LOVE LIONS ALIVE by Andi Rive

RESPECT FOR NATACHA I cannot even imagine what Nachi used to see, feel and hear during her life in a travel crate in the circus. What did the people who handled her, who passed her from one tourist to the next; minute after minute after minute, smell like? Where they hot and sweaty? Perfumed? Did they smell of other animals, hotdogs and cotton candy? What does human supremacy smell like? Did they croon to her in soft loving voices or ignore her whilst loudly chatting to each other? What did she hear when they were raising the Big Top or when they had packed up, ready to drive to the next circus location? Men shouting, workers whistling, poles clattering, canvas flapping, metal rattling? I can guess that she saw new sights all of the time. But wait, did she, or was her crate inside a vehicle whilst they traveled? When the circus decamped, was her cage set between canvas walls in an alleyway of guy ropes? Did all the different tourist hands, eyes and faces blur into ...

5 YEARS WITH MELA (Lockdown Day 4) “Mela Bella baby lion” I call and wait a few seconds as I do not know where she is in her enclosure. A bush begins to shake and I look towards it as she bursts out of the leaves running to me. She is licking her lips and mewling in short whao whao moans. Mela was born on the 29th March 2015. It was a Sunday and I was in Johannesburg having my broken arm attended to (That is another whole story involving a fractured cheek and other miscellaneous breaks). Taiga phoned me in the morning exclaiming that there was a cub in Ariel’s enclosure. I was concussed and struggled to compute this as there was no way that there could be a cub in Arial’s enclosure, “what?” I asked “there is a cub in Ariel’s enclosure, it is alone, it is just sniffling around in the grass. Thulani called me to come and see it, I had heard what I thought was a cub screaming early this morning but theen I just thought it was impossible, what must I do?” “There can’t be a c...

You can be anything in life that you want to be. An open ended idea which gives everyone hope and kills them at the same time. What unbridled pressure? Oscillation, duality and juxtaposing beliefs accurately describe my personality. I am a really calm person at the same time as being in a constant state of anxiety. I wake up inside a cosy, snug fog of grey but within seconds my mind is abuzz with thousands of flashing images, my stomach fills with bile, poisonous panic swamps me. I dread the light of day. Yet I have found my passion. I love my life with lions. So there it is, the dichotomy of Andi Rive. What I am doing is really important stuff to the lions in my care, but it is also very basic. In fact, the daily drudge of life with lions includes …. - Fetching carcasses, cutting up carcasses, throwing cut up pieces onto the back of the bakkie, moving the pieces from the slaughter area to the storage area then either loading the pieces into bags to be frozen or applying supple...

Bolts are are being bolted and keys turned in locks. The people of South Africa are locking themselves inside their homes as of today. In our case it is a matter of zipping up the tent. I can hear the lions romping and running, their feet pounding on the earth the sound reverberates through the canvas walls. I hear two of them have a tussle, lion moans turn into a few quick growls answered by snarls. Lions do this, they have spats, the thing is that spats from large cats are more intense in sound than that usually heard in alleys. But it is quickly over and the snarls evolve into roars. The royal proclamation is take up by surrounding lions and within seconds, 6 of the lions are in full roar. The baboons answer in a frenzy of screeches. I can hear rocks hitting rocks as the baboons throw smaller ones down onto the boulders below. Birds of a dozen varieties whistle and sing. In fact, as I listen I am amazed at the number of sounds I can here from my lock down spot in the tent. There ...