Letaka Moments: Cats are Cats

3 minute read

Mababe.

Two years ago, we reached the banks of the Mababe River with our exclusive access to the private concession. There is quite an interesting history around it. Although Mababe has been around for quite some time, the establishment of the surrounding national parks and game reserves had a profound impact on the communities living in this wild landscape, with people losing access to large parts of their traditional lands.

But this isn’t a story about the history of Mababe.

This is a story about an oil lamp and a pride of lions.

It was a particularly dry period of time. With poor summer rains and a dry season that came too early, May in 2024 was already more crispy and dry than it should have been. By this stage, there was hardly even grass scrunching and crunching beneath our feet. It was just dusty, dry earth.

We’d made our way through a dampish Moremi on the first leg of our Northern Highlights safari and landed in Mababe. The river running next to camp was a welcomed sight and sound, with the orchestra of frogs and hippos singing us bushveld lullabies.

But there was just one thing that was annoying me.

There was this oil lamp right outside my tent flaps that was shining through the shade cloth. Bright orange and red, flickering as the surroundings got darker and darker.

On my way back to the tent after dinner, I asked William, the camp hand, if I could blow out the lights because I couldn’t sleep with it on.

He looked at me in a nervous kind of way.

“Eh, muna [man], I think just leave it.”

“Agh, fine,” I thought.

I went to sleep that night with the sounds of hyenas and lions in the distance. A cool breeze gently blew the flaps of the tent softly, and I drifted asleep watching the tent flaps rhythmically waving at me.

“What was that?”

I woke up abruptly.

Sounds of scratching and thumping.

I looked through my shade net.

Surrounded on all sides. Shadows of a pride of lions cast by the oil lamp.

Cubs. Lionesses. Thirteen of them. Closer and closer they came.

I tried to grab my phone and a flashlight – when you press a camera and flashlight against the shade cloth, it would illuminate the outside.

But as I did it, I made too much noise. A lioness right outside my tent turned towards me. Staring towards the direction of the sound I made.

My jaw dropped.

I stopped breathing.

“Can she smell my morning breath?”

That was the last thought I had before she walked away with my tent bag in her mouth.

Cats are cats. Big or small. Domestic or wild.

I went back to sleep with the sounds of them running around camp, knocking over pots, stealing tent bags and play-fighting through the apple-leaf trees.

The oil lamp still burning – the image of a lion walking through imprinted in my mind.

The next morning, I went to Shaka, the lead guide, exclaiming, “Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what happened… the lions… and the shade net… the shadows… the tent bag….”

An unamused stare met my exclamation.

“That’s cute,” he says.

“Uhm… what do you mean?” I respond.

“One slept on me.”

“What?” I ask back.

“One slept on me, it must have sensed the warmth coming from the tent and it just lay on me, with the tent canvas separating us. I’ve never been so still for so long in my life.”

Well, I guess my part of the story was “cute” in comparison.

Only in Botswana, I guess!

Letaka moments – Spread your wings

-Raf