Mombo is as dramatic a place as any in Africa, in fact I would say it is the closest to Eden I have ever experienced.The opportunity to work at Mombo was a rare privilege and due to human insecurities when we arrived we were allocated the best positioned staff house in Africa. In an attempt to isolate us, as we were considered competition for the management position, we were not allocated a house in the main staff quarters but rather on the far end of the camp, overlooking a floodplain. It was the best thing for us.
Looking out from our room over the floodplain on that first day we counted twelve species of mammals, including buffalo, giraffe and elephants, and countless species of birds that included fish eagles, saddle-billed storks and herons and egrets. Our initial thoughts were that the sight was unusual but as the days and weeks passed we realised that our home was something special. I walked out the door early one morning to find the game drive vehicles twenty yards away watching lions on a zebra kill.
Our house at Mombo, humble in size and furnishings, was the heart of the camp for us. The animal interactions ranged from the unique to the violently dramatic. Lions would often roar a meter from our beds, so close in fact that we could hear their soft footfalls as they passed by our house, and the rasping call of the territorial leopard as it brushed past enthralled us.
We had a group of eight 'dagga boys' as company, those old and wise buffalo bulls that have left the breeding herds to live out their lives in peace and quiet, and elephants were ever present around the house.
By Leigh Kemp