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South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe
Fall 2010
On safaris in Southern Africa and visits to various cities and towns, we found that wild animals in the wild are beautiful, muscular and sleek. If you’ve ever seen animals in a zoo, the difference is stark and compelling. Mostly, the animals were uninterested in our little band of tourists. Our guide assured us that if we drew attention to ourselves by standing up in the Land Rover, one of the big cats could pick us out as prey, immediately. We kept to our seats. Even so, we were chased (playfully, I’m sure) by an immense bull elephant.
As for the humans; the poor are starkly, heart-breakingly poor. Even so, we witnessed very little begging. We regretted not having brought more spare clothes and shoes, as all the merchants in local souvenir bazaars were eager to trade for our shoes, socks, shirts, jeans, whatever we could part with. Two men wrote out their mailing addresses for us and asked that we send them our old shoes. Our guide that day suggested that we send any packages by DHL as many things get lost in the postal routes. But on our return, I learned that sending five pounds of clothes and shoes to Zimbabwe from Austin would cost $421. How to help, really, effectively help is a formidable conundrum.
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