I am asked frequently why I choose Africa as my destination of choice. Africa has a way to bring me back to the reality of life each and every time I go. The minute I touch her soil she begins to humble me.
Like the first time I faced a lion alone. It was very early in the morning, dusk just sipping the morning road when I saw an ambling figure up ahead but couldn't make it out. I stopped and poked my head out the window slightly to get a better view. The animal was intentionally but slowly coming closer. Like Poloroid film coming into focus I suddenly realized it was a big male lion who, if he kept his pace and direction, was going to walk right beside my car within seconds. It was that moment I understood the saying of your blood running cold. A chill ran through my body. The hair on the back of my neck and arms rose up like the neck hair of a dog before it fights. The only thing of me that moved were my eyes as I watched him proceed without wavering his path. When he got just beside my car, two arms lengths away from me he moved only his head towards me keeping his gate and looked me in the eyes.
In the very second he looked at me I was not scared. Instead I was humbled. Humbled by his size and anticipated strength. Humbled by the knowledge that in an instant he could have decided to take my life. (Humbled that he didn't.) Humbled in the fact that his ancestors had roamed that land for longer than man.
I felt small, insignificant, and yet so privilidged to be in this moment. That feeling is the answer to why I come back to Africa time and time again; I come for that feeling I had in front of the lion that morning; the feeling that makes me realize just how alive I am.
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