Wide Awake in Zambia

We were in a tent somewhere in Zambia at another campsite that was composed of a suspect washroom and a water source we were told not to use for drinking. No fences, no night watchman - only tents and our parked tour truck. It was just before 5:00 AM and I heard something beside our tent.

I opened my eyes to the blue darkness before sunrise. Then something collided with the front of the tent. This was followed by a snort; not a loud one (not loud enough to wake Laura), but it was an unmistakably aggressive exhale. Then another deeper growl - this one coming too fast to be from the same source.

Now I'm sitting up in the tent and both hands are quickly but silently scanning the tent for one of two flashlights that were supposed to be within easy reach. Something - the body of something - smacked into the front of the tent again. Even in the darkness there was an instant when I saw the torso traced on the tent canvass. It was smaller than it sounded, but it was definitely not alone and the pair of them were becoming increasingly more excited.

Hyenas, I kept thinking. We'd heard too many stories about hyenas. They're not supposed to be hunters; they scavenge like vultures. They like garbage. They like campsites. They have one of the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom - enough to eat bone - and they are impulsive enough to confuse the sleeping with the dead. And where are those flashlights already? Hyenas have been known to clamp down on the heads of sleeping troops and rangers at night. In the morning you find either a headless troop or nothing at all - maybe some teeth or a horn or tusk in the case of an animal victim.

Now the animals were rolling on something. That's our tent bag outside, I thought. We were told to keep it in the tent. We forgot. With my hands still dancing on the tent floor, I'm trying to remember more about why we were told to bring the tent bags inside. Another loud snarl - almost a bark - and it came to me: jackals! The jackals prowl at dusk and dawn and steal anything not nailed down. They'll attack in packs and can be vicious, but not "head-removal" vicious so there was a certain relief in listening to the pre-dawn jackal fight two feet outside our tent. And the fight was just getting started! I leaned right against the door flap, giving up on the flashlights and could hear a body being flipped down in the grass. More snarls and the chomping of teeth.
I had to see them! I waited until the fight rolled back a few more feet and it sounded like one of them was pinned again. I reached up and drew down the zipper along the tent entrance slowly, cupping it with my other hand so it was as quiet as possible. Morning light spilled into the tent. I blinked but didn't see anything in the grass outside. Just as I began to think they'd gone, something hit me in the knee through the tent wall and let out a huff.

Without thinking, I ripped the zipper the rest of the way down and the door flapped open. I looked down and saw two Jack Russel terriers frantically wagging their tails and staring up at me. I got out of the tent and sat on the grass. One jumped in my lap and the other resumed rolling on the tent bag, snarling contently.
Still lots to learn out here in Africa, but we'll try to remember that sometimes jackals can be Jack Russels.


P.S. Apparently there were two elands (the largest antelopes in Africa, think moose-sized reindeer) walking around our campsite that night.