Saturday, May 19, 2012

...on the road in a f r i c a (day 3)

July 6, 2009



monday, july 6, 2009

driving accross africa listening to "the lion king" and eating skittles.
probably one of my favorite mometns in life thus far.

so right now we are all settled into camp-it's about 8 and we're going to sleep. at this very moment i am using the light of my camera and the african sky to journal. how amazing is that?
we woke up this morning a few minutes behind schedule and we got off to a rough start... like the shower doors caved in on me...so becky and i had to fix those real quickly. it was a challenge but we made a much needed improovement. finally we headed to the mall. but on our way out of the drive this german woman pounded on the window and got us to stop.
apparently the people who were to stay in our room next were already there. they saw us leaving and were worried that we wouldn't be back in time to get our stuff out. we promised we would be and continued on.
oh did i mention breakfast? fresh kiwi, and bananas, and pineapple and orange juice and cereal and a cheese omelet-yum! so we only had like a half hour at the mall. becky and i had no way of keeping time so we met a lot of random people just by asking them :) we made a few purchases at the only african store around to our dismay and then headed back to the meeting point. then we pulled in, quickly gathered our things and left for fear of that german woman's wrath.
and then we were on our way to otjiwarango. but first we had to stop in okajono to pick up all that stuff we had left..
i picked some flowers to press. gotta love african flowers. african everything really ha ha.
they're going to make a cool art project..i don't know what yet...but it will be super cool (coming soon to bowie 2 :)
it was about anoher 2 1/2 hours.
i dozed in an out..it's this thing i have in cars) and apparently missed some wild life. becky was keeping tally.
2 baboons
some oreyx, horses, cows, kudus , ostriches, and well we lost count on the warthogs (better known as pumbas). finally we got there and becky, kim, and i shopped for camping supplies-pokers, marshmallows, borsch, bread, pb&j, firewood, matches, and whimpy's to go. quite possibly the worst fries/chips i've ever eaten just for the record :) we dropped kimpossible off for the night at the turney's house. we hated leaving her, but it gave us all the chance to have a window for the park and she didn't know how to put up the tents-the one and only thing kimpossible can't do-and she could if she needed to... i'm sure of it.
so we drove and drove and drove and finally arrived at etosha safari camp where they had no record of our reservation but thankfully plenty of places. so we pulled in and set up camp. some tents some air matresses and got the fire going and borsch cooking. we all ate and talked and ate some marshmallows everyone just sat around and watched us there was nothing better to do. we were cold and we had trash and nowhere to throw the trash. so he decided to burn it and created this huge, nasty smelling cloud of toxic smoke. it's not a huge campground so you know all eyes were on us ha ha and every last one was probably just starting to get the reason our country is so full of pollution ha ha.
we finished up and layerd up. socks, 2 pants, 3 shirts, 2 blankets. we refse to put the cover on the tent. we could not miss sleeping under the african sky. so we suffer for the cause current temp 48 degrees. yikes, anyways. 5 am wake up call it's best to catch the animals at sunrise.

i just can't put into words how amazing this is. i'm lying in a tent 10km from the thousands of african animals in the freezing cold on the other side of the world under this thick velvet black canopy sprinkled with sparkling dust so unfamiliar to me but so beautiful. this soft drum beat is constant in the distance and the smell of smoke makes everything a little warmer now.

"i want to leave a legacy
how will they remember me
did i choose to love
did i point to you enough to make a mark on things
i want to give an offering
child of mercy and grace
who blessed your name
unapollogetically
and leave that kind of legacy"
i was listening to that song today and i couldn't say it better myself.
wherever i go and whtever i do i wnt to serve christ and serve others. have light and life and joy in my eyes and in my heart and be remembered for the love of christ in my life.

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