Having started a wild life club at Kagumo School in central Kenya, I asked the warden of Aberdare National Park to guide us around some game areas in the park. We would be in the school lorry, eager for any possible sightings. He agreed, but when we showed up on the appointed day, he said that he had to excuse himself to shoot a leopard which was raiding nearby shambas.

            We went off with some rangers and had a lovely afternoon. Upon returning to the office to drop off the rangers, I spied the carcass of the leopard (pronounced, of course, lay-o-pard) and asked what was to become of the head. It was wrapped up in newspaper and given to me on the spot. Realizing that I was beyond sqeamish and had no taxidermy skills, I approached Tony, the biology teacher, for assistance. Turns out Tony did have taxidermy experience, and, yes, he would be glad to clean the skull for me if I would let him have the eyes. Such a deal, and I readily accepted. I got the cleaned skull and a great story.

            Tony’s classes were studying eyes the following week, and he decided that he would tell his students certain cautions about rubbing their eyes. With the leopard’s eyes in a dish under the demonstration table, Tony starting rubbing his eyes vigorously, screamed and shouted, and held up a leopard’s eye as his own. His students burst into their own screams (“pissed themselves” in the vernacular) only to be calmed when Tony revealed the truth.

            I still have the skull sitting on my desk, and the Kagumo School Wild Life Club morphed into the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya (http://www.wildlifeclubsofkenya.org/) whose founding father was this young mzungu from Boston.