The last day, we drove to the Kazinga Channel to see a wealth of hippos. In one photo, I am sitting alone, feet swinging, a smile nearly swallowing my face. We took turns on the seat, a macabre prop, and we were not aghast. How long it had been there, we did not know, but it still would be there twenty years later. In pictures, the three girls, as my father called us, sat on an elephant’s skull, the lodge’s mascot of sorts. We were the only tourists at the game lodge, and for once in our time in Africa, we could afford to stay in one. We would lose our naivety.īut for now, my parents were still innocent about how bad things had gotten, and like the ignorant often are, they were rewarded with dumb luck. We would not come back to Rwenzori National Park. He would be invited to a public execution and he would decline, only to hear later how men were tied to poles and shot at with machine guns, the guns pointed first at their feet and slowly moving up. He would soon hear stories of the disappeared and the Bureau of State Research. Besides, Paul exhorts us to pray for those in authority, my father wrote to his mother. Idi Amin might rumble and shout, but it was God who set up rulers and debased them. Surely, God had brought us to this country. My mother began to believe she could live in Uganda, and my father, pleased that she was pleased, felt any ambivalence slip away. It was a revelation that first day, everything new and hopeful.

With the engine turned off, we imagined we could hear them purr. You, again! We sat and watched, and they sank into acceptance. Their liquid eyes twitched and blinked against the flies. They were like peaches: tawny soft and lazy. Lions!Ī few in the branches, most lounging in the grass. We lurched even more than we had on the crumbling tarmac, and we felt that we might see something and even that hope did not prepare us for actually seeing that something.

The guide told my father to turn off the road and my father did.

We had never seen a lion outside of a zoo, and while the trees were an interesting accoutrement, our emphasis was most firmly on lion. We were driving to Ishasha Plains and the guide seemed confident that if we only stopped stopping, we would see tree lions, emphasis on tree. “No getting out of the car for photos, brother Fordham!” My mother said, pointed. Although seemingly phlegmatic, Lions are very nervous and highly-strung, and their mood can change with astonishing rapidity. the segment began - General appearance well-known. There was a picture of a lion on the back cover, and under the heading The Carnivora (Large), lions were the first entry. Maberly also did not write about lions in trees, a skill set limited to those in this region.

Wait for God to Notice by Sari Fordham