The Many Moons of Africa

On Sabbath, for the first time ever, I had a chance to gaze upon the natural beauty of wild, African animals in their wild, African habitat. The Sandoval family took Laurel and I for the day to Majete Wildlife Reserve here in Malawi - a Sabbath WELL spent among some crazy-awesome animals, to say the least. Sure enough, down the road we drove until we saw an animal, where we stopped so Laurel and I could snap a few shots. Everybody in the car experienced my excitement as I sprang across the the backseat of the car and those sitting in it to take a picture. We drove on and came across a waterhole with A FAMILY OF ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!! Oh my word. They are SO SO SO SO COOL!!! And photogenic - that’s always convenient. As we kept driving through the park looking for more animals, we would stop to photograph when we saw some, and more often than not the animals would turn and head into the brush. It very quickly became a joke in our car that we could get some great pictures of animals’ cabooses (not the photogenic part I was referring to). Toward the end of the trip we came to a lookout tower that was nearby a waterhole. We heard elephants in the bushes, so we waited for them to come out and drink water. Another detail from the day: it was about 110 degrees farenheit. And now we were watching animals drink. We left our water in the car. BAD IDEA. Now, the car was only 15 feet away, but when you need to be as quiet as possible as to not scare away the animals before you can get a good shot, 15 feet and the noises that the trek will add are just not motivating enough to go grab a water bottle of warm-almost-hot water. As we were silently waiting, as to not scare off the elephants or other animals, this wonderful breeze rushed past and caressed my sweat glistening face. I breathed in deeply. The air smelt of adventure, of life, of beauty, of joy. In reality, it was probably only good, African air, but I refuse to believe it.

When we got back I looked through the thousand pictures I took and reveled in the fact that I actually got to observe these animals in their natural environment (not in a zoo) and up close! I got to watch the elephants splash water on themselves and pull branches off of trees. I saw baboons running across the road and climbing trees and baby baboons chasing each other’s tails. I got to see the hippos napping in the river, and I got to see those black and white stripped “horses” (according to my childhood associations of animals). Zebras are beautiful.

At home it wasn’t uncommon for me to google pictures of animals I longed to see and places that I would only dream of going, and then sit and desperately wish I could go see the world with my own eyes and take pictures with my own camera. Though Malawi is not the whole world, it’s a start - and it is SO EXCITING!!

My pictures are not that great. My camera is not the best and my photography skills have not exceeded too far past the “Sports” and “Automatic” modes. But I got to take them myself and am experiencing a whole new world over here in Africa. I am so incredibly blessed. 

Our list of animals for the day: impalas, kudus, water bucks, wart hogs, guineas, cute little baby ducks, other birds, one unidentified animal, BABOONS, ZEBRAS, AFRICAN ELEPHANTS, AND HIPPOPOTAMUSES!!!!!!!!!!!