Larium!? Why!?

Watched Mom and Dad pet a giraffe today, then stood amazed as each of them let the giraffe lick their faces. Wonder if their malaria meds are acting up, but so glad that they’re both so into that they’re making their own weird adventures. I can only imagine what they’re telling their friends back home…

Travel
Necking with a giraffe; Okay. What's the one thing that's more disturbing than watching your parents kiss each other? The answer, according to Karen Palmer, is watching them smooch a gentle Rothschild giraffe.
Karen Palmer
Special to The Star
719 words
18 March 2006
The Toronto Star
K05

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Are my parents having an unusual reaction to their malaria meds?

There's my mom, her eyes closed as though waiting for a kiss from a schoolboy crush, while an astonished-looking guide looks on.

And there is my dad, his face squished and mostly obscured by the full, 18-inch-length of a dark grey giraffe tongue eagerly searching for the pellet of maize and sorghum clamped between dad's teeth.

All I can say is: "Eww!"

My father, usually a mild-mannered accountant, compares a kiss from a giraffe to having a warm cloth placed gently on your face. Apparently its tongue is so soft, you barely feel it at all.

My mom agrees, in her retired kindergarten teacher way.

"The tongue is so soft and supple that the giraffe didn't actually lick or kiss me, just happily curled the tip of her tongue around the pellet," she says. "No wonder they can get leaves of the acacia tree without eating thorns!"

The giraffe park, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, ( www.gcci.org/afew/afew.html ) is a unique way to satisfy a safari junkie's curiosity about the long-necked creatures - and maybe even show them a little affection.

Started in 1980 as an urban home for the endangered Rothschild giraffe, the centre has grown to include a hotel where guests are often visited by the giraffes while they're taking tea and where the giraffes deliver the wake-up call to rooms set on the second-storey.

Its main job, however, is protecting the Rothschild giraffe while building an appreciation for them among Kenya's school children, who visit the park for free.

When Betty and Jock Leslie-Melville created AFEW in 1977, there were only 130 Rothschild giraffes left in Kenya. The giraffe differs from the country's plentiful Masai and reticulated giraffes, thanks to its brown splotches and white socks.

Moving the first two giraffes to the stately Leslie-Melville manor on the outskirts of Nairobi was as much a publicity stunt as it was about conservation.

The couple turned their adventures raising the two giraffes into a book, which was later made into a movie. Interest in the giraffes spawned a school program that now sees thousands of Kenyan schoolchildren visit the giraffes each year for free.

And it has nearly doubled the giraffe population. Now, there are more than 350 giraffes, which share the parkland with a half dozen warthogs.

Standing eyeball to eyeball with a giraffe, there are a couple of things you notice: They look like Muppets, with sweet brown eyes and beautiful long eyelashes most women would kill for.

All this gentleness is good for garnering handfuls of treats, but one well-placed kick from these doe-eyed darlings can kill a lion.

Their coats are somewhat bristly, like a short-haired dog. To show their exasperation that your hands are empty, they're likely to deliver an insistent head butt. And when they snort, it blows your hair back.

To soothe the offspring of tourists getting fresh with the giraffes, the guide tells us their saliva is actually antiseptic, due to a diet of leaves plucked from thorn trees.

That's all well and good, but the only thing more disturbing than watching your parents kiss each other is watching them smooch a giraffe.

Karen Palmer is a former Star reporter travelling through Africa.