peter offered.
Aesha glared at him. ‘You’re not funny, Dad.’
Peter put his arm round her. ‘Sorry, darling. I must try harder.’
‘I thought we were going to crash-land!’ said Joe.
The plane taxied to a halt and everyone jumped to their feet. Joe waited until his neighbour had moved forward down the aisle before standing up. Now he could really enjoy the start of the trip.
‘How long till we go on safari?’ he asked his mother, as they waited to disembark.
‘We’ll spend this evening and tomorrow morning in Nairobi, then set off for the Maasai Mara after lunch,’ said Binti. ‘There’s somewhere in Nairobi I want us to visit before we leave.’
She wouldn’t tell Joe where, but assured him he would like it. He and Aesha tried to find out more during the taxi ride to the hotel, but their parents stubbornly refused to provide even the slightest clue.
‘One thing at a time,’ said Peter. ‘First you need to shower and change into some fresh clothes, because this evening we’re going somewhere very, very special to eat. As for tomorrow – tomorrow is another day.’
Chapter 4
The special place to eat was a big open-air restaurant where they served every variety of meat, including ostrich, crocodile and zebra. Joe couldn’t believe his eyes when they walked in. There was a huge charcoal pit just inside the entrance, into which numerous waiters thrust long skewers covered with meat, withdrawing them when the meat was cooked and carrying them to the eager diners.
‘Those skewers are traditional Maasai warrior swords,’ said Peter, as they were shown to their table.
‘Are we really going to eat crocodile?’ Joe was incredulous.
‘I’m not!’ said Aesha. ‘And I’m not going to eat ostrich or zebra, either.’
‘But that’s why people come here – to try something different,’ Peter said. ‘You won’t find endangered species on the menu, and the amount of wild meat on offer is very carefully controlled.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Aesha. ‘It doesn’t seem right to eat it when we’ve come all this way to see these animals alive.’
‘I suppose it’s no different from eating lamb or chicken,’ Joe mused, though he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of crocodile, which he guessed would be tough. ‘I would never eat elephant or rhino, or leopard or giraffe, though,’ he added.
‘And yet if they were plentiful and tasted good, there’d be no real reason not to,’ Binti replied.
Aesha pulled a face. ‘I’m going to have the vegetarian option,’ she said stubbornly.
‘That’s fine,’ said Binti. ‘The salads and vegetables look wonderful too.’
One by one, the waiters came to serve them, each carrying a sword loaded with a single meat. Joe watched with fascination as they held the swords, pointed end down, and carved slices of the different meats on to his sizzling, cast-iron plate. To start with there was beef, lamb and spare ribs. Next came chicken wings and sirloin steak.
‘Tuck in,’ Peter encouraged. ‘There’s plenty more to come.’
Joe tried each of the meats in turn. He had never tasted anything quite so good, even though his father was a brilliant cook. When the sword laden with ostrich arrived, he hesitated at first, then asked for just a small piece. It was so delicious, however, he couldn’t wait for the waiter to return with more.
‘The waiters will keep coming back to top up our plates until we take down that little white flag in the middle of the table,’ Peter explained. ‘That’s how we let them know we’re full.’
‘I’m full now!’ declared Aesha, who was working her way through a platter piled high with salads and cheeses.
‘No room for crocodile?’ Peter asked.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about making it snappy,’ Aesha said scornfully.
‘Here’s the crocodile now,’ said Binti, as a waiter approached carrying a sword covered with small circles of pale-coloured meat.
Joe allowed him to slide two pieces on to his plate.
‘It doesn’t look how I imagined it would,’ he remarked, staring dubiously at the two pieces. He tasted one of them, but pushed the other aside. ‘Too chewy,’ he said, and contented himself with a jumbo sausage that had also appeared on his plate.
Shortly after, he joined Aesha in deciding that he was too full to eat another thing.
‘I feel like an elephant,’ Aesha grumbled.
‘They don’t serve it here,’ said Peter, which earned him a prolonged scowl.
‘Do you think it’s right that we sit here, eating mountains of food, in a continent where some people are starving?’ Aesha asked bluntly.
‘That’s a difficult one,’ said Binti. ‘It’s never “right” that some people have plenty while others starve. But our custom here will help put food on the tables of families who might otherwise go without, and this is a one-off evening of indulgence.’
Despite his parents’ reassurances, Joe felt uncomfortable now with the heap of undigested meat sitting in his stomach. Tiredness was overwhelming him and all he wanted to do was go back to their hotel and sleep.
The moment the bill had been paid, he struggled to his feet and leant against his mother for support.
‘Someone’s had enough,’ she said, stroking his hair. ‘We’d better get you to bed or you won’t have any energy for tomorrow’s treat.’
‘Which is?’ Aesha jumped in, hoping to catch her mother out.
‘Which is for you to find out tomorrow,’ Binti said, smiling.
As soon as they returned to the hotel, Joe fell into bed and snuggled down under the crisp white sheets. It was hard to believe that only that morning he had woken up in his own bed, eager for their journey to begin. Now, here he was in Africa, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the Nairobi night and reliving the events of the day.
He began to mull over their evening in the restaurant. The one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind was the fact that one of the animals he had most wanted to see was an ostrich, and yet he had eaten ostrich meat before he had even seen a real, live one! He wasn’t sure he liked that idea very much, but reminded himself that he would quite happily eat beef and watch young calves at play in the same day.
If I decide to be a vet, I’ll have to cope with things like that all the time, he thought.
Deciding he would prefer to follow in his father’s footsteps, he fell asleep.
Chapter 5
Joe was overjoyed when, the next morning, Binti announced that they were going to visit an elephant orphanage.
‘There’s only a one-hour viewing slot, so we mustn’t be late,’ she said.
‘Will there be any calves? And will we be able to get close to them?’ Joe wanted to know as they set off from the hotel.
‘There might be one or two very young calves, but most will be older, I believe,’ Binti replied. ‘I’m sure I can arrange for us to see them close up.’
‘That’s the advantage of having an international vet for a mother,’ said Peter. ‘She can open many doors that would otherwise be out of bounds.’
Joe hel
d his camera case tightly as they waited for their taxi to arrive to take them to the orphanage, which was located on the outskirts of Nairobi.
It was a beautiful morning, though it had rained heavily during the night, and Joe was surprised at how green everything was. He had assumed that the landscape would be parched and dusty, and was surprised, too, at all the high-rise buildings that broke up the skyline.
‘Nairobi is like a lot of cities, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Yeah, it’s very noisy,’ said Aesha.
‘I didn’t expect it to be so sort of . . . modern,’ he added.
‘It’s a big melting pot,’ said Peter. ‘It’s a real mix of skyscrapers, restaurants, cafés, shops and offices, parks and gardens, a number of very affluent housing complexes, and there are also the most appalling slums, where about half the city’s population lives. But Nairobi really stands out from other cities in that it has a national park right on its doorstep. Nairobi National Park is home to four of the Big Five, as well as numerous other animals and birds.’
‘Cool!’ exclaimed Joe. ‘Can we go there?’
‘The orphanage is just on the border of the park,’ said Binti. ‘You might see some animals while we’re there, but we’re saving most of our game viewing till we go on safari.’
Joe pulled a face. He would have been quite happy to see wild animals every hour and minute of their trip.
He didn’t have to wait long. As the taxi took them towards their destination, the driver told them to look to their right. To Joe’s amazement, there was a giraffe striding across a wide open space towards a clump of low-growing trees, with the cityscape in the background.
‘Wow!’ cried Aesha. ‘You just wouldn’t expect to see a giraffe so close to houses! Imagine looking out of your bedroom window and being able to see a wild animal like that!’
I’d love to live here, Joe thought. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than having wild animals roaming right outside your window.
He kept his eyes peeled for the rest of the journey, hoping to see more animals, but soon the taxi driver pulled up outside some gates and told them that they had arrived. They piled out of the car and joined the queue to get into the orphanage. Joe looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. He didn’t want to miss one second of his time with the elephants and willed the gates to open.
An official came to the entrance and ushered them through. They were shepherded to an expanse of scrubby ground dotted with small trees, which stretched away into the distant horizon.
A large area close by was cordoned off with rope along one side and an official asked the group of spectators to stand behind it.
‘What do you think is going to happen?’ whispered Joe to his mother. ‘Where are the elephants?’
‘Wait and see.’ Binti smiled at him.
‘You’d better get your camera out, Joe,’ Peter said, adjusting the lens on his video camera. ‘You won’t want to miss this.’
Joe took his camera from its case and held it at the ready. Several keepers in green overalls spilled out from the orphanage building, one of them kicking a football, another pulling a cart loaded with feeding bottles. Joe expected the elephants to appear from somewhere behind them, but suddenly a keeper pointed in the direction of the park.
‘They are coming,’ the keeper announced.
All Joe could see at first was another man in green overalls. Then he spotted a small browny-grey shape trundling along after him.
‘Oh, look!’ cried Aesha. ‘It’s a baby, and there’s a bigger one following it!’
‘I can see three now!’ cried Joe. ‘Four!’
Altogether, there were nine elephants in the procession. As they came closer, a spokesperson informed the crowd that the youngest was only three months old and that his mother had been shot by poachers. The same fate had met the mothers of five of the other calves, while two calves had been rescued from wells and the final one had been orphaned when his mother died from illness.
As the elephants reached the roped-off area, the keepers each took a bottle of milk and chose an elephant to feed. Joe could hardly contain his excitement – he was almost able to touch them and one was being given its bottle right in front of him.
‘We feed them every three hours, day and night, just like their mothers would,’ said the spokesperson. ‘And we sleep with them too, one keeper to each elephant, though we swap around so that they don’t become too attached to a particular individual.’
The bottles were finished in no time and several of the elephants headed for a large pool of muddy water, running into it and splashing around, much to the delight of the crowd. Two of the keepers started to kick the football to each other, encouraging the elephants to join in. Joe couldn’t help laughing when one of the smaller elephants stopped the ball with one foot then kicked it away with another, before hurtling after it and trying to swipe it with its trunk.
‘That’s a big advantage, having four feet and a trunk to use,’ said Peter.
It wasn’t such an advantage for one calf, which got the ball caught between its back legs and sat down on it. Meanwhile, the elephants in the pool were lumbering backwards and forwards and squirting each other with water from their trunks. The youngest tried to clamber out, found the sides too high and slid back in on its tummy, bumping into another that was standing behind it and knocking it off its feet.
‘They’re hilarious!’ Aesha was entranced.
Joe thought it was one of the best hours he had ever spent and took one photograph after another. All too quickly, though, the fun and games were over, as the elephants were led back into the park for the afternoon and the crowd was asked to leave. Joe turned to follow everyone else, but just then the spokesperson called his and Aesha’s names and signalled for them to go with him. Joe looked questioningly at his father, who shrugged his shoulders and told him to blame his mother.
They soon found themselves standing in front of an enclosure containing two goats and the orphanage’s most recent arrival – a two-month-old rhino calf, whose mother had been shot by poachers.
‘It’s so cute! I told you baby rhinos are cute,’ he said to Aesha. ‘What’s its name?’ he asked the keeper.
‘His name is Rombo,’ the keeper replied.
To Joe and Aesha’s delight, they were invited to take it in turns feeding Rombo from a large bottle with a teat on the end.
‘He hasn’t quite got the idea that there’s something good for him in the bottle, so squirt the milk at his mouth until he tastes it and works out where it’s coming from,’ the keeper suggested.
Joe did as he was told, spraying the milk until Rombo turned towards him and, with a bit of help from the keeper, latched on to the teat.
‘If this little chap’s mother hadn’t been killed, he would have stayed with her for the first two to three years of his life. She would have taught him everything he needed to know to survive.’
‘Poor Rombo,’ said Aesha.
Joe studied the thick grey hide of the calf and the bump on his nose that would become his horn.
‘His ears look like trumpets,’ he said.
‘Those ears are perfect for hearing,’ said the keeper, ‘which is just as well, because those little eyes are very short-sighted.’
Rombo finished his milk in no time and trundled away to harass the goats.
‘He is very happy that you have decided to adopt him.’ Rombo’s keeper grinned at Aesha and Joe, and winked at Binti.
‘From now on, we’ll be paying for his upkeep and the orphanage will send us news about his progress every month,’ said Binti.
Joe was thrilled. ‘That’s so cool!’
Chapter 6
The rest of the day, after the Brook family had left the orphanage and collected their suitcases from the hotel, was spent travelling from Nairobi to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The journey took several hours in a four-wheel drive, along roads pitted with deep holes and slippery with mud from the pouring rain. Joe slept much
of the time, waking only to wonder if the rain would ever stop and to marvel that they were able to keep going on a road that presented so many challenges.
By the time they reached the Maasai Mara, darkness had fallen. Peter told them that they were going to stay on a campsite just inside the border of the reserve, rather than in a hotel. Aesha groaned loudly, but Joe couldn’t imagine anything better.
‘Are we really going to be sleeping in a tent? Will there be wild animals close by?’ he asked.
‘It’s very likely we’ll hear animals in the night, but they don’t normally come into the camps,’ Binti assured him, presuming he had asked because he was worried.
‘I think it would be amazing to have wild animals prowling around,’ said Joe.
Aesha snorted. ‘You wouldn’t think it was amazing if one came into the tent.’
‘There’s not much chance of that,’ said Peter. ‘The camps are patrolled by rangers.’
The tents were much bigger than Joe had expected and he was pleased to hear he would be sharing one with his father.
‘You’d better not snore!’ he warned him.
‘For someone who likes the idea of wild animals prowling around, I don’t think my snoring will cause much disturbance,’ Peter responded.
After they’d eaten a hearty meal with another group of travellers and shared stories round a campfire, they returned to their tents for the night. Joe tried to make himself comfortable on his hard bed with its thin pillow and listened to the noises that drifted in from outside, trying to identify the sounds of animals beyond the human voices and movements.
Joe must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he was aware of was the low rumble of his father’s snoring and, apart from that, nothing but silence. He was bursting to go to the loo! The toilets were a short walk away and Binti had told him it was perfectly safe to go in the night, but Joe lay there for some time, reluctant to venture out.
‘You won’t catch me leaving my tent in the night, patrol or no patrol!’ Aesha had said.
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