Damien Galeone

Me feeding Herb the Hyena

The hyena approaches sideways, almost shy. His teeth are dense and short, a tendril from its last meaty snack dangles from a canine. His jaw looks strong enough to snap a parking meter pole. Its fur is gritty brown, spotted, matted, and bristled. As it extends his snout to grab the goat innards from the 7-inch stick I’m holding out to him, I realize his fur is bristled because of me.

This does nothing to calm my nerves.

I give him a cute name him in my head, a trick I developed to deal with my fear of spiders. The logic being that nothing with a cute name could harm you. The stability of this logic gets very shaky when one considers the hundreds and thousands of dogs with names like Fluffy, Cupcake, and Pookie who maul their owners. Or my cat Bella.

He is Herbert. Herbert the Hyena. I call him Herb.

A lot of thoughts go through a man’s mind as he’s holding a short stick of goat innards out to a wild hyena in the middle of the African outback at night. Despite the fact that feeding a wild hyena is a once in a lifetime experience, none of the thoughts travelling through my mind at obsessive-warp speed focus on that.

No, my mind focuses on the fact that there’s a wild hyena walking towards me and the goat kidney I’m holding. It focuses on the fact that this is just the sort of thing that ends one up on the news of the weird. A thing that people hear and say: Well, why would the schmuck feed a wild hyena in the first place? And then the headline flashes across my mind:

Man Mauled by Hyena Allergic to Goat Meat

I always get freaked out when reading a headline like this because I instantly imagine it happening to me. To combat this anxiety, I eliminate myself from possible inclusion by rationalizing that these people did extraordinary things or put themselves into very dangerous situations in order to die or be maimed in such an odd way.

Something that becomes very clear very quickly while travelling in Africa is that you are in these kinds of situations several times every day. For that reason, I begin to see our African adventures in a series of disturbing and weird headlines.

Rare African Worm Eats through man’s stomach after eating Raw Meat in Africa

American Man Falls to Death After Disregarding Mother’s Advice 

Minivan Loaded with People Drives over Cliff to Avoid Baboons

Man Gored by Bull at Traffic Crossing

Man Lost in Cave under Famous Church

Man Suffering from Dysentery Kills Self Rather Than Use Another Ethiopian Toilet

Two American Men Catch First-known Cases of Airborne Herpe-Syphillis Strain in Ethiopian Brothel

Americans Take Nap after Disappointment from Chewing Much Ballyhooed Chat Leaves

Despite the constant anxiety, worry, and necessary vigilance, there is one bright spot. Should we survive all of these unique and unusual experiences we get to then talk about having gone through them. I imagine myself dropping one casually into a dinner party conversation. Well, if you have ever fed a wild hyena you’d know that they do enjoy goat meat. Of you haven’t, well…(scoffing eyeroll)

But that’s later and this is now. And now means I am not safe yet, but rather holding a meat covered stick out to one of the world’s fiercest predators. My knees shake a little. Herb snorts at me. This is what you brought me? I had goat for lunch. I begin a mantra that I can’t quite remember.

Herb snatches the meat from the side and runs off to his three buddies (Fred, Sally, and Jerry). He cackles with them, surely mocking the faranji (foreigner) who almost just wet himself while saying Please don’t eat me, Herb. Then he probably said, My name is Grumlu.

I walk back to the small group of spectators thanking Herb the whole way for leaving me intact and keeping me out of the news of the weird.

For now.