Mongoose Madness

Here is another guest post from my granddaughter Jamie:

Today we had just gotten back from an action-packed game drive, so we headed to our room to rest before lunch. Wayne stepped out through the sliding door into the backyard of our room and he sees dozens of banded mongoose.  Big ones, little ones, dark ones, light ones, playful ones and some basking the warm sun. I moved close and sat down quietly in the middle of the pack, mostly because animals are less threatened if you move down to their level.  It worked, because one mongoose approached very close and startled me when he touched my leg!  Unfortunately, that made me move and he scuttled away. We must have watched them for 20 minutes, as they wrestled and played with each other. 

Then I saw a monitor lizard across the yard staring at the mongoose. Once the mongoose noticed the presence of the lizard they all scattered around. Some ran away, some climbed up a tree and some vanished into holes in the ground. But not minutes later when I checked on them again, there was a lady feeding them crackers and they were all gathered around her ankles.  I resisted feeding the mongoose, as one really shouldn't feed animals in the wild.

By Jamie Gibson