Dena Crain: Artist/Teacher in Kenya

6:15 a.m.

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It took me fully five minutes to wake up and wonder what was that noise outside my bedroom window.  Who was doing what at that time of the morning to make such a sound?!

Then–I remembered.  That’s the sound of a hippo feeding on grass.  With recent rains, the stuff is growing everywhere, even on our gravel driveway.

But this sound was behind the house in a place where the bush grows right up against the bedroom.  I knew there was a hippo out there, but as I listened, the noise stopped.  “Right,” I thought, “the hippo’s moving off.”  I looked outside, but could see nothing but bush.  I even opened the back door to let in a cat and peered carefully all around the verandah through the trees, shrubs and vines, but could see nothing of a hippo.

Reassured, I headed for the kitchen.  Morning chores include making tea and feeding dogs and cats before hitting the computer.  First of all, though, the dogs need to go out.  With a young puppy in the household still being house trained, I always walk out to the driveway with them.  This morning was no exception.

The path from the kitchen door drops a flight of steps straight down from the porch to a kind of landing on a lower level of the garden, turns left nearly 45 degrees and falls another flight of steps down to the roundabout below where the dogs go to take care of themselves.  Standing on the lowest step, I enjoyed watching the black and white coats of our three Dalmatians against the brilliant lush green of grass and shrubs.

I turned to go back into the house and started up the steps, the hippo still on my mind.  “Hrumpf,” I thought.  “Spitting cobras, black mambas and foraging hippos–what a place to live!”

About that time I looked up, now about four steps higher than the driveway level.  Right before me stood the hippo, no more than about forty feet away.  It was on the garden level below the porch I needed to reach for safety.  The hippo looked at me, and I looked at the hippo.  Then, I had to make a choice–to scream and run backwards or to carry on moving gently up the steps to the kitchen.

The dogs also saw the hippo, but all were surprisingly quiet.  None of them barked as they normally would have done, but instead simply got on with the job of returning to the kitchen.  The hippo seemed disinclined to move, so I followed the dogs up the steps.  I tucked my head down and turned my face away from the animal as if to signal “no threat,” reached down to direct the puppy, and moving at the same pace I had set, I climbed the rest of the stairs up to the kitchen door.

It was as if the entire altercation took place in slow motion.  The hippo’s eyes never left me.  I knew that all it probably wanted was to pass down the same stairway towards the lake–yes, I was between the hippo and the water, the most dangerous place to be with a hippo.  I simply cannot think what inner strength gave me the ability not to panic, squeal or run, but I will always believe that grace saved me from what could well have been one more wildlife/human conflict–a fight I would most surely have lost.  Instead, each of us seemed to respect the other so much that neither of us took any action to harm or offend the other.  The hippo’s expression was one of benign wariness; I think mine was about the same.

Safe in the kitchen, with the doors closed behind me and my dogs, I watched the hippo make its departure.  On silent footsteps, it chose an alternative route through a household service area across the small patch of lawn.

Then, I began to tremble, but I didn’t cry, didn’t throw a strop and get hysterical.

After all, this kind of magical experience is one reason I came to live in Africa.

Imagine my reaction when I found this fellow lurking in my bathroom this morning!  He was hanging out inside the leg of a pair of trousers I had on yesterday, left casually draped over the edge of the bathtub for the night.

Did I pick up the trousers before I saw him?  Yes!  Did he run up the inside the trouser leg (mine was not inside the trousers, thank goodness!) where I could not see him?  Yes!  Did I squeal?  Yes!  Can you tell that my hands were shaking when I took the photo?  But, of course!!

Then, I calmed down, grateful that I had not yet been stung, rinsed out Jonny’s large glass tea mug and flipped it upside down over this most unwelcome visitor, found a piece of cardboard to slide underneath both mug and scorpion, and carried the creature out into our garden, putting him back where he belongs.

After a lovely night’s sleep during a gentle rain, this experience was something of a shock.  With the long rains comes Scorpion Season!  They don’t like the wet, either, so they come into the house seeking dry, dark and safe places.  This fellow, stretched out flat, would have been almost 5 inches long, a lovely specimen.  And, he’s NOT the worst kind.  The worst stings come from the little yellow scorpions, not from these huge black ones.  It’s definitely time to start keeping a look-out.  When I think of how closely I came to being stung by this guy–well, it makes me feel a little faint . . .

But wait! There’s more!

Before I could even publish this report, our servant came into my studio with eyes wide: “Iko nyoka!” “There’s a snake!” in the laundry room. I asked her how big it was and she replied kidogo (little).  Still, to her it was quite frightening.  Folks around here trust NO snakes, and with cobras, mambas, puff adders and carpet vipers plentiful in the area, that’s good advice!

I went down to see what was going on for myself, and Jonny came from the sitting room to retrieve this harmless large-eyed snake in the windowsill, trying to come in and take shelter in the house.

Hey, gals!  Check out these lovely colors!  Can you imagine a quilt made with this palette?!