In Search of Pride

In Search of Pride

I was asked to tag along on a reconnaissance mission to check out Treetops School Camp as a possible field trip alternative for our students. Treetops Camp is located deep in Kafue National Park on the banks of the Lufupa River, a 7 hour drive north-west of Lusaka.

http://treetopskafue.webs.com/

Our group of seven left on a gorgeous hot Friday afternoon crammed into the school mini-bus among ‘cooler-boxes’, mosquito netting, backpacks, cases of beer, water jugs, and jerry cans filled with extra gasoline. We meandered through the Friday traffic, finally hitting the open highway 40 minutes later. Jacaranda trees dotted the landscape, their branches in brilliant violet bloom. Beers were cracked open, 80’s rock music turned up, bags of ‘crisps’ passed around, and finally we were on our way…

Kafue National Park is the second largest and most underdeveloped park in all of Africa. It is roughly the size of the state of New Hampshire. Our route took us through the village of Mumbwa and we entered the park through the Nalusanga gate. We still had about a 3- hour drive ahead of us; most of which would be in the dark. Once inside the park the road became horrendous, a swath of hard packed mud. As we made our way, the van jostled, tossed, and spun us around like a salad mixer. But…our first wildlife sighting was a leopard! Unfortunately, we only got a quick glimpse as it streaked across the road! I took this as an omen of good things to come. Finally we arrived at the bush camp, ate a hasty dinner and promptly went to sleep.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of hippos on the riverbank, just a few meters from my bed. Following a good camp breakfast, we set off on a game drive following the road north across the Bussing Flatlands to the edge of the Busanga Plains. The Lufupa River floods during the summer season, creating a huge floodplain that is richly inhabited by a diverse group of animals. Herds by the hundreds, buffalo, impala, antelope, wildebeest, red lechwe, and zebra, all populate the vast plains. With such an array and abundance of food available, it’s no wonder that there are lions and we were in search of a pride. A pride of lions consists of a group of related females, their offspring, and three or four male lions. We were told that a pride of 14 lions lives in the vicinity of the Treetops Camp!

At first, the road took us through an eerie landscape, much of it barren and dotted by large baobab trees and grey termite mounds. It looked to me like an abandoned cemetery filled with falling down headstones. There were patches of green brush and a variety of acacia trees. A landscape dominated by miombo woodlands. Warthogs ran in and out of the bush directly in front of the Land Rover while baboons and vervet monkeys watched us pass by with curious faces. Vultures perched atop trees waiting for the heat of the day to carry and propel them through the air. We watched hartebeest, puku, kudu, reedbuck, bushbuck, roan, and sable, as they crisscrossed our path.

We had been told that a small pride of lions had killed and gorged themselves on a wildebeest the day before and could now be found lying around somewhere, sluggish and lazy. We were on a mission to find the pride. Finally, we spotted them! Way off on the horizon of the plains, barely discernible without binoculars, a small pride of lions. Slowly, the Land Rover bounced over the plains. There they were in all their glory, two massive males and one female. And yes, they were ‘just chillin’. They were not interested in us at all and seemed bored by all the attention we were giving them. This allowed us to get very close. What an incredible animal! Their beauty and the inherent power they represented enthralled me. Afterwards, everyone wanted to know if this had been my first lion sighting as though it was a rite of passage for anyone living in Africa. Oh yes, I thought, …with pride.

Treetops Kafue National Park Zambia

Namibia: Land of Enchantment

According to the Lonely Planet Africa guidebook, “Namibia is one of those dreamlike places that make you question whether something so visually orgasmic could actually exist.”

Reading descriptions such as this and hearing other people‘s travel stories fuelled my wanderlust. I wanted to see this place and so six of us decided to travel to Namibia over our spring break.

Things didn’t start off so well. We arrived at the airport on Saturday only to be informed that Air Namibia had cancelled our flight. They had not notified us and we were forced to book another flight on a different airline in order to make our connection in Johannesburg later that day. Living in Africa, even for such a short time, we have all come to expect such mishaps. There is a saying here that you must take to heart otherwise you will drive yourself crazy with frustration: “Europeans have the clock but Africans have the time”. Oh, how true that is!

We finally arrived in the capital city of Windhoek late that evening. The next morning we set off for the resort city of Swakopmund. The five-hour drive took us across a rugged, barren and isolated landscape. It reminded me of New Mexico, the land of enchantment. This too, was a country filled with captivating beauty.

Swakopmund is a seaside city sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the soaring sand dunes of the Namib Desert. It has been described as being more German than Germany. I have to say that this is true. Very ironic, considering that Germany lost all her colonies after WWI and this part of southeast Africa became British. Everyone speaks German, road signs and menus are in German, there are German delis, bakeries, breweries, restaurants, bookstores…The grocery stores are stocked with German products and brand names such as Haribo, Tobler, Lowenbrau, Dallmayr, Nutella… My traveling companions and I could hardly contain ourselves! We were positively giddy by all the choices available. Eloise bought 11 pounds (we weighed it) of pumpernickel bread to bring back to Lusaka.

The desert has always fascinated me and the dunes that we were going to play on did not disappoint. They are part of the Namib Desert that stretches more than 1,200 miles along the Atlantic coast. One of the first things we did was take the Living Desert Tour, a fascinating and educational experience. We learned about the eco-system and how various critters can survive in a place that hasn’t seen rain in 4 years. We saw chameleons, snakes (very deadly), scorpions, jackals, lizards, and strange insects. Our guide explained that the surface of the dunes vary in color due to the various particles carried by the winds and also the direction of the winds. The heavier materials tend to rest on the top of the dunes. To me it looked like the swirls of a marble cake. Absolutely beautiful!

All of us had different ideas on how to spend our time so we did our own thing during the day, meeting up later for a good meal. I went on a camel trek and watched the sun rise over the dunes. I kayaked with the seals in Walvis Bay, walked along the desolate seashore and listened to the pounding surf. Namibia was a wonderful experience. I thought of it as a ‘reconnaissance’ trip since I plan on returning to explore more of Africa’s youngest country.

AIS Lusaka

Bigger, Bolder,Louder, Brighter

Since my arrival in Zambia a few short months ago, I have noticed that most things pertaining to ‘mother nature’ are bigger, bolder, louder, and brighter than anything I have ever experienced before. When the sun sets, the darkness is filled with a profusion of strange, eerie, and unfamiliar sounds. Birds screech, cackle, and hoot. Crickets and frogs chirp at incredible decimals. Dogs howl. Cats moan. Monkeys scream.

Bolder and brighter are the Flame Trees that line the driveway into campus. Fire engine red, they dazzle and shock the eye. As the song lyric so aptly put it: “Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver.” Bigger are the Sausage Trees. They get their name from the huge seedpods that dangle from the branches and resemble salami sausages hanging in an Italian deli window.

Bigger, bolder, louder and brighter... This holds true for the rainy season as well. The rains began in late November and will continue until late March/April. Some days it rains for a few minutes a day, several times a day. Sometimes it rains continuously day and night. An impending storm is an amazing spectacle to watch. The massive black clouds roll and tumble over the hills and resemble smoke from a California wildfire or the eruption cloud from a volcano. The thunder is loud enough to shake my apartment walls and send the kitty running to the closet. Lightening cracks and dances across the sky and when the rain begins it pours down with unbelievable ferocity and speed. It beats down on the tin roofs and is so deafening that I have to stop class because we can’t hear each other over the racket.This can go on for minutes, hours, and even days. Now you can understand why we have so many power outages.

Bigger and bolder…the rainy season brings out all sorts of ‘creepy crawlies’ too. This is ant season and the ants come in a variety of different shapes and sizes. There are the tiny ones that get into anything sweet. Millions of them will invade your cupboards if you leave anything such as jam or honey out. Then there are the carnivore ants, those that will take over the cat food bowl or assault your sink of dirty dinner dishes. But the worst are the large fingernail size Matabele ants or ‘stink ants’ as they are referred to. They give off a horrible, foul odor when killed. I was told that it is defense mechanism. The smell alerts and warns their fellow ants of danger.

Then there are the centipedes or millipedes (not sure which) called Chongololos. When the rainy season begins they come out of the ground and appear small and innocuous. However, as time goes on they grow in length and width until they resemble a black snake. Though harmless, they will give you a terrible fright.

Last of all, is the feared Putsi fly. They lay their eggs in soil or damp clothes hung outside to dry. The larvae then hatch and invade areas of skin in contact with the clothes. They invade different body parts. Once under the skin, the larvae produce an itchy spot that develops into a sore resembling a boil, which may ooze and be painful. They usually stay near the skin surface because they have to breathe. I have yet to see this (thank goodness) but have heard horror stories from other teachers who have had first hand experience with the dreaded Putsi fly.

As I write this, I can see the rain clouds on the horizon. Thunderstorms are predicted to last all weekend. That’s ok with me. I will lay in bed tonight with the windows open and listen to the rain pound on the roof. As darkness descends, the symphony of sounds will start up as usual. Sometimes on a Friday evening, the rhythm and sound of drums is carried across the fields from some distant village celebration. It provides a nice musical backing to the nocturnal sounds in my backyard.

Bigger, bolder, louder, and brighter that is Africa.

http://www.creativeafricanetwork.com/page/7179/en

A Homecoming...of Sorts

A Homecoming …of Sorts

“Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone, his own burden, his own way.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Oh, to be in Germany during the Christmas holidays. All those wonderful sights and smells. As I meandered around the Christmas market in the Marienplatz, in the heart of Munich, the aroma of roasting chestnuts, evergreens, beeswax candles, Gluhwein, and Lebkuchen filled the air. It was nice to be “home” I thought to myself.

However, my heart was heavy. I knew that this trip would be poignant and bittersweet because I had brought my mother’s ashes home to Germany, a country she had left as a young woman and always wanted to return to. I needed to do this. It was important to me. Maybe because I wanted to make it up to her for having left her alone in a strange place and taking off to Africa to begin my new adventure.

I attended mass on Christmas Eve in a church dating back to the early 1800’s in my cousin’s neighborhood. The building was large and drafty. Thousands of candles illuminated the interior and each person entering was given a candle, adding to the shimmering, gleaming light. Behind me the choir sang all the old traditional Christmas songs. I could hear my mother’s voice as she used to sing along with the German records on our stereo. The church filled up quickly with people from all walks of life. The priest was young and black. In the pew, to my left, a young Asian couple, and on my right, an elderly woman wearing a “Bayern Hut”! The service was beautiful and ended with the singing of Silent Night outside in the courtyard. It was a clear night and the stars twinkled in the cold night sky. I thought about my childhood Christmas’ and how my mother loved this season.

Two days later, I was on my way to the island of Rugen, located in the northeastern part of Germany, in what used to be the DDR. Geography was important for my mom’s homecoming. I chose the island for a reason. My mother loved the ocean and we grew up on stories of summers she spent on the Baltic Sea. Rugen was as close as I could get to my mother’s homeland of Konigsberg, East Prussia.

I spent two days wandering along the seashore being alone with my grief. It was just as she always described it---acres of pine trees and white sand dunes and ships on the horizon. On the third day, I got up early and made my way to the sea. As the sun rose over the pine trees, I faced east in the direction of Konigsberg, said a prayer, and sent her ashes into the sea.

God Bless you Mutti. I will miss you and love you forever. Rest in peace and welcome home.