Little Isha was presented to me as a gift on August 28th.  No one knows what happened to her mother but she needed a home.   I was wary at first of taking on a week old baby with her umbilical cord still dangling, but Isha’s large brown eyes draped in luscious lashes and long attentive ears soon won me over.

Because of the severe drought, no Maasai would sell me goat milk, the best alternative for a baby antelope.  All but a handful of cattle remain in our area and the few lactating goats are the Maasai’s only supply of milk until the rains come.  Isha took to the next best alternative, soya milk, with the same enthusiasm as a child taking medicine so I had to force feed her using a syringe.   After a few days, she and I had our rhythm, and soon she began gaining strength.

At night she slept in a box lined with hay next to my side of the bed. Gizzy, our cat, viewed this intrusion of the long legged monster as nothing short of abandonment and stayed in her cat bed in another tent rather than sleeping with us.  During the days, I moved Isha to a shady thicket where we could keep an eye on her, calling her for regular feedings throughout the day and into the early evening. 

As Isha gained strength, she began to cavort around camp and within a short time she was browsing for leaves, a sure sign of her advancement and success at growing into a young duiker.   She and I had a lovely ritual after feeding where I would lie back with her standing on my chest and groom her coat with a small, wet, homemade foam tong.  She loved it and thanked me by nibbling my chin and cheeks.  It was a wonderful bonding that we both thoroughly enjoyed five times each day.

Isha took several downturns in her second week, but we managed to get her back on track and she was doing well.  Always alert, she quickly learned her way around camp and found several favorite spots to sleep during the day.  She was captivating, coming when we called her name and prancing with capricious vigor when she wanted to play.  Isha always displayed her sweet nature but saved her heartfelt affections for me and would follow me around when she wasn’t playing, browsing or sleeping.

Last Wednesday, she was weak when I called her out from her box by my bed for her 6 a.m. feeding.  By 10 a.m. I realized that she might not make it. She was so ill and limp.  I kept her in my lap all day long, stroking her, offering her soya milk and suddenly in the afternoon, she came back to life.   Within the hour she was standing, eating leaves and taking soya milk with gusto.  She had made it.  I was so relieved that I hailed her recovery to all in camp.  I put her in her favorite spot to get some work done and returned an hour later.

Isha was not to make it after all, and she died in my arms two hours later.  We buried her near my great grandmother’s fig tree, a cutting I brought from California a few years ago.  I miss her terribly.  It’s so hard to lose a small wild animal.  Philip recalled many of these “tragedies” that he watched his mother Mary, an avid animal lover, go through during his childhood in Oldupai. He said that only about 1 or 2 out of 5 orphans brought to their camp would survive.  I suppose that was meant to comfort me, but I can’t help feeling that I failed little Isha. 

I stuck a branch of fresh green leaves in the small mound by the fig tree and send her a kiss each time I walk by.  To all the animals we love in the world, may they continue to change our lives and make us better human beings, no matter how long or short we have them, and no matter how hard it can be at times, may they continue to grace our lives.