Imbali and the Cheshire Cat Moon

You’d think sitting six feet above a four thousand pound animal was a regular occurrence for this five year old girl. It is. She looks like I did at her age: her once tow headed locks now dishwater blonde. Only difference is the eye color, her’s are deep brown; mine vary from green, grey, to blue, according to my mood.. Or so an ex boyfriend told me once.

I sit with Jamie Lee on a triangular platform of faded pine planks. An eight year old male white rhino named Danger stands motionless in the boma ten feet underneath us. Jamie Lee’s siSwati name is Imbali, meaning "flower". I call her by her English moniker. though, perhaps because Jamie Lee Curtis is my favorite American actress, the first one to make short hair sexy in Hollywood. Jamie Lee and I both have boyishly cropped hairstyles.

Since seven in the morning we’ve hung out with three bachelor rhinos destined for South Africa. Swaziland will soon be a memory, new citizenship and fresh females on a new game park in their immediate future. This unusual start to the day is surreal, a childhood dream manifestation fueled four decades ago by Sunday afternoon’s mesmerized by Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. For Jamie Lee it’s just another day with Dad, the manager of the Mkhaya Game Reserve. The South Africans and are busy luring each slightly drugged rhino with white, plastic feed sacks attached at the end of a knobthorn stick. The first did not go quietly, prodded in sensitive, private parts with a cattle prod then hesitantly pulled "tug of war" style out of the stall. Jamie Lee actually yawns. She wants to pop tar bubbles.

We start with the dry crusty spheres, moving stealthily from vertical post to post. It quickly becomes a competition, and being a grown-up with a bit more height, I have a distinct advantage; I can see the bubbles first. It’s getting heated in a playful way, when I suggest we take a break. Danger has a pink dart in his left shoulder, will soon be tricked with crinkly noises and sweet feed on his way to another country. I want to watch, having traveled halfway around the globe for just this sort of adventure. The eye roll from Jamie Lee is followed by an exasperated declaration of the obvious, "Chrys, It’s only a rhino."

Explanations futile, I sit down to watch Danger politely follow the bait into a waiting lorry. No fight, no resistance. Seems he observed the struggles of his kind earlier and took note. Jamie Lee sighs and plops down beside me. Accepting defeat, she changes her tack. "Can you tell me a story then?"

The oral tradition is not my strength. My stories are scribbled on napkins and old paper lunch sacks, sometimes making a successful transition to a computer hard drive. My brain spins as I try to find a good tale to tell, deciding to steal from the best. Something from Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland. It’s time for Jamie Lee to meet the Cheshire Cat.

In my quietest "wildlife voice" I begin. She’ll like this one. Starts with a strong willed girl chasing a talking rabbit down a hole. Rabbits in the side yard of the Mkhaya house are the only version of a pet allowed to her and her baby sister. Jamie Lee’s favorite is a little black one she calls Black Jack..Trying my best to be true to the children’s literature classic, I know I’m getting it wrong. Can remember the exact chronology. Does Alice meet the smiling cat before or after encountering the hookah smoking caterpillar? Is the tea party with the Mad Hatter over with? Does the unusual tabby make it’s appearance post catastrophic shrinking spells and monumental growth spurts? No matter, she needs to meet and love the Cheshire Cat. Tonight Swaziland’s moon demands it.

I modify Alice’s adventure’s; she has tea with the cat before he crawls into a tree branch to perform his signature disappearing act.. The last bit I get exactly right; it’s my favorite part of the book. My audience of one is hooked.

" Chrys, do you have a cat like that?"

" No, but we all have the Cheshire Cat in our lives." She’s perplexed.

"Where? How?"

" Look up tonight and search for the moon. Tonight it’s time for the Cheshire Cat to come for a visit.. His smile let’s us know he’s around, alive and well and watching over us. Alice, your Dad, your Mum, your sister. Everybody in the world, including you and me." She smiles. Her eyes sparkle and in that moment I understand why the Mkhaya rangers gave her the name they did. She is the best kind of imbali, the wild and curious kind.

I may have started something, can picture Imbali pestering her parents to stay up past her bedtime to watch a smiley, feline moon in the African sky. Below Danger drunkenly takes slow, determined steps into the lorry. The trio of three white rhinos pulls away from Mkhaya forever. Her father calls his oldest daughter for the short drive home. She scrambles down the ladder towards the Land Rover, calling to me as she jumps in the passenger seat." Tell me more about Alice next time we meet?"

And my dilemma begins. What in the hell is Alice going to do with the Mad Hatter?

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