Bagging Africa’s Big Five

Dorothy Ross’s winning personal essay takes her readers to Africa and a photo safari involving more action than the writer had bargained for. The details the author chooses put us right into the situation with directness and good humor, attributes of good writing.

Bagging Africa’s Big Five
by Dorothy Ross

Thirty-six hours after leaving San Francisco, my niece and I arrived at the lodge, near South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Roger, the manager and head guide, showed us to our cottage. He was dressed in a slightly disheveled, olive drab uniform of shorts and military-style shirt, with a large pistol in a leather holster on his belt. The lodge was a collection of bed-and-bath cottages strung like beads along a meandering boardwalk. Roger explained that we must keep to the raised wooden walkways at all times to avoid chance encounters with snakes and alligators. What’s more, he would escort us back to our cottage each evening to protect us from night-prowling predators.

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