Good Friday

Yesterday was Good Friday, which I think is appropriate because it’s bittersweet. Obviously, no one was THINKING that it was Good when, two thousand years ago, Jesus was crucified. But as I reflect on Good Friday, I remember that God truly does work all things for the good for His children. I also recognize that life is often bittersweet, in that usually my life is full of blessings while it has some sad moments and challenges. I have found that my life is never all sad or all good, there are usually aspects of both that encourage me to focus on the good.

I was feeling the “bitter” and the “sweet” of my life all week. I had a reunion phone call with the IBM team with whom I lived in Ghana. It was wonderful to hear everyone’s voices and to catch up, but it was also sad to realize that we may never all be in the same place at the same time again. The beginning of our call was lively and exciting, and after we caught up then we all kind of turned to nostalgia for Takoradi, missing Ghana, and sadness that our trip was over.

I took my final anti-malaria pill yesterday, a tangible reminder that my African adventure (this one, at least) is truly over. I also took my braids out, a bittersweet occasion all to itself (sadness that they’re gone and excitement to get my scalp washed). I feel so grateful for having had the experience, but I am also sad that it ended. To tame the “bitter” I am focusing on the many sweet memories I created, which I will treasure forever. I am constantly reminded that I am a blessed woman.

Over the last 10 days since being back in southern California, I waver between feeling disconnected and feeling loved. I am so glad that my friends have rallied around me to remind me that I am treasured, because the transition has been more challenging than I expected. I’ve been through this cultural readjustment before (returning from missions trips) but this time has been more difficult than I imagined. My closest friends are calling and texting me regularly to check on me and make sure I am doing okay. I was in a funk for the first week and I knew that I had a 50/50 chance to either come out of it or to dip into a depression, and I’ve done everything I can to stack the deck in my favor.

I have intentionally been out with friends every night, even at the expense of getting my condo and life back in order. I am grateful for all the warm and loving “welcome homes” I have received. And I’ve enjoyed seeing how God is using people and circumstances to send me love on a daily and hourly basis, when I need it most. Thanks to all of you for letting God use you to remind me that He loves me! I’ve also been thrilled that so many friends from out of town have ended up being here over the last week, giving me plenty of opportunities to hang out with people who I love and miss.

As with anything in life, I return a different person. And I have a feeling that this experience is going to be a defining moment in my life. I don’t yet exactly know how, but I do know that I am already changed, that I want to change, and that I am still changing. I am eager to see how God uses this in my life, and I trust that He will work it all for the good.

The two videos

For those of you who are having a tough time finding the videos amidst all the other text, here are the links to the videos. Each video has music, pictures, and some words to help narrate. Enjoy!

Ghana video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFXE41LagS0

South Africa Safari video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z3yC3M_cGs

Video from my South African Safari

Okay, since I’ve been up for so long, I might as well finish these posts, right? First, let me say Happy Birthday, Sis! I’ll call you later today.

We’ve already established (elsewhere in this blog) that I am pretty lousy at goodbyes. But something in me tells me that this Africa blog isn’t done yet :)

The last six weeks in Africa (Ghana and South Africa) were an incredible blessing and I am so grateful to have had the experience. Truthfully, I am a little depressed to be gone from Africa, but making these two videos (scroll down to the bottom of the April page for my Ghana video) has been a nice reminder of the people who made the trip so special. I hope you enjoy the blog, the pictures, and the videos! Thanks for supporting me and joining me for this wild ride.

For now, here is my South African Safari video:


Blessings to you all!

Final day in South Africa

Warthogs woke me this morning.


And Morris delivered my cheetah on our last drive! On our very first day, he asked what I would like to see and I requested a male lion and a cheetah. On our first drive, he showed me a male lion, and on our last drive he showed me not just one cheetah, but four!!! A mama with two boys, and a lone female. They were beautiful, and I was very excited. Morris is awesome!




We also saw rhino, zebra, giraffes, wildebeest (and a carcass from last week), elephants, African hawk eagle, baboons, impala, and more.

I packed up and checked out of Shiduli, and Dylan came to fetch me. We had a nice time on the 6-hour drive through the Drakensburg mountains back down to Johannesburg, and he had me crying with laughter as he told me about his tough day yesterday that culminated in a honey badger stealing his dinner. The Drakensburg range juts up several thousand feet from a grassy plain below, so the drive offered wonderful views. At one point, we were stopped (lots of roadwork underway in preparation for the 2010 World Cup) so we bought some homemade marula beer from a woman on the side of the road. Someone suggested I try it before leaving, and Dylan obliged even though he cautioned me against it. As soon as I opened the bottle, his face soured at the smell. I took a sip, and he agreed to take a small taste, too. We both thought it was disgusting, so we screwed the lid back on and put it back on the side of the road so the lady could re-sell it.

We stopped for lunch in Dullstrom (home of South Africa’s highest railway station at 6811 feet above sea level) at a great place called Harrie’s pancakes, where we each had a savory pancake before splitting a sweet one for dessert. My savory pancake was delicious, and the easiest description would be to say it was a thai burrito wrapped in a pancake instead of a tortilla. Don’t knock it until you try it :) I’m still impressed with the quality (clean, nice) of the public toilets in South Africa. We stopped at one this afternoon and there were flowers on the counter. Wonderful! While I was in the ladies room, Dylan went in and bought me jelly babies so I could try them before leaving. The name and package make me laugh, but the oddest thing is that the candies are actually shaped like babies (belly buttons, diapers, and all). I tried each of the 6 flavors, and pineapple was my favorite. I told him “these candies are wrong in so many ways” and he just laughed.

This blog really should end with Dylan dropping me off at the airport so I could catch my two long flights back to southern California, but I must share one new experience I had on the first leg of my flight (Johannesburg to Amsterdam). After some technical difficulties (not sure what, they never told us), we backed away from the gate and within a few minutes the pilot announced overhead that a passenger had been “cruel” to the flight attendants so we’d be turning around and returning him to the gate. Evidently, the guy was drunk and berated a flight attendant, so they kicked him off the plane before we even left. In the end, our flight was delayed over an hour, but I had a long enough layover in Amsterdam that it didn’t affect my connection at all. Also, sleep deprivation over the last week definitely has its upside! I slept for 8 hours on the flight and felt great heading into the second half. On the last 10 hours of the flight, I read and made these videos.

I made it to LAX this afternoon and now it’s 5am and I still can’t get to sleep. I have to work today, so it will be a long day… No matter, it was well worth it!

Last Full Day in Shiduli

I woke up this morning to the sound of an animal that I can’t identify. Maybe a rhino? Our morning drive was wonderful. I am amazed at how different each game drive is. Shiduli is a private game lodge situated in the Karongwe Game Reserve (which is a 20,000 acre private reserve that serves five private lodges). We rarely run into any other vehicles on our game drives, so it really does feel private. Morris knows the rangers at the other lodges, so they communicate via radio when one of them spots certain animals.

This offers a very different experience than Kruger, and I like them both. At Kruger, we slowly meandered around and would happen upon animals. (I have heard that Kruger can get very busy, but Dylan and I rarely felt crowded.) Here, Morris drives around and spots animals, but we rely less on the element of serendipity. Sometimes, we’re in hot pursuit of an animal (i.e., last night we needed to get to the rhinos before dark, and today we heard from the other ranger that the lions were in a specific area so we drove quickly over to that area).

This morning, we saw bushbabies (we saw their eyes the other night in the dark), impala, giraffes, kudu, duiker, wildebeest, hippos, terrapin, and probably more animals that I forgot. (I am embarrassed to admit that with all the animals I have seen, some of the drives and days are blurring together. What a blessing, right?)

The highlights of the morning drive for me were the rhinos, elephants, and lions. We found the rhino family again this morning, which is exactly what I wished for last night. We saw them this morning at dusk, so we watched them while the sun came up. The baby girl is so cute, and she didn’t have a name. We have seen this family for the last three days, so I asked Morris if we could name her. He agreed, and at that time she was eager to get her mom to move along (she kept rubbing against her mom, then walking away and hoping she would follow). I asked what the Tsonga word is for “eager” and he said “Longi-la” (not sure of the spelling) so I named her Longi-La.


When Paul radioed Morris to tell us he found a lion family, we started driving quickly over to the area. Along the way, we passed through a herd of elephants and they were not very relaxed (Morris said they can smell the lions, so were agitated). One of the elephants trumpeted and charged towards us, so we had to get out of there quickly. That was definitely the most excitement I’ve had so far on a drive. He chased us for a while but finally stopped (maybe he knew that chasing us would bring us closer to the lions). Seeing what the elephants do to trees here makes me want to not have them use their trunks or tusks on our vehicle! Morris and I laughed at the end.


We did finally find the lions. There were two cubs (10-months in age) and they were frolicking while their parents were out hunting. Morris tells me that even though the lions are getting large, they still don’t know how to hunt very well and might get killed by a zebra (they stick their heads in a bush and kick backwards hard with both feet) or giraffe because they wouldn’t attack the prey in the right place. So instead, they stay behind to play while mom and dad look for food. They climbed in (and nearly fell out of) a tree; they wrestled; and they played with each other. It was enjoyable to watch them have so much fun!



At one point on our drive, we were on a very narrow trail and had been driving for a while. As we rounded a corner, a tree was blocking the road (probably an elephant knocked it over). We couldn’t turn around easily, and backing all the way out was not an option. Luckily, our Land Rover was full today (Morris, his mate, Marcus, and 5 of us including 2 men). First, Morris and his mate tried. Next, Marcus joined. Finally, the two guys jumped out and they all moved the tree. It was great.

This afternoon, I sat around the pool under an umbrella and read. I also listened to a sermon (an old one on iTunes). Earlier this week, a lioness killed a warthog right here, and she broke the electric fence in the process so there were warthogs at the lodge today. They crouch on their “elbows” when they eat grass, which looks silly and vulnerable.

On the afternoon drive, we saw many birds (including bee eaters), butterflies, and animals (bushbuck, jackals, wildebeest, impala). We saw the largest herd of giraffes I have seen (a dozen giraffes), and we saw an iguana-like creature called a water monitor. Morris got out of the truck today to follow some cheetah tracks (I asked him the first day if we could find a cheetah), but he wasn’t able to find the cheetah for me yet. This evening, we saw night jars (birds that prefer to be out at night), too.

The highlight of the evening drive was finding the big daddy lion. He has a lush black mane, two wives, and three children. He got his grub on yesterday with the warthog, so he’s still digesting all that food. He weighs 280 kg (!) and was lazy today trying to digest his huge meal. At one point, it was dark and we were parked 10 feet from him and he called for his wife. It was great, and the only other thing he could have done for me was to roar. But being that close, I might have been really scared if he had roared. Dylan’s book says a lion’s roar can be heard for 5km!

I learned that Shiduli means termite mound, and that there are macro and micro termites. Macro termites are photosensitive and live in the huge hills we see everywhere, and inside is a fungus that helps process the food that termites can’t digest. The mounds also produce mushrooms after rains, which I am told are delicious. For dinner, we had mushroom pesto as a starter and someone asked if it was termite mushrooms :)

First day in Shiduli

After four hours of sleep, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was ready by the time Morris called to wake me up, so I headed down to the dining area for tea (rooibos, of course) and rusks. The morning drive was bookended by hippos with lions in the middle. We saw a baby hippo running before the sun came up, and we ended our drive at a dam where we watched five hippos playing in the water. In the middle, we watched a family of lions (mom, dad, and three cubs). Dad laid around the whole time, only one time sitting up to yawn and then fall back over for the rest of the time. It was great to watch.

The tourist group from France left right after breakfast, so I had the entire resort to myself until this afternoon when a half dozen new people arrived. Even though I was tired, I decided not to sleep and instead I sat under a huge umbrella at the pool, listening to the waterfall while I read a book that I’ve been trying read for months.

Our afternoon game drive was fantastic! Morris looks at animal droppings and tracks to help us find the animals. We saw wildebeest, warthog, and a herd of zebra right away, than saw impala and kudu before seeing jackals scare some baby giraffes. The adult giraffes weren’t concerned with the jackals, but their little ones ran scared.

We also saw a lot of different birds (including red-billed and yellow-bird hornbills, martial eagle, and a magpie shrike). I learned from Morris that hornbill dads put the mom and babies in a hole, seal it with dung, and then go out to get them food. It sounds good, except that if anything happens to dad while he’s out looking for food for the family, the whole family dies because mom can’t get out of the hole.

For me, the best part today was the elephants, because we saw the same herd as yesterday and today they flirted and played with us. Morris would back up, they would follow. He was very careful to ensure we never ended up in the middle of the herd with no way out (especially since one of the males is known to attack Land Rovers), but the elephants came within feet of us. It was really a pleasure to be there with them, even though we had to leave when one of the teenage elephants trumpeted at us because he was getting annoyed. After another beautiful sunset, we saw a family of rhinos (mom, dad, and a 4-month old baby girl). I hope to see them again tomorrow in the light, because that baby was adorable!

I was looking at the stars (they are just amazing here, and I’m still awestruck by the Milky Way) again tonight and Marcus showed me Leo and the Southern Cross, among others. The heavens truly do declare the glory of God! For now, I am off to bed early because I didn’t get to nap today. I have some daddy long legs and lizards living in the room with me, but I don’t mind because that means I probably won’t see any spiders. Life is good, I am blessed. Oh, and even though they’re manky (that’s the South African term for raggedy) now, I still adore my braids and the way I can just tie them up for the game drives.

Leaving Kruger National Park

I woke up just after 4am (my neighbors were noisy as they left camp) so I was packed and ready to go early today. We headed out while it was still dark and as the sun rose we saw all the mist in the air. Three days in a row now, we’ve seen hyenas, and this morning we saw some pups and a pregnant mother. We stopped at a hide over Lake Panic (I’d like to know how it got its name) and watched the peaceful lake while the fog rolled away. We saw a hippo sleeping, we saw a stork eating, and as we left the lake we saw Nyala (a type of antelope) for the first time.

We were on a mission to see cats today, specifically leopards, lions (a big male), and cheetahs. While I haven’t seen a cheetah yet, I did see leopard and a pride of lions today. The leopard was especially fulfilling, because we’ve been scanning trees for leopards for the last two days. Today, the leopard we saw was small and she was interested in us, so she came literally within 10 feet of us and stared at us the whole time. It was so cool! She was beautiful.


Dylan has trained me to see animals, and I am making progress but of course he’s much better than me. He saw a herd of zebras that I struggled to see even with the binoculars! We saw zebras, elephants, and giraffes today. He is letting me identify the gender of the giraffes we see, and it made me laugh today when we approached a giraffe and he asked “Do you want to sex that one, too?” I explained that it would sound better if he asked me to identify the gender instead. Another funny time today was when he had to break out his Leatherman to open my bottle of water. I appreciated his effort and commitment so much, but the whole situation was so funny that I was crying with laughter. Yesterday, he was convinced that a hippo was a rock (it turned out to be a hippo) and today he was convinced that a rock was a leopard (wishful thinking).

We left Kruger through Phabeni Gate (a new gate, constructed in 2002) and made our way towards Shiduli. We passed through Blyde River Canyon, seeing the 3 Rondavels, and stopping at God’s Window and Bourke’s Luck Potholes. God’s Window is incredible, and it feels like the top of the world. Just amazing, sweeping views. I can’t imagine how anyone could stand up there and not believe in a magnificent, mighty, and majestic God. As is so often the case, pictures don’t do it justice.


After God’s Window, we stopped to see Bourke’s Luck Potholes, which we really enjoyed. They are a chain of fascinating (and huge) potholes that were scoured into the rock by sand and stones flowing through two rivers.



After passing through a mountain tunnel that Dylan told me was the longest he’s ever seen (for the record, I think it might be the shortest mountain tunnel I’ve ever seen, so we laughed about that), we arrived at Shiduli. This private lodge (www.shidulilodge.co.za) will be my home for the next few days. Dylan dropped me off and went to go visit his uncle and grandparents.

As I mentioned before, Pierre did a great job organizing this trip for me. As part of that, he saved the best accommodations for last. When I arrived today, the manager greeted me by name before I even introduced myself. Turns out they are booked solid today: me plus a tour of 29 people from France that was going to arrive later. They greeted me with a scented towel to freshen up and then offered me some delicious iced tea with a grape in the bottom of the champagne glass. My room is very nice and the grounds are beautiful. This is truly a luxury resort, and a great way to unwind for a few days after the hectic pace of the last two months. My thatched room doesn’t have a clock (or cell phone coverage or internet access), so my personal ranger Morris calls me to wake me up and to invite me to game drives. I’m still feeling like a princess in Africa :)

After lunch (seriously, the amount of food is out of control, especially since there is no exercise on safari), I got settled into my room and unloaded the pictures from our morning game drive before heading out for the afternoon/evening game drive. The hotel staff keeps reminding me that the French tour is only here for 20 hours, and that it will be “normal” again as soon as they leave. They seem friendly, but I understand what the staff means because on our afternoon game drive, I was really missing the silence that Dylan and I usually share. Their camaraderie is great, but the incessant chatter makes it difficult to enjoy the Bush and its own sounds. The good news is that it helps remind me of the French I so long ago lost.

Pierre told me that the private lodge would be a very different experience than the public Kruger experience, and he was right. I can’t say which I prefer, but they are very different and I feel fortunate that he was wise enough to ensure that I have both on this single trip (while staying within my time, money, and location constraints). I can’t adequately explain the difference in seeing the animals, but it’s very different. Kruger enabled me to see lots of animals, and the private lodge is allowing me to see their behavior better. Kruger has paved roads and dirt roads, but we’re not allowed to go off-road. Here, it’s a private reserve so the Land Rovers can do what they want. We’ve crossed rivers and literally driven into bushes and over small trees. It’s great!


The Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland is one of my all-time favorite rides, and safari in an open Land Rover is a million times better! There are more golden orb spiders here than even in Kruger, and their gold webs are intricate and beautiful throughout the reserve. Often, we have to stop and let Morris’s mate move the web so we can drive through. (They’re very big spiders, but not scary because they don’t bite humans.)

On the afternoon game drive, I saw baboon, warthogs, impala, kudu, giraffe, elephants, rhinos, and lions. We saw a herd of ~15 elephants, which was wonderful. We sat there in our Land Rover for a while and watched them eat before demolishing the trees. Their immense size allows them to knock over huge trees with apparently no effort. Amazing to be so close to see and hear them (even when a big elephant relieved himself, both ways). We saw a family of three rhinos, including a baby. And we saw a pride of lions: dad has a black mane and there are three cubs. Being so close in an open vehicle is a great experience, even though I didn’t get good pictures because it was dusk. (A funny aside, one of the French guys was growling in an attempt to get the massive lion, laying 20 feet away, to look our direction. Um, we’re in an open vehicle with the engine off, and the lion can probably pounce from where he is to where we are. Needless to say, Morris stopped the guy’s stupid behavior right away.)

I have really enjoyed the sunsets in Africa. The colors, and the trees on the horizon, make the view spectacular. Tonight, I watched the sun dip behind a mountain while I sat in the middle of the bush. On our night drive, we saw a jackal. Morris also comes to fetch me and walks me to dinner, and tonight we had Moroccan and South African dinner around a fire under the stars. It was delicious, but the best part was the Shangaan-style singing and dancing after dinner.


The key benefit of the French tourists is that they pay extra to have a show after dinner, which I got to enjoy since I am here. So our hotel staff sang, drummed, and danced for 45 minutes after dinner. I loved it! One of my favorite things about Africa is the rhythm and harmony. The rhythm of life. The rhythm of music. The harmony of it all. How people can sing a capella at any given moment and have their songs stir my soul. How their music and dancing persuade my hips to move, too. I’m seriously wanting to move to Africa, and have been praying that God will make it clear for me so I can do His will and not my own.

Skukuza Camp in Kruger National Park

I slept well in my thatched roof hut last night, and woke up before dawn. On our way out of camp, we saw mongoose and I told Dylan that was a good sign of things to come. We had three routes to choose between, and I didn’t have a preference. We started out in one direction and less than a minute later, he felt like we should go in a completely different direction so we turned around. He was right!

Within minutes, we saw a pack of 5 wild dogs! There are only ~400 in all of Kruger, which is almost 7,580 square miles (larger than Israel, almost as large as Massachusetts) and Dylan hasn’t seen African wild dogs in over 5 years, so we were excited to see more than 1% of the whole population as the sun was rising. The dogs were on Dylan’s side, and he asked if I could smell them (we were less than 15 feet from them). I couldn’t, so I crawled across him to get closer. It was funny because then all I could smell was him (freshly showered) and when I said “I can only smell you” he thought I was telling him he smelled like a wild dog. I finally did smell the dogs, and I can’t really describe it except it’s kind of a cross between musty and dried blood?




In addition to the mongoose and wild dogs, we saw more hippos, elephants, giraffes, impala, kudu, bushbucks, hyenas, crocodiles, warthogs (aka Little Tuskers), another large herd of buffalo, squirrel, lizards, and bats. We saw a lot of birds today, including vultures, giant kingfisher, woodland kingfishers, ducks, Egyptian geese, stork, oxpeckers, and a bateleur eagle (whose name is derived from the French word for acrobat).


We are having fun on our drives. Most of the time we are silent, just listening to the sounds of the birds and insects while we look for interesting animals. Sometimes (especially when I am likely to fall asleep) we talk, about everything from domestic abuse to domestics (many people in South Africa have domestics aka maids). We’ve talked about differences and similarities between ZA and USA: food, eating habits, divorce rates, marriage age, language, nicknames, and more. And we always have some good laughs. Sometimes we think a rock or log is an animal (i.e., see the wood giraffe and real giraffes below):




Today, I announced that down a certain path I had seen either a hyena or a warthog (they look VERY different, so that was a random announcement but it turned out that it was a hyena). And we had a chuckle when I asked a question about whether a certain path was the same one we took yesterday afternoon, instead of saying “no” Dylan said “not really, but close” because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

I really enjoy the water pressure here in Skukuza, so I took the time to wash my braids this afternoon before the evening game drive. They’re in pretty good shape overall, except the roots look raggedy. My guess is that I typically lose ~100 hairs per day, but since they’re all braided together right now, the hairs fall out of my scalp but are stuck in the braid. As a result, the white bulb at the follicle (which I have never really noticed that much before) sticks out from the braid near the base of my scalp, and it kind of looks like dandruff, which isn’t so nice. I can pull them out (it doesn’t hurt, I pull it out of the braid since it has already come out of the scalp), but it’s a slow process because I have to pull each hair out one by one. So for now, I look like I have a crazy case of dandruff…. Nonetheless, the braids have been WONDERFUL and functional throughout Africa, and they were well worth the effort. I’ll just have to get them taken out as soon as I get home.

Our afternoon drive was low-key. We saw baboons that made us laugh (like always) and many of the animals that we’d already seen. We enjoyed ourselves, despite not finding the elusive cats. We had dinner under the stars (there are countless stars, and I can see the Milky Way so clearly) and topped it off with a small taste of Amarula (my fav drink since Geoff introduced it to me many years ago). We laughed about different words used in America and South Africa. My favorites so far are salty cracks (saltine crackers), robot (stop light), and jelly babies (a candy shaped like human babies, very strange to me). Dylan’s favorite is still charley horse. I also enjoy the use of “fancy” instead of “want” and “best” instead of “favorite.”

Lower Sabie To Skukuza

I slept in my tent to the sound of various animals, then Dylan woke me up before sunrise. We were packed and out of the camp before 6am and were treated to wonderful animal sightings right away. First, we saw wildebeest and then within 5 minutes we saw spotted hyenas. Since they’re scavengers, I expected them to be ugly with matted fur. Dylan says they do smell bad, but they looked nice this morning.


He is letting me a read a book published in 2007 about animals in the Kruger, so I am learning a lot as we go. For example, hyenas are capable of eating up to 1/3 of their body weight in a single sitting if they are hungry. Wow! Also, though hyenas are scavengers, they kill more than half the time in Kruger because there isn’t enough to scavenge. Females are larger and have more testosterone than the males, so they’re more aggressive and they dominate the social hierarchy.

More tidbits I’ve learned so far: Hippos account for more deaths in Africa than any other mammal, because they’re very aggressive (that lazy “yawn” we see is actually the hippo displaying its large teeth as a warning). Giraffes, with their long necks, have 7 vertebrae in their necks just like humans do. Today I was able to tell the difference between male and female giraffes by looking at their horns (not really horns, just nubs from the skull) with my binoculars: males are bald at the tip while females are fuzzy. Elephants have 6 sets of molars but they are only used one set at a time (if the last set wears down completely, the elephant will starve because it won’t be able to chew effectively), and they have the largest brain of any land animal.

For breakfast, we had tea and rusks (hard sweet biscuits that you dip in tea or coffee) and then later we had brunch (I had scrambled eggs, feta, and tomatoes stuffed in a pita) at Lower Sabie. Throughout our drive, we saw some of the same animals we saw yesterday (impala, warthogs, elephants, rhinos, zebras, buffalo, monkeys) and some new animals (hippos, crocodiles, turtles, giraffes, baboons, hyenas, kudu, and waterbucks). We also saw a lot of birds, including a martial eagle. My favorite are the rollers (lilac-breasted and others, they all have beautiful colors).

This afternoon, we headed out to find dogs and cats (African wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards, and big lions). The book says there are only 5,000 total African wild dogs in the world, and they’re considered one of the most endangered animals on earth but I have faith that we’ll see some. We just missed a lioness (but we heard the baboons barking to warn other animals) and are hoping to see the other animals tomorrow. We didn’t see any of them this afternoon despite our best efforts, and I think Dylan was sadder than I was because he wants me to have a fantastic trip, which I am. It also made us both appreciate how blessed we were to see so many animals yesterday. Tomorrow morning, I am sure we’ll see a lot of animals again.

On our afternoon game drive, I think the baboons were a highlight. Baboon babies are so cute, but the adult males are so ugly to me, especially since they tend to be really mean. Anyway, as the sun sets the baboons congregate in the roads because the blacktop stays warm longer. Baboons are not afraid or even concerned with cars. They lounge around, right in front of a car, eating rocks (I think they do this to clean their teeth?). It doesn’t sound that funny, but it really is quite amusing:


The cutest thing for me is the little babies, hanging on mom’s butt or belly, and wrestling with each other.


Female baboons, when in heat, have swollen rumps that look quite painful.


And please don't think I am perverted, but this is very bizarre to me. Vervet monkeys have blue testicles when they are ready to mate, which is strange because nothing else on their body is blue:


We had some good laughs today outside the baboons and monkeys, too. Dylan tells me my sneeze sounds like a hyena, and he also thinks the phrase “charley horse” for a calf cramp is very funny. He’s also amused that I had to shave my legs last night because his legs were better shaved than mine, and it was making me feel insecure.

For dinner, we decided to go to a restaurant called Selati, which is in an old train (Selati Railway line, never finished). I had line fish with monkey gland sauce (sounds gross, but it’s actually just a chutney and onion sauce, no monkey glands in it). I plan to get to bed soon because tomorrow we’re leaving again at 5:30am. Tonight’s accommodations for me are really nice (we’re staying in Skukuza, the largest camp in Kruger), because I have a toilet in my room instead of having to trek across a field with a flashlight. Moving on up! Pierre did a great job ensuring that my rooms will get better as my trip progresses.

Kruger National Park: Crocodile Bridge Camp

I booked a one-woman safari with FireFinch Safaris (www.firefinchsafaris.com) primarily because Pierre was helpful, responsive, honest, and he created a custom tour for my desires, interests, and budget. He always responded to emails within a day, and he took great care of all the logistics. He’s on a one-month training (living in Kruger) so Andria and Dylan have taken over for the last week. Andria did shopping and food preparation based on the food and drink preferences that Pierre requested from me. Pierre ensured that, having spent a month working in Ghana, I would have the things I need here that I couldn’t pack (flashlight, mosquito coil, extra bug repellent, binoculars). And Dylan (Pierre’s little brother, who loves the Bush and has spent most of his life in and around the Bush) is my guide, driver, cook, and companion for the trip. Throughout the planning of the trip, they have all been super communicative (via email and SMS), which I really appreciate. If the service pre-trip is indicative of how my safari will go, I am in for a real treat!

Dylan is not on African time, because he showed up early instead of late :) He picked me up and we headed to Kruger National Park so I can see the Big 5 (Buffalo, Elephant, Lion, Leopard, and Rhino) and other animals. He also told me about the Little 5 (Buffalo Weaver, Elephant Shrew, Ant Lion, Leopard Tortoise, and Rhino Beetle). We saw the terrain change between Joburg and Kruger, moving from Highveld to Lowveld (“veld” is the Afrikaans word for grasslands). The maize (which they call mielle) turned to citrus farms, banana farms, and sugar farms. We stopped for lunch in Nelspruit and made it to Crocodile Bridge Camp at ~2:30pm.


After unpacking, we headed out for our first game drive. Dylan wasn’t sure what we would see, but I was optimistic that we’ll see the Big 5 on this trip. He said only one time ever (he’s lived here his whole life) has he seen the Big 5 in a single day, and he comes here several times per month. I can’t reduce my South African Safari to a desire to see the Big 5, but I do hope to see them as part of my trip. We didn’t see the Big 5 today, but we did see 4 of the 5 on our first 3-hour game drive! First we saw wildebeest, then impala, then elephants (including a calf). We saw some beautiful birds, including bright blue starling, brown snake eagle, Wahlberg’s eagle, vulture (not beautiful), lilac-breasted roller (called roller because they roll in the air when they fly), guinea fowl (which are cute with blue heads and I don’t think I’ll eat again), hornbills, and lots of franklins. We saw warthogs and white rhinos (all rhinos are grey in color, but white rhinos have square lips to graze on grass, and are generally bigger because they are actually wide rhinos) but haven’t seen any black rhinos (very rare, smaller, aggressive, and hook lips because they are browsers).

Dung beetles lay their eggs in dung (usually elephant, rhino, or buffalo) and roll it into a ball (the size of a golf ball). They stand on their front legs and roll the dung ball backwards with their back legs like a wheelbarrow, and then they bury the ball so the eggs hatch. Sounds crazy, but actually quite interesting and dare I say cute. Ant hills and termite hills here typically have trees growing out of them, because impalas and other antelope will eat seeds and then do their thing on ant hills, so their droppings provide a great place for seeds to germinate. Centipedes are called shongalolo, which is a fun name.

We saw vervet monkeys, and they were running away so we looked and saw three lion cubs! They were adorable, but their mom must have been out hunting because we never saw her. Dylan says he’s not satisfied until we see a male lion, but I was thrilled to see lions on our first day. We needed to rush back to camp after watching the lions (gates close at 6:30pm) and saw a group of zebras on the roadside. The landscape was breathtaking as the sun was setting, as both sides of the horizon were ablaze with purple and the trees looked incredible. Our rush back to camp was halted with the largest herd of buffalo Dylan has ever seen. There were at least 300 buffalo, and they were leisurely crossing the road so we couldn’t drive. We waited almost 20 minutes for the buffalo to cross (we couldn’t drive through them because a bull could charge our truck and do some serious damage to the truck and us). We waited patiently and finally were able to drive through, making it back to camp just in time.

Right now, Dylan is making braai (he’s barbecuing dinner for us) while I sit outside our tents and ask him loads of questions to make sure I have the animals right. He’s making potatoes, butternut squash stuffed with feta and spinach, salad with avocado, and kebabs (called sosatie, mine made of chicken). Everything is made on the braai except the salad.

Current score on Day 1 of the one-woman safari: We’ve seen 4 of the Big 5. Even better, Dylan doesn’t laugh at me when I refer to The Lion King. So far we’ve seen Pumbaa (warthog), Zazu (hornbill), Nala and Simba (lion cubs). We will likely also see hyenas, a male lion (Mufasa), and maybe meerkat (Timon), but not Rafiki.

Johannesburg, South Africa

I blogged every day in South Africa, but didn't have internet access so I wasn't able to post them. I'll post them all this week, in the order I wrote them. Here is the first one:

Bill picked me up at the airport at 7am, even after he had a late night himself the previous evening (thanks for everything, Bill, you’re the best!). We made it to his house, where I took a shower and planned to rest. After I had showered, I wasn’t tired so we had lunch (first time I had salad in a month) at Nando’s and headed through downtown Joburg to the Apartheid Museum. The museum was very interesting, and I learned a lot. In the beginning, we entered through separate entrances (he entered through the white gate, I entered through the non-European gate) and we were actually separated – I could see him but couldn’t get into the section where he was. In addition to background of how South Africa came to be populated (Dutch settlers, Indian servants, native Africans), the museum gave good insight about how Apartheid came into existence. There was also a nice room honoring Helen Suzeman and an exhibition on Nelson Mandela. There were parts of the museum that were downright depressing, but the ending was encouraging and I was really glad we went.

Bill’s family and I joined Cynthia and Gary for Indian food at dinner, and we called it a night early since I was still tired from my journey. Sunday morning, Percy picked me up and the four of us (Cynthia, Gary, Percy, and I) went to the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. The Cradle is over 115,000 acres. We started with Maropeng (www.maropeng.co.za), which is a very nice exhibition that opened in ~2005. I saw Mrs. Ples and other fossils, learned about the history of our world, and saw evidence that the whole human race started in Africa. It was interesting, and higher tech than I expected. The end also had a political slant, in a good way, talking about poverty, education, natural resources, and more. I especially enjoyed that part.


After Maropeng, we went to Sterkfontein Caves (www.sterkfontein.co.za, means something like Strong Fountain/Waterfall in Afrikaans) and saw where Little Foot is being excavated. We also saw stalactites and stalagmites, and other rock structures (one that looks like an elephant), and an underground lake.


In terms of animals, I saw a springbok (a jumping buck, like a deer) and some ostriches. I learned that the South African rugby team are the Springboks and the cricket team are the Protea (which is a flower that I haven’t seen yet). We had Thai food for dinner. All in all, it was a great day.

Monday, I went to Diepsloot (a poor township, aka squatter’s camp, where people live in 10’x5’ shacks assembled from scrap metal, wood, plastic and cardboard, even sometimes lacking running water) to help teach the 3rd graders English. (Joburg public school students start learning English in 3rd grade.) My table of students had 6 black South African kids, some with names that were easy for me (a girl named Miranda and a boy named Kelly), some that were straightforward (a boy named Ntando), and one little Zulu girl whose name I can’t even pronounce. It is spelled Sinenhlanhla and the “nhl” is a click sound that I can’t make. I tried several times and she laughed, but I never did get it right despite getting close. I had a nice time and the kids really appreciated the one-on-one attention because the classes are ~60 kids per teacher. As I saw in Kenya, since education is a privilege and not a right, the kids were very happy to be there and well-behaved despite the overcrowded classroom.

After Diepsloot, I went to the township of Alexandra. Jenise’s friend Lance is a civil engineer working on the redevelopment of Alex (www.alexandra.co.za), so he gave me a great tour. Alex is 2 square miles (~1 mile x 2 miles) and was designed for ~70,000 people but today there are more than 700,000 people so the population density is unreal. It is much cleaner than I expected because there are port-a-potties and many of the shacks (6-10 people living in a ~15’x20’ room) have running water. It smelled good and the people were friendly, but I didn’t take any pictures. Most of us could not imagine living in the conditions I saw at either Diepsloot or Alex. Lance and I ended our tour of Alex at Zack’s Shebeen, a (formerly illegal) bar where I had some water since I was heading to the IBM office immediately after.

I spent a few hours at IBM meeting with recruiters and an HR rep, then Carolyn and Roberto picked me up for dinner. We went to Moyos (the Swahili word for “soul”) and I had poitjie (pronounced like “poy-kee” it’s a stew) and pap (made from maize, tastes like light and fluffy mashed potatoes, but better). I tasted Roberto’s ostrich and pumpkin/groundnut mash (yummy!) and had my face painted.

It was such a treat to be there, and I am so grateful that Carolyn came out even though she wasn’t feeling well. I really appreciated their hospitality, something I have consistently enjoyed throughout the continent of Africa. Bill and Laura were also incredibly gracious hosts! They gave me a room with ensuite bathroom, fed me lots of great food, drove me around, and made me feel so welcome even though I know they had to rearrange their own schedules to accommodate me. They even provided me with food for the road and an adapter so I can charge my digital camera on the safari. Thanks a million, Laura and Bill! I hope to be able to return the favor some day.

Video with pictures & music from my Ghana travels

Here is a little video I made with pictures and thoughts about the month I spent in Ghana. Enjoy!