There are several reactions when a Zande discovers that Guinea fowl are in his peanut garden.

The Zandes are hunters and also cultivate gardens in order to obtain the food they need. Their small gardens are in constant danger of being harvested by the wildlife that live in the area. They build a low-walled guard hut where one of their children can keep watch to chase away monkeys that get into the maize, or guinea fowl that start digging up the peanuts.

The gardener was no doubt distressed that he would benefit less from his harvest, but he might have also been a hunter thinking of how delicious the peanut fed guinea fowl meat would be! He had no shotgun.

He knew that the son of the doctor had one. Actually it was my dad’s. It was a single shot, 20-gauge shotgun, an old 1929 Hercules model sold by Montgomery Ward that I had used to shoot low flying chicken hawks. They are actually African Black Kites, but they were hunting young chickens. The Zande wanted me to go with him to hunt Guinea fowl. He made arrangements to guide me to the peanut garden and we would go together.

Mboligihe arrived at five in the morning ready to go hunting with me. It was quite a long walk to the peanut gardens where he had heard that the guinea fowl were digging up and eating the soft new peanuts. I had five shotgun shells in my jeans pocket. The Hercules on my shoulder, held by the barrel, pointed to one side of the path as we walked. Mboligihe had a machete. He would get one of the guinea fowl I hoped to shoot, and our family would eat the others.

The path was beaten smooth and hard by many bare feet. Tall grass hanging across the path from both sides was wet with dew. Soon, Mboligihe’s black legs glistened with moisture as he strode silently ahead of me. His shorts made hardly any sound; they were so soft and worn. My jeans were soon sopping wet below the waist and swished as I walked. Water seeped into my sneakers and they squished with each step. Looking at the back of his shirt I marveled that the threads spanning the large holes somehow kept the sleeves where they belonged. The color of his shirt had long since adapted to its environment. He was the hunter, I was the “Wiri-bawe”, child of a white man

The dew had dried, and the hot sun beat down. We had reached the peanut gardens some miles from the mission station, and there were no guinea fowl anywhere. However, they had clearly been here, lots of them, digging up the peanuts.

Mboligihe showed me the small Spirit Hut at the corner of the garden. It had been carefully made and resembled a miniature round Zande hut, no more than a foot high. The small conical roof was thatched carefully with soft grasses and showed no evidence of having leaked in the last rain. A few feathers, a bit of eggshell, a colored rock and a handful of rice, placed there to satisfy the spirits, remained undisturbed. Either the spirits had been away or were unsatisfied with the offering because clearly the garden hadn’t been protected.

The garden we had approached so carefully was left behind. Mboligihe was headed to another where he hoped the big birds had gone. I wondered if it was worth it. They must have eaten all they wanted and would now be looking for a soft dust bath somewhere.

Cutting across a small ravine, we came to yet another peanut garden. There was evidence that the birds had also visited that one but we found none; all was quiet.

The sun was high and it was very hot. The hunter wasn’t tired, but I certainly was. Hunters never want to go home empty handed. As we kept walking, I watched the ripples of moving muscles in Mboligihe’s back, as he walked steadily ahead of me. His black skin was beaded with sweat where the holes in his shirt revealed his skin. I wiped the sweat again from my face with my sleeve.

I really should witness to this Zande. Maybe he believes in those spirits and doesn’t really know God. Mboli is the word for God in Pazande. His name means “God heard it,” but that name is common among the Zandes. I kept walking, feeling the five shotgun shells still in my pocket and watching his back.

The sun was overhead. All the birds were quiet in the heat. I didn’t know if Mboligihe had started back toward home or not. We were just walking: that is, I was following him, and he was still hunting. Maybe if I prayed, God would send some guinea fowl. I could shoot one, and we could go home. My wet sneakers had dried out after walking a few hours in the hot sun, and now my feet were hot. With each step the back of my sneaker rubbed against what I was sure was a large blister.

“God, you could send some guinea fowl, if you wanted. I promise, if you do, I will give you all the credit, if I get one.” My silent prayer was a bit desperate, but not too risky, cause guinea fowl hide down in the grass during the heat of the day. I guess I wanted a guinea fowl. I knew enough Pazande that I could have said something to Mboligihe, even as we walked. He walked, I trudged along behind, watching his back.

KEE….

KE-KE-KEEEEE….

KEE….

KE-KE-KEEEEE!

The clatter of the birds and the beat of their wings as they flew from nearly under our feet startled both of us. We froze. We had apparently disturbed their dust bath! They never land in a tree at this time of day, but there they were, three of them in the trees, one nearly above us! The others dropped down into the tall grass and disappeared.

My heartbeat caused a rushing in my ears. My hands were shaking and sweaty, but the old Hercules gun still needed to be loaded. Pushing the lever slowly to the right to break the gun open, I tried not to let it click. The click was loud and sharp, but the great speckled bird just looked down and watched me push in the shell. The click when it closed wasn’t so loud. Still the guinea fowl stretched his neck and looked down. The hammer clicked as I pulled it back fully. The bright brass bead of the front sight settled into line with the shallow groove near my eye, and the black silhouette of the bird against the sky.

The BOOM that shattered the noonday silence and the swishing thud of the bird two seconds later as it fell to the ground removed any thought of caution or silence. I rapidly forced the lever to the right and ejected the spent shotgun shell. The two other birds walked a step or two up their branches, looked at me, and stopped. I fumbled with the second shell in my excitement, but a few seconds later the gun roared again, and the second bird fell. The third guinea fowl was further away, out of range, so I started crashing through the tall grass towards it as I again loaded and cocked the gun. I stopped and fired. The third one hit a branch or two as it tumbled down into the tall grass.

Mboligihe was now leaping through the tall grass to the base of the first tree. Maybe the bird was only wounded with a broken wing and was running and flapping his way to freedom. I realized God must really have answered my prayer. The gun barrel was actually too hot to touch. I had never shot three shells at once before. I had to say something. God did it, not me.

“Merici fu Mboli,” I yelled!

“Ee Bha, E Bha, Si kina wo. Ko du!” Mboligihe answered.

I had only said, “Thanks to God.” Mboligihe had answered, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That is the way it is. It is Him.”

Mboligihe soon held all three of the heavy guinea fowl, well fed on new peanuts. I watched as the drops of blood from their beaks made a bright contrast with the natural color on the back of his shirt. I think we both felt like hunters on the walk home.

I will never forget his joyful acceptance of the fact that it is God in our daily lives that makes things worthwhile. His Lord is also my Lord, though I can no longer hunt with Mboligihe. The Zandes are far away and I’ll never hunt guinea fowl again on the grass-lands in the center of Africa, but years later God had a special gift for me in New York

I was surprised when I heard Guinea Fowl mentioned by Jim Vickerson. As a retired member of the town crew he was mowing the side of the road in front of my house and we were talking after I asked if his wife was back from the hospital. He had heard from my son, Jeff, that I was starting a batch of eggs in an incubator and thought I might be interested in some Guinea Fowl eggs. Jim planned to use a setting hen to hatch some for himself at the same time. I added the four eggs he sent back with Jeff, to the run that I had just started. The temperature, the humidity, and the rocking of the eggs for chickens must be about the same for these eggs, so I was keen to see what would happen.

Three weeks later the time was up. Something had gone wrong. My experiment may have proved that the Bantam rooster failed to fertilize the Golden Comet eggs from my laying hens, but I couldn’t be sure. If the incubating temperature had been too low, the hatch could also be delayed, but certainly not by five days. I candled the chicken eggs and found no dark shadow. When shaken vigorously it became evident that the eggs were rotten as the contents had become liquid. I couldn’t get light to shine through the smaller hard-shelled Guinea fowl eggs nor could I find out by shaking them if they were any good, so I broke one open. The keet was almost completely developed, all wet, weakly straining to unfold. He would certainly not survive.

After another four days two keets hatched out, healthy and active. The last one only cracked the shell and gave up. Jeff must have told Jim what happened because his hen had only hatched a couple which he offered to me. I now had some guinea fowl and before long they grew up and started making the noises I remembered from Africa.

I couldn’t tell if I had both male and female birds, since the wattle size was about the same, but I was hoping that they would mate and hatch their own eggs. I discovered that one had a nest under some burdock and another of the birds completely disappeared. Maybe the eggs were fertile, maybe not.

When the hen that had hidden her nest beneath the tangle of burdock reappeared, I found it difficult to count the fluffy brown and yellow keets that tumbled along trying to follow her. They passed each other and scrambled over one another or got stuck trying to get through the holes in the chicken wire. Their mother ignored the desperate peeps from those that got left behind but I began to see Kestrels more frequently. I tried to help the stragglers that got stuck on the wrong side of the chicken fence. The Kestrel apparently helped himself and soon the remaining keets were easy to count. And then, there were none.

In a few days the other missing hen showed up with about 18 keets. The instincts of the destitute mother may have been awakened or it could have been one of the other two birds, but there were soon two adult birds desperately guarding them. One or both of them would threaten and actually attack any they saw as enemies. When a young man from church tried to get close enough to get a good look at the keets, one of the adult birds flew up directly at his head. The baby birds had scrambled to hide in the grass, no doubt at a warning signal from their mother.

During the following weeks I often heard the squawking and warning cries of the guinea fowl, probably defending their offspring. Their flying up to attack what they saw as a threat must have been the reason a number of the keets grew to maturity. It was hard to tell the old and young birds apart, but I am quite certain a couple of the old ones disappeared without a trace, probably carried off by coyotes.

There were eventually eight mature guinea fowl, a delight to see patrolling our yard and garden, pecking at insects we never see and stripping the tiny seeds from the stalks of weeds under the grape vine. I was glad to have them around

God had given us some more Guinea Fowl to enjoy.