Tuesday Night in The Bush

5:30pm the phone rings......“Hey there, you home” says Tian. “Yes, what’s up?” I said. “Want to go baboon hunting?” Tian says. “Umm of course,” I say. As Tian pulled up outside my place, I came out excited for the hunting ahead. He looked down and laughed and told me to go put on proper shoes. I was a little confused so I asked if we would be walking or driving. “No, we will drive,” he says. Still confused as to why my flip flops were not proper I obediently went back inside to change.

I hopped into his buckie (aka truck) and we went barrelling down the dirt road. We travelled along the perimeter of the property that is next to Kruger National Park. I had my eyes peeled in an effort to see any possible game on our way to shoot some baboons.

The dirt road began to get worse and worse till the bushes on either side of us were coming into the buckie. Tian stopped and opened his door. I timidly asked, “where are you going.” “Umm baboon hunting,” he sarcastically replied. A little perplexed by the fact that he had previously told me we were driving, I slowly got out of the car not wanting to be a burden. I carefully placed my feet in the bush, since I am constantly warned of stepping on a Puff Ader – apparently one of the many poisonous snakes to be wary of. However, I have started to notice that they say that about everything.

Anyways, I followed Tian through the now thick bush. He of course was in shorts and flip flops and I was in long pants and closed shoes yet still having trouble keeping up with him as the thorny bushes would pull against him and smack right into my legs. He didn’t seem to notice so I tried to keep my screams in pain to a minimum. After 15 minutes he stopped and turned around to tell me to be quiet. Little did I know that my constant swatting of flies might warn the baboons that we were coming.
We finally arrived to a little clearing and Tian motioned to me to sit down. I looked down and saw a pile of ants, I decided to squat instead. After 5 minutes of silence, squatting, and mosquitoes swarming my head, I decided to get a bit more comfortable and lean against the fence separating us from Kruger. As soon as I moved, Tian grabbed me and whispered, “What on earth are you doing that is electric.” Hmm, oopps, guess I forgot that part. I conceded and sat in the ant pile hoping the baboons would come soon.

As dusk turned to night, Tian stood up and said “Ok, lets go” doesn’t seem like they are coming tonight. I quickly stood up, pissed, I just spent 25 minutes hiking through the bush, 5 mins squatting, and another 30 mins sitting in an ant pile.
As we tromped back to the buckie, Tian turned and asked if I wanted to try again tomorrow. Umm, “No, Thanks” I answered. “Patience my dear, patience,” living here for a year should give you that.

So while we did not even see a baboon to even think about shooting. I was able to learn a little bit about the thing I have never had - patience. Maybe I should try again.

Life Just Isn't Fair

As some of you may remember, I posted a blog a month or so ago about the beauty of rain and the amazing things it brings people who are lacking many of the luxuries we in the states are so use to. However, this weekend I saw the destruction that rain can cause and the awkward balance of a praised position and an incalculable killer.

It has been raining pretty consistently for 4 days now, sometimes light sprinkles other times so hard that you couldn’t see a foot in front of you. In fact, my front windows are now caked in brown dirt from the rain hitting the dirt around my house so hard. Seeing as it was a long weekend I didn’t venture out much in the community but only found solace in the fact that I knew the community would be rejoicing. To my dismay this notion was incorrect.

On Monday, I decided I had had enough alone time and drove into the city of Acornhoek to visit a friend. As I entered the village center, I was forced to abandon my car on the side of the road because the rain had covered up all the pot holes on the road making it un-navigable for any vehicle more or less my little VW Golf. Typically this would have annoyed me but, today, I was again happy that so many people’s prayers were answered by the rainfall.

I trudged along the side of the road up to my calves in water and sometimes losing my footing as the dirt ground underneath me had been washed away by the rain. I soon turned off the paved road and ventured down a dirt path to my friends houses. No more than 100 meters into my walk down the dirt road did I contend to the fact that I would have to put on new clothes when I arrived at her place, not because I was drenched (which I was) but because the dirt was caked over every inch of my body, even impressively, making its way up to my face.

Soon the dirt road turned into a dirt river and I looked ahead to see if maybe this was a bad idea. Ahead of me I saw what I could now make out were people swimming in waist deep water. I then realized all the shacks along this road were floating (or at least pieces of them). I quickly plunged forward not thinking about my own safety but desperate to see what was really ahead of me and if in some way I may be able to help.

At least 50 people were swimming in the dirty water ahead of me trying to savage pieces of their homes now floating swiftly along the dirt river. Children were perched on their mother’s heads so as to stay safe from the swift moving waters. Higher ground was blanketed with people sitting and watching as their loved ones pulled out the pieces of their homes. They were all surprisingly calm.

I immediately thought back to a conversation I had had in the office last month, the girls were telling me about rainy season and the scary anticipation, mainly because most of the people in the community don’t know how to swim resulting in a large number of unnecessary/ accidental deaths which happens to be the second leading cause of death in this area (behind HIV/AIDS).
While my impulse was to help, having learned how to swim basically before I could walk, I realized I was useless. I called my friend who I was supposed to be visiting and told her I would have to come another day. This was all I could handle for one day and the feeling of uselessness and sadness was inevitable. How could a people that suffer and endure so much on a regular basis be thrown just one more hurdle in life! I guess my mom was right when she use to tell my brother and I that “life just isn’t fair.”

Parental Intermission

I apologize for my long hiatus away from my blog. I promise I am back and the stories will continue to come. My parents came to visit me at the beginning of March (ok I realize it is April and I have still not posted anything) and we had an amazing two weeks together.

We started off our journey by venturing around JoBerg finding it surprisingly vast and not as scary as anticipated. We were lucky enough to have our very own tour guide, a friend of mine whom I met while living in Acornhoek. She was from Soweto, so she offered to take my parents and I on a sightseeing tour. We were lucky enough to experience the city from a local’s perspective perhaps making the place much less scary than all the travel books made it out to be.

We stopped by her parents’ house in Soweto to drop off her children and meet her parents. They were a delightful couple and her father joined us for part of the tour. Her father quickly reminded us of the dangers of JoBerg. He was blind and we soon learned it was because of an attempted robbery where the gun man hit him with the gun in the head resulting in his blindness. It was clear that violent crime in the city saw no color, size, or shape but rather just the end product of its potential success. After a day in JoBerg we headed south to Cape Town, the city in South Africa everyone seems so proud of.

Being a typical Gitomer family vacation we did not hang out in the city long but, rather drove to areas much less traveled. People in South Africa were right, the area along the coast was beautiful. The first night we had dinner on a patio listening to the sounds of the penguins on the beach, which sound much like a donkey braying. Later we traveled to the southernmost point of South Africa, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean. Along the way we stayed at some of the most amazing B&Bs, each with its own unique setting and character. We had a wonderful week driving around the southern coast and into the wine country of South Africa.

We left Cape Town to start our journey to my home in Acornhoek. We arrived at the Nelspruit, Mpumalanga Kruger National Park airport on a fairly cool afternoon. Not typical for the time of year and making my parents question my constant bickering to them about the hot weather. After a short stop in Nelspruit (the largest town near me) we began driving along the Panorama Route to Acornhoek. The countryside by where I live is unbelievably beautiful with rolling green hills and a huge canyon that goes right through the area ( kind of equivalent to our Grand Canyon). After a few small hikes to waterfalls and some spectacular views we arrived at my house on Orpen road.

You could tell my parents were uneasy as they entered not knowing what to expect – I guess I set the bar extremely low so as not to get up expectations. This worked well because they were pleasantly surprised with my accommodations. My parents spent the next week coming with me to meetings and doing some sightseeing on their own. We also did an amazing night drive in Kruger one evening seeing a lion, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo.

Upon arrival home one night, my parents were even lucky enough to see Elle (the 8 ton elephant that frequents our area by plunging through the electric fence)! She was back, pulling down trees and eating as much as her little heart contented. This night however, she was right next to my house. Literally, my parents and I hugged each other as we watched her eat about 10 feet from my kitchen window. She is an amazingly large creature and it made you realize the ease at which she could crush your house if she felt the desire.

After another week in the bush at my humble abode my parents had to head out to the reality of a 15 hour plane flight and work. It was wonderful to have them here! And remember all visitors are more than welcome.