Lessons From The Wild
the Masai Mara is a wild place.
A stretch of land known as the Mara Triangle was the part of the Mara we visited in 2019. Rolling hills, savannah, marshes, and river banks on the Mara River, filled with zebra, leopards, elephants, giraffes, cape buffaloes, wildebeest, and lions make up this place in the Kenyan wilderness.
It was there we watched a cub emerge from its whelping den for the first time and come close to death his first day out in the world.
Four lion cubs emerged from their den for the first time, following their mother out of the safety of the den and into the wide open world. Our guide estimated they were about three weeks old. The cubs were enjoying their first romp with each other through the grass. Their mother called to them. She had already moved to the other side of the marsh and had positioned herself in the grass about ten feet from our vehicle. The cubs crawled up on a log near the edge of the marsh looking for her in the bright morning light. They could not figure out how to follow her. She moved closer to the other edge of the marsh and chuffed again, calling to them softly where they could see her. One by one they crawled off the log and disappeared into the grass along the marsh.
There was a hippo in the marsh, a grave danger for small lion cubs. It seemed like an eternity waiting for the cubs to show themselves again. Our guide told us the mother must have been quite inexperienced because most lionesses would not expose their cubs to such a grave danger – they would have picked a safer route.
One by one the cubs struggled through the grass looking a bit like wet, muddy rats. For the bravest ones, the reunion with their mother was a brief affair before play and further exploration began. But one small cub looked particularly dilapidated and meowed vigorously until its mother cleaned and cared for it.
But the tale was not over. Later that afternoon, we returned to the marsh. The mother had taken her cubs further afield to where she and other lions were eating the remains of a cape buffalo. The cubs were sprawled in the grass near their mother . . . all but one that is. One small cub seemed to have lost his way. It was windy that day, and perhaps he had lagged behind a bit and lost his mother’s scent in the grass. In any case, we found him wandering in circles out toward the lions and then back again to the edge of the marsh that was not filled with safari vehicles, all watching the lions and the cubs. A herd of elephants were making their way through the area. Lions will kill baby elephants given the chance . . . and elephants will kill stray lion cubs on the loose.
The cub climbed up on a log, looked in our direction, and meowed plaintively, clinging to the log. He wandered about, in and out between the jeeps, crying and looking quite lost and uncertain. We wanted to help but could not. We and those in other jeeps stayed with him for a long time, but we never saw him reconnect with his mother and siblings. Our guide finally said, “This is going to end badly.” I felt deeply for this cub and wondered what happened to him for a long time after we left the area. I felt so deeply because what happed to this little cub can happen to any of us.
We can become lost in the thick of things, just as this cub got lost in the wind and the jeeps, and the newness of the terrain, and how far he had to go alone. We can become uncertain and founder in our efforts to find our way forward, or find ourselves going in circles as this cub did.
We can call for help but to no avail, as our voice is lost in the din of the thick of things, just as this cub did. We can experience tremendous uncertainty about what to do, about which way to go, and just like the little cub who climbed up on a log and clung to it, we can freeze up inside in the midst of our uncertainty.
Sometimes so many different things happen at once, in a short time, and fear envelops us. That cub was enveloped in fear. He knew the direction his mother and siblings had gone, but when he lost the scent and could not see them he retreated to the place by the marsh where he had already been. Fear can make us retreat too . . . if we allow it to do so. What do you say to someone when they are frightened, to help them move forward? “You can do it”: words of backing and encouragement that change our perspective, help us let go of what we are clinging to, so that we can take that next step forward.
