LOVE LIONS ALIVE by Andi Rive

blow by blow. (Because nobody reads my blog, I can speak freely about this). It all begins with a phone call, a WhatsApp or a Facebook message. It is a simple matter of a few words shared, usually between strangers. It starts off small. A mere notion. Have you seen the post about the starving lions? There is a lion in a zoo. There is a cat in a cage. There are cubs being exploited in a circus. Can you help? We can. The reason we can, is because we, Line and I, have built a sanctuary for the express purpose of giving lions from formerly compromised lives, new homes. We see many photos of animals in all sorts of terrible conditions, we are inundated with the most horrible pictures of heinous crimes against animals. On a daily basis our hearts hurt, our minds real and our humanity cries silently in objection. “someone has to do something about this”, we say. Then we see a lion. We know lions, we love lions, we look after lions. We can do something about that lion...

And all that Jazz... Jazz is a little cross breed of Staffie and Border Collie blend. She came from the Animal shelter in Harrismith in 2014 after her stray mother had been fatally hit by a car and she and her siblings delivered via cesarean section.   Jazz is 2 weeks older than Taai, but being a dog, and not a lion, she has always been smaller. The size difference was not as disparate though, when they were still two babies sharing a dog basket. Jazz successfully chewed her basket into pieces and then proceeded to move into Taai’s bed with him. She used her nips and Border Collie genes to herd him and stay on top. Sometimes she even sat on top of him literally. We would laugh at this saying to ourselves that it would not last as the lion outgrew the dog, but it lasted, even when Taai was a sub-adult, he and Jazz carried on as if they thought they were twins. They sat bolt upright alongside of each other on the back seat of the car, their heads at a similar level. They ...

Part 1 - Going to Ukraine to get them....                  (Lockdown Day 8) We went to fetch them from Ukraine. I had made a list of what I needed to pack for the trip it sat alongside of lists of what we still needed to do to get the lion enclosures ready to house them. I had a Materials list of hardware and tools. I had, To Do lists, divided into Critical (cannot bring lions if not done), Must be done (but not absolutely vital it be done by us, if we ran out of time, possible to leave to Thokozane and James to do while we are away) and Will need to be done (has to happen but could be attended to once the lions were here). I had lists of who was to do what. I had lists of the what was to happen on the day of arrival and in what order it should happen. I had lists in my big black book and lists which I sent out to everyone concerned and lists printed to be placed in rooms or handed out to those who needed them. Before we knew it, we w...

In Lockdown with Lions   ZEBRA PUZZLE We have a jigsaw puzzle of a dazzle of zebras which we planned to do during our quiet lockdown evenings. It lies on top of my chest of drawers under the Mx5 paintball rifle and a pair of binoculars, it is still tightly wrapped in its plastic jacket. We bought it to keep ourselves gently distracted from stress during lockdown.  I had also planned to write a bit on this blog every day during lockdown, because we would have so much free time. I romantically pictured myself and this laptop atop a boulder looking out at the expansive view, or tucked up in the shade under a bush alongside the lions or even typing away at the fireside with a cup of hot chocolate in the star filled evenings. What I had failed to consider was the fact that the only thing that really changes at the sanctuary because of no guests being able to visit, is the 100% cessation of an income. Other than that everything carries on as per usual. Everyda...

My chest is tight and I have a cough, it is more of a throat cough than a chest couch, it only lasts for an hour or 2 in the early hours of the morning and is accompanied by sneezing. It is clearly only the beginnings of an ordinary cold. But I am not at all happy with this situation.  I have not come into contact with many people in the past 6 days as the whole country is in lockdown.  On the last day out before Lockdown, we went to town because we had just read on the farmers’ group that all farmers should get a signed letter from the Farmers’ Union declaring us to be farmers and therefore engaged in critical activities. We had to present our copy of the letter to Advocate George Galloway at the Farmers Co-op where he would be sitting to sign from 10am to 11am on Thursday. But first we had to type and print our individual letter which was amended to specify our work as being that of "Lion Carers". In order to type and print, we had to go to our local computer s...