Chasing the sun... that’s what I like to think we’re doing on these particular plane rides. We fly thousands of feet up and move 1/2 way around the world in pursuit (or so it seems) of the sun. And in this way, we experience eternal light, an attenuated day that refuses to fade into tomorrow, almost as if that day wants to ensure our safe journey home. It reminds me that though it seems we’re on separate worlds – Thailand, Turkey, Cambodia, France, Peru, Ecuador, and home are all on one Earth, under one sky, and one sun.
Like all of our other adventures, Africa has been phenomenal. Our clash of life has been everything I always hope for.
The safari was unforgettable. For six days, we spent hours in a land rover pursuing the world’s most exciting creatures. We came upon blood covered hyenas just done with a kill, and elephants – at first glance doing nothing but after a second look providing enough action to entertain us for hours. Maybe my favorite was the giraffes: long and graceful, ambling along to wherever they might fancy, lapping leaves off trees then suddenly galloping off in slow-mo as if they suddenly remembered there was something they had to do at that particular moment. Maybe my favorite was the lions. The male, sprawled lazily in the grass yawning every-so-often as to remind us how many teeth he had or the mother we found, not two feet off the road with 2 little baby cubs staring curiously at us and the world. I know I loved the stripped horses that became so common we hardly bothered yelling, ‘Stop! I see a zebra!’ I think my dad’s favorite were the hippos who looked like boulders sitting in the water. When they emerged, they made us all laugh just by their awkward perambulating and cartoon shape. It’s possible that my favorite thing on that safari was just how the plains stretched off for what seemed like forever. The tired yellow color of the grass to telling the world it was old and relaxed and at peace in its stagnation.
If you ask Aidan I’m sure he’ll tell you that his favorite was the cheetahs, lengthy and sly, camouflaged in the grass pending an attack or taking a snooze in a tree… Hands down everyone knows that my mom loved the birds. She was always asking our sweet, old guide Rodger to stop every time there was a flutter of a wing. She was always inquiring what is was, what it ate where it nested… I don’t know what Liam’s and Walsh’s favorites were. Maybe the antelopes jumping and racing about, or the dik-diks who all looked like deer, two sizes too small. You’d have to ask them… all I know is that Liam was always pointing and genuinely exclaiming he saw an animal and then pausing and realizing it wasn’t the one he thought it was or, more often, that it was just a mound of dirt. He makes me laugh.
There is no way to properly describe what we experienced on our last day of safari. I can tell you that we went to a Masai (African tribe) village. I can explain how they dressed, how the beads covered their arms, how the older dressed in various red fabric and the younger in old, filthy clothing filled with holes, things we would have done away with years ago. I could describe the houses called bomas. Not more then ten feet in diameter made of mud and cow dung, the roof consisting of hay and small sticks. I can tell you how the children, smaller then Walsh would herd the cattle all day, searching for green on the drought land. I could tell you all of this…but it wouldn’t be enough. There is no way to communicate the completely different life we lead from them. No way to make you see the fine dust that covers everything or the flies that land all over the children or the smell that’s neither bad nor good that infests your nostrils when you arrive. But really the hardest thing to get across here is to try to convey that these people- aren’t unhappy… Debatably they enjoy life more then we, ourselves do.
They live so simply but in content. Its like, you feel as if you’ve made a discovery and you want to tell the world but, it not. Its just something we all forget.
But they….they hold onto it. and remember. And they showed us happily their African dances and brought us to their homes and shared their traditions. So that if… only for a moment we had a window into this alien life.
Zanzibar is an island right off the coast of Tanzania. The beaches, white as white gets, stretch around the island in a way that make you wonder why more eyes haven’t seen such a place. After our safari, without time to waste, we boarded a plan to witness one of Africa’s most beautiful islands. Our hotel, three hours out of Stone Town (the capital of Zanzibar) was called Twisted Palm. Our huts were 10 yards from the water. We walked miles along the beach to town. We played soccer with the locals. We swam in the ever-shallow ocean and watched the tide go out miles just to come back in. We tanned our bodies and lived off French fries and soda. We would wait literally hours for mediocre food every night: talking, reading and playing cards to pass the time. Excitement rippled through life one day as a jellyfish beaded long and blue stung Liam. It was scary at first, his pain intense and the nearest hospital hours away…but after a time his crying subsided and he stopped shaking so badly. Secretly, I was so jealous of him. What a story to tell, can you imagine?
After that drama we were back to mellow. My mom and I got henna on our ankles and arms. Me and Aidan played tag and there was always a nonstop game of soccer going on. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was paradise. …and to be honest… it was a little boring.
On our third to last day, we picked up and headed into Stone town for the remainder of our time. Stone town boomed with action everywhere you turned. Vendors sold everything from cashews to CDs. We walked down alleyways for long stretches of time and bought souvenirs we didn’t need. Walsh made us all laugh with his hard bargaining “I only have one shilling (about 80 cents)” he’d say, “what can I buy?” … He bought so bracelets and necklaces that my mom joked that he looked like a walking vendor. I loved the city and would have liked to spend much longer there if I wasn’t so homesick. The shops entertained me for eternity. People were so wonderfully friendly. And the boys my age would smile big and holler at me if I looked at them too long: a bad case of mess with the foreigner I think…Still, it made laugh. I think I'm prepared to bet that the ice cream on Zanzibar was the best in the world. It’s that food that ended all our meals which were almost always of Indian cuisine. I know. Indian food in Africa, weird…but it was incredibly tasty all the same. All in all it was a great end to a great adventure.
It's crazy how no matter how far we travel, no matter the incredible things we see, I'm always so excited to be coming home. Maybe it’s the hot shower I want. Or maybe it’s my own bed. But I like to think that I love coming back because I'm coming home to part of something. When we travel, life stops, reminding us that the world is a bigger place then we think of it, each of our lives are so small and kind of insignificant…but coming home… that make me think that I'm a part of something. A part of a community, a part of a school, a town.. a group of friends. The excitement of seeing all these people I’ve missed knocks me back into a place, intertwined with others. It just makes me feel like I'm a part of this bigger thing called life. And it should because its us who lead the world into its future, each tiny one of us that decide where to go from here.
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