Ol'moilaa and the Nairobians

Ol'moilaa was busy. Very busy. She had picked the best fibres. Those ones that still had juice on them. They were nutritious and easy to work with. She was following an ancient recipe that had been passed down numerous generations. It was not an easy job. Such good fibres were hard to find these days and whenever she did, she had to be especially careful to ensure that she kneaded the fibres into a sticky ball with just the right amount of water. Too wet and the ball would not hold, too dry and it would go bad before it was ever consumed.

I call her Ol'moilaa as that is the name the residents of this area, the Maasai, gave to beetles. She was a virgin, soon-mother-to-be dung beetle who wore a shiny, hard, black armour on stocky, stout, six legs. She had just finished rolling this ball of elephant dung and was satisfied with her handiwork. It was approximately two hours after we had buttered our own balls of bread at the restaurant. The sun was still struggling to peer through the clouds. It was the rainy season and the mud was beginning to peel in patches of dust and volcanic gravel but remaining relatively soggy in others. Ol'moilaa was not going to wait for the sun to make it through the clouds, she was scampering to move her moist dung ball to a safe, cool, underground burrow before it got too hot. Her virgin-of-a-man was at hand to help with the arduous task of navigating through the blades of grass and vicious safari ant scouts; assassins on assignment to seek out and kill her kind. At this moment, it was not the sun, nor the long journey to her burrow that worried her the most. It wasn't even the ants who carried sharp daggers on their heads. No! It was this Njoro-creature that towered above, Canon DSLR lenses trained on her and her helpful boyfriend.

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We were six of us; four friends who had driven about two hundred kilometres from Nairobi to Amboseli National Park the previous evening, a Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) ranger on guard, and Richard our Nature Walk guide from Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge. The five of us were listening to Richard's amazing stories of The Amboseli, told so simply as though read straight from a child's storybook, yet laden with information. Even the KWS guard couldn’t hide his amusement and periodically interjected with a fun fact or two. Richard, as if checking to see that we were still engaged in his tales, would drop one of those Latinised scientific names when describing something as simple as a shrub, then study our bewildered faces, to see if we got it. Of course we forgot the scientific names as soon as he uttered them. We, unlike Richard, were not built to understand species in such scientific detail. We were mere mortals. Nairobians on Safari. We had our strengths and knew them well. We were experts in the fine arts of taking selfies, posting emojis and benga music, not science. Luckily, with exception of the occasional scientific-name dropping, Richard would always switch back to his simplistic storytelling.

Right now he was telling us about the elephant dung that was still smoldering on the ground; a mind boggling variety of insects wallowing in its rich soup, and flies dominating its airspace. It was fascinating to learn that elephants barely digest their food. This anatomical flaw banishes them to feeding nonstop for most of the day. That same flaw also ensures that most of their waste is recycled back into nature as premium-grade fertilizer. In fact we were witnessing Ol'moilaa and her groom upcycling the still fresh, fibrous dung into food-insurance for her future young. Richard explained that the two lovers would mate for the first time once they find a safe place to raise their young. She would then proceed to lay eggs on the dung-ball before burying it safely underground. But the four of us, overwhelmed by this savannah paradise, were drifting away. Njoro was trying to capture the perfect shot of the beetles at work, Kamaitha was white with fright at the mention of elephants, Stella was trying in vain to take a shot of Kilimanjaro (which hid its glaciers among the clouds), and I was burning to interrupt Richard with some random internet fact about dung beetles and how they rid Australia of flies. Then Richard quipped, “And that right there, my friends, is the Bostrychia hagedash!” we turned to the direction he pointed. In the shallow, grassy swamps walked, rather majestically, a dude in a stunning black suit! He stopped, looked at us, probably didn’t like our faces, shouted some expletives at us then went on his business. “That's a male hadada ibis. They are rather noisy”, Richard comforted us.

In the horizon, further behind the man in black, was a group of majestic beings whose dung we had discussed in detail. They were huge; small hills dotting the horizon. They were not ruminants. “No! They don’t chew cud”, Richard had said. “That’s why they have to feed throughout… ”. He pointed at a rotting acacia trunk, “… and they are responsible for clearing the savannah of acacia just as much as they are responsible for the germination of new acacia trees” he added. “See, elephants are very poor at digesting food, so most seeds just pass through their gut and are dispersed. They are very important agents of seed dispersal in this ecosystem”, he explained.

Then, in his characteristic style of chaining one story to the next so flawlessly and beautifully, he leaned on a huge mound of earth and continued. “You see, if you look around, the shape and character of this land is sculpted mostly by two animals. One is the largest mammal, the Elephant and the other is the smallest insect…” we looked down at the beetles. Must be these hard working beetles! Richard paused, allowing our minds to wander. The savannah was so vast after all!

“The termite”, he concluded. He turned to touch the mound he had been leaning on and proceeded “You see, most of these hills are termite hills. Every single animal plays an important role in the ecosystem. From the largest to the smallest!”

Richard then walked around and behind the termite hill. We followed. Behold! There lay an elephant skeleton! Its bones were bare and dry. Clearly he had died not too recently. We walked up to it, pensive. Analyzed the huge bones, startled. And in that moment of silence, as Richard was beginning to explain the difference between a male and female elephant’s skull, the zebras that had been grazing silently about two hundred metres away broke into a frenzy. Something had scared them. We turned, petrified.

It was the Amboseli Serena tour van. They had come to pick us in readiness for the next activity; a visit to the Maasai Village. The people who originally roamed these plains and can best narrate the story of the elephant skeleton we had stumbled upon. The people who called the beetle Ol'moilaa, Richard was one of those people. His ancestral home was just past the herd of elephants that, though so far away, still scared Kamaitha to death.

We were not leaving too soon. Not yet! Richard still had a dozen and a half scientific names to drop. Among them a plant that he promised is the ultimate cure for impotence!

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The Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge Nature Walk is an activity that you must take if you happen to visit. There is so much to learn that I would need ten blog posts to explain. Even then, how shall I narrate the story of the baboons – mother and infant – that kept following us? She walked with us, keeping a distance and would look away, pretending to be busy foraging for insects whenever we turned to look at her. She would then hide the infant only letting it peep at us between her armpits. She knew that babies are to be protected. Their photos are not to be shared on social media. Never! Not her baby!

Surely, some moments have to be experienced to be fully understood!