Manny was indeed terribly embarrassed, but he couldn’t go red. He was a sort of light yellowy-beige colour. Sometimes he wished he was bright purple, but it would make for poor camouflage. Still, he felt bright purple suited him. He once found a bright purple plastic container that a fertogafer left behind. He cherished it, and when no one was looking he would sing songs to it.
“Um… hi Princess Mellivora”, said the Pangolin. From the other creature’s deep, sniffly, irritating voice, and un-naturally long claws he already knew who he was speaking to, but he had to look up at the big, brutish Honey Badger to confirm it. No one knew why he was called 'Princess Mellivora', but knew that the badger had chosen his name for himself. The animals of the Kalahari doubted that Princess Mellivora knew what the word 'Princess' meant, but no one dared to bring up the subject.
Princess Mellivora was a honey badger, and true to his reputation, he rarely stopped for anything. If he couldn’t eat it, or collect it, it generally wasn’t worth his time and he’d abandon it for something else. He always travelled with his minions- a pair of Pale Chanting Goshwaks named Min and Ion. They pursued any prey that Princess Mellivora missed, so that nothing ever got away. Princess Mellivora approached everything and feared nothing. He probably knew the Kalahari with its many trails and its inhabitants better than anyone else. He certainly knew how to get the lost Pangolin home. He was incredibly smart.
He didn’t allow fertogafers to see this side of him, but not only was he was pretty handy with a swiss army knife, but he understood the inner workings of a laptop computer and could start his own fires when he was cold. Being nomadic, he had few possessions, but those he had, he carried with him in a small yellow backback with the words ‘Build-a-Bear’ on it. He had stolen it from a juvenile fertogafer. It was always strapped to the back of one of his minion goshawks, causing it to fly most awkwardly, not unlike a spooked Black Korhaan. Princess Mellivora was the only animal in the Kalahari who had his own iPod- obviously raided from a fortogafer tent. Tent zippers were no mystery either. And when no one was looking, he’d sometimes creep into the reception area at Nossob and mess with the bookings on the computer, just for the fun of it. Double booked chalets made his day, as did cancelling the shop’s weekly pie orders.
The Honey Badger knew Manny and his family quite well. In exchange for information about secret Cape Fox den locations, he left the small pangolin family alone and promised not to eat them.
The Honey Badger didn’t admit it, but pangolin really was the one thing he just couldn’t bear to eat. Something about a pangolin’s long tongue just didn’t sit well in the badger’s tummy, or in his mind. This was most confounding considering he loved to eat truck tires, braai tongs and toilet paper. And he had a fondness for sticking bird feathers onto porcupine quills and dipping them into the mud puddles on the road. He called it ‘Princess Melliovra’s specialty feather fondue’. He wasn’t creative and he had very poor taste.
“Well, you’re a long way from home” noted the big, scary honey badger. “Yeah... lions… don’t ask” replied Manny.
The pangolin wasn’t particularly afraid of the honey badger, but he certainly felt uneasy in its presence. He couldn’t bear to think of Cape Foxes.
“Um… would you be able to point me in the right direction?” Manny asked nervously.
“Sure… but you’re going to have to do a little something in return”. Princess Mellivora signalled his minions. The goshawk with the little yellow backpack approached Manny, with a nasty but broken, and extremely tired glaze over its eyes. ‘Those poor birds aren’t even nocturnal…’ Manny thought to himself.
The goshawk shrugged off the little yellow backpack and dropped it in front of the Pangolin. “Open it” ordered Princess Mellivora.
This brings me to the final post in my pancake series.
These days, i’m happy to try new kinds of pancakes. I can no longer eat lemon and sugar pancakes without cinnamon. I prefer the thin ones. Nutella on pancakes is love. Biltong on panakes is not.
Some of the pancakes I’ve had over the past 11 days, and how I rate them.
Nutella: On it’s own, Nutella is still kudutastic.
“Um…so I think I’ll be going now”, announced the pangolin to his lion companions, as soon as it was sure that the sun was well and truly set. This can take a long time in the Kalahari, with the whole sky melting into an excruciating mixture of colours, before finally getting dark. Manny didn’t understand this at all and tonight it was particularly drawn out making it all the more inconvenient.He slowly edged away from the cats, wondering whether he was supposed to thank them or not. He decided against it.
Snout to the ground, Manny began to walk in roughly the direction he had been rolled from.Every few steps, he’d slurp up an ant or two. He was over his earlier bout of motion sickness and was ready to eat again. In fact, he was hungrier than he’d ever been, and ants just weren’t hitting the spot. Then he saw it. It looked like an ant, but was considerably larger and looked rather crunchy. “Perfect!” he thought. Finding this Armoured Ground Cricket was a blessing. He wouldn’t need to eat again until Wednesday at the earliest. Why had no one else thought of this? Why was it always ‘termite… termite… ant… termite… termite… termite… ant…?’ The pangolin boldly walked up to its new prey item, apologized profusely to it, and opened its mouth to get a good grip. That’s when he learned why pangolins didn’t eat ground crickets. They just couldn’t. “Darn my highly evolved and specialized feeding apparatus” he murmured to himself and to the grateful armoured cricket.
The pangolin reached the edge of the riverbed. He looked down, but saw very little. He was blind enough without it being dark as well, but he could feel he was on the edge of a large slope. Then he got an idea.
He cautiously looked around him. As far as he could tell, no one was close. His excitement mounted. An ant crawled across his foot, but instead of eating it, Manny used his long claws to dig a shallow hole, into which he flicked the little ant. He quickly buried it in the hole. The pangolin didn’t want anyone to see what he was about to do. It would be terribly, terribly embarrassing.
Eying the bottom of the hill with glee, Manny tucked his feet and tail into his body and rolled himself into a little ball. There was a boring way to descend a sand dune, but there was also a fun way, and with a little push, the pangolin was soon rolling down the hill in a tight ball.
“Wheeee! Wheeeee! Wheeeee!” cried Manny as he rolled faster and faster. Now he really felt like a stocker ball. As he rolled, he thought he could hear some muffled giggling. It sounded familiar and it was getting louder. The pangolin has just enough time to think to itself, “Oh dear, this is not what I need tonight”…
1. I fist tried cinnamon sugar pancakes at a church function in 2008. I was very reluctant, but the smell itself convinced me that this was in fact, the way forward. It’s very simple to mix a little cinnamon into some sugar, so I can’t understand why the rest of the world hasn’t caught on to this yet.
4. There’s a place at Hartebeespoort Dam called ‘Pick-a-Pancake’. It’s in the middle of a dusty, touristy market and they will put anything on a pancake. The place is love.
5. Pick-a-Pancake even makes a biltong pancake, which is only unfortunate insofar as I once had to watch a friend eat one. This pancake happens when one sprinkles raw, dried shavings of kudu and warthog onto a pancake. Not quite right, but if it brings someone joy…
6. On the flipside, the worst pancakes in Africa come from a chain of sickly ice cream shops called ‘Milky Lane’. Here, the pancakes are sugary and plasticy and the toppings are not right. On the plus side, Milky Lane for me holds lots of fantastic memories of small children doing very fun things with food- like wearing an ice cream cone, or mixing Smarties and chocolate ice cream and bits of waffle into a bright green glass of cream soda. LOVE.
7. My favourite pancake eating experience was probably Christmas 2008, when a friend had been sent some genuine American Blueberry Pancake mix from the USA. Our pancakes were topped with icing sugar. Happy happy happy...
8. I met and made a lifelong friend at Skukuza Camp in Kruger, when the two of us were trying to outbid each other on some maple syrup in a silent auction.
9. The best place I’ve ever cooked pancakes is definitely at a campsite at Addo Elephant Park.
Next up: Pancakes of Today...
So, continuing with my completely unnecessary and longwinded celebration of pancakes...
As I grew, I left Canada for England. My appetite diminished and I could no longer eat 21 pancakes in a sitting. Pancakes lost their significance. They didn’t bring me the joy they once did. Eventually, I ended up at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where I regrettably spent most of my time being a depressed hermit, but I did manage to re-ignite my relationship with the pancake.
1. It will first be said that pancakes are done differently in the United Kingdom. This is not a compliment. I must say that I don’t swear. I never, ever swear. I doesn’t sound nice and it doesn’t make anyone look clever. There are very few things merit one of those nasty little words. But in the UK, I quickly learned that not only do people eat pizza with knives and forks, but they’re also prone to putting something called ‘golden syrup’ on their pancakes instead of maple syrup. So here it is. Golden syrup: what the fuck.
2. It started with a pan. One day while browsing the shelves at Dundee’s TK Maxx store, I found the most divine hot pink frying pan. I loved it and it loved me. From that moment on, I decided I was going to bring pancakes back into my life, by making them for myself… for the very first time.
3. At University, I was part of the ‘Christian Union’ and the chapter based at our hall of residence became notorious for our ‘pancake parties’. For weeks beforehand, we would plaster ads all over hall (carefully omitting our affiliation to any religious organization), inviting anyone and everyone to come and have some yummy ‘FREE PANCAKES!’ Once we’d corralled masses of evil atheists into a tiny kitchen with little or no chance of escape, one of our leaders would suddenly get everyone’s attention, break out a bible and give their testimony. It was as painful and awkward as it sounds.
4. Food colouring. When added to pancake batter, you can produce a pancake of any colour. I was especially fond of the blue and green ones, which I called ‘moon pancakes’. To get a really strong colour, you had to add half a bottle of colouring. ‘A few drops’ is insufficient and silly. Despite claims to the negative, in large enough quantities, food colouring DOES affect the taste of things, and it will make you feel very sick.
5. While at St. Andrews, I regularly had ice skating lessons in Dundee. I’d often go to early morning practice at 5am on a Saturday. This would always be followed by two consecutive pancake breakfasts at the McDonalds in the parking lot. I felt I could justify it. If my best friend was with me, we’d have to decide whether we were going to ‘pleb McDonalds’ or ‘posh McDonalds’… or the ‘spa’.
6. That same best friend was one of my least favourite people to eat pancakes with. I’d watch as she would layer sugar or syrup over her pancakes. And I mean layer. She could easily smear £8 of precious, pure, Canadian Maple Syrup onto just one pancake. This irritated me to no end. But that was old Mo who got irritated. New Mo would smile and laugh about it and lovingly watch her best friend making herself one utterly fabulous pancake.
7. My pancake making days at university were often marred by a lasting debate about spatulas. That same best friend (again) insisted that pancakes were flipped with a ‘flipper’. I insisted that they were flipped by a ‘spatula’. She insisted that a ‘spatula’ was one of those rubbery stick things you used to get mixture from the sides of a bowl. Our insistence made us both hugely angry with each other. In addition to that, I was also hugely angry with the whole concept of her ‘spatula’. There should be no tool for scraping the inside of a bowl. Bowls should be scraped with spoons or tongues and the scrapings should be treasured and savoured. The ‘spatula’ debate was never settled and 8 years later, I’m still afraid to bring it up.
9. Pancakes at university was a much loved tradition, but in fourth year, the magic ended for me when one of my male flatmates used my precious, precious pink pan to fry something terrible and greasy and boyish. The pan was mangled beyond recognition and I refused to use it again. Luckily, I didn’t need to, because there was a pancake place on South Street called ‘The Eating Place’, which made the most awesome pancakes. It was here that I had my first brush with the ‘savoury pancake’.
Next: Africa introduces a new set of pancake ideas...
1. I spent much of my childhood at Clarence Baptist Church. Every Easter, the noble men of the congregation would cook ‘bunny pancakes’. There was much competition over who made the most realistic bunny shapes. It was very holy.
3. As a young child, my parents knew I had a remarkable ability to eat pancakes. They’d always count how many I could eat in a sitting- 6, 9, 17, 23 etc… As a result, they treated me like a sideshow act. They’d take me into a pancake house (IHOP, Golden Griddle, etc…) and as we were being seated, I’d always announce to the waitress that I was “having pancakes please” and my parents would chip in, “just wait until you see how many pancakes this kid will eat!” They would proceed to order me plate after plate after plate of pancakes with no regard whatsoever for my health. And at Golden griddle, they’d always order me an extra tub of maple syrup too. When I was about to burst, they’d laugh and say, “Well, I think you’ve finally beaten her…!” to the waitress as she took my plate away. This happened every time and by the time I was 14, it just wasn’t funny anymore.
4. One of my very earliest memories involves me staying with a strange lady in Ottawa who was definitely not one of my parents. I haven't got a clue who this woman was or why I was staying with her, but I remember she got me up very early in the morning and took me to buy a Barbie doll, and then said we were going to McDonalds for breakfast. I remember being upset (but still thankful) at the prospect of a burger for breakfast, before she explained that McDonalds did pancakes. This changed my life. My parents had withheld this information from me.
6. When I was about five, I was playing in the basement with my younger cousin (pictured), when my mom called us up for pancakes. The smell of pancakes wafted down the stairs. As she climbed the stairs, the cousin jokingly declared, “I can smell it! I can smell it! I can puke in it!” My mom completely lost her mind. In all the years since, I have never seen her so completely enraged. This is also the source of the emetophobia I suffered for the next 20 years.
7. For a while, my dad had a lot of business in Florida. We spent a few separate holidays there, but always stayed at the Double Tree Guest Suites in Orlando. On each trip, every morning at 6 or so, I’d go down to restaurant alone and sit at the bar with a huge plate of pancakes watching Gilligan’s Island on the bar TV and talking to the nice Jamaican waitress. She even fixed my broken sandals once. Good times. The photo below is from one of those visits. Note the goofy hat, which served as my Halloween costume for the next 5 years, the troll doll keychain, the hockey shirt, the huge plastic glasses and the 'bum bag'. But note also that absolutely everyone in the background is also wearing a 'bum bag'. That makes it okay.
8. We’d have pancake dinners at home often enough, but it’s the pancake breakfasts that were a real treat. For some reason (lazylazymother) we never had pancake breakfasts at home. I absolutely despised friends who saw pancakes as a breakfast food. I openly scoffed in their faces. I only ever had pancake breakfasts when we were travelling, so I’ve come to associate them with holidays and highway service stations and hotel restaurants and my all time love, the continental breakfast. Finding a hotel which featured pancakes in its continental breakfast was like winning the lottery. Below: Las Vegas was a goldmine for pancake breakfasts.
9. I had one of those little plastic tupperware cooking sets when I was young. My mother saw this as a chance to get me making my own pancakes. This was never as enjoyable as it could have been, because she was extremely irrational when it came to the stirring process. She believed that all pancakes were doomed to FAIL unless you cautiously dug a tiny hole in the flour in the bottom of the bowl. To this hole, you would have to add the milk drop by drop and stir a few grains of flour into the drops of milk before repeating the process again, and again, and again, and again, and again until the mixture finally became 'pancake batter'. There is no better way to suck the fun out of pancakes.
Up next: The move to England... pancakes and university...
So I went for a good long walk across many fields of sheep in search of the perfect cliff to sit on. I was hoping to see some sheep wearing knitted jumpers or discarded hiking shoes but didn’t see any.
But I did find the most perfect cliff. I kicked off my lovely aubergine Hunter wellies and sat there for the whole afternoon, singing, thinking, listening to seals, smiling, laughing, birdwatching, sending love across the sea and into the world and taking goofy self portraits.
“When you’re happy like a fool, let it take you over. When everything is out, you gotta take it in.”
I went back to the parking lot to watch the sun set. The seagulls hadn’t eaten the bag of Marks and Spencer beetroot crisps that I’d left open on my front seat, which was something else to be thankful for, given it was one of those days when you can’t help but leave all of the windows and sunroof open.
How fortunate I am to have days like this! It won't last forever. Live in each moment. Love.
Tonight I made my second Kiva loan!I’ve been desperate to loan to a South African entrepreneur, but until now I’ve been holding back for a number of reasons- all of them related to concerns I have with the only Kiva MFI working in South Africa. But more about that later…
First, meet Ntombikayise! Here’s her description from Kiva:
"Ntombikayise is 47 years old and married with 7 children between the ages of 10 and 33. She sells mats house to house in Mtubatuba, Kwazulu Natal in South Africa. She is wearing a black and white head scarf in the photo above.
She's been in this business for 10 years. She also earns income from the government's child support grant. She says that the main challenge to her business is that her customers do not pay on time.
She requested this loan through Women’s Development Businesses to buy material for making mats. She says that the extra income from this loan will help her send her children to school. In the future, she would like to see herself being a mats supplier."
I chose Ntombikayise over a handful of other South African loans for a few reasons. Obviously, the biggest reason being that I like the direction she is taking. She has a brilliant business idea and she crafts things (mats) which are both useful and beautiful. There are also some more personal reasons why Ntombikayise was the one:
1. I love mats. They’re very pretty and simple and functional. A few years ago I camped in Mozambique and froze quite terribly in the night. The next night, I was kindly loaned a traditional mat, which kept me warm and toasty. Here’s to many more nights being kept warm and toasty by a mat. Mats are love.
2. There’s a beautiful Zulu film I’ve watched about 12 times called, ‘Izulu Lami’. It’s about an orphaned girl and her little brother who travel to Durban to sell the last mat their mother made. Lots of awful things happen to her, but she discovers her love of craft and starts making the most enchanting things from junk she finds on the beach. It’s a little like flip flop art and she sells it to a high-end craft gallery in the city. This loan sort of reminded me of that.
3. Ntombikayise lives in one of the most beautiful places in South Africa. Her town, Mtubatuba, is remote and surrounded by nature reserves, including St. Lucia. I believe that people who live in beautiful places are inspired to create beautiful things.
4. Mtubatuba is incredibly fun to say! Just try it. It’s awesome.
5. She’s using some of the loan to pay school fees. South African school fees are extremely unfair. Even the poorest parents sending their children to the lowest quality school must pay school fees. And buy uniforms. Knowing I’ve helped someone just a little with this burden brings me comfort.
6. Her main challenge is that her customers don’t pay her in a timely manner. This is a real South African business ethic fail. “Yeah, I’ll pay you now-now. We’ll make a plan”. Ntombikayise has both hair and a smile. I would have neither if I had to operate a business in this environment. Love and respect.
Finally, a note about the MFI. I mentioned that I had some reservations with them. But this time, I’ve decided to loan anyway. I’ve put aside my worries and put some faith in them instead. Here are my reasons.
‘Womens Development Businesses (WDB)’, is a brand new MFI to Kiva, and they still have a ‘pilot’ status. Recently, I read a great article about what they’re trying to achieve and I think they’re worth the risk. Empowering and giving opportunities to rural women is kudutastic.
Here’s a little info from Kiva about the KZN based MFI:
"The core business of WDB MF is making credit accessible and available to rural women who are the poorest of the poor.
The strategic drivers of WDB MF are to:
• Disburse loans to poor rural women using a relationship based methodology, on a professional basis with the aim of supporting their self-development activities and improving the quality of life in their families
• Build women’s financial knowledge and business skills, through participation in the credit scheme
• Support technical, managerial, leadership and other skills, through training to enhance women’s income generating activities and productivity
• Strengthen community and women’s organizations and services by working with them in offering credit, training and technical assistance
• Support, assist and conduct research programmes which are necessary for the viability of projects and women’s advancement as a whole
• Share knowledge, expertise, experiences and information through coordinating with women’s and development groups and producing accessible and relevant material"
So I wish Ntombikayise all my love and happiness and I hope that this loan will provide her with everything she needs it to.
Izulu Lami:
The package turned out to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever received. It was completely unexpected and was given with love. It isn't Christmas. It isn't my birthday. I didn't rescue their dog from falling through ice.
Opening this box was an act of pure joy! One by one, so many lovely things came out of it. First was a bag of ‘chicken bones’ candy. Something I’ve never come across and can’t wait to try! It seems the cinnamon-covered chocolates are a delicacy in New Brunswick- the origin of this particular box. Also in the box was a beautiful postcard of ‘Plage Parlee Beach’ in New Brunswick. Even better was the writing on the back- kind words handwritten so far away in blue pen.
Then came the lantern. I could write an essay about how perfect and beautiful this lantern is. I could write for hours about the elephants and the stars and the gold Amarula logo embossed on it, but that would make me look silly. It would be like writing the memoirs of a pangolin.
What could possibly be better than the best lantern in the world? The best lantern in the world filled to the brim with Lindt chocolates- that’s what. It was also full of Turtles chocolates, which are vile and horrible and poisoned with nuts, but the beautiful givers of this box didn’t intend them for me. Those yucky little Turtles all the way from Canada are going to mean the world to my mother.
So I’m writing this by the warm, glowy light of my beloved lantern and I’m reminded again just how special the world is. It isn’t how yummy the candy is, how pretty the card is or how kudutastically kudutastic the best lantern in the entire world is- it’s the thought behind it all. It’s that somebody would think of me and specially choose these things and wrap them in silver paper and send them halfway around the world. It’s not a box of stuff, it’s a box of love, sent by people who know exactly what makes me smile.
The real kicker? I’ve never met the couple who sent it to me. I’ve never even heard their voices. It’s so hard to thank someone when only a hug can do it properly. These are ‘internet’ friends, brought into my life along with countless others by a mutual love of all things Africa. I’m so thankful to be alive at a time when close friendships can be born from a few typed words of kindness and encouragement on a computer screen. I could write fifty stories just like this one. I don’t know what else to say. I’m so touched. Love.
(This is Part 4/4. Really should be read after the other parts and not before...)
“Do tell me you haven’t kicked that poor Pangolin all the way here?” quizzed Larry when he saw the girls approaching. Embarrassed, they stopped immediately.
Larry gazed at the ball like someone who had ordered a plate of pancakes, and had been given pancakes… bright blue pancakes. You know you could eat them, but you aren’t going to.
“So… can it be eaten?” Lois asked tentatively. “Would you eat bright blue pancakes?” Larry asked Lois. Lois didn’t understand the nature of the question and didn’t know what a pancake was. “Um… so… no, then? But you know what it is?” Lois asked.
“It’s a Pangolin! Young one, by the looks of it. Very rare in these parts” said Larry. “How does it eat?” asked Lois, examining the ball for any holes. “It won’t need any skin cream, will it? Leona inquired hopefully.
“No no, it doesn’t always look like this. It’s wrapped itself into a ball. There’s a standard-issue mammal in there somewhere”. “Oooh” Lois was intrigued, “can you…open it?”
“Why bother?” said Larry. “The little chap can stay like that for days. Waste of time if you ask me. Besides, there aren’t many of those around, it’s best if we leave it so it can have children one day”. “Ew, children. I think not!”, Manny thought to himself from deep within the ball. For just a brief moment he considered uncurling himself and smacking the lion on the nose, but thought better of it.
Larry lowered his voice. “Fertogafers eat these, given the chance”. The three girls gasped in horror. From what the girls had seen, fertogafers only ate things that came wrapped in little plastic packages. Larry had their attention. “Oh yeah, they do all sorts of ridiculous things to them as well. Eat them, wear them, use them as medicine. Personally, I can’t see how this would work better than Med-Lemon.” This sent a wave of panic over the tightly rolled ball. Its mother hadn’t told it this, despite the fact it was an only child and its mother most definitely had the time. So this must be why ‘YOU MUSN’T BE SEEN!’
Feeling that it was in a safe space, the ball decided it was time to break its silence. “Excuse me, so does this mean you’re not going to eat me?” it asked the lion. Only it sounded much like, ‘Skeewwmeeee, Sofudis meee Voo-naa-gna-eeeee?’, as the ball’s words were impossibly muffled by its scales. “You can give up the ball act”, Larry assured. A tiny, pointed mouth emerged from the ball and spoke. “You really won’t eat me?” “Promise” said the lion, holding up a paw. He didn’t know why he did this, and lowered before anyone noticed. “Don’t flatter yourself, you don’t even look that tasty.”
Slowly the pangolin unravelled itself, revealing its funny form. Lois couldn’t help but giggle at the weird creature. Larry shot her a nasty look and she quickly composed herself. Lisa suddenly sprang to her feet. “The whale will FALL if I don’t collect 37 cucumbers by 4 o’clock!” and with that, she bolted across the dunes and out of sight. The other lions weren’t going to see her again until three days later, and when they did, she would be inexplicably covered in blue and red polka-dots.
“You’re free to go”, Larry said to the little Pangolin. “You know your way home from here?” The Pangolin had a good look around, or at least it pretended to. In reality, it was quite blind and couldn’t see beyond the grains of sand by its feet. It looked the large lion square in the eye (or what it thought was the lion’s eye- it was however the lion’s third claw on its left foot), and spoke with confidence. “Yeah, sure”, it said, trying to sound relaxed and cool. The truth was, it could easily spend the next 5 years trying to find its burrow, but it wasn’t going to. It wanted its mummy.
“Er… do you mind if I stay here until nightfall?... I musn’t been seen” it added quickly, remembering fertogafers aren’t nocturnal. The lions agreed. The pangolin looked at his new companions. They looked at him. What do you say to a Pangoin? Time passed. A lot of time passed. “I think its staring at our toes”, exclaimed Lois. More time passed. The lions were stumped and so began the longest and most awkward silence ever not heard in Kgalagadi . Even the barking geckos joined in. By doing nothing.
It was very awkward.
