A Cheetah Kiss

I was in a meeting with three incredible business women, Samantha Mant of Three Sixty Services Ltd, Rebecca Tregarthen of rejoove and Deb MacLeod of DMM Consulting, and we were having a great discussion about social media and subject matter. Luckily for me, Sense Africa subject matter is pretty much limitless and there are so many stories, anecdotes and facts about Africa that I can impart. Finding factoids about plumbing, business development and client relationship consulting can be a little bit harder and my friends have to be much smarter with how they get their message across.

I can talk about Africa until the cows, cats come home and wildlife experiences are always a great topic, well it is for me. So here is a cheetah story....

I was doing some research into cheetah projects in Namibia a few years back and found myself visiting a farm which took in problem cheetah.  These cheetah had, more often than not, killed cattle and were therefore considered a pest species. The cheetah were then captured and relocated to a farm in the north of Namibia where they were fed and looked after and, if possible, new homes were looked for.

I arrived by car and got out to open the gates. There was a fenced area, like with all homesteds in Africa, where the land around the house is fenced in to prevent wild animals getting too near to the home. Just as I was opening the gates I noticed two cheetah lolloping from around the back of the house. I promptly closed the gate for fear of letting them out, but more importantly, for fear of them getting too close to me. This was not really what I had expected, most people in Africa have dogs guarding their house, not cheetah.

Chris then came out of the front door, luckily he had been expecting me, and he shouted that it was OK to come in. I have to admit I was a little bit reserved in opening the gate, I was now only 2m away from what I perceived to be very wild animals. It was all rather surreal. The cheetah lost interest and walked away whilst I gingerly got my bags out of the car. This was going to be an memorable stay!

Cheetah are interesting animals, they are easily domesticated and in the olden days were often used as pets. However, once cheetah are familiar with man, they lose their hunting and survival instincts and cannot be reintroduced back into the wild. These two cheetah had been taken in when they were cubs and had therefore become used to living in a semi-domesticated state. They were fed carcasses on the back lawn, sharpened their claws on the garden trees and wandered inside the house as if they owned it – which in my mind they probably did.

That night it was Chris's birthday and we celebrated by having champagne outside under the wonderful starlit African sky. The steak was on the braai and we were listening to the sounds of the African wildlife, I was truly content at that moment. What more could a girl want?

Chris asked me a question about the projects I was running and I turned my head to the right to answer him whereupon I found myself being eyeballed by one of the cheetah, 20 cm away from my nose. I opened my mouth slowly to answer his question (sudden movements are not good) when the cheetah leaned forward and licked me on my arm. I know that cats have rough tongues, but this felt like I was being electrically sand papered with nails, I was surprised to find that my skin was still intact.

What more could a girl want? A cheetah kiss was suffice.