Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles by Melissa Haynes

Author:Melissa Haynes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Behler Publications, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

Tree Planting

“Have you ever been tree planting before?” the Drill Sergeant asks.

“No but I’m willing to give it a shot.” Sounds like a relatively clean job. It can’t be any worse than the croc pit cleanup.

There’s a break in the storm, but the forecast for the coming days is grim. It’s the coldest, wettest winter on record in this part of South Africa. Clean-up efforts have been slow and difficult. Even getting around the reserve is challenging because road repairs have been suspended until the storm has completely passed.

“We’ll just stop and fill the tire on the way to the lion camp,” the Drill Sergeant says.

Harrison’s left rear tire is near flat again.

“Lion camp?” I ask.

“Yes, that’s where we’re tree planting,” he says with his usual air of indifference.

“Where will the lions be if we’re in there tree planting?”

“In the camp, of course.”

In the camp? In the camp? Just driving through the lion camp to deliver a carcass is a terrifying experience. Going in with a perpetually flat tire with the intention of getting out of the truck to plant trees—without a weapon, I might add—is just plain ridiculous.

“Maybe we should take Cruiser instead?”

“Cruiser is on another job.”

“But the tire—what if it goes flat when we’re in the lion camp?”

The Drill Sergeant huffs a dismissive sigh.

“Is anyone else coming with us?” The more rangers, the better.

“No.”

Everything I have done up to this point now seems easy compared to this. Even tolerating the Drill Sergeant is easier than this. I’ll do anything, anything at all, as long as it’s not in the lion camp.

Since the storm hit, most of the wildlife has gone into hiding, but not the lions. The lions have been especially active since the storm, and their growls and roars can be heard all night, every night, even from within the concrete walls of the common area. They are charged up from the storm.

Reforestation of this land is a big part of the conservation effort. Hundreds of years of farming have destroyed most of the trees. However, reforestation is difficult and mostly unsuccessful for many reasons. First, there’s no soil to speak of; it’s just dried up, cracked, and hardened clay, an obviously inhospitable environment for planting. Secondly, there’s the drought to consider. Saplings need lots of water to survive, so water has to be brought in. At the reserve, this is a method that is basically one step up from carrying it in a vessel on one’s head. Water is transported in rustic containers that have been filled at the watering hole in a far corner of the reserve, then loaded into the back of a pickup truck, where it endures a long and arduous bumpy ride. Whatever’s left by the time it arrives at its destination is given to the saplings.

Then, assuming the first two challenges have been overcome, there are the porcupines to consider, a sapling’s greatest predator. Porcupines will go anywhere and do anything to feast on a sapling, including dismantling elaborate traps and maneuvering through intricate obstacle courses of electrical fences.

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