MILIMANI GAME SANCTUARY

In 2002 I was lucky enough to be given a column on the back page of the South African 'Country Life'. 

I submitted 12 articles about the life and times at MILIMANI GAME SANCTUARY, and the adventures we had the privilege of experiencing upon our arrival in South Africa in 2000. 

Sadly, the new life we chose was short lived, as in 2005 Milimani Game Sanctuary was bought by the government under a land claim and handed to the Gumbi community. It was the same year that Ken died of a heart attack.

As a tribute to Ken Kuhle and the amazing animals we lived with in the heart of the Zululand bush, I am re-publishing these stories.

ACCIDENT WITH A CHEQUE BOOK

Being catapulted into a whole new life in the KZN Bushveld calls for an ability to keep one’s cool – and a sense of humour! 

 A friend of my mother’s once said to me, ‘Better to be an old man’s sweetheart, than a young man’s slave'. Following this sound advice, I married a man 22 years older than myself. For his part, Ken had this philosophy that a man should marry a woman half his age plus seven. I was in my late 30s and he was nearly 60 when we married just over four years ago, so I slotted right in.

Ken is Kenyan born and bred. I was raised in Kenya and went back in 1995 on a two year contract. After falling in love with Ken, I was quite content to make Kenya my home again.

We had a good life. Ken was supposed to be retired but he’d spent many years committed to wildlife and conservation projects and became totally involved in a wildlife charitable trust. I was the managing director of a media broking agency. Then Ken had an accident with a cheque book. A piece of land came up for sale in South Africa and, to our total surprise, his offer was accepted. We now sat with 10,000 acres (3,000 hectares) of land in a country we did not live in. My parents are in South Africa and naturally had something to do with ‘the accident’.

So there I was, forty something, having survived the traumatic twenties, fought my way through my thirties, finally reached middle age, established a career, considered myself an adult who was taking life seriously, only to find my sixty-something husband prepared to abandon everything he’d lived for, leave the country he’d been totally committed to for his whole life, and settle in a country he knew absolutely nothing about.

Ken’s impression of South Africa had been sugar cane, shopping malls and white people, but he’d bought a gem of a place just north of Mkuze in KwaZulu-Natal and, without looking back, shifted his whole being to what he now considers the centre of the universe. In the 18 months that we’ve been on the farm, which we’ve named Milimani Game Sanctuary, he’s gone into town less than six times. His old haunt in Nairobi, The Muthaiga Club, never even gets a mention any more.

I was sent back to Kenya to pack up 62 years of someone else’s life. I had always sworn that if we had to move house we would sell it lock stock and barrel, as there was so much clutter in our home that I couldn’t bear the thought of going through it all. But somehow my threats went unheard. This was to Ken’s disadvantage, as my mother and I went from room to room going, “don’t like, can’t like, won’t like’, and many items mysteriously disappeared to be replaced by more acceptable recent purchases. Naturally, without fail, all the things that were ‘forgotten’, or ‘left behind’ happen to be the things that are constantly asked for. Blank stares and confused looks are wearing thin. I didn’t even know we had a cupboard in the kitchen, never mind a floor polisher that was at least 100 years old.

Back in South Africa, with an enormous amount of energy, we set out to develop a tourist lodge. In our enthusiasm to get going we adopted a ‘design by chaos’ approach. This is not recommended if you want to sustain sanity or maintain a peaceful marriage. We’ve had to deal with language problems, learning to understand different cultures, living in the bush whilst trying to develop a business, and many other mind altering experiences.

But the biggest challenge of all has been trying to survive a husband who has down-aged about 40 years, found a new lease on life and has this abundance of energy that leaves us all standing. For my part, I’ve aged about 20 years in the past 12 months – and so have completely destroyed his theory of ‘half his age plus seven.’

Published in South African Country Life, January 2002.

Other blogs by Lois Kuhle:


SMOKE RINGS IN CUBA. A TWO WEEK JOURNEY FILLED WITH SALSA, SUNSHINE AND SILLY PEOPLE: http://smokeringsincuba.blogspot.com/2013/10/smoke-rings-in-cuba-journey-filled-with.html

COOL THOUGHTS. MUSINGS AND OTHER MAD MOMENTS:  http://loiskuhlethoughts.blogspot.com/2013/12/we-have-pending-nuptials.html