Baraza

Have you ever had an Owen and Mzee moment? You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?

Yesterday I heard that pygmy hippos have been rediscovered in Liberia. It caught my attention which surprised me because I was only half listening to the BBC that day – the story is covered here, here and on this blog called reasons to be hopeful. The interviewer asked the scientist to describe pygmy hippos and as he talked of it’s diminutive size and perfect hippo shape, a feeling over came me, I wasn’t alone in feeling a massive maternal pang for Owen. Owen you ask?

This is a short walk down memory lane. On the 26th of December in 2004 a baby hippo was orphaned in Malindi when the Indian Ocean Tsunami separated him from his family. The waves had somehow carried him away and he was found five kilometers from the river mouth where his family lived. We rescued him exhausted and sunburned after four days in the sea. He was wild and angry after the local villagers and tourists on the beach rescued him.

We couldn’t return him to the river, it was impossible to know which family he was from, he would almost certainly be killed. So we put him in the back of my covered pick-up truck and I brought him to Haller Park , a restored limestone quarry in Mombasa that I was managing at the time. Though I doubted he’d survive, before I drove off from Malindi, I asked the rescuers, mostly local fishermen, for a name. They unanimously chose ‘Owen’ after Owen Saubion, a tall, blonde, awkward hippy of a guy who was volunteering with the Kenya Wildlife Service. He was the only rescuer who dared to rugby tackle the hippo at a critical moment.

Immediately we released Owen in Haller Park he met a grumpy old giant tortoise called Mzee (whose name literally means’ old man’ in Swahili). What developed next was the most celebrated animal oddity of decades. These pictures illustrate just how close they were.

They spent most of their time snuggled together

When Owen wanted to move he would shove Mzee and mouth his back foot, but when the old tortoise wanted to move, he would push Owen and nip his tail

Stephen Tuei is the animal keeper at Haller Park, he’s worth his weight in gold

Desmond Tutu got a copy for his birthday from Craig Hatkoff, our partner in this project. It was Craigs 6 year old daughter Isabella who came up with the idea of doing a book to explain a relationship that she was asking a lot of questions about. The photographs in the book were taken by Peter Greste, a BBC correspondent.

If you don’t know the story you have to read the book, visit the website and watch the documentary film and read the Owen and Mzee blog which is still maintained but sadly is no longer the voice of Stephen Tuei, the animal keeper at Haller Park .

Owen and Mzee are not together any more because we introduced Owen with Cleo, an handsome female hippo who was in need of a friend. Masumi and I spent a lot of time with Owen and Mzee who became Kenyan celebrities when the book Owen and Mzee: the True story of a Remarkable Friendship became a best seller eventually being translated into 17 languages including Swahili and Braille. We also produced a sequel, Owen and Mzee: the Language of Friendship and various board books for children and plushies. We even made a film that is freely down loadable from their own website Owen and Mzee

Well, I’m not stopping there. I thought that the friendship was extraordinary, but there is still a huge mystery that I’m hoping one day to solve.

We wanted to celebrate the success of the book with Owen Saubion and tried to contact him from information he gave us.  Failing that we asked people he knew, nobody had an email address, phone number or address! In fact, we have never been able to find a shred of evidence that he existed yet many people knew him.

One of the other rescuers recalled that the hippo was going crazy as hundreds of people chased him through the inter-tidal pools and coral outcrops to catch him. But he claims that as soon as Owen touched him the hippo instantly calmed down. Another observer noted that he had asked Owen what he was doing in Kenya and he responded, ‘I’m here to help someone find himself’.

I get goosebumps every time I recall my meeting with Owen. He begged us not to use his name but the fishermen were shouting ‘Owen, Owen, Owen’…I had to accept that this was their wish, the name for the rescued hippo would be Owen.

Owen once even visited the hippo at Haller Park a few weeks later to witness the amazing friendship that had caught global headlines, and we took photos of Owen with Owen…but now going back nobody can find a single photograph of this mysterious fellow Owen Saubion! Wierd.

Even though Owen and Mzee are no longer together, I’d still like to find the namesake, are there any private investigators out there? The really wonderful thing about the story is that it has touched and inspired so many children in Africa and America. If you haven’t seen them already check out the hipposodes created by two young American boys

Here are some Owen and Mzee moments that I wanted to share…..

Snake befriends a hamster that was supposed to be lunch

Lion adopting a baby oryx 6 times!Polar bear befriends a husky

Tiger adopts piglets Turns out to be a very cruel tourism attraction!

And other amazing stories are on a blog called Dig your own Grave here

The wonderful thing about Owen and Mzee is that their story has inspired a series of childrens books with real life lessons. We will be telling you more about these projects soon.