I'll never grow tired of Zebras

I used to think that the Zebras was a rare and exotic animal. But after almost 2 months in Africa, I’ve seen thousands of them – populating the floodplains of the Chobe river between Botswana and Namibia's Caprivi Strip, grazing between the trees in South Africa’s Kruger Park, and now swarming the rolling grasslands of Tanzania’s Serengeti.
Mules in football jerseys, we’ve been told; convict donkeys; clowns of the grasslands. And they do look like fat, gaily painted horses. But as I've watched them for long minutes, followed them through my binoculars, see the range of their behaviours, I've come to realize that there is nothing comic about them.

They are, instead a calm, elegant, unflappable presence. Their stripes, each as individually patterned as fingerprints, are more tuxedo than clown suit. The diamond pattern on their narrow faces, the bold bands on their meaty sides, the slatted shapes down their rounded bottoms, even the braided pattern along their narrow tails… all mesmerizing, even hypnotizing.

And their gentle, social behaviour suggests an animal I’d like to know. They stand side by side, head to tail and lean against each other, like Dr. Doolittle’s push-me-pull-you, watching each other’s backs. They simultaneously nibble burrs and ticks off of each other’s flanks. A newly born colt stands straight on wobbly legs and shelters in his mother’s shadows. When startled, they break into a co-ordinated canter, as pretty as any show-horse’s routine, and toss their narrow manes.

I’ve seen thousands of Zebras, and I’ll never grow tired of them.