|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| August 13, 2003 | ||||||||||||
| hi. all is well here in zimbabwe. it is terribly difficult to access email. the email at the ranch were i am staying has been down for days, and this is the first free moment i have had in town to visit the cyber cafe. | ||||||||||||
| there is so much to tell about my experiences here, but so difficult to know where to start. as i suspected, the most satisfying experience i have had here is my interaction with children. yesterday i went to a soccer game. the ranch where i am staying has a team and they play other local teams. as i drove up with the team, i looked at the people watching the game. me and kurt (another intern) were literally the only 2 white people there. little children instantly gathered around. they just stared at us. when i bent down to their level, smiled, and said "hello", their serious facial expressions cracked into huge grins. then they laughed and ran away, only to return quickly to fight with each other over who got to sit next to me - the "ihkewa" (white person). instead of the soccer game being the center of attention, i felt like i was. all the kids wanted to smell my white skin. little boys kissed my bare shoulders and quickly ran away. they all stroked my hair, which was back in a ponytail. when i finally took my ponytail out and shook my hair free, the kids went WILD! i taught some of the kids how to play patty cake and one little girl showed me a similar game. most of them spoke no english. a few knew a little english. but they all wanted to tell me their names...i can't remember them all, but i do remember brenda, sharon, cici, precious, and loveness. by far, yesterday at the soccer game was my happiest experience here. i wanted to take all those little kids home with me. or at least buy them all new shoes. most kids were barefoot. the lucky ones had flipflops with broken straps. their ages were from 3-9 year old. | ||||||||||||
| the other significant event this week was on monday night when us 4 interns (me, mel, scott and kurt) and roger (a guy who works at the ranch) spent the night in the newly built elephant hide. basically, the hide is a little hut in front of a watering hole. it has four stone walls, a cement floor and a wooden matted roof. we spent 24 hours there to count animals that visited the watering hole. a herd of 15 elephants came right up to the watering hole and right up to the open windows of the hide. i was paralyzed with fear during the whole 20 minute ordeal. of course, this experience was what roger was wanting and he promised that we were in no danger because elephants won't attack a building. but you know me...safety first! in the morning, kurt and i had to stay for the remaining 6 hours of the watch. luckily we had beers and a bottle of wine to keep us company. we were drunk by 10am....my kind of vacation! :) | ||||||||||||
| i wish i could write more about what it's like here. but there's just too much to write and it's hard for me to gather all my thoughts for an email. i guess the easiest way for me to summarize vic falls is that it is a bittersweet mixture of natural beauty and manmade poverty. i am so glad to have had the experience to travel here for a month. it takes at least a few weeks to just get into the swing of things here. i finally feel comfortable here, now that i only have 1 1/2 weeks left." | ||||||||||||
| next --> | ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||