In the wild a giraffe can decapitate a lion with a single kick. At the Giraffe Sanctuary, in Nairobi, if you hold a feeding pellet in an open hand, the giraffes will nibble it from your palm. If you put it between your lips, they will take it with a shlurpy kiss, licking your face with their cat-rough sandpaper tongue, leaving strands of saliva that stretch like a piece of spider web between your face and theirs as they calmly pull away, making the Web of Life momentarily literal and visible. When they lean over the fence for a treat, their huge heads easily span from shoulder to waist on the average human body. They don’t like to be petted or scratched, but they love to be fed. Again and again they bend in fearless gentleness towards their human pellet dispensers. For them, it’s all in a day’s foraging.
For us it’s a thrill unlike any we have experienced. My daughter, who is a horse lover, is especially taken and revels in the slimy connection. I watch the look of deep joy on her face, of enchantment and magic experienced first hand, and know it is mirrored on my face, too, when the giraffe bends for his pellet-kiss. I watch my son as he stands, grounded and rightful, pellet in lips, upturned face calm and assured as the giraffe looms toward him. I see the astonished faces of other visitors, illuminated by that same joy, especially the children, and in the faces of the sanctuary’s patient Kenyan keepers who help us learn this most basic and simple form of connection with these astonishing creatures, perfect and impossible in their Dr. Seuss-ness. Gentle touch, a shared breath, a kiss is all it takes.
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