Leaving Nsefu for Chongwe; The Most Exciting Moment of our Trip
Early, early the next morning we heard a crashing and crunching – sounds we can easily identify as elephant. At first we continue sleeping, our only morning for sleeping in, but I can’t resist, I have to get up, and lo! The elephant is between our cabin and the next, obliviously chomping and breaking and tearing the tree for an early breakfast.
I decide to get up and get dressed so I can get the iPad charged before the generator goes off at 10, but I can’t go out until the elephant has departed, and she heads in the direction of the lodge, which is where I need to be. Deb Tuttle, the walking guide, walks with me once we see the elephant walk a little further down the valley, I’m able to get the iPad charging and grab a cup of coffee so to be able to say farewell to some of the guests whom we will not see again.
Sunrise over Nsefu:
Travel agents heading out on a Robin Pope Walking Safari:
Making Toast is the favorite job in the winter, close to the hot coals:
It is so nice to be able to pack in daylight! My iPad is at 100%; I have finished The Paris Wife and am starting Wolf Hall, which also holds my attention. While carrying books is bulky, this constant underlying awareness of needing to recharge camera batteries and iPad is also a deterrence. I find I am less desperate about the camera batteries, I always carry at least one back-up so I always have a charged spare, but when the iPad goes, it has to be recharged before we can use it again.
A couple of the travel agents who didn’t know each other had to bunk together in Nsefu. I don’t feel sorry for them; they get to come free. It seems to me, though, is hard to come on these trips as a single person and not feel the odd one out when the game drives go out. They say it is no problem, but I’ve been the odd one on trips to Kawazaa, etc., when AdventureMan wanted to do some activity and I wanted to do something else. It is possible, anything is possible, but sometimes it is just a little awkward. Sometimes people are nice; sometimes they are not so happy to have someone else with them. We are finding that the best of all worlds is to come with your own little traveling group.
The first time we came as a small group was with our son and his wife. We were able to do game drives with people who share our preferences, have people to talk to at dinner if everyone else has their group, etc. We like meeting up with other people, and at the same time, it gives you more confidence to have a group with you, if the other people are all absorbed in one another, or not great company.
The most difficult people are those who don’t understand that this is not a predictable experience – that’s why it is an adventure. There is no guarantee that the lion will crawl over the lip of the riverbank just in front of your car. There is no guarantee you will find the same great, shaggy maned lion at the salt pans that the other guests found the day before. There are NO guarantees, and so you have to treasure all the moments, great and small, and if you are blessed with an extraordinary experience, you celebrate, but honestly, just being here is cause for celebration. Those whose noses get out of joint because you might have seen something they haven’t aren’t a lot of fun to be around. We had one experience when a group that had been friendly to us got all sour and disgruntled because we had seen the lions at the salt pan and they had not. Hey! The lion don’t always show up! The leopard are elusive. This experience is one that totally has to be lived in the moment.
You have to love the smell of the campfire in the morning, and be willing to sacrifice your one morning of sleeping in to spot the elephant chomping outside your bathroom wall. You have to love the little elephant shrew as much as the elephant. There are some drives that are just quiet. It’s like you can’t expect Christmas every day, and if it were Christmas every day, it wouldn’t be special any more.
Just before Holly arrives to open up the Bend Over Store (LOL, it’s a trunk full of goodies) we are blessed with one last elephant crossing! Two days earlier, the elephant were crossing back and forth like a street in New York, then yesterday – not an elephant! It was so unearthly quiet! Today, groups are massing once again, and crossing. We love watching the baby elephants as they learn how it is done.
Drinking; getting ready to cross:
Mom, wait!
On the way to Mfuwe airport, we see Eland – we’ve been looking and looking for these large elk-like ungulates, they are shy and elusive, but Jonah spots them off in the distance, a parting gift from Nsefu.
We have an all-too-brief mad dash through Tribal Textiles, where we ‘invest’ in tablewares, cushion covers and deco for children’s rooms. AdventureMan befriends one of the Tribal Textile cats while I am busy shopping. I have cleared out my backpack so I would have space to put my purchases. 🙂
We have a full flight from Mfuwe to Lusaka, and not a lot of time to spare before our next flight. Smooth flight to Lusaka, just minutes to pick up luggage and transfer to next ProFlight flight, this one is not even on the departure board, only eight passengers, our party of four and a German family from Bavaria. At the very last minute another man comes running, running to catch the plane, we are all busy chatting, it is already a family. They are en route to Chiawa.
It’s a short flight, but here comes the most exciting moment in our day. The pilot is looking at a cheat sheet and the suddenly the plane is saying loudly “Pull Up! Pull Up!Terrain! Terrain!”
The pilots are looking confused and annoyed, one still looking at the instruction sheet, a mountain is rising in front of us, the plane is banking and the loud voice keeps saying “Pull up! Pull up! Terrain!”
I thought I had a movie of all this. I remember making a movie, thinking that if these are my last moments, I will record what happened and try to store the iPad in a place where it might be safely found. Of course, as it turns out, we landed safely and . . . somehow, I don’t have the movie. I must have shut it off too quickly and it didn’t save; I was in a hurry – just in case those were my last moments. I have to admit I am disappointed not to have it to share with you.
Waiting at the airstrip is Victor, our guide, and we rode with him and Chris, who turns out to be one of the owners of Chongwe, to the Chongwe River Camp.
(This is a waterbuck we passed on our way into camp, and again on our way out of camp the next morning; so so sad, part of the circle of life and death, but as we departed Chongwe, his bloated body was in the same field; they suspect he was bitten by a snake and died.)
Arrival is lovely, we are greeted at a tall stand, so we are not climbing in and out of the Land Cruiser, we walk right out onto this stand and down the steps. Flossie greets us and then they tell us that we have been upgraded and put in the family suite.
The Family Suite . . . As soon as we see it, we remember. We had totally forgotten . . . we loved our cabins at Chongwe, we were delighted with all the amenities, and we also remember our first boat trip riding by a place that looked like a fantasy from 1001 Nights, a tented living room and dining room, with carpets and nice furniture and linen tablecloths and gleaming candles – it was so lovely. We remember, it was the family suites. And now, the family suite was ours!
We were a little dazed by our good fortune, we couldn’t believe this lovely place was ours. Our butler, Steve, offered us drinks, Flossie, the camp hostess showed us to our bedroom/bathroom/dressing areas and explained how everything worked, where the electrical outlets and switches were, how the double shower works, where the bath oils were for the claw-footed bathtub, gave us the white cotton pique robes and the fluffy thick Turkish Towels.
This is our sleeping area:
This is our dressing area:
This is the view from our tent toward where the Chongwe River meets the Zambezi River:
This is our bathroom, with a two-person shower and claw-foot tub 🙂
And this is the desk area, also where we can charge our batteries and electronics:
This is our dining room:
The Family Room:
This is the view out over our swimming pool to the Chongwe and Zambezi Rivers, and the hippo pods:
There are woven mats and kelim carpets, and we feel at home, if home can be a huge octagonal tent with an indoor / outdoor feel. Victor comes back, pulling up in a boat next to our swimming pool,to take us for a sundowners up the Chongwe and then back down into the Zambezi.
And Victor has fishing equipment with him for the fishing enthusiast in our party. He is able to cast to his heart’s content with a rod and reel trying to hook a Tiger Fish (catch and release) but no luck.
We see lots of animals coming down to drink at dusk, just across the Chongwe:
Our first Chongwe sunset:
Dusk settles on the Zambezi:
After sundowners, we head back and go to our luxurious tents to clean up, then reassemble around the fire to have a glass of wine before dinner.
The ultimate luxury is privacy. We have met such lovely people in the camps, and still, I am who I am, it is hard for me to exert myself to be charming every night at the end of a long day. I do fine at breakfast around a campfire. I manage at lunch, although after an early start and a long game drive, I am usually eager for a quick snooze. But by night, at the end of the game drive, all I want is comfort food, quick, like tomato soup and a cheese sandwich, not so much chit chat and good night, see you all in the morning when I am more chipper.
I recognize there are people who do well later in the day. I recognize that there is this thing called civilized behavior. I do have manners, I know what is important, and . . . yet . . . late in the day, I have the nature of a curmudgeon. I need some quiet. AdventureMan and our friends are out having a great conversation in our living room area, I can hear them, I delight that they are having such a great conversation, and I really, really need to be in here, writing up my notes. By the grace of God, they understand me and have compassion on me. I am able to join them a little later, and we have a lovely laughter-filled dinner in our private dining room and then off to bed – we have a full day tomorrow in Chongwe!
The butler, Steve, does wonderful napkins:
We did nothing to deserve this beautiful upgrade. We loved the spacious tents we had the last time we were in Chongwe River Camp, but this . . . this is a totally unexpected, undeserved blessing, it just fell in our laps, and we are so appreciative. We feel so cherished, so blessed, so beautifully taken care of. We go to sleep with the sound of hippos . . . . .ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . . . .
Maria’s Mermaid
We like Maria’s; we like the variety of seafoods they carry, and we like that the fish is fresh. We often see the fishermen parked with their boats next to Maria’s, hauling out this morning’s catch.
AdventureMan runs into Maria for tonight’s dinner and I notice their mermaid. I think the artist must have had a lot of fun painting this Mermaid, who is not your Starbucks Mermaid:
And doesn’t strike you as sad that this perky little mermaid would be offering up her half-brothers and half-sisters for eating?
Maria’s Fresh Seafood Market
621 East Cervantes Street Pensacola, FL 32501
(850) 432-4999
Nsefu, Day Two, Salt Pans and A Pink Hippo Sunset
We are up only half an hour earlier, but it feels lime the middle of the night. We dress quickly, although it seems a little warmer this morning, and head directly for the game tracker, where we meet up with Jonah, our guide. Jonah was up early yesterday, taking our friends to Kawazaa, got back in time for tea, and then took us out for an evening drive. When does he sleep?
This morning, our goal is to head out to the salt pans before it gets too hot, and thank goodness there are nice thick blankets, because once we get going, it feels a lot colder, and we are all bundled up.
We are on the road before sunrise!
On the way into the huge, flat plain, Johah stops to pick up some leadwood to use for a fire. As we near the hot spring, we spot a jackal! He is cold, and shy, and the light is dim, so no jackal photos, not this time . . .
We arrive at the hot springs just as the sun is coming up, we all help unload and set up the chairs, and our two German lion-hunters from the last time we were there drive up and we exchange greetings and information. The hot springs area has its own unique kind of beauty, and we are all busy taking photographs while Jonah builds a fire.
The cooks have pre-cooked the bacon and sausages, which is a good thing when for a hearty, delicious, totally non-healthy breakfast out on the salt pan where there may be hungry lion hanging about. 🙂
On the way back, we stop now and then for some heartstoppingly beautiful photos – pukus and zebra against a lush green grassy background, eagles and fabulous birds, and it is one of those wonderful mornings altogether, nothing spectacular, but a series of lovely moments. No lions. Not every day can have a lion. But every day has its wonderful moments, and this morning, we had several. 🙂
Men from the village ride by, but there are no lions, no elephants, and nothing we have seen to warn them about:
I couldn’t help it, I love the way these two zebra seem to join at the hip:
The camp is full when we arrive back, three tour agents here to learn about the Robin Pope culture, take a drive, take a guided hike – and it is a warm afternoon. We have lunch, and we all head to our cabins; no elephants crossing today, maybe it’s a Saturday thing. I wash my hair; I need to do it in the afternoon because there are no hair dryers, and I have a lot of hair. It dries in the warm afternoon breezes, and is fully dry by tea, before we leave on our afternoon game drive.
This is a Wydah and its tail gives it a loopy up-and-down kind of rhythm:
We stop for sun-downers by the river, our last sundown on the Luangwa, and what a gloriously pink sunrise it is. The hippos are getting ready to leave the river to forage for supper, and are busy yawning in the pink twilight, but every time I look away to answer a question, one chooses to yawn and I miss it. It happened so often, with such regularity that I figured I simply wasn’t meant to get that hippo-yawning-in-the-pink-sunset photo, at least not here, but it’s been a great lovely sunset, a magnificent sunset, and a lovely way to say farewelll to the Luangwa.
Of all our trips to the Robin Pope Camps in the South Luangwa Valley, this has been one of the very best.
I’m tired when we get back, it’s been such a lovely day. I beg off going to dinner; I need some quiet time. The cook sends me a poached egg on toast, just what I need. Every meal has been so good, so filling, but occasionally, like a tired child, I need quiet, and a simple meal. I plan my packing for the next day in serene peace.
Syria’s Stonehenge
Older than the pyramids . . . desert find in Syria
A mystery city lies in Syria’s deserts, one older than the pyramids — but the war-torn area is preventing archaeologists from decoding its riddles.
Fragments of stone tools, stone circles and lines on the ground, and even evidence of tombs appear to lie in the desert near the ancient monastery of Deir Mar Musa, 50 miles north of Damascus, archaeologist Robert Mason of the Royal Ontario Museum said. He likened the formations to “Syria’s Stonehenge.”
“What it looked like was a landscape for the dead and not for the living,” Mason said Wednesday during a presentation at Harvard University’s Semitic Museum, according to the University publication the Harvard Gazette.
He made the find during a 2009 trip and is eager to return and further explore the site. But he says regional conflicts make such a return trip nearly impossible.
“It’s something that needs more work and I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.”
‘What it looked like was a landscape for the dead and not for the living.’
– Archaeologist Robert Mason
The monastery itself, also called the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, was built in the late 4th or early 5th century, he said, and contains several frescoes from the 11th and 12th century depicting Christian saints and Judgment Day. He told the audience at Harvard that he believes it was originally a Roman watchtower, partially destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt.
But the desert puzzle is much older.
Bits of tools Mason found nearby suggest the mystery he discovered in the desert is much older than the monastery. It may date to the Neolithic Period or early Bronze Age, 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, the Gazette said.
Egypt’s oldest pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was built about 4,500 years ago.
Mason also saw corral-like stone formations called “desert kites,” which would have been used to trap gazelles and other animals. The desert around the monastery is hardly a verdant pasture — “very scenic, if you like rocks,” Mason reportedly said — but was probably greener a few millennia ago, the archaeologist explained.
Like Indiana Jones exploring Italy’s museums in “The Last Crusade,” Mason hopes to return to the monastery to excavate under the church’s main altar — he believes he’ll find an entrance to underground tombs there.
He also hopes to return to strange stone formations he found in the desert, which he dubbed “Syria’s Stonehenge.”
The Customer from Hell at Target
Me. Today I was the customer from hell at Target.
I like Target. I like it that you can find just about anything you need there. I usually look for a deal, or a good price on things, but when I just need something, I just go buy it at Target. I also like their ad campaign, it’s a little camp but very colorful and always has cool products featured.
So today I went in for hair color stuff. I found it, but then I also found a display containing packages of two together, and it costs a lot less. It says Buy Two for Less!
Yes! Yes! I am buying two! I always buy at least two so I don’t have to go shopping that often; holdover from my days of buying six months worth when I was living in Kuwait and Qatar. It doesn’t go bad, and you have it when you need it.
None of the cellophaned two-packs have the color I need, so I take the ones I need and the two pack to the cashier, and I explain I want the special “Buy Two and Save” price, and she says “Whoa! That’s beyond me!” and sends me to the customer service counter.
At the customer service counter they explain to me that this is a special deal to encourage customers to buy more than one; they buy two and get a special deal. I agree with them, and isn’t this great, I want to buy two! Well no, they explain, Target pays a different price for the package than for the singles, so they can’t sell the singles two for the same price as the two bundled together.
Wait. These are the exact same product. EXACT. Except that these two wrapped in cellophane are 2 for $11.99, and the two exact same product I want to buy are priced at $7.99 EACH. So I am supposed to pay $5 MORE to buy two single ones? Something is not right with this picture. I ask to see a supervisor.
I am quiet and mannerly. I have a secret weapon – it is called pleasant persistence. They keep explaining to me that I can’t buy what I want at the special price and I just smile at them and politely explain how it doesn’t make sense. They are telling me in their explanations to “PLEASE GO AWAY!” and I am smiling and politely telling them in my own way that I am not going anywhere, and I want my product at the two-for price.
Finally, the supervisor says to sell it to me at the two-for price. As she is ringing it up, the customer service rep says “this happens all the time, not with hair products but with all kinds of products when we have the bundle price and the single price.” I suggest she mentions it to management, and that it costs a lot in time and in customer frustration and customer service frustration, and she says “it wouldn’t help.”
I still like Target. I imagine there are a lot of customers who give up and walk away. Not me. It doesn’t make sense to me to pay $5 more for something that they WANT you to buy two of . . .
Adonna’s Pensacola for Breakfast
We’re all about small adventures for keeping life exciting, so we like to hit the Saturday morning market on Palafox in downtown Pensacola, picking up a home made jam or two, a plant to try in our garden, some fresh fruit or vegetables.
AdventureMan has a yen for biscuits and gravy, and it has to be Adonna’s. There are biscuits and gravy and biscuits and gravy, but he believes Adonna’s does it the best. I have to take his word for it; biscuits and gravy have no appeal to me, and I don’t touch them.
On the way in, I saw a couple runners eating outside, and I asked one what she was eating.
“OMG, it’s the best cinnamon roll French toast ever!” she enthused. I don’t usually order French toast, I can make a really good French toast myself, but I was just in a mood to try something new, so I ordered the Cinnamon Bun French Toast and grits, which I also never order.
I can’t let myself do it often. The Cinnamon Bun French Toast is just too good. It’s addictive, and I am really sure it is not at all good for me. But oh, heaven. It is so good. The grits were just grits, but not bland; they had a little salt in them. Not good enough to eat – for me – so I just took a nibble and was proud of myself for not eating them all 🙂
Adonna’s, near the Post Office on Palafox, serves breakfast and lunch.
Nsefu, Day One, Parting Ways
Friday, June 8
The sun rises on our first morning in Nsefu, we eat our porridge, and we head off on a game drive with our old friend Daudi.
Our friends are off to visit Kawazaa village, warning us NOT to find lion without them, and we take off – of course, we are looking for lion! We are always looking for lion! We don’t find lion, but we find lots of raptors, the biggest eagle, cranes and herons, we watch hippos, and once back in camp, we spend hours watching the elephant families crossing the Luangwa.
As you might guess, it feels like we are eating all the time, but when we get back, we haven’t gained an ounce. I think it is because we are doing a lot of active riding; the roads are bumpy and you have to steady yourself, you are climbing in and out of the game vehicles, and there are a lot of crossings where the guide says “Hold on!” Here is Daudi, taking us across one of those river crossings:
As you can see, not every game drive stars lion, or leopard, but there are thrilling moments with birds, elephant, hippo – or crossing the river.
This is a Lillian’s Lovebird, one of my favorite birds in the world. The camps are full of them, but they are fleeting and flitting, and very difficult to capture in photos.
Morning tea at a hippo pond – you know how I love hippo:
Back at camp, it seems to be elephant river crossing day. One group will gather, and cross, while another group waits across the river. They meet and greet, and then head on their way, while another group crosses.
This group has a baby. The baby can actually walk most of the way, but when it is too deep, there is always a barrier of larger elephants on the downstream side of the baby elephant, who is holding on to Mama’s tail, and is supported from behind by another elephant.
At one point, something spooks the elephants crossing close to the dozing hippo, they start running and splashing, maybe an elephant accidentally steps on a hippo, and a loud ruckus breaks out. Elephants trumpet, hippos scold loudly. Fortunately, it is all show and no go, no real fight and no bloodshed, the elephants continue on and the hippos go back to slumber.
Our friends came back just in time for tea, and begged off the afternoon drive, saying the mating lions they had seen on the way to the village would have to be enough. They’ve been to the Kawazaa school, and to the village for lunch, visiting the clinic and even helping kill the chicken for lunch. It’s been so much fun, but also very stimulating, and they want to take a break.
Mating lions?! You saw mating lions? Let’s go see the mating lions!
Jonah found the mating lions in no time, which was a thrill, except that they had mated with such great vigor that now they were lying in sated stupor. We took some photos, but how many photos can you take of exhausted sleeping lions?
Nsefu Sunset:
We started back, but on the river road, saw an unusual sight – lions on the river banks across the river, and a lion climbing up the bank we were on.
He wasn’t wet, but he was calling to the lion damsels across the river, and had clearly made them some promises he intended to keep.
We tracked him for a while at a distance as he gauged his chances for a safe crossing here and there, and finally, we left him with our best wishes for a safe passage to lion nirvana.
At dinner we finalized plans with Jonah for an early departure for another trip to the Chichele hot springs with hopes of finding that dark maned (older) lion Madolyn was able to photograph with her iPhone, with breakfast at the hot springs and back at Nsefu Camp noonish.
A Chat With Daudi En Route to Nsefu
“Happy Anniversary to You! Happy Anniversary to You! I Love You! I love you! Happy Anniversary to you! Happy Anniversary to you!” AdventureMan sings me awake to the tune of the Superman theme. He always knows how to make me laugh, and after 39 years, he can still surprise me. We are so delighted to wake up here, in Tena Tena, on our anniversary. Life is sweet.
Morning at TenaTena Camp:
AdventureMan is walking to the next camp, and I am spending the morning catching up on notes, organization, small things, charging up my iPad, etc.
As I was saying earlier, you’d think this would all be very restful, and everything is done for us, but it all revolves around our game drive schedule, and any necessary re-charging depends on the generator schedule (unless you are in Nkwali, where you can re-charge everything in your own rooms; there are lots of electrical outlets) and at the same time, why on earth are we bringing all these electronic devices to the bush???
I’ve discovered a program on the iPad called Notes, and it allows me to write so much more than I would if I were writing by hand. I forget a lot of the smaller details and some of those small details are what makes camping life here so much fun.
The Robin Pope camps pay a lot of attention to detail. One of the things they provide is an insect repellant that is also lotion; it goes on easily, it smells good, and it really seems to keep the insects away, so I gladly use it instead of the Deet we brought with us which melts plastic if it leaks. How can that be good for our cameras?? How can that be good for us? And it is oily, and it smells so bad, and the tsetse flies just ignore it altogether. The insect repellant lotion, on the other hand, seems to work . . . and it smells like lemons.
We are all discovering new ways to use our cameras. I have discovered a program called Night Scenery, which allows me to take spectacular sunsets, and even photograph the essence of a night drive with some clarity – how cool is that? We are a good group in that we can sit patiently and shoot twenty or thirty shots of the lilac breasted roller, experimenting with various shutter speeds, aperatures, and compare them to the automatic function.
(I love my Lumix. I get great shots, and it takes me close to get the finest detail of a bird feather. It is lightweight, easy to handle, and doesn’t need as much light as many of the longer interchangable lenses on other cameras. I have two batteries, so I can be charging one and using another. I have another, smaller Lumix also with me as a back-up in case the unthinkable happens and something goes wrong with the bigger Lumix. My one gripe – the back-up battery is not a Panasonic battery; it works, but it doesn’t show how much battery is left, so just at the worst moment, my camera can just die if I don’t remember to change the battery out when I think it might be time.)
Our new Scottish friends, Mark and Madolyn, show us photos they took at the salt pan and they saw lion with a big huge bushy dark mane, and she took a photo – are you sitting down? – with her iPhone, that I would have killed to take. It is close, it is detailed, it is every bit as good as a photo taken with a camera. So much for all the control we are trying to develop.
They also ran a rescue mission for all the village men passing on bicycles, telling them of the lion ahead, loading bikes into the Land Cruiser, ferrying them past the lion and dropping them off past the danger zone. Some of the pride of lions have 10 – 20 members. Most avoid humans, but . . . would you want to bet on that, riding by a pride of lion, say . . . hungry lion . . .on a bicycle? (shiver) Not me!
It is approaching deep winter here, so it can be cold, not bitterly cold, but cold enough to make you stupid when you get up in the morning, cold enough that you want a fleece and a scarf for the first few hours of the morning drive. Around mid-morning you start stripping off layers, until around noon when it is very hot and you know the sunscreen won’t be enough; you have to put on some kind of cover against the strong African sun, even approaching mid-winter.
On my way to Nsefu, our last camp in the South Luangwa, I am with our old friend Daoudi, whom we first met twelve years ago, on our first trip to the South Luangwa. We talked of our families, and changes, and I thought to ask him about a conversation I had had the night before, with our Tena Tena guide, Julius. I had asked him how his wife coped with him gone guiding several weeks each month, and he began his response with “She is a well-mannered girl . . . ” going on to discuss how they problem-solve and work with the situation. It’s of interest to me, as a former military wife; military wives also spend time apart from their husbands.
So I pondered this, it was the first thing he said, “she is a well-mannered girl . . . ” and that tells me being well mannered is the most important thing, but well-mannered behavior differs, I have learned, sometimes painfully, from culture to culture.
“Daoudi, when a Zambian girl is said to be well-mannered, what does it mean?” and he explained it meant from her earliest days, her parents had instructed her on proper behavior.
“OK. I understand that. But I might not understand well-mannered the same way you do. Like when we lived in the Middle East, you know I learned to wear clothes that covered me to the elbow and to the knees, and did not have a low necklline . . . ”
“Yes, modest . . .” he said, thoughtfully.
“Yes, exactly,” I affirmed, “but also things very un-American . . . I learned to keep my eyes down, or at least not to look directly at a man and smile – that for us it might be friendly, but there it might seem forward. And I learned to use my quiet voice in public, and not to laugh out loud in the souks. Things like that, things I would not have even known if I had not been told.”
“Ah, yes!” he agreed, “these are also what it is to be a well-mannered Zambian woman. To speak softly with your husband, not to be shouting at him when you disagree, but to talk softly so you can come to agreement. Like that.”
We rode together in a comfortable silence, then I had another question.
“Would it be OK for a Zambian woman to be sitting here in the car with you when she is not your wife or your sister or a closely related woman?” and he laughed and said “Yes, it is helpful! Like you give someone a lift to help her get where she is going, there is nothing improper in that.”
So while some of the manners are like the manners of the Middle East, there are differences, too, and a person could spend a lifetime learning all these little distinctions and still not get it all right. Learning another culture is a never ending task, and it makes you envy those children who are born of two cultures (or more) and can pass fluently from one to another, knowing the subtleties of each.
We have American nieces and nephews who have lived most of their entire lives in a foreign country, and while they are not born of different cultures, they played on the streets, attended social functions, the local culture seeped into them by their daily lives. They are idiomatically fluent and inter-culturally fluent, but it takes a lifetime of bi-cultural living to attain their level without a dual-culture mother and father.
Nsefu Camp, the original Norm Carr camp, has little round plastered bandas set right on the river, where you can watch the elephant families cross the river, entirely lovely.
Everyone arrives hot and tired from the walk, and delighted with all they have learned. We have a lovely lunch, and AdventureMan sleeps soundly for an hour before afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea is a lot of fun; the chef has baked a beautiful chocolate cake for our birthday girl, and seven men enter singing “Happy Birthday” with the birthday cake for tea. 🙂
On the afternoon game drive we spot a civet cat, which we have never seen so clearly before,
and we see a porcupine family. When we first spotted them, it looked like the big porcupine was dragging something, but no, it was a little tiny baby porcupine sticking to Mom’s heelslike glue.
(Sorry, it’s just hard to get good clear sharp shots at night)
Again, a gorgeous night sky and a lot of fun trying to find constellations. Dinner was a Mongolian barbecue, with sparkling wine provided by the Australian honeymooners, who had a true honey moon – the moon rose huge and red in the sky as we were eating our dinner.
Tena Tena, Day Two
We’re all doing a lot better in terms of sleep. We think we are pretty much over jet lag, but it is harder getting up at 0515 in the morning. I straggle to the campfire for breakfast, and all the happy conversation wakes me up. The moon is also just rising:
We have a great morning game drive, stopping wherever we want just to watch – herons and cranes fishing in the lagoons, baboons warming themselves, some with tiny tiny baboon babies. We see greater kudu, so shy, and we feel so blessed to see such amazing creatures. It’s just another great morning in the Luangwa valley.
AdventureMan spotted this, and called it Immature Impala Arrangement:
This elephant, fortunately across the canal, was seriously angry with us and eager to chase us. We left in a hurry:
I loved this quiet hippo, walking up the canal looking for the right spot to soak:
Mama Giraffe told him to stay put, and he did:
Back to camp for another nice lunch, and we think we are going to take a little snooze, but . . .
No napping today, we have visitors! A herd of elephant are breaking down and eating trees outside our tent.
At afternoon tea, where we all gather preceding the afternoon game drive, the elephants came into the camp, down between our tent and the last tent, blocking access to the game vehicles. Once they sauntered off a little ways, we took the path to the other side, got in our cars, only to discover the elephants blocking the drive we take to get out. We waited fifteen minutes or so until they finished with the acacia tree, then moved far enough inside the bush – maybe eight feet – that our drivers felt comfortable passing.
Down the road, we are once again blocked, this time by the (normally) shy giraffe.
We sit patiently, knowing eventually the giraffe will get tired, or scared, or annoyed and move on . . . but that doesn’t happen. After about a half an hour, we leave the road and drive around, giving the giraffe plenty of space. Look at those colors! The sun is setting! Giraffes, be shy! We need to go!
Sunset is spectacular, and we almost miss it because of the giraffe blocking the road.
The hippo are all active tonight, and I want to get one of those classic shots with the wide open jaw, but every time it happens, someone has asked me a question or I am listening to a joke and I miss it! By the time I get focused, the mouth is closed. It’s like a great cosmic joke, on me, so I figure I just need to be happy with what I have.
The sky is so clear, the first night without some cloud cover, and on the way back, we stop in a clear glade and Julius points to constellations we don’t see in our hemisphere. The big dipper is there, but down low, near the horizon, and the north star is not visible at all. We see the southern cross, and the scorpion, and the long length of the milky way, and I am reminded of being a little girl in Alaska, where the stars shone bright and clear in the dark sky. We get so used to the ambient light ever present in our cities, that we have no idea
what the stars look like without it. The moon has not yet risen, so the sky is very very black, and each star is clear and sparkly.
It is such a luxury, just leaning back and seeing this vast expanse of black with the sparkling stars. We also see a shooting star, and we can spot several satelites as they speed across the sky at enormous height and speed.
Dinner, back at the camp, is wonderful, an outdoor barbecue under the trees, steak, chicken, kabobs and nshima, the Zambian staple, like polenta, a corn based starch, accompanied by tomato relish, and it is very similar to comfort food served in the southern USA, grits, and also similar to a family dinner dish served with rice in Kuwait.
We all proceed very cautiously to our tents, and it is a good thing. Shortly after our arrival, we hear the howooooot of the hyena, and we can hear the munch munch of the hippo. Elephant come back, between our tent and the last, and crash and crunch. In spite of it all, we sleep soundly and awake all too soon to the day we will leave Tena Tena.
Saturday Stat Anomaly
I’m sitting here in my office, organizing some photos and verbiage into another entry to be time-shifted and I notice my stat page looks very strange. Like, it’s Saturday. It’s pretty steady, and the lowest day of the week. What I see is this:
It keeps blogging fun. Every now and then something weird happens, and there is nothing I know that can explain it. Someone has shared a minor article I wrote over a year ago, and in one hour, it’s sent my stats totally out of whack.
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