The Knowledgeable Lion: Poems and Prose by the Unfeeling Doctor in Africa

By Melissa Yuan-Innes

I have always yearned to visit Africa.
I want to watch lions prowl in their natural habitat. I want to gaze into an elephant’s eyes and witness a wise matriarch who has traversed the continent. I want to sit quietly with the silverback gorillas.
Instead, I finished medical school and residency, got married, and had kids. I dreamed of Africa, but figured it would stay a dream for another decade, until my teacher friend, Becky, said, “My school is going to South Africa. You could come.”
This is a short book of poems, mixed with occasional prose, about my travels in South Africa and Swaziland. From visiting a Mom and Baby clinic and surfing in Jeffrey’s Bay, to dissecting an impala in Moholoholo, to shopping in Swaziland, and culminating in a safari in Kruger National Park. Almost 100 percent as a tourist, instead of as a doctor. And that’s okay. As the African proverb says, “Travel teaches how to see.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olo Books
• Release date: Oct 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781927341261

Melissa Yuan-Innes

Melissa Yuan-Innes is an emergency room doctor and writer who lives with her husband, one son, one daughter, two cows, and too many mosquitoes outside of Montreal, Canada. She writes thrillers and science fiction/fantasy under Melissa Yuan-Innes, mysteries under the name Melissa Yi, romance under Melissa Yin, and children's/YA under Melissa Yuan. "Mixing mystery in with sheer humanity and splendid characterization, Yuan-Innes's story is a delight." --Alicia Curtis, A&E Editor, The Stormy Petrel "Melissa Yuan-Innes delivers a Bradburyian shocker" --Paul Di Filippo, Asimov's "Yuan-Innes employs a fresh use of language to spin a storyline that is at once universally familiar and intriguingly original." --Brian Agincourt Massey, judge of the 2008 Innermoonlit Award for Best First Chapter of a Novel, in awarding first prize to _The Popcorn Girl Meets Darwin Jones_

Book preview

I am on my way to Africa

So far, it looks remarkably like

Going anywhere else.

First, we drive to the Ottawa airport

(but this time, with Becky driving,

so I can eat my tangerines,

banana,

half-apple,

and pear

while she subsists on the fumes

of her blueberries and tea breakfast).

Then we check in remarkably early (for me)

As best we can, with the useless clerk.

Then we thread through U.S. customs

And baggage check-in

And security—

All very nice and quick

Compared to Montreal.

I still can't quite believe

I'll make it to Africa.

It's a little bit like

When I can't believe I'm pregnant

And then I can believe I'm pregnant

But I can't quite believe

I'll end up with a warm, live baby in my arms

Until it actually happens.

I know too much.

I anticipate even more.

But in the meantime,

It's extremely pleasant

To think that

The Magic 8 Ball

At least points toward

the dark continent.

I have always wanted to go.

I want to see giraffes stretch their long necks;

I want to look into elephants' eyes

And feel their intelligent gaze back at me

Without a trainer

Encouraging them to beg for money.

I want to see lions

Lazing in the sun;

I want to immerse myself in a world

Where monkey are commonplace,

Where life does not revolve around the Internet

And plastic geegaws,

But on connection and history,

The blood lines,

In more ways than one.

I want to see it for myself,

Without a filter

Without the pre-screened,

Mindless chatter

And the laugh track.

I don't know how I'll be received,

Especially when I read about China

Unapologetically plundering the continent

(which is just WYSIWYG

compared to the West's

plunder-then-apologize set-up).

All I know

Is that I'm going in

With my eyes wide open.

I told Becky about how

I was a workaholic

At the resort in Jamaica.

Now I'm heading out to the hinterlands of South Africa

Where there is no Internet.

I can go on vacation!

I can see the world!

I can explore!

I will miss my little bubbies.

They will miss me too.

Max: Mommy, I'm going to miss you soooooooo much!

Me: I will miss you too, Max.

Max: I'm going to miss you MORE!

Me: You're going to have so much fun with Daddy

Max: I'm going to miss you MORE!

Me: I'll miss you more. Next time, I'll bring you.

Anastasia—well, she still doesn't talk much

Although she just started to say No,

Repeatedly and clearly,

And yesterday, I took off her fleece snowsuit one limb at a time.

I did her arm and said, One.

Then, at the same time as me, she said, Two.

I was astonished,

But I did a leg, and she said, Fwee.

And the final foot,

On cue,

Foah.

Can she count?

Who knows?

All I know

Is that she no longer wails her head off

At the babysitter’s.

And that is a good thing indeed.

I'm sorry about weaning her,

But I think she's mostly forgotten now.

She no longer shoves her arm down my shirt;

She no longer cries and pushes the bottle away.

Much.

And she loves walking

With her yogurt drink

In her sippy cup

For her to drink at will

Without interference.

So it's really okay

For me to take flight.

Just for twelve days.

Just long enough to take a peek

At the rest of the world

Before I come back

Bearing a new vision

In my heart.

On the plane

In the olden days,

There was only one movie

You got to watch

And when it finished,

Everyone got up

To make a beeline for the bathroom.

Now we all have our own mini-theatre

Stored in the back of the seat in front of us.

Amongst all the movie choices

They have African,

So I watch those,

Following a young boy

Whose mother moves him

From Nairobi to England

And learning about how one guy

Is revolutionizing traditional dance music.

But when I look around,

Most people are watching Hollywood comedies.

Dakar, Senegal

While the plane refuels,

I look out the windows

At the desert scrub,

The tiny baobab trees,

The rectangle forest of concrete buildings,

Mostly uniform,

But a few pink

Or sand-coloured edifices.

When we take flight,

My low-res eyes

Miss the birds in the trees

And the people with carts

That Becky describes.

But as I gaze toward the silver-grey sea.

The waves lap toward the shore.

I see the way the misty sky

And the ocean

Blend into

A sunny haze.

Beneath us,

The traffic runs.

A soccer (football) stadium

Lies open to the air.

I notice the multicoloured insignia my airplane’s wing

And say to myself,

We made it to Africa.

If nothing else,

I have touched down on this continent.

One dream fulfilled.

Now, I have not

Stepped on to the land.

I have not met any people

Or tasted any food

Beyond the well-packaged airplane snacks

But I am here.

The Orphan’s Revenge

I can’t recharge my computer

In the Johannesburg airport’s three-pronged outlets,

So I ask a smiling black man

If I can share his adaptor.

He says yes.

I recognize him from the airport security line.

He’s from South Africa, so I ask him

About apartheid.

Paul was just a lad

When the black people rose up in 1979,

But they pulled all the kids out of school

And made them march down to the stadium.

He didn't like

That they didn't give you a choice

About participating

That all the children

At all the schools

Had to attend.

Even trains would be re-routed

To join in the protest.

Paul would undo his shoelace

And let the others march ahead

While he took his time tying it.

He’d empty a rock out of his shoe

And then the other shoe.

When the marshal urged him on,

Paul would say, Just a minute, I'll catch up

Before he let them run ahead

And he snuck the back way home,

Through the mountains.

Paul’s mother,

A nurse and an entrepreneur,

A genius, he says,

Was killed in a car accident.

When Paul was six years old.

His father remarried quickly,

To provide stability to Paul and his older sister,

And the marriage provided another son,

But ended in divorce.

The father sent each of his children

To a boarding school over a thousand miles away,

Where they could concentrate on their lessons,

But rarely saw their father anymore.

His father married a third time,

Had a daughter,

And supported them all with

His entrepreneurial spirit,

Renting refrigerators,

Selling chicken,

Selling blankets in the winter,

Constantly re-jigging his business.

But his latter two wives quarrelled

Over him.

The middle wife hired a hit man

Who shot the father

And killed him.

The Zulu clan

Wanted to avenge his father's death

Because he was a good man.

They gave Paul a