A lion hunting we will go.

A lion sighting? For anyone who ever doubted, I really do live in Africa.

This morning on my boda ride to the Skinners' to home school Dara I heard from my driver, Godwin, that last night a lion was spotted in our community! Unsure of the reliability of the news, I quickly called my friend Sophie who confirmed that a lion had been spotted near her house, at the Kings' Tombs, up the hill from our house. After hanging up, I called my neighbor Willis, who is the local chairman of Nkokonjeru. He also said a lion was in our community and the game wardens were coming to help them hunt it down today. In the excitement of it all, I made one last call to another neighbor Richard, just to quadruple check. Unfortunately, Richard was out of town. Our talk was a little bit disconnected due to a language barrier, and I was unsure if he understood what I had said in the first place. He called me back about five seconds after I'd hung up to tell me if I found the lion to be still and not run. Other advice I've received on what to do if I encounter the lion includes putting a stick on top of my head and roaring back at it. While I'm not sure how I feel about any of those potential options, I haven't had the opportunity to try any of them despite my attempts today to encounter the lion.

After the initial excitement of telling and conversing about the lion sighting, Dara and I continued our day at school. However, the curiosity continued to brew while our excitement grew, so decided to go on a hunt for the lion after lunch. We left Dara's house on Charles' boda and headed for Nkokonjeru. On the way, I asked Charles if he'd heard anything more about the lion. He said he'd heard possible ideas for where it might be and drove us in the direction of the general vicinity. As we continued driving, he said, "Now, we're in the danger zone." Our tough facade quickly faded, and we decided to ask Charles to take us home. But, once we were back at my house, we regained our courage and decided to investigate the community ourselves. So we put on the closest thing to camouflage we could find, grabbed our pepper spray, and set out on our adventure.

On our trek through my neighborhood, we happened to recruit a little army of our own. I made them think we were playing follow the leader, but little did they know, I was actually training them on the proper way to sneak attack a lion...

My army is meaner and tougher than they look...

Like good reporters and lion hunters, we started by going to where we knew the lion had been spotted in order to gather facts, interview locals, and make inferences about where our search should go next.

Lion sighting scene #1: The Kings' Tombs

Relative of the lion's victims. 

Sophie reported earlier this afternoon that the lion had killed and devoured two goats and three pigs. The tension only continued to rise as we learned that our teammate and neighbor, Zillah, confirmed that her neighbor's dog died late last night due to the injury of a lion bite.

"What I know is that the lion is a fierce animal," said Charles, one of Nkokonjeru's boda drivers.

Despite Dara and I's most sincere efforts to trap the lion, our heroic tale has not been concluded. Word has it that there is a specific horn that gets blown in the event of a wild animal sighting. It sounds in our valley and echoes off of the hills surrounding it. Last night, I didn't know to listen for such a thing, but now I do.

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..."

Well, it might be how the song goes, but in Nkokonjeru it's at night that the lion comes to life.