Change In Plans

India and I have moved to Cape Town twice before.  Also, we have been in South Africa for several weeks every year since we returned to the U.S. in late 2000. 

Given this familiarity and comfort, we thought that moving here the third time would be simple and fun, like all of our vacation trips have been.  We thought wrong, particularly around school.  The cultural gulf is huge, between the schools we have been used to (Willow School, home school, PS 3 - the Hippie School, and the Blue Man Creative Center) and the South African system.

Back in August, we were delighted when Tallulah and Zola were accepted to one of the good private schools in Cape Town.  Both kids had friends in their prospective classes, the school was well organized and welcoming, and it all seemed perfect. 

The school does seem to be fine (time will tell), but getting our kids outfitted and equipped has been more confusing and expensive than I could have imagined.  Getting ready to learn has been a huge learning experience in itself.  It has also reminded us how much South Africa is a “figure it out for yourself” culture, like Australia.  No touchy-feely orientations or buddy systems for the new kids, boyo, just get on with it.

We had to buy uniforms at a shop at our school’s sister school, about 45 minutes away.  Along with a dozen other families, we crowded into a tiny shed, which was crammed from floor to ceiling with polyester and polyester-blend school uniforms in khaki and navy.  Lu was easy: three sundresses and a couple of floppy hats.  For Zola, we had to throw ourselves on the mercy of the shop attendant.  She piled a basket high, with shorts and shirts and a tie and a blazer.  The uniform shoes look exactly like brown versions of the big, thick-soled clunkers worn by NYC police officers.  Zola has huge feet, and the clunkers look gargantuan on him (and make him five feet tall).

It took a couple of hours, and required an extra trip to the cash machine (no credit cards accepted), but we got the kids outfitted.  Late that afternoon, they did a fashion parade around the kitchen in their new uniforms, looking terribly smart, and we set photos to grandparents all around the world.

When we were accepted, the school informed us that Zola would need to have his hair cut before starting school.  This part of the preparation led to a traumatic shearing and an angry kid.

 Buying stationery and covering notebooks with plastic (an ancient South African tradition) has been more complicated and frustrating than getting the uniforms.  During the Northern Hemisphere summer, the school sent us an invoice for a crazy amount of stationery that had been ordered on Zola’s behalf.  A few days before school started, we pickd up a huge cardboard briefcase filled with literally dozens of notebooks, plastic folders, special markers, pencils, pens.  The supplies also included 12 tubes of Pritt Glue Stick and a sharp-pointed compass and a protractor.

We thought we were set, until we visited a South African friend on the day before school started.  Our friend, Natalie, has two boys at the same school, aged 12 and 10.  Natalie had received two of the huge stationery briefcases, and had covered every one of the notebooks, tablets, textbooks, in matching colored plastic, organized by subject.  She had bought color-coded zip-up folder bags, in which to store the matching notebooks.  She had labelled every covered book with printed labels, also color coded by subject.  She had even printed tiny labels to identify each boy’s pens and pencils.

I thought she was crazy, bringing anal retention to new highs.  I said, “You’re crazy, bringing anal retention to new highs.”  Natalie responded by handing us a sheet from our school that described exactly what parents were expected to do in terms of stationery and book covering.  Somehow, we literally had not gotten the memo.  The sheet described the requirements as eing exacty in line with what Natalie had done. 

We asked a few other parents, and they all said that it is a 6-8 hour job for each kid.  “It’s a tradition.”  “It’s how we have always prepared for school.”  Natalie is slightly over the top, but had not done much more than the expected minimum.

Since that day, India and I have been wrestling with colored paper and adhesive clear plastic every night.  Read on its own, that last sentence sounds kind of hot.  Actually, we have struggled mightily to get the covers on Zola’s books, and get flip files and zip-up folders all together and matching by color.   Fifth graders take thirteen (count ‘em!) separate subjects, so covering the notebooks and textbooks for all of the subjects is sort of like wrapping about fifty Christmas presents.  nstead of wrapping paper, though, we are using a layer of heavy construction paper, with a layer of extremely sticky clear plastic over it.

Several times our exasperation and frustration (I am truly horrible at handicrafts) has bubbled over into sharp words between India and me.  For example, I say: “Forget this, it’s completely ridiculous.  I suck at cutting and pasting, and I don’ t understand why it is required.”  India responds, “Zola will get demerits or debits for not having covered books.  Hush up and keep covering, Mister.”

This evening we finally broke the back of the great staionery challenge.  We hope that tomorrow, the third day of school, Zola will not get into any trouble for uncovered books.  Seems strange.

Tallulah does not need books yet.  Thank heavens for small blessings.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Tonight, no one in the Baird Family has a dream, because no one is staying asleep for long enough. Tomorrow is the first day at Reddam House school for Zola and Tallulah, and nerves are running a bit high.

India and I spent a significant part of the evening engaged in a long-standing South African parent ritual that we did not know about before this week: covering all textbooks and notebooks in colored paper and adhesive plastic. This involves a lot of measuring, cutting, and careful placing/pasting. The colored paper is coded to match each of Zola’s subjects. Apparently, this is how it has always been done here. I’m not sure I see the pedagogical benefit to the elaborate text-book covers, but, like wearing the clunky, brown lace-up shoes with Zola’s uniform, it wasn’t presented as an option.

Tallulah met her teacher, Kim, when we stopped by the school today. We were encouraged when young Kim greeted Tallulah with a hug, but surprised when she introduced herself as “Mrs. Manson-Kullin, that’s a long name” Blue School was so mind-bogglingly wonderful that it will be difficult for any Tallulah school experience to match it. Tallulah skipped and danced all around her classroom like an elf, so excited and happy to be starting her new school.

Zola is being stoic, but is clearly nervous. We are glad that he goes in knowing a few kids. After one day of classes, the entire fifth grade goes away for a three-day camping trip. The trip should give him the opportunity to get to know his classmates. Socially, he will be fine. India and I are having pangs of “our baby!” and “three whole days away from us!”. I’m also feeling daunted by the stacks of textbooks (particularly Afrikaans and French), and hoping we can help him catch up quickly.

Nervous excitement for all four of us.

Completely unrelated to school, but making us glad to be here, early this morning we stood on our deck and watched a group of ten dolphins playing in the surf. They nosed around near the few surfers who were in the water (probably gave the surfers an initial fright, given the publicity around the deadly shark attack last week in Fishoek), but mostly frolicked in the breaking waves. Pretty amazing to watch out out kitchen window.

Life is good. On to school.

We’ve been on the ground in South Africa for two weeks today. Everyone is long past their jet lag, and our initial sun burns have sloughed off in a scaly mess. We are slowly getting ourselves sorted out: mostly a function of new cell phones, electric-plug adapters, and internet access. India and I have been filling out loads of paperwork for insurance, and school, and extracurricular activities and jobs.

Mostly, though, we are in the process of becoming, or rebecoming, Capetonians.

Tallulah had a tea and cupcake party yesterday with all of the girls from the kindergarten class she is joining next week. Her friend, Sienna, and Sienna’s mommy organized it. The little girls bounced on the trampoline, jumped in the pool, ran around in the sun, decorated and ate cupcakes, and repeated the cycle.

After eating three strawberry cupcakes, Tallulah felt very ill, and went and hid in the bathroom. When India found her, Tallulah asked, earnestly, “Mommy, am I pink? Do they have some broccoli for me to eat?” I guess we read the book “Pinkalicious” to her a few too many times. Assured that she was not pink, Tallulah recovered quickly.

Zola had a paintball birthday party with a group of boys from the fifth-grade class that he joins next week. It was a perfect introduction, and fun for him. In two hours, the ten kids shot 4,500 paintballs at each other, scrambling around in the dune grass and scrub of an exposed field near Paarl. I counted about 40 total hits. Fun for all.

The ‘becoming Capetonian’ process is subtle. Tallulah’s face has exploded with hundreds of freckles, a sure sign of progress. After dinner out last night, Zola walked across the parking lot in his bare feet. I asked whether he had left his shoes in the restaurant, and he said, “No, I didn’t wear any shoes.” Another sign of progress.

We have been hiking and boogie boarding and swimming in the ocean. A Zimbabwean man got eaten by a shark near our favorite surfing spot, so we are taking a little break from surfing. Zola starts training with the surf lifesaving club on Sunday morning.

India and I are feeling slightly stressed, getting a lot of administrative stuff squared away while seeing friends, moving house, and entertaining kids. Also, I went to Turkey for a few days last week. We have had a few cross words, but more as a symptom of anxiety than anything serious. I wish I were a better person, and responded to stress with a light heart and a kind word.

Mostly, though, we are feeling very blessed to be here. The location of our rental house is so spectacular as to defy description: waves are crashing onto the beach 50 feet from our living room. Sea and mountains surround us on all sides. We have each other, and our friends, and a whole continent of opportunities and adventures.

Greetings from Queens, New York!

We are speeding toward JFK Airport, three hours early for the 11:35 flight to Johannesburg. This time tomorrow, we will be at Chiawa Lodge, on the Zambezi River, in Zambia.

The last few months have been a blur. All of us were packed into a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan for about three weeks in June (after the adventure on the Redneck Riviera).

During July and early August, India and the kids were up in the Catskills. They had another pretty idyllic summer of day camp, long runs, and intense social activity. Zola got kissed by an 11-year-old girl named Olivia Barnett, which may be the highlight of his entire year. Tallulah became the youngest camper in history to get a bike patch, for riding more than 50 miles over the summer.

I was with the family at the Beaverkill every weekend, and took a few Fridays off to be with them. It was nowhere near as much fun as last summer, when I was around all of the time. Instead of riding 1,000 miles on my bicycle, I rode about 100. At least I didn’t finish last in the tennis tournament this year.

We are off for the next 11 days: Zambia and then South Africa. We are also moving apartments in New York as soon as we get back. We are all craving a little stability and certainty.

At this moment, though, it is exciting to be leaving on a big trip. The adventure continues.

Greetings from Cape Town.

Sadly, we are leaving today.  Zola keeps asking, “Why are we going?  Why don’t we just buy this house and stay right here?”  Good questions, complicated answers.

We have a 12:50 pm flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and then a 6 pm flight from Johannesburg to Sydney. 

I wonder how many emigrating South Africans have taken this same flight, one way, in the last 33 years.  It seems that the first big wave of white South African emigration took place after the Soweto uprising in June 1976.  There were some other big waves: after P.W. Botha’s Rubicon speech in 1985, after successive States of Emergency in the late 1980s, just before and after the first democratic elections in 1994. 

In the last 15 years, emigration seems to have stabilized, but everyone talks about it as an option “if things get bad.”  Having “internationally recognized qualifications,” as an accountant, actuary or doctor still has cachet, and having a foreign passport is even better.  I wonder how many emigres have later changed their minds and taken the flight back to South Africa.

The flight to Sydney is about 13 hours, and we move ahead 9 time zones.  We may have a few sluggish mornings later in the week.  India and I have been reading travel books about Australia, and getting excited to see and experience a completely new place.  We will shift back into a mode of continuous motion and activity, like proper travelers instead of the beach bums we have become.

The kids and I are getting in the car now to go pick up India, who left for her last long one-way run.  I think she has run at least 15 kilometers every day that we have been in Cape Town except Christmas.  Amazing. 

 We will have breakfast by the beach in Camps Bay, come back to hand over the keys and say goodbye to the house, and start the long trip to Sydney.

Our time in South Africa and Namibia has been special.  We are sad to be leaving.

ON TOP OF TABLE MOUNTAIN

Greetings from Llandudno, Cape Town.  It is hard to believe, but we have been in South Africa (and Namibia) for seven weeks.  We are finally gearing up to move on to Australia on Monday.

In our final days we have been scrambling to see friends, to run errands (e.g., shipping 50 kilograms of stuff back to Tennessee), and to do all of the Cape Town things we really like to do. 

On Thursday we went surfing and spent time on the False Bay coast.  We also went to a few art galleries that India had read about, and wanted to see. 

One of the galleries featured a South African photographer named Pieter Hugo  (http://www.michaelstevenson.com).  Hugo had a well received exhibition in New York last year, featuring large photos of tough-looking Nigerians who kept leashed hyenas, pythons, and baboons as pets.  Very freaky. 

The exhibition we saw yesterday was a celebration of “Nollywood,”  Nigeria’s film-production industry.  It is the third-largest film making center in the world (after Hollywood and Bollywood).  The photos were re-creations of scenes from Nollywood horror movies: a lot of death, gore, destruction, and mayhem.  As Zola and I walked around, he kept repeating (almost Rainman like), “This is very disturbing, Dad.  Very disturbing.”  Finally he said, “I’m going to have nightmares from this, aren’t I?”  No nightmares yet, but I’m not sure this was exactly responsible parenting on my part.

We had an amazing dinner last night at a new restaurant way down in Noordhoek called the Food Barn (www.thefoodbarn.co.za).  We met our old, old friends Sven and Christelle, who we had otherwise not had a chance to see on this trip.  As always, they were brilliant company, and their daughters (aged 13 and 11) were very sweet to Zola and Tallulah.  For most of the dinner, all of the kids played outside together on a little playground, and then lay on the grass, watching the stars. 

Immediately after we sat down, the waiter brought me a bottle of champagne, and said that “a friend named Ernest had sent us two bottles as a gift.”  I don’t know anyone named Ernest, so I told the waiter there must be a mistake.  He insisted on giving us the wine, and throughout the dinner I kept wondering aloud who Ernest was, and why he would send me wine.   Sven, Christelle and India wondered along with me, but suggested that we accept the mystery gift and enjoy our good fortune. 

As we drove home,  I mentioned Ernest the Munificent again, and India started to laugh and laugh.  She said, “It was Sven and Christelle!  Duh!  Of course it was them! I can’t believe you fell for their trick!  Ha ha ha!”  Ha ha ha, indeed.  They all kept very straight faces about Ernest throughout the whole evening, but must have laughed themselves silly later.

This morning, we finally completed the hike up Table Mountain.  India ran the 15 kilometers to the base of the mountain, and all four of us did the 90-minute climb together.  Tallulah actually walked about a third of the way up, in Crocs no less, and rode my shoulders the rest of the way.  Zola complained a little during the middle 30 minutes, but was a trooper.  At the top he said, “This was the best hike ever!”  

Sitting outside the cafe at the top of the mountain, we ran into another old, old friend, named Itumeleng Kgaboesele, from my time teaching at the University of Cape Town in 1991.  I had not seen Itu in nearly ten years, but his appearance had not changed a bit.  What has changed is that the very clever, confident undergraduate I knew 18 years ago has become one of the most prominent investors and entrepreneurs in the country ().  Such a good guy, and so deeply deserving of his successes. 

We raced down the mountain, sped home, changed clothes lickety-split, sped off again, and managed to be only 10 minutes late for lunch reservations at The Round House restaurant ().  The restaurant is practically within spitting distance of the Table Mountain cable station. 

The Round House was built by Lord Charles Somerset in 1817 as a  hunting lodge, “to shoot lion, leopard and buck on the slopes of Lions Head mountain.”  It is now a World Heritage site (!), sitting on a forested mountainside, in the center of a big nature reserve, overlooking the Atlantic.  It is a five-minute drive from the center of Cape Town.

In the old days (ie, the 1990s), The Round House was run by an eccentric French woman of a certain age.  She played Edith Piaf singles on a phongraph, flirted outrageously with her male guests, and served French food swimming in reductions and demi-glaze.  India and I probably had dinner with her 15 times.

Apparently the building was then abandoned for several years, and has just recently reopened as a new high-end, European bistro.  We sat outside with our friends, two couples, while our collective five kids played barefoot in the grass below the lodge.  Somehow, three very pleasant hours went by.

LUNCH AT THE ROUND HOUSE

One of the kids from lunch, Alec, came home with us, so he and Zola could have a play date.  The boys ended up boogie boarding in the freezing Atlantic for about an hour and a half, until the water had numbed their feet beyond feeling, and the sun had set over the ocean.   I was in with them for the last 45 minutes or so, treasuring their laughter and bravado. 

INTREPID BOOGIE BOARDERS

Our time in Cape Town has been great. 

Unfortunately, I upset the Never Never Land atmosphere by accepting a full-time, six-month assignment in New York, starting on April 20th.  India and I have been discussing this opportunity for months, but I think we hadn’t fully internalized the implications of it until yesterday.  Essentially, our trip, and our time as a 24/7 family will come to an end (temporarily?) then.  

We are working through the logistics (complicated) and the emotions (complicated), and also trying to think through the longer-term questions of where and how we want to live.  Obviously, these are conversations we need to have at some point anyway.  But it definitely feels as though I have somehow poured a cold bucket of uncertain reality on our beachside idyll.

As with everything, we will work through it.  In the meantime, we will enjoy our last days in Cape Town.

THE PROTAGONIST

Greetings from Cape Town!  

Last night we had dinner at La Colombe (http://www.constantia-uitsig.com/pages/restaurants/la-colombe.php), which just won an award as South Africa’s best restaurant.  As always, it was just amazing: outstanding and inventive food, sitting outdoors in the garden by a fountain, excellent service, everything.  Tallulah and I even had a footrace across the cricket pitch before dark.

This short post is a story from a visit to La Colombe last year.  The restaurant is located on a beautiful wine estate called Constantia Uitsig (pronounced “ATE-sigk” for the non-Afrikaans speakers out there).  Uitsig has three restaurants on the estate, and a very small boutique hotel.  The hotel has six rooms, I think.

Last January, India and her parents and the kids stayed at Uitsig for a few nights at the end of our family trip to South Africa.  I had already gone back to work in California, and we had given up the house we had rented.  The six rooms are all on the ground floor, clustered into three small Cape Dutch-style buildings, set in the ancient gardens of the vineyard.  Bucolic and beautiful.

India wanted her parents, Gramae and Pop, to have a romantic dinner at La Colombe.   She and the kids met a friend of ours, Arnold, and his two kids, at 6:30 pm.  They had a picnic dinner served at a table on Uitsig’s small cricket pitch, far from the hotel rooms and the restaurant itself.  Gramae and Pop had a reservation at La Colombe for 6:30 as well, a short walk from their room.

At 7:15, one of the Constantia Uitsig security guards came down onto the cricket pitch, and asked India, “Do you know the older American couple staying in Room #3?”

India was very alarmed, and said, “Yes.  They are my parents.  Are they OK?  Has something happened?”

The security guard said that they were fine, but that they were locked into the room.  Did India have the key?

It turns out that they had been trapped for about 45 minutes.  The windows were barred (South Africa), they could not get anyone on the phone in reception, and they had been shouting for help.  Fortunately, the security guard had walked by, taken notice, and gone to get India.  The guard did not know where the master key was.  India said she had no idea where her parents’ room key was.

At this point, Zola said quietly, “I have the key.”  

The whole party ran up to Room #3 and released Gramae and Pop from their gilded cage.  Being grandparents, they were much more forgiving and kind about the whole thing than I would have been.  

Gramae did ask Zola, “Now sweetheart, why did you lock the door on us?”

Zola said, “You were changing clothes with the door open, and I was afraid that someone would see Pop’s wiener.”

True story.  

They must not keep very good records of their guests’ names, because they accepted our dinner reservation without any “not them again!” alarms going off.   We had another wonderful dinner last night, and I laugh every time that I think of this story.

Greetings from Cape Town!  This post tries to summarize our nearly three weeks in the desert.  As I wrote a few days ago, it may be my favorite part of the trip so far.  I have been trying to figure out why I liked it so much, and what lessons we can apply to the rest of our travels.

Here are some of the fun facts from the trip:

• We were on the road for 20 days, from the date we flew from Cape Town to Upington to the date we flew from Windhoek to Cape Town.
   
• We stayed in 13 different places, which seems like a lot.  These ranged from the very basic (camp sites in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) to the extremely comfortable (Wolwedans, Little Kulala, Little Ongava, Mowani).  None of these fancy lodges existed in Namibia ten years ago.
   
• We drove 3,400 kilometers on the roads, which means about 40 hours in our rented bakkie.  We also took 21 game drives, averaging about 3 hours each.  All in this means we were driving around on average 4-5 hours a day.  Wow! That seems like a lot as well.
   
• We went on 8 guided game walks, mostly seeing insects, birds, plants and sand.  We also had the long walks to climb sand dunes, to go for sunset drinks, and to go sandboarding.  We shook sand out of our shoes at least 2,000 times (an estimate).
    

CHEETAH IN MID-GROWL

• We saw a lot of game: about 25 lions, 9 cheetah (four essentially in captivity), 26 desert-adapted elephants, 4 venomous snakes, 8 rhino, 500 or so zebras, and about 8 million gemsboks.  No shortage of gemsboks in the desert.
     
  

  THE UBIQUITOUS GEMSBOK

   

• We bought 300 liters of diesel fuel for the bakkie, and no liters of normal gasoline.  I worried about this all of the time.  Also, we only really got stuck once, which was a relief.  We also did not crash, although I nearly ran over a suicidal ostrich, and we had an uncomfortably  close call on the dune track near !Xaus Lodge.
  
  filme fair game online

   

• Mostly while we were driving, Zola read about 2,500 pages: three Hardy Boys, the last three books of the Artemis Fowl series, the last two of Percy Jackson, five Michael Morpurgo novels, and a few desert-specific novels (eg, Meerkat Manor).  We are glad he can read in the car and not get carsick.  We are also glad that Swakopmund had some good bookstores.
   
• We met some great guides and people working at lodges: Jason (the Argonaut), Samuel (the musician), Moses (who led us through the desert), Gabriel (the Archangel), Lister (the elephant finder), the three Americans, Joe at Doro !Nawas, Jennifer at Little Kulala, Ellen and Vincent at Mowani, Arne, Ingrid and Rob (the wonderful Dutch), Frederick the Studious, Hayward the Chef, and our favorite all time name - Mighty Power.
  

  MIGHTY POWER AND HAYWARD AT WOLWEDANS

   

• The desert attracts characters.  Many people seem to flee to Namibia to avoid extradition or publicity.   Wesley Snipes hid from his tax problems there.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie famously waited for a baby in Swakopmund.  We met and were charmed by Eva, la femme mysterieuse
  download movie the green hornet
  buy the gulliver’s travels film

  . We met a very rich American father and son, and their too young and beautiful wives (?), whose story didn’t quite make sense.  We wondered, idly, what some of the very elderly German men in Swakopmund did during the war.  India wondered how why the proportion of ruggedly handsome men is so high in Namibia.

Greetings from Llandudno, Cape Town.  We flew down from Windhoek yesterday afternoon.  

After having so many great experiences in Namibia, our departure was a bit frustrating and complicated: it took an hour to return the car, with some unspecified assessment for “sand blast damage;” the flight was delayed then undelayed then they put us on a slightly scary “backup” plane; general chaos in slow motion.  

My favorite moment was when the Hertz guy looked at me gravely, and said, “Have you been driving in sandy areas?”  It is almost like returning a rental in Minneapolis in January, and having them ask whether the car was exposed to cold temperatures.

Although we had always planned to return to the Llandudno house at the end of the week, India booked two interim nights in a fishing village about an hour north of Cape Town.  The beach house, called the White House, was recently featured in a popular magazine, and the village, called Yzerfontein (pronounced AZER-fon-tane), has become trendy in property development circles.

Tallulah was very disappointed to find out that Mr. Obama would not be at the White House when we arrived.  The rest of us were a little disappointed to find that the White House was really designed for photo shoots, and not for a family to stay in.  Everything was photogenically beautiful, like a Ralph Lauren beachwear advertisement, but there were no comfortable spaces.  Literally every surface in the building (as well as the exterior and trim) was white.  The kids’ room was in the basement, and the master bedroom was on the second floor.  When the owner greeted us with the keys, Tallulah was carrying an open bottle of orange soda.  All of the adults awkwardly foresaw a potential “orange on white” disaster.

More important, the house was in an unoccupied retirement village, with weird and garish (and empty) places surrounding it on three sides.  The fourth side did have a beautiful view of the sand dunes and the ocean.  Because we were at the southern edge of the currently developed part, there was a paved road and  street lights leading off to nowhere in the dunes further south.  The whole thing reminded me of a Bergman movie, with metaphors for death and purity all around us.

As the rain poured down on us this morning, we made the executive decision to retreat to Cape Town a day early.  We could have stayed, I guess, but the desolation and bad weather, and the strangely uncomfortable house were enough to send us home.  We need to wash some clothes anyway.

So, we are back in the same house in Llandudno.  The waves are huge, so Zola and I are going down to boogie board.  Our kids were reunited with all of the stuff that we stored here, so it was like a late January Christmas.  We are happy to be back in a home, instead of the succession of tents and lodges that we have lived in for the last three weeks.  We are particularly glad that it is this particular, familiar, comfortable, Llandudno home.

PostScript- the waves were amazing, and Zola and I had a great time with our friend Paul.  The rip tide was strong, and complicated, so I was glad that Zola stayed in close to the beach.  Holidays are clearly over: we basically had the beach to ourselves.

Greetings from Twee Rivieren, at the southern end of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The park combines two national parks, in South Africa and Botswana, creating a huge desert wilderness area. I will try to incorporate some maps when I am not using my BlackBerry. “Kgalagadi” is the original (and now official) spelling of “Kalahari.”

This short post is about our first day and night here.

We drove about 200 kilometers from Tswalu, entirely over dirt roads. Including the two ‘towns’ we passed, we saw a total of about five motor vehicles, and three donkey carts, on the drive. We were glad to be in a new and reliable 4×4. Breaking down in the 100-degree heat and blazing sun would have been unamusing at best.

India and I stayed at the Twee Rivieren camp site nearly ten years ago, when the park was still just the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. Without going into too much detail, we have reason to believe that Zola was conceived here, a belief that we memorialized by making his full name ‘Zola Atticus Kalahari Baird.’ We explained a little of this to Zola yesterday, but it raised more questions than we were ready to discuss.

Last night we stayed in a desert camp called Kielie Krankie, about 45 dirt-road kilometers in from the park entrance at Twee Rivieren. “Kielie Krankie” means “almost sick” in Afrikaans. Not an auspicious place name for a family that just spent a month in India (the place).

Ten years ago, India (the person) and I saw practically no animals when we were in this park. Times have changed.

Like many South African game parks, this one features “self-drive safaris.”. This means that you rattle around on the dirt roads looking for animals. It is very democratic (ie, inexpensive) and fun.

On the drive in to Kielie Krankie, we saw hundreds of gemsbok (oryx), wildebeest, and springbok. More exciting, we found a pride of ten lions resting in the late-afternoon shade by the road.

As we watched the lions, a large herd of wildebeest ambled down the valley, about 300 meters upwind. The lions suddenly became very alert, and arrayed themselves along a low ridge to observe their potential dinner. For about an hour, we watched the lions watching the wildebeest. The confident, murderous intent of the adult lionesses was clear, although the cubs seemed to be sort of playing along. The wildebeest, meanwhile, seemed oblivious to the danger: they drank from a watering hole, they wandered aimlessly, their babies ran and played.

Unfortunately, we had to leave before the drama played itself out. We were required to be at Kielie Krankie by 7:30 pm, or be stuck sleeping in our truck. Our guess is that there are one or two fewer wildebeest in that herd this morning.

Just before we arrived at the desert camp, Zola spotted a family of bat-eared foxes coming out of their den to hunt in the twilight. They were about 150 meters off the road, on a low hillside. Excellent spot, Zola.

Kielie Krankie is an unfenced group of four small bungalows. Each is half building and half tent. The gate to each bungalow locks, and the outdoor space is a deck about two meters above a desert hillside. This is believed to be adequate protection from lions. There is a ranger, named Willem, in a fifth bungalow, and he gave us a whistle to summon him (with rifle, presumably) if we got into trouble. Wild.

As we moved into our bungalow, a huge thunderstorm was brewing in the west. As at Tswalu, it created a spectacular show of lightning and desert sunset, deep reds and blues punctuated by streaks of white.

As we were cooking dinner, the wind began to blow hellaciously. I doused our cooking fire, which was spraying embers all over the dry vegetation in the valley, and we closed all of the windows and tent flaps. A few minutes later, la deluge terrifique. The rain came down in sheets, as lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Both kids tries to be cool about it, but it was a little scary. We ate our dinner on the floor of the kitchen, with rain leaking into the bungalow all over the place.

The rain stopped after an hour, and we all dropped off to sleep. Having only two twin beds made it a tight squeeze.