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If Only We Were Worthy of It

There is no better way to intimately get to know a new environment than through a safari. The wide open truck literally incorporates you into the beautiful surroundings to be a part of the biome you are observing. Animals, plants, river beds and small ponds all gave clues to a holistic message from the environment. So let me do my best to describe it all to you.

The ground is layered with a sand-like silt--not susceptible for large plant growth. The ground seems dry and arid, but unlike a desert and not dismilar to the flowing planes of Wyoming. This sand is very mobile, moving across the ground, layering the edges of the paved roads we traveled on. The sand produces a semi-long yellow-green grass, which does well to cover the whole floor of the biome. The thin grass grows tall in places, short in others, mostly due to access to water. Looking out across the horizon, medium sized bushes sprinkle the land, spaced out relatively frequently, but not completely covering all we can see. These round bushes are rounded and the tangled branches form a large mess of brown limbs and green leaves. They grow perhaps to 6-10 ft--no larger. Anything larger than this (such as trees) is sporadically placed throughout the landscape. Large vegetation thrives in the large dried up river beds throughout the park. This is where large trees grow rampantly, more similar to the deciduous forests back home. 

This is the scene in which the animals interact. Elephants, perfectly serene but capable of destruction. Impala, the food of the biome for many of the top tier predators. Giraffe, awkwardly situated near the large vegetation to eat. Leopard, sleeping under a small tree. Rhino, escaping extinction everyday due to threats from poachers. I was told I will have to explain to my children one day what a rhino looks like because there will be no more rhino to observe--a sad story of the destructive nature of humans. We witnessed water buc, hippopotamus, kudu, and much more. And it was fascinating to enter into the life of the biome for a short while. The stark reality of the situation--that the animals were wild, the plants and trees native--propelled the parks beauty in my mind. And I struggled not to think of the land and animals as exotic--opting to realize that this biome is as natural and present as the nature back home. We were simply observers of this nature, leaving it exactly how we found it. What a great lesson: to simply witness something, not morphing it or perverting it for our own gain, but simply to be in the presence of it, to appreciate it for face-value.

I'll leave you with an excerpt from Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire I saw a friend post that I felt to be appropriate: "But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us — if only we were worthy of it."

Until next time,

Jacob F. Maestri

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