1. Zebra

we saw it there the day before, under a tree, seemingly dead of natural causes. a zebra carcass, lying on its side untouched.

the next morning it does not remain untouched. it has friends. lots of them. vulture friends. something has eaten away it's rump during the dark and the vultures -- five of them, no six, eight, twenty -- attack the rest as the day dawns, endlessly streaming in. it is not a lovely sight and yet it is. so happy, they are, the vultures. to pull out the tongue. to stick their head in the eye socket and root around for something tasty inside. we watch. the zebra gets smaller. the vultures keep coming.

2. Elephant

we're eating eggs. toast. sausage. drinking tea. we're inside the little shelter where the fire is. the sun has been up for about an hour. we slept poorly. the hyena kept calling in the night with their awroo-awroo plaintive requests for leftovers. the lions roared too, from not as far away as one might hope. but it's during our breakfast that the elephants come. three of them. walking away, and then back towards us. a large male and two smaller beasts. they walk through the camp, pulling leaves off the trees with their trunks and stuffing them in their mouths. looking at us. the elephants.

3. Wildebeast

by the time we arrive, there are only six lions on what remains of the wildebeast. three more are on the hill, under a tree, sated. the six gather around the mostly bare ribs and gnaw and roar softly. satisfied. one goes at the face. the bits around the horns. a young male gets up, stretches, and yawns. then he walks toward us.

4. Ostrich Booty

first, she lowers her head and spreads her wings out, wagging them. he sees from a distance and approaches. at about ten yards he squats down to the ground and rocks from side to side like a metronome. she approves so she gets down on the ground and he comes running. he stands up straight for a moment, showing off his ghastly bare pink legs, then plops down on top of her and rocks from side to side. and that's how you get baby ostriches.

5. Vervet Monkey

i run, fast, low to the ground, ducking through acacia thickets, trying to keep my bow from snagging and to keep up with the Hadzabe. there are four of them, none older than eighteen, each with their own bow and three types of arrows, all handmade. one is just wood, for birds and the like. one is with a metal arrowhead, for medium sized creatures. one is rubbed with a poison they make from a dried plant. with it, they can drop a buffalo in fifteen minutes. later, as i watch, one bullseyes a dove in midflight, on a run, from twenty meters away. they are good shots.

now they are running, after what i do not know as i speak none of the click-language that they use. they wear nothing but the short pants the government has foisted on them, beads they've bought in town, and the occasional skin tunic. ten years ago they would have been naked. when i catch up, they've got their prey in a tree with an arrow through it. a vervet monkey. a mother, her baby still alive. one climbs up the tree to fetch the prizes and we make a fire in a nearby clearing using dung, dry grasses, kindling, and a bow-drill they make on the spot -- spinning it between their hands to make a smoulder into a flame.

the monkey is thrown on the fire whole. when it's been blackened, they pull it to a bed of fresh leaves where it is dismembered. the pieces are put back in the fire and roasted. then eaten. by us. by me.

i am offered the brain, a treat normally due the man who fired the killing arrow, but i decline. the taste of what i've already eaten sticks with me plenty. gamey. like old chicken. vervet monkey.

the baby, still alive, is tucked by it's head under one of the Hadzabe's belts. the babies are good food for the pregnant, so it will be brought back to the women at the campsite. there is no village. the Hadzabe sleep rough, under bent boughs, and walk to where they find things to hunt. on this day, they let us follow. deep in the bush. in Africa.

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and that's how the safari was. it was also 32 lions, three cheetah, two leopards, four crocodiles, and countless hyena, jackal, elephant, giraffe, ostrich, eland, gazelle, dik-dik, zebra, buffalo, hippo, ibis, maribu stork, heron, eagle, kite, warthog, millions upon millions of wildebeest and somewhere, vaguely visible in the distance, a white splotch that we were assured was a rhino. there was also a ton of dust, some decent chow, and little sleep.

i think we're going south. to malawi. after we recover. miss you all.