“There’s a hyaena on the doorstep,” said Harley.

Puzzled, I looked out the car window toward the house in which we were staying at the staff village connected to Skukuza, the main tourist camp in South Africa’s world-famous Kruger National Park. Sure enough, a large spotted hyaena was lying negligently along the top step. He (unless it was a she) didn’t look particularly fazed at our sudden appearance out of the darkness and certainly wasn’t interested in moving.

“What do we do?” I asked my colleague.
“We wait,” said Harley.
So we sat in the car, and waited for her ladyship (unless it was his lordship) to move. Considering we had just led a night drive with some guests from England, it was late, and we were tired, and tomorrow we had to get up before dawn to go back to Skukuza to fetch our charges for an early morning drive.

But you know what they say about letting sleeping dogs lie. And the hyaena is extremely doglike (with an undeserved reputation of being evil, but a justified reputation of being an excellent hunter, and a scavenger with teeth that can crunch bones like we eat potato chips.)

So we sat. And the hyaena lay dozing, long limbs twitching as he dreamed dog dreams.

We watched the stars – there are always myriads to be seen once you’re out of the city – peeping through the wavering leaves of a maroela tree. A scops owl trilled away somewhere nearby, but otherwise all was quiet, a deep quiet conducive for thoughts to ebb and flow. I found myself chuckling: What on earth am I, a nice Jewish girl, doing sitting in the middle of the bush waiting for a hyaena to get off my doorstep?

Therein lies a tale…