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| In Africa. Doing what Africcan love |
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| Landscape of Namibian desert |
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| The last sunset in Africa I saw |
After traveling to Africa for the first time this May, I have
come to the conclusion that Africa is one of the most underrated places in the
world.
Uninformed people who have never visited will warn you about
the dangers and how the people are uncivilized, but what the entire class of
University of Mississippi students found was the complete opposite.
Earlier last year, I saw a flier that offered a study abroad
trip for a photojournalism class that was safari themed. I signed up
immediately and planned to attend. I was not going to let an amazing
opportunity like this escape me.
We left Memphis after an already tiresome week of finals and
hopped planes to Charlotte, NC to New York City for a layover and visit to
Times Square then a 15-hour flight to South Africa and a quick flight to
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
Once there, we were exhausted, but the excitement of being
there for the first time kept me awake. I understood why Eleanor Roosevelt said
“poor Niagara” when she saw the waterfalls for the first time. To put it into
perspective how massive the falls are, most waterfalls you can walk up to and
look from one vantage point and see it in entirety. But Victoria has a trail of
viewpoints to see because you have to walk around and around to see the whole
falls. The powerful gushing of the trillions of liters that flow annually
produce a mist so thick it feels like walking in the rain. By the time I was
even a few hundred yards away from the seeing it up close, I was already
drenched through my raincoat.
I chanced my tendency to be clumsy and climbed up to the edge
where the danger sign was posted and looked over and the rush from the falls
blew my hat off my head and back up the trial I had walked down. There is a
reason it is one of the seven wonders of the natural world.
The days following that excursion were very different. The
class got on a bus that lasted hours and we tried to edit pictures and write
articles on the rocky roads. When we were arrived, we were still in the same
country, but it was different as it could be. Instead of the rainforest like
atmosphere and hot temperatures, we had traveled to the “Bush.” Now it was
20-30 degrees colder, dry and arid.
We were housed at Nehimba Lodge in the Hwange National
Forest. No Wi-Fi, and no electricity when the generator shut off at 10 p.m. On
top of that, we had a call button inside our huts that we would press when we
wanted to be escorted somewhere at night because there was the danger of
stampeding elephants or car buffalo, maybe even a lion on the same path as you.
After the days of seeing every zoo animals except a lion and
a leopard, although we saw their tracks, it was easy to forget about being
mauled and enjoy the day. I had to consider, in a land filled with all of the
prey animals I just got through photographing and writing about, why would a
lion even bother coming after me? I have since decided it would have taken a
lot of effort on his part and I might even be flattered if he tried, but he did
not.
We had the most wonderful guides Ty Hurst and Forest Worsley
and another wonderful employee of Nehimba Lodge I only knew as Given.
After we got off the plane, we had tribal dangers do “native
dances” dressed in what animal hides, but then they would ask for a dollar and
offer their DVD and CD recordings. Very put on and very elaborate, but when we
were off the beaten path and in the Bush, people reminded me of home.
Everyone had we met wore regular clothes and most spoke
better English than I did. We had a great time getting to know each other and
we discovered Americans from the South and Africans from southern regions had a
lot in common. They all liked living in rural areas, they were interested in
noodling for catfish, what crawfish were, shrimping, frog gigging and TV shows
Swamp People and Duck Dynasty are a huge success with locals.
On top of that, every single Zimbabwean I asked old me their
favorite musician was Kenny Rogers and their favorite song was “The Gambler.”
It was a surprising fact that he was and still is a huge hit.
We went by train to another camp on the other end of
Zimbabwe, with our new guide Brendan Judge. The company was as wonderful as
always, but again the climate was different. Instead of rocky, orange hills,
the Boomani Lodge was pale, even cooler in temperature and full of Kalahari
sand.
We slept in framed tents, with the same generator policy and
this time there was the risk that baboons would get into our rooms, but we
remained fortunate they never bothered us.
The character of this lodge was “Sibs.” As soon as we got off
the train, he yelled at us “There’s a cheetah and we have to leave now! Don’t
worry about the bags!”
So we jumped in the vehicle and left. When we got there we
saw too cheetahs known as the Boomani Brothers to the area. One male was wounded
and the other stayed with him constantly and lade sure he had enough to eat, so
it was a special pair to see.
This place left me with a no appreciation for wildlife and
breakfast cooked over an open fire, but the stay did not last long enough. The
rest flew by completely.
We rode back to the airport and flew to Namibia for a stay
with Marina Lamprecht on her 55,000 acres, where she flies the Namibian flag,
which she helped design, and the Texan flag.
I loved Namibia more than I can say. I am not a skilled
enough writer to detail how beautiful the country is or how the sunsets and
sunrises do not compare to anything else I have ever seen before, so I will
leave it there.
We have so preconceived notions that keep us in fear of
visiting places like Namibia and Zimbabwe. We group the entirety of political
struggles and violent revolutions of South Sudan, Egypt, and Libya with the
rest continent and forget about peaceful countries like Namibia, which was
voted as one of the safest countries in Africa. New York City was closer
to the Ebola outbreak than Zimbabwe and Dallas, Texas had more Ebola cases.
I have so much respect for the countries we visited. Many are
new under independence and it makes we wish I had a real glimpse of what
America was like in 1776. The citizens are proud to be African and proud to be
natives to their home countries.
All in all, it makes me proud to say I caught a glimpse of
it. And I sure I’m glad I did not back out of the trip.
