The time of the hunters has arrived.
The animals retire to their night-time ride away.
Life on the savannah offers no truces. And the night of Shaba fills with living shadows,
prowling around in the eternal game of life and death.
By the river, beneath the fallen trunk of an acacia,
the leopard scans the night in search of prey.
Its hearing and sense of smell receive the information of everything alive
and moving about under the cover of night.
Another leopard emerges from the shadows,
and the couple continues its silent round.
From the river come messages of potential prey,
but the water and the crocodiles place them beyond their reach.
Then, the male detects a furtive movement in a tree alongside the Ewaso Ngiro,
and the hunt begins.
The female waits at a certain distance.
Only if the prey is large will she come to the aid of her companion.
Silent as a ghost,
the leopard approaches the base of the tree in which the prey hides.
Its senses are alert, waiting for fresh signs. And then a new sound is heard.
The leopard knows there is something alive in the tree,
and that there is no escape for it.
Beneath the branches runs a river full of dangers and to reach the ground
the prey has to reveal itself.
It is now just a question of time,
and beneath the attentive gaze of his companion, the hunter gets ready to attack.
A last movement reveals a monitor lizard,
provoking a reaction from the leopard. For the terrified lizard,
this will be its last night on earth.
Beneath the tree, the female waits, disappointed.
The prey is small, and the male will keep it all for himself.
In the harsh world of Shaba there is no place for any other attitude
but ensuring one’s own survival.
And if it had been the female that had caught the monitor lizard,
she would not have allowed the male to come near.
Having devoured his catch,
the males comes down from the tree to join his mate.
And again two shadows melt into the night,
combining beauty and death beneath the starry sky of Shaba.
Shaba is a fascinating land beyond the influence of man;
a world in which life is a series of stark contrasts;
where hardship gives rise to beauty and survival imposes constant tests.
And it is precisely the harshness of its conditions that makes this land a world apart,
an exclusive paradise for its survivors.
With the return of the dry season,
Shaba goes back to the beginning.
Little by little drought sets in.
And again God and the devil alternate until they become one and the same,
with no beginning or end,
in the perpetual cycle of life.