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| who knew south Africa was so beautiful?! |
I'm not sure if I can quite put into words just how incredible it was. The feeling might resemble the way you felt lying in bed on Christmas Eve as a little kid. That excited anticipation of surprises just waiting for you the second you open your eyes again. But the thought of how great tomorrow will be keeps your heart beating so loud in your bed that you can't seem to fall asleep!! That's the idea. Multiply that sentiment times a hundred, and then imagine feeling that all over again, every single night, for 15 nights straight.
I kept notes of what we did every day so I wouldn't forget...and this is a small example of the stuff I would go to bed thinking about...
March 6:
rode an elephant
met some monkeys at the picnic table
(they weren't really scared of us...which made me kinda scared of them. I kept my distance.)
March 7:
road in a hot air balloon through the town.
took a family walk through the garden. the flowers were like a million beautiful butterflies.
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| blowing up the balloon |
March 8:
Ran through the woods on the most beautiful horse I've ever seen.
Visited a real African village and learned about their multiple wives, cow exchanges, and that their cure for both AIDS and cancer is African potato. Duh.
March 9 started our week long safari in Kruger Park, where all the animals are (the park is the size of the country of Whales, I was told...) so my notes after that were like "day safari. saw giraffes, elephants, hippos, warthogs, lions, monkeys, zebras, buffalo, antelopes. Night safari: saw hyenas, spring hares, owls, etc etc etc.
At our camps at night, we fell asleep to the sounds of hippos laughing, bats chirping, lions roaring (which was cool at first, but after four hours and still no sleep I was slightly over it.), giraffes knocking over our garbage cans, and a million other unidentifiable sounds. The stars were the brightest I've ever seen them, and I swear to God they were twinkling and glittering like in the movies.
The last two days we spent at Lion's park, where we hand fed giraffes, played with baby lions, and did some more safaris to see all the big cats.
We also befriended a very nosey giraffe who stopped by our car to inspect what we had inside. Upon further inspection, he decided that we desperately needed a car wash, and that he was just the man to help us out. So he started to lick the car clean. The next morning, as we opened the tent door to go out for breakfast, guess who's shining giant face was smiling down at us? He hung around all during breakfast and during our showers too. After my shower, I wanted to use the car mirror to do some make-up, but the giraffe kept putting his big head and gross black tongue all over me to see what I had in my bag!! Finally I walked over to the other side of the car to have some privacy. He resigned himself to glaring at me over the top of the car the entire time, with a face that could only be described as judgemental and snide.
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| nosey giraffe judges you. |
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| good morning friends, what's for breakfast? i found that you left me nothing in the garbage cans last night. |
It was an incredible, life changing vogage. But all of that is only half of what really happened.
The details of our trip were actually the stuff Chevy Chase family vacation movies are made of. Lots of things went horribly wrong (or hilariously wrong, depending on how you look at it...) but out of all the calamity, and amidst all the beauty, a strange thing happened to me. Instead of being stressed out or worried like I would normally be, I fell in love. I fell in love with every member of my French family. For example, I learned that Natalie is not only one of the smartest, strongest women I know, she is also passionate, and sometimes emotional, like me :) Pierre-Alexandre is extremely talented at getting out of a sticky situation in very suave ways. Jeremey and Thomas are probably the cutest, sweetest little kids I've ever met. Francine (PA's mom)is a survivor-from war to cancer, and you would never guess from her attitude that she's seen so many hard times. Fabienne, Julie and I (Nathalie's mom and sister) became very close, since I was usually bunking with them during the trip. Julie is like the sister I never had, and Fabienne officially adopted me as the 4th daughter by the time the trip was over.
Sometimes I would step back to look at my family as a whole. Talking and playing or laughing or even arguing. I feel incredibly, indescribably lucky to know them...and to have had them invite me as one of their own.
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| my french family <3 |
Maybe 5 times during the trip, I tried to tell them all this, how thankful I am to be part of their family, how much it has meant to me, how much it's changed my life, and how eternally grateful I am...but I couldn't do it. Every time I even thought about how I would phrase it (and then translate it of course) a strange lump would appear in my throat and my eyes would get cloudy.
After that, I would smile though, because this is what life is all about.
I have a very beautiful life.
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