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"Food and Animals"
The animal, a male specie, scratched its balls and then its head. Was
it trying to tell Tom, "Do you really have balls enough to defend this picnic
basket?"
FOOD & ANIMALS
I have worked in many places on this globe. Thinking of
animals, Africa comes to my mind, more precise, South Africa, the Krueger National Park or
Botswana and the Chobe(1) resort. But I also recall an
incident at the mountain overlooking the Cape. I was fortunate to spend a few good years
in South Africa, a country which reminds me of giant steps. It has its highest point in
the Transvaal where Johannesburg and Pretoria are located. From this upper plateau one
step down is the Orange Freestate. Then another terrace and another and the last one ends
in the mountain plateau before the final step down to just above sea-level. From this last
mountain one can see on a clear day Cape Town in a distance and the land's end.
I will never forget my first visit to Cape Town
coming from Johannesburg by car. I stopped, in one of the many turnouts, along the
serpentine road leading from the top of the mountain to the flat land below. With me were
Albert from Austria and Tom, an American friend. Neither one of us had ever been to Cape
Town before and the setting in front stunned all of us. Below fertile land, cut up in many
parcels, some green, some freshly plowed, dotted with farms and outlying houses. The roads
led to a larger concentration of roofs and an occasional tall building sticking out from
the city of Cape Town in the far distance. The peninsula in front of us was framed only by
the green, blue and gray colors of the oceans and the rock plateau from where we viewed
the land below. It was a breezy, clear day.
South of the city where the land ended we knew that
such must be the Cape of Good Hope. There it was, the famous point where the cursed flying
Dutchman is said to have originated. Over the centuries many sailors have reported
sightings of the doomed vessel rounding one of the three points which make up the most
southern tip of Africa.
The three of us were looking forward to discovering the
city dating back to the sixteenth century. We planned to visit first the wineries in
Stellenbosch. We wanted to take pictures of the Castle of Good Hope built in the early
17th century and to visit the many beaches. I passed my binoculars to Albert and looked
forward to our visit of the History Museum, curios to find out more about the jewel in
front of us.
Albert had read to us, on the trip since Joh'burg,
from a book about the Cape. Our excitement and the level of expectations had risen as we
got closer to our destination Cape Town. The more I heard about the Cape, the more did I
want to see the historic places in southern Africa. Tom who seemed to have a never ending
appetite for food had found the picnic basket being more important than the unbelievable
birds-eye-view over the land beneath us. I noticed that Tom was busy eating. He was
grazing on cold hot dogs, ostrich biltong, passion fruits and apples.
I was deep in thought. Next to me Albert was reading
aloud from an article about the Dutch East India Company and the colony in the 17th
century, when we heard a fierce scream. Like bitten by a tarantula both of us jumped and
turned to Tom.
Instantly I drew my pistol. What I saw was Tom,
catching air and trying to kick a monkey away from the picnic basket. His "Go away
you ugly bold legged monster!" was countered by the animal's screeching, growling and
hissing sounds. The baboon did not leave. It jumped back a few feet. There it sat on the
yellow dusty ground. It looked inquisitive at the angry Tom. The animal's eyes scrutinized
us. It kept an eye at the cussing Tom.
The animal, a male specie, scratched its balls and
then its head. Was it trying to tell Tom, "Do you really have balls enough to defend
this picnic basket?" The monkey was not easily frightened. As Tom stepped closer, the
monkey did not leave but escaped a blow from his shoes by finding a way past Tom's legs to
the basket, grabbing an apple it retreated to a ravine.
All happened so fast that Tom was still trying to
get his balance back after the unsuccessful kick, while the monkey had long reached the
safety of the for humans impassable terrain.
I lowered the pistol. I didn't see any sense in
shooting a baboon. Maybe such was good thinking? When a whole horde of the monkeys arrived
I was ready to vacate the scenic spot. Nothing could have stopped them from getting into
the picnic basket. Tom's actions looked funny first. The monkeys, one by one, attacked the
food basket. Tom was screaming at them, fending them off with kicks. I watched one animal
been thrown into the air. The tip of Tom's boots got a second monkey. As these baboons
regrouped Tom threw stones at them. Yet they refused to leave. And the food basket sat
smck in the middle in the dust, just aproximately six meters from Tom as well as six
meters from the hissing baboons.
We both, Albert and myself, sensed the danger in
which our friend Tom was. We gestured and shouted: "Tom! Get into the car!"
"Leave the basket!"
Tom must have noticed he was outnumbered but still he
did not give up. As he made a move to retrieve the basket, I grabbed him with my left and
dragged him off to our car. Surrounded by aggravated baboons, the pistol in my right I
fired a shot onto the ground. It ricocheted from the rock and sent stones flying in the
air. The loud bang and another two shots gave us the space and time needed to get inside
the car.
As we drove off, heading downhill, we left the
grunting and fighting baboons behind us. We all realized that this had been a dangerous
situation and Tom would not have stood much of a chance to win a fight for food with the
local wild baboons.
Tom summed it up "It doesn't matter where you
go in Africa, never underestimate those locals."
1. Chobe is a wilderness resort in Botswana land. It happens to be
also the place where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton got married the last time (third
marriage to each other).
GoTo The
Milieu 6
last updated
01/03/09
