Who washes their lettuce in dishwashing liquid? Orthodox Jews, I learnt to my surprise when I set up camp for a family from New York in Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana over the Sabath.

Rabi Barry had booked to spend a Sabath in a mobile camp with a Jewish American family, so that they could, in a private setting, strictly adhere to the numerous, and somewhat onerous requirements of their faith. It was agreed that they would bring their own food, cutlery, and crockery to ensure that meat and dairy products had not been served off the same plates. We were to provide two sets of new pots and pans as well as two new gas stoves for the same reason. Rabi Barry’s sister Joan was a trained kosher chef and she would join us to oversee the catering.

Barry joined me and my wife, Salome, our young daughter, Skye, together with our team to ensure that the camp was erected correctly according to Orthodox rules and the family was to fly in later with Joan. Once the tents were set up Barry grabbed a roll of twine and some poles that he had asked me to bring along.

‘Come along and help me build an eruv,’ he said. ‘Jews during Sabath, which runs from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday must be surrounded by an enclosure. That’s why all the old cities in Israel were walled. An eruv defines an area as one single property, which allows us to travel while still observing the sabbath. If there is no eruv we would be obliged to spend the day in our tents. If, however we create a ‘wall’ around our camping area by enclosing it with this string then we will have created a satisfactory eruv.’

I pointed to a hippo trail that we were busy pulling the string over. ‘What happens if, or more likely when, the hippo breaks it?’ I enquired.

‘If we are unaware that it has been broken then we can carry on normally assuming that it is still in place, but if you told us that it is broken, we would have to stay in our tents all day. We are forbidden to request anyone to work on the Sabbath which means that we can’t ask you to repair it.’

I must admit that I felt oddly empowered by being able to confine my guests to their tents all day simply by not retying a piece of string and then casually mentioning it to them.

The clients were put in the four ensuite tents that we had while Barry and Joan had external ablutions, which presented a problem in that they were prohibited from turning on a flashlight if they needed to use the facilities at night. We set out paraffin lamps which would stay on all night, but Salome was still concerned for Joan’s safety because I had taught her that she was safe going out of the tent at night provided she had a flashlight to check that there was nothing lurking around. In addition, I had explained, predators had not evolved to attack a prey that shone a beam of light around so she would not be attacked.

The staff had set up the kitchen together with their tents on one side of the eruv while Salome, Skye and I had our tent outside the ‘wall’ on the far side of the eruv. As the sky darkened Sabath set in. With the poor light and thick shrubbery Salome kept on walking into the brown string and breaking the eruv whenever she went to the tent, so she tied a bright yellow plastic bag filled with coke cans to the string to be able to see where it was and save the guests from spending the next day in their tent.

I wandered into the kitchen to check on how Joan was getting on, which was when I saw her washing the lettuce in Sunlight dishwashing liquid. She explained that Jews are not allowed to ingest insects and as many small critters crawl into lettuce which she couldn’t get out with plain water she cleanses the lettuce with dishwasher. I made a mental note to skip the salad.

The Rabi and the family patriarch and his son were dressed in traditional prayer robes and saying their prayers while pacing and nodding their heads enthusiastically and clutching a Tanakh -their Jewish holy book. The matriarch and their two daughters were in their tents getting ready for the meal. As adherents to an ancient faith, formal pray remains a male only domain.

The dinner was fascinating as we witnessed a centuries old ritual with the patriarch leading the pre-dinner prayers. As it was all conducted in Hebrew, I didn’t know what was being said so I sat back and appreciated the rich, centuries old cultural scene in front of me. When it came to the ritual passing of the wine Salome intercepted the jug, and much to the surprise of everyone, filled my glass. My lovely wife knew that I enjoyed a good wine but as I soon discovered when we toasted whatever it was that we toasted – I had no clue – this wasn’t a good wine. In fact, it is right up there with the vilest thing that I have ever drunk. I learnt that grapes were on the long list of things that orthodox Jews were not allowed to indulge in, so I know that it wasn’t a conventional wine made from selected grapes. Judging by the taste I can only assume that this bottle of wine was made from drain cleaner.

After dinner everyone retired to bed.  Salome for reasons that were not entirely clear to me was still fussing about Joan having to leave her tent for a pee, but I assured her that everything would be fine. She only had a dozen paces to walk and there was plenty of light. We soon fell asleep after what was a long day.

In the middle of the night I was shaken awake by Salome. ‘Joan is being eaten by something,’ she whispered. ‘Listen!’

Sure enough I heard a crunching sound.

‘You have to go and check on Joan!’ Salome insisted while I was trying to identify the sound. Drowsily I got up, felt around for my spotlight in the dark, unzipped the tent and took a sleepy step outside. The beam instantly fell on a massive male lion lying directly in front of me on the shade cloth mat that we put right outside the tent entrance as a makeshift veranda. That got my attention. Instantly wide awake I leapt back into the tent and urgently zipped the door back up.

‘There is a fucking big lion right at the door,’ I said breathlessly. ‘It is chewing something,’ I added and then dropped down on my mattress.

‘ITS JOAN!’ Chase it off!’ responded Salome urgently. I assumed that she was joking but she was deadly serious. She wanted me to go out in the dark with only my spotlight for a weapon to chase a huge male lion off that was chewing on something or somebody just two paces from the tent entrance. Then I was expected to go blundering around the darkened bush to Joan’s tent with only the paraffin lamps to guide me through undisputedly lion infested country to check on a woman who was undoubtedly sleeping peacefully in the safety of her own tent.

I told her she was mad and she called me a pathetic guide and Skye woke up and started crying so I capitulated. Salome was infinitely scarier than a hungry male lion could ever be and a crying child might attract unwelcome attention from our visitor. I reached for the tent zip and realised that, in my panic to close the tent door, I had caught the zip in some tent material, and it wouldn’t budge. I told Salome and she shook her head. What next would I come up with to avoid going outside? She tried herself and, despite earnest tugging at the zip she couldn’t release it. That zip was well and truly jammed.

‘Cut it open,’ she ordered.

‘And let the lion walk right in?’ I responded but again relented and, using my Swiss army knife, tried to cut away the material that was causing the zip to jam. I failed to have any real impact and told Salome that we were imprisoned.

She raged for a moment and then she burst out laughing. “I can just see the headlines.’ TWO GUIDES TRAPPED HELPLESSLY IN TENT WHILE CHEF IS EATEN BY LIONS.

With that she let me try to go back to sleep but neither of us could sleep much, as we haunted by the idea that Joans bones were what the lion was crunching on.

I was awake at first light and with the help of daylight and that Swiss army knife was able to hack my way out of the tent. The lion was gone but the mangled remains of what it had been chewing on was lying on the mat. Salome, to her credit, appeared suitably embarrassed  when I tossed a mauled coke can onto her bed and, with all the solemnness that I could muster, told her that this is what was left of Joan. Our chef, it turned out, had slept right through the night and had never left her tent.

The eruv however, had been destroyed at the spot where the lion had ripped the coke can from the string and I wondered if I should tell the Rabi what had happened knowing that I could have the day off to catch up on my sleep while they were confined to their tents. Of course, I didn’t do that. I fixed the protective wall and wandered off into the camp where the Rabi and the patriarch were already pacing furiously, their heads nodding vigorously and their robes flowing in their wake. I was watching them enthralled again by this ancient ritual when Joe Mosheti, my team leader, came up to me and told me to check the kitchen urgently.

A bit irritated at the interruption I went with him and discovered to my utter amazement that it was literally covered in lions. An entire pride of thirteen lionesses and cubs had taken over the kitchen and it was utter chaos. One lioness was examining the kitchen table by clearing everything on it with a swipe of her sizable paw, while two cubs were chasing each other around the trailer. The closest lioness to us was busy playing with Joe’s tent from which another cub emerged with Joe’s pillow proudly held high as a trophy. Most of the others were totally relaxed just lying in the kitchen area watching Joe and I slowly backing away towards the area where we could see the men earnestly in prayer and pacing just as energetically as before. It is well known that cats find fast moving things like a piece of wool being wriggled irresistible to chase. Here we had a whole mass of enormous cats and two fast moving objects that were changing direction repeatedly. I had to interrupt their communion with God which, as I am sure you can imagine, was not kindly received – that is until I took them to the kitchen to show them why. When they saw the lions they stopped what I am certain was unkind muttering and hurriedly retreated to their tents as if I had mentioned a broken eruv.

I fetched Salome and Skye in the game drive vehicle and we contentedly watched the pride cavort around the kitchen until they got bored and wandered off, after which normal service finally resumed.

In the afternoon we took an illegal game walk because we were not allowed to drive on the Sabath. It was illegal from my point of view because we were in a park where walking was not allowed and perhaps from their point because we had to leave the eruv. They certainly had to answer to a higher authority than I did.

When the sun set, the Sabath was over and Joan could turn on her flashlight so Salome could relax and I might be able to get some sleep, I reflected. Dinner was a much more leisurely affair after the formalities of the previous evening and I could sip on a glass of wine that had been lovingly created from the finest Cape grapes. Everyone was chatty including the younger daughter who had been reserved up until that point. Suddenly and without warning an elephant bellowed in the quiet night air followed immediately by a chorus of belligerent lion roars. The noise was close, startling and elemental. We all froze. The lions had clearly not gone far and a bull elephant must have stumbled upon then and bellowed in rage and perhaps some fright. The lions, not wanting to back down, had responded in the way that they knew best. It was too much for the younger daughter who started to scream hysterically and made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want to be there and never did.

‘We forced her to come, ‘admitted the patriarch shamefacedly, ‘she wanted to stay home and practice her ballet.’

I concurred earnestly that she should have stayed home. Anyone who wasn’t thrilled by our experiences over the two nights really didn’t belong in the bush and that’s all right. I glanced at our 10-year-old whose eyes were ablaze with excitement. She had loved the ferocity of the clash in the wild but I wondered just how well our bush baby would cope in the concrete jungle of New York.