When the herds left the Liuwa Plain, the hunger came. For weeks the tribe lived on smaller meals, surviving on whatever they could find, and it was never quite enough. The children went to sleep hungry. The old people grew thin. Every year the men stood and watched the dust of the wildebeest drift away across the plain, and every year they knew they couldn’t follow. The men had tried. They would set off after the herds, but out there the river sank into the sand and disappeared. There was no shade and nowhere to hide, and a man was exposed to the sun and to everything else that lived there. The animals could cover vast distances with no water at all. The men couldn’t. Sooner or later they were forced to turn back, because they couldn’t survive long without it. The suffering was too great. Men in those days were fascinated by the world around them, but they generally kept to the same area. It was too dangerous to travel far into the unknown, and the unknown has always been man’s biggest fear. Then one dry season, Acrollis decided he would follow the animals to the bitter end and see where they went. He made a sack for carrying water from an animal’s intestines. Two friends, Akasiwa and Sepo, decided to join him. They were as fascinated as he was. They were heading into the unknown, where anything could happen, and they might never see their families again. His mother was distraught. She didn’t want to lose her son. But his father had watched the children go to sleep hungry too many times. He saw that his son had to go, for the sake of the whole tribe. It was a sacrifice, but an important one. Reluctantly, his mother agreed, and the three men set off. They each carried a few bags of water. It wouldn’t last many days, and there would certainly not be enough to get back if they turned around. The land ahead was barren grassland. The river had gone underground, out of reach of men and animals alike. The herd of wildebeest kicked up a dust cloud that was easy to follow. In the worst heat of the day the herd stopped in the shade of a few large trees, and no travel was possible. The three men did the same, setting up camp and waiting for the cool of the evening. They kept their distance, but every now and again the herd would grow very unsettled. Lions would attack, and one would be killed. At night it was the hyenas. The men lay awake listening to them whooping out on the plain, and in the morning there would be one less calf. It was a war of attrition. Many predators followed the herd, so one of the men always had to keep watch. They could never be too careful. A lion wouldn’t hesitate to kill a man if it felt threatened, especially with cubs nearby. Lions didn’t particularly like eating people, but they saw them as a threat. Acrollis raised his hand, and the others stopped. They crouched and waited. To their right, a go-away bird gave its alarm call. The herd sensed the danger and began to stampede. The three men jumped to their feet and trotted after them. They could run like this for a whole day, but their water was dwindling. A young wildebeest wasn’t so lucky. Two large male lions took it down, and its journey in this world was over. Perhaps it would be reborn as a lion in its next life and the tables would be turned. But for now, it was food. The men trotted past, and the feeding lions didn’t even look up. The animals often walked through the night, and the men had to keep up. If they fell too far behind, they would become a target. By morning, their water was gone. Now the real suffering began. There would be no turning back and no respite. They would simply have to keep going until their bodies gave out. They knew the animals needed water too. The herd had to be heading towards it, and they hoped to get there before their resilience ran out. Through the heat of the day, the men suffered. Their lips split. Their tongues swelled. They dug for roots the way the old people had taught them, roots that were succulent and held a mouthful of water, but it took patience and hard work and the roots were few. That afternoon, Akasiwa stopped walking. “We should go back,” he said. Acrollis turned and looked at the way they had come. Two days of empty grass, shimmering in the heat. “There is nothing back there,” he said. “There is no water behind us. The only water is ahead.” They kept going. An hour later, Akasiwa dropped to the sunbaked earth and lay still. Acrollis and Sepo poked him and tried to get him up. They tried to lift him, but they were weak themselves. If he wasn’t already dead, he was very close to it. His mother had named him Akasiwa, the one who cannot be left. They left him. That night, the hyenas started whooping somewhere behind them, in the direction they had come from. Neither man said a word. Acrollis and Sepo stumbled on. Any predator would have found them easy pickings. They were far too weak to defend themselves. On the second night without water, Acrollis lay down in the grass and didn’t get up. His body had nothing left. The herd was moving away from him in the dark, and he let it go. He thought it would be easy just to stay there. Then he thought of the children going to sleep hungry, and of his father’s face when he had let him go. He got up. On the third day without water, as the heat began to rise, they heard the wildebeest making a noise, as if they were excited. The men thought another pride of lions had come to attack. But as they stumbled forward, they smelt it. Water. The river had come up out of the ground again, wide and fast and deep. Acrollis and Sepo pushed in among the animals, who were just as desperate to drink. It was still hard going, because most of their strength had gone, but they never gave up. They reached the water’s edge and would have jumped in if the current hadn’t been so strong. They were also rightly afraid of the crocodiles lurking in the depths, waiting for unsuspecting prey. The water revived them. Without it they would have been dead within hours. They rested while their bodies slowly soaked it back up, and it brought them back from the brink. Then Acrollis counted the days back in his head, and he understood. Akasiwa had fallen less than a day’s walk from this river. When their strength returned, they filled every bag they had and walked home, following their own tracks across the dry country. They found the place where Akasiwa had fallen. The hyenas had been there first. The next dry season, when the herds moved away, the tribe didn’t stand and watch the dust. They filled their water bags and followed. It took three days to reach the river, and that year, nobody went hungry. Whenever the herds leave the plain, the elders still tell the children about Acrollis, who got up out of the grass when there was nothing left in him. They tell them what he told them: keep going, because the reward is usually just around the next corner. Then they tell them about Akasiwa, who lay down less than a day from the river. If this story stayed with you, I’d love to hear what it stirred up. Leave a comment, give it a like, and share it with someone who’s walking through their own dry stretch right now. P.S. Sometimes the bravest thing is saying yes before you feel ready. Next June, I’m taking ten people to the Luangwa Valley in Zambia for ten days of wildlife and work with the community. Places are limited. Have a look at the trip here. You can also support our work in Zambia here - Buy me a coffee Get full access to Colin's Chronicles at colindurrant.substack.com/subscribe
