Monday

Ok, before I start talking about Monday, one omission from Sunday's adventures must be noted. On our walk, we encountered an elephant. The elephant was snacking on a tree by the watering hole beside the main road we were walking on. We were about 100 yards away and it turned around and looked at us, then went back to eating it's tree. No big deal. Apparently what is a big deal is when the eleph. ant turns around again and four pi-peds are now 40ft away. Oh. So, Kaivan runs from the front of the line of us, leaving Nisha in front, me behind her and Liza quite a bit behind all of us. When an elephant moves toward you, you're supposed to stand your ground, call it's bluff. Kaivan ran, and the elephant began to gallop. It didn't take many steps because Nisha and I literally screamed at Kaivan to stop running, and he did. When Kaivan stopped, so did the galloping elephant.

Crisis Averted.

Now, on to Monday. We slept in just a little bit, although I found it impossible to sleep past dawn, which happens right around 6:30am. I went to the observatory to wait for the others to wake up - that became our standard meeting place. If you were looking for people right after you woke up, best bet was the observatory. That morning I finished the book Purple Hibiscus. Liza Nisha and I had two novels with us between the three of us (plus another book of Nisha's) that we all finished. It was a good book, about a B+. It could have been great if it hadn't glossed over some vital details, and tied the ending up like there wasn't another option. Anyway. I finished that, and started Devil in the White City, which was a historical fiction about the Columbian Exhibition, or World's Fair in Chicago in the early twentieth century. Great read if you like character studies. I've clearly been distracted by books. What else is new? So. Burkia Faso, right. After everyone was up, we watched the elephants for a bit, and then went to the dining hall for breakfast/spaghetti.

And there we sat from 8am to 3pm. It was an absolutely fantastic day of relaxation and activity, conversation and quiet. All of us brought things to do - homework, books, string (to make bracelets!) journals, cards and bananagrams. So that's what we did, all the while watching the elephants romp in the watering hole. We talked while Liza taught us how to make string bracelets (yep...like we were ten at day camp), and then just spent some time hanging out, reading, writing, whatever. All of a sudden it was lunch time, so we ate around one, and went back to our bungalows to sleep at three. Around 4, I was semi-asleep and I heard someone walking outside. I thought this was kind of weird because the camp had been really empty all day. I was right. I look out the window of our bungalow and see the back half of an elephant. I yell to Nisha (repeatedly) to come that there was an elephant, right now. We got our cameras, and went onto the porch to see this huge elephant just strolling by. We wanted to get Kaivan and Liza, in the other bungalow to make sure they saw it...but we couldn't walk those 20 feet because there was an elephant in the way! We soon heard and saw them being excited about the huge grey critter that looked about to chomp on their roof. It passed by and snacked on a nearby tree before lumbering to the water to cool off. We couldn't get over it. We're STILL not over it - that elephant walked right next to our place of residence...it's footsteps woke me up from a nap. Absolute madness, I tell you.

The rest of the evening was pretty normal - we ate dinner, charged up our batteries on the few hours of electricity, played cards and went to sleep. I think this was the day that we taught Alhassan (the guy who ran the dining hall) how to play the card game ERS. This was quite a feat considering we speak limited french, and he doesn't speak English. We really befriended this guy - he seemed to like us a lot, and we figured it was probably because most people don't stick around too long. Most people in the camp just stay for one nigh - safari in the morning, and then out. We stayed for five days, four nights. There was one other party doing much the same as us, except they had a car, so they headed out to the bush to set up their table and chairs to drink and play cards. Anyway, we got to be as good of friends with Alhassan as we could, considering our communication was incredibly limited.

So that was Monday.

I do apologize for the gap/delay/lack in postings. It was a busy week, and we don't have internet at our house anymore, so I need to make more time at the Academic Center (where internet is surprisingly reliable) to make sure these get up. Thank you for your patience!