free-range giraffes

Niger has the last wild giraffes roaming in their original habitat--they're not in a game preserve, they just wander around the countryside, among villages of grass huts, not 30 miles from Niamey. As a kid watching 'nature specials,' I always thought I'd go to Africa sometime; but to finally walk right up to a giraffe in its natural environment, in the land where they evolved--and where we evolved--is like taking a step into your own imagination, and finding that all along it's been more real than your everyday life of computers, images, cars and cellphones.