On my birthday, I was kicked out of my bed a little roughly; My friends told me to take off the bed sheets and the mosquito net so that everything could be washed. I took a quick shower and then I began to pull the covers from the blanket and the pillows. After a little while, Nokhutula’s maid came into the room and told me that I had to put the cover back on the blanket since there was no spare cover and the first one wouldn’t dry in time. I did as she told me and began to wonder what this whole thing was about.
When I was ready, the maid took the whole stack including the blanket and the mosquito net and disappeared. I started packing my stuff since we planned to spend the day at Nokhutula’s cousin Jackie’s to relax and hang around at her pool with some drinks. Saba told me to take my camera, but I asked her why, we would just lie around in Jackie’s garden. She shrugged her shoulders and said “Just take it.” I really didn’t see any reason to waste my films for such nonsense and left the camera behind.
When we sat in the car – the drinks were bought and everything was there for a nice barbecue at the pool – we drove in a completely wrong direction, away from Harare and deeper and deeper into nowhere on a small rural road. I asked them what this was about and I was told that we would just drive to some farm to get some maize for the barbecue. I was really wondering why we would go all the way to a farm for some lousy maize cobs when they just sold them on the roadside but I didn’t say anything. After almost two weeks in Nokhutula’s house with only short trips to downtown and Mbare, the trip into the countryside was a welcome break. I enjoyed the beauty of landscape rushing past the windows, dramatically enhanced by the clouds of an upcoming thunderstorm.
We were cheery, in party mood, fooled around and tried to make a hitchhiker whom we picked up believe that I’m a lunatic virgin priest who just came out of mental treatment and was now taken out into the green by three women for his 45th birthday – Of course the guy didn’t believe us a single word, but he joined in and bamboozled with us. Eventually we reached a gate and a young man approached the car and talked to Nokhutula in Shona. He opened the gate, we passed and he looked into the car, grinned and said in English that we should be cautious about the lions that strolled around the farm. What the hell was that supposed to mean now? I pointed towards Saba’s digital camera and asked if it was ok to take pictures. He grinned again and nodded simply. For some minutes we drove past a fence with a beautiful, natural scenery behind it. I gradually started to be suspicious now. We were on a farm and not a single field around?!? The girls in the back were grinning already and every now and then one of them would say in an exaggeratedly startled way that she saw something in the bushes. By now I was sure that we were not going to a farm.
We finally came to a halt at a parking lot, bordered by a wonderful, green garden. Somewhere in it was a house with a roof made of straw and a covered porch in front and some people were just on their way there. We got out of the car and went to the hut. On the pebbled way leading to it were several jeeps with zebra painting; in that moment I realised that it must be some kind of Safari park the girls were taking me to. I also realised, why Saba told me to take my camera and I was a little bit pissed that I didn’t listen to her. They asked me to wait outside, went to the reception, talked briefly to the guy behind the desk, received some piece of paper and came back out. “Happy birthday, Jakob” they said and handed me the paper. It was a map for a Safari Game park. I didn’t know what to say. This morning Saba said that she was so sorry that we were not in her country where she could have organised something beautiful for me. I was simply flabbergasted.
After some time a guy came and we went back to the car and got in. It was quite narrow – Nokhutula’s car has four seats only – and I wondered if that guy would stay in the car throughout the whole Safari. But soon we stopped again in front of a marvellous cottage. There was a plastered courtyard and on it a hut – open in the middle and with two rooms on each side – and a second hut right next to it with a kitchen and a bathroom. The man exited the car, started to unlock the doors and told us that this was our cottage. I didn’t quite understand. What, our cottage? What am I supposed to do in a cottage? I want to see the park! Only when Saba walked past me with our blanket and the mosquito net, I realised that this was an overnight trip. That also explained Saba’s show with the blanket this morning… I was so happy that I didn’t know what to say. I threw my arms around the three girls, thanked them vigorously and began running back and forth between the car and the cottage to unload our stuff.
Some time later we took towels and bathing suits, drove back to the parking lot and went through the garden to one of these colossal rock piles that are so typical for the Zimbabwean landscape. Stairs wound upwards and on the top, hewn into the stone, was a tremendous pool. A small wooden bridge lead over the pool to another rock screened from the sun by a wooden construction covered with straw and behind that was a third rock, surrounded by a fence, serving as sun terrace. From up here we had a wonderful view over the roof of leaves that covered the whole park. This complex was breathtakingly beautiful. We bathed for around an hour – me decadent sod of course with a bottle of beer in my hand – then dried up and went back to the reception. I was told that the best was yet to come.
We waited some minutes until one of the park’s staff came and loaded us upon a jeep. Safari… We drove off, through some gates that secluded the 1000 acres of Wildlife Park and into the savannah. After a few metres we saw the first Impala herd grazing, stopped and the guide told us something about the animals. Unfortunately they were very shy and so we couldn’t get closer than maybe a hundred metres. Not so with the Zebras. This time we left the jeep and approached the animals slowly until there were not more than five metres left between us. The Safari guide then asked me to come back because I got too close.
We saw a lot more animals other than these, but the Giraffes were the most impressing of all. A herd of them was hidden in a small forest so that I didn’t see them instantly. But then they started moving, startled by the car, and crossed the path we were standing on. Although I saw these animals on TV so frequently, it was an incredible experience to have them in front of me, just an arm length away. The Giraffes moved as smooth as elves, despite their towering size. It was one of the most fascinating experiences in my life and I wished I could once see these animals in their real environment, without some degrading fence around.
In the evening, after we came back from the Safari, we lit a fire in front of our cottage and made a barbecue. We roasted four huge T-Bone steaks, a whole chicken (we roasted it in one piece – rarely had such a delicious chicken…) and a pork steak, along with rice, Sadza, coleslaw and lots of beer and wine. After dinner we sat for hours under the African sky and partied.
Unfortunately we had to go back early the next day since the first meeting with the women’s group in Mbare was to take place. But the park is just a half-hour drive from Nokhutula’s house and we’ll surely spend the one or the other weekend there during the next three months – and then I’ll bring my camera…
Calin and Josh prepare the frame for the huge book that goes on top of the float.
Calin proudly presents his Mickey Mouse sweater.
Josh tries out the M8 – good try, but bad subject…
It just doesn’t get better…
Josh is warming up for his role during the parade. With the motto of the parade being “Pedal to the Medal,” he’s going to “pull” the float on Rita’s old bike – wearing Spandex!
Unwinding in the motel room after a day’s work is done.
Josh attempts a self-portrait in the motel mirror.
Our float looked really, really great – except for Josh in Spandex.
The float gets the finishing touches before the judges arrive.
I don’t know what Phoebe is doing here…
Receiving the first price for our float really made Rita’s day.
Josh tries to gather momentum – once the float was moving, his job became a lot easier.
The only thing I remember from shooting this picture (and the next) was that all of a sudden I was surrounded by photographers who photographed me – seriously, have you never lied down on the ground to take a picture?!?
Even you, Calin!
Notice the camera being held up in the air in the background. This must have been the most-photographed parade/float in human history. At least in St. James.
I don’t know whether it’s the physical exhaustion or the embarassment of knowing that the whole world will see him in Spandex that causes this look on Josh’s face.
Of course, the book in question rode along on the float.
We had local support for throwing candies and waving to the crowd.
Hundreds of thousands of people attended the parade to see our float. They came in from as far as Alaska and Hawaii.
David Kennedy has a patriotic fit.
After the parade, Josh sat until the early morning hours and signed copies of the book for the thousands of people who lined up for miles and miles to get hold of a copy.