Everything You Want is on the Other Side of Fear

I’ve always loved the aphorism, ‘Everything you want is on the other side of fear.’ A few days ago, we saw it play out on the savannah. Out on a morning drive, we came across a scrum of hyenas on a wildebeest kill. The scavengers were milling around the carcass and eating relentlessly. We watched for a few minutes and continued on our drive. A couple of kilometres to the south, we came across a pair of Grant’s Gazelles that looked vigilant but not unduly perturbed. And then in the far distance, a brown dot approaching us, gradually turned into a lioness.She was walking purposefully and in the direction of the hyenas far behind us. Lions are territorial and so we recognise the ones we usually see. The ones we don’t, are usually young, nomadic lions looking for a territory for themselves. This one was much older, gaunt and almost emaciated. This looked like a lioness who had left her pride and hadn’t been able to hunt for herself for a few days. She had scars all over her body. She walked across a plain with hundreds of wildebeest on full alert for any sign she might charge at them. As she approached closer, they scattered. And still she trudged on. And now we noticed she was walking in the direction we had left the hyenas behind us. This started worrying us. There were about fifty hyenas in total and we had no desire to watch a lioness being torn apart. But of course we couldn’t interfere.

We drove back to the hyenas who were still at it and occasionally howling, seemingly with ghoulish glee. The herd of wildebeest that had been put to flight by the sight of the lioness, went thundering past us. A few hyenas went out to investigate but the rest couldn’t be bothered to stop their feeding frenzy. And all the while the lioness kept approaching. We watched with dread at what we thought was the lioness blundering into a catastrophic situation. The lioness though, clearly knew what she was doing. As she drew closer, she quickened her pace, started trotting and then when she reached the carcass was almost running. Amazingly, the entire pack of hyenas scattered and then melted away, leaving fewer than ten of them watching her. The lioness started eating with single-minded devotion. She had perhaps not eaten for a few days and wasn’t going to let the hyenas bother her. Some jackals did try to disturb her, and those she chased away.We have never seen anything like this and don’t expect to do so, soon. Everything you want is indeed on the other side of fear! Keep the volume on, to hear the hyenas howling.