The Lion Sleeps Tonight (luckily)

Africa’s Serengeti (according to those who have visited) is an amazing and magical place. Animals of all kinds roam the savanna, the incredible scenery tantalizes the senses and the history and culture of the human inhabitants of this great land amaze and humble all who go there.

Well most …… when they are not busy having a little Serengeti Domestic, that is.

And who, pray tell, were the Screaming Banshees of the Serengeti? None other than some dear relatives of mine who, to protect their identities, I shall call Jemima and Edwina.

In the company of Jemima’s spouse (whom I shall call Big Ted) this mother and daughter team had been enjoying a fabulous African safari. They had traversed the sweeping plains, been up close and personal with the wildlife and had generally been having a great — and good-humoured — trip.

That was until they arrived, hot and dusty, in a tribal village and were invited to participate in the traditional welcome. This involved a visitor of each gender taking part in a special ‘jumping’ dance.

All was going well at the start. Big Ted, a gregarious and relaxed fellow happily joined the jumping fray and things were going swimmingly. But then Jemima, a middle aged lady with high blood pressure, poked Edwina urgently and whispered “YOU’LL have to do the jumping!”

Edwina was not impressed; “I’m NOT jumping!” she hissed back through smiling (yet gritted) teeth.

“You damn-well WILL!” commanded Jemima, attempting to pull the ‘I’m Your Mother and I Tell You What to Do’ stunt which — if she’d been thinking clearly — she would have remembered had never been terribly effective on Edwina even when she was eight, let alone when she was twenty-eight. However Jemima wasn’t thinking clearly. All she could think of was that she definitely didn’t want to be doing a heart-thumping jumping dance in the middle of a dusty plain with no doctor in the house. Aside from maybe a Witch Doctor who, it would be probably fair to assume, may not have been carrying any heart medication in his little wildebeest-leather-kit-bag. The odd herbal remedy or magic spell, maybe: Beta Blockers, doubtful.

Anyhow, as befitting a young woman who has been brought up to respect others (in this case, the tribes folk) Edwina did, indeed, “jump”. And she jumped well. Her mother was proud … but that was not the end of the story….

As they made their way to their campsite Edwina let rip. “How DARE you put me on the spot like that! Don’t you EVER speak to me like that again!” she screeched.

“How dare YOU be so rude to your mother! Not to mention SELFISH!” shouted Jemima.

This went on long into the night until Big Ted (who had sensibly removed himself to a separate tent some distance away) eventually had had enough.

“Girls! Girls! Girls!” he yelled, “I — together with the entire population of the Serengeti — have been listening to this argument for hours, and you know what? You’re both right. You both have reason to be annoyed, so I think the best thing to do is stop talking to each other — RIGHT NOW! Can you do that? If not, there is a fairly good chance that you will single-handedly bring about the extinction of a multitude of local species. They’ll commit suicide just to get away from you!”

Jemima and Edwina laughed. He was right. How ridiculous to be having a mother-daughter spat when one was surrounded by such grandeur and beauty. They shut up and went to sleep.

(Post Script): Unbeknown to the squabbling travelers, the local lions — far from being suicidal —were actually just happy that the noise had abated and they weren’t forced to attack the tent and eat the girls (as originally planned).