wow. so it's been forever since i last graced you loyal readers with my wit, poise and well, let's face it, incredible klutzyness and downright ridiculous tendency to have sketchy bathroom catastrophes. Anyway, suffice it to say I'm back. so last i wrote i was in mufindi i believe, but let's skip right along to the amazing iringa safari adventure! so afer my fond farewell to the beloved foxy family i was off to Iringa to meet up with the Tanzanian Minnesota contingent. Well, let's make a long story short, once my dear old Dad and family friend Ken came on the scene we were off to Ruaha wildlife park and there we visited our wild savannah friends--most notably: little lady cheetah who chirped so sweetly to call her twin babies before slinking all three away into the night, a gorgeous leopard who catwalked across a bright sunlit dry riverbed of a runway, and perhaps my favorite, the two newly gorged lions. Actually, they deserve a paragraph themselves. We happened upon two nice sleepy male lions lying near the dry riverbed, happily content after their feast. There they lay fat and sleek, the one gorged to the point of true rotundness, his ballooning tummy up in the air. As we watched mr. lion flapped his massive paws in the air before literally groaning and flopping over onto his other side as if to say "uhhhh, soooo full, soooo full. why oh why did I eat that last bit of wildebeast? so wrong but it felt so right." As we continued to watch he continued to slowly flop from side to side every couple of minutes in his vain attempt to get comfy. It was actually one of the funniest animal antics I've ever seen. Other than my chubby lion boys there was the usual elephant, giraffe, zebra, and birdy experiences. Actually one of the coolest things that happened was being awakened one night by the low, earth shaking growls of a male lion outside our safari camp area. It was one of the most oddly beautiful things I've ever heard or experienced. It was so soulful, unworldly, physically gripping, and addictive. I listened for several minutes and when he'd finally roared his claim on land and lionesses into the sky, and all was quiet, I waited up hoping to hear more.
The rest of my time in Tanzania was lovely, I stayed with some wonderful missionaries and being with family, Daddy!, and good family friend, Ken!, was amazing. We all got to visit a school where the students performed traditional dances, SO COOL!!!, and an acrobatic type show as well as some serious athletics--namely leaping over an incrementally raised string. It was just absolutely cool. Someday I'll be able to post pictures...
So that basically wraps up Tanzania. It ended up being a really good experience, it was hard but I learned alot about myself and the world, and honestly wasn't that the goal? Of course I also had some pretty amazing adventures and left with some crazy stories. I am glad to have moved on (for quite some time now...oops!), but I will miss Tanzania and the people I met there.
Well my dears in the interest of keeping up it's time to be moving right along to....drum roll...the European Extravaganza!
I'll be writing about that tomorrow, really, I promise!
Lots of love!
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