R and J in the USA

Ryan’s Uber driver had a fight with a lion. He wasn’t attacked by a lion. He had a fight with a lion.

Ryan called an Uber to take him from our friend Matt’s house in Seattle to Sea-Tac airport, from where he would be flying home to visit his mother. He was picked up by Hussein, an athletic looking man who appeared to be in his late twenties. They made sporadic small for the first few minutes of the ride, as often happens in Ubers. Hussein asked Ryan where he was flying to.

“Rochester, New York.”

This is when Hussein’s enthusiasm began to emerge from his calm demeanor.

“New York is not the biggest city in the world,” he said with an accent Ryan was not able to place. “I used to think New York was the biggest city in the world until I went to Shanghai.”

They had now moved beyond small talk and into experience. When Hussein finished talking about Shanghai, Ryan asked him where he grew up, which he had been curious about based on his accent.

“In Kenya.”

“What was the landscape like where you grew up?”

“Like here,” Hussein said, sweeping his arm toward the Pacific Northwest landscape beyond the windshield.

“Really?” Ryan said, more as an expression of surprise than of questioning. Not being fully fluent in African geography, he had pictured a more arid part of the continent.

“Yes. It is very green. And lots of wild animals. More wild animals than anywhere in the world.”

Ryan asked Hussein if there were wild animals in the area where he grew up.

“Yes. Many wild animals.”

“Did you see wild animals regularly?”

“Yes. I once had a fight with a lion.”

Two things went through Ryan’s mind in the next millisecond. One, holy cow. And two, he didn’t say he was attacked by a lion. He said he had a fight with a lion.

“You had a fight with a lion?!”

Hussein then told Ryan the story.

“A lion was biting our cow. I grabbed a stick and hit it in the back with the stick. It turned and knocked me to the ground and was on top of me. In Kenya you carry a knife. I reached for my knife.” He mimed reaching for a knife out of a sheath on his right hip. “My brother saw this through the window, and he shot the lion twice.”

“I can’t believe your instinct was to go after the lion and not to go away from the lion,” Ryan said.

“We are Masai warriors,” Hussein said with conviction. “We are hunters. We can’t let them come and take our animals. They have to know they cannot come into our village.”

“Were you scared?”

 “Yes. Very scared.”

Hussein then talked about the lion’s perspective, and the relationship between humans and other animals.

“What most people don’t understand is that most animals are afraid of men. Lions are afraid of man. Not of woman. Of man. They can tell the difference. When the lion is in our area, he knows. When the lion is biting the cow, he’s not thinking about me. When I hit him with the stick, he is scared. He is not hunting me. I am hunting him. When you are out walking alone, it’s a different story. They are hunting you. But when they come in your area, they know.”

Hussein was 16 or 17 years old when this happened. “I can’t show you now,” he said, gesturing to his right thigh. “I have a big scar. From the claws.”

They must have really needed that cow was one of the many thoughts swirling through Ryan’s cloud of awe.