Z is for Zambia/Z is for Zoe.

Existential Waitress tagged me for a picture post which is perfect because Zoe is currently throwing a tantrum about Daddy putting her down for a nap instead of me so I need to look VERY BUSY.

Simple Rules:
-Open your first photo folder (I took this to mean oldest digital pictures folder).
-Scroll down to the 10th photo. (Okay, I did that but then I HAD to include just a few others.)
-Post that photo and story on your blog.
-Tag five others (or more) friends to do the same.

-------

August 5, 2004. South Luangwa National Park, Zambia.

We were thrilled to finally be in Zambia after 34 hours of air travel. It was the first day of a three week safari. On our way to our first camp, we stopped along the river bank for afternoon tea, complete with homemade cookies, a regular part of the schedule at the British influenced safari camps.

My mother and I had been to Zambia twice before and grown to love the country and the safari camps that are run by my mother's step-sister's step-daughter. (If you can follow that, you're one ahead of me. All I know is that everyone in the camps was told we were "family" and we were treated like royalty, though I'm pretty sure they treat everyone like that.)

It was CG's first time in Africa. He took the photo, thrilled about tea time and eager to try out his new digital camera (I was still in the stone ages with a film SLR). We had been married for two years.

The open jeeps we rode in every day made us feel at one with the bush, able to see and smell and hear every little thing around us. Some times we were thrilled by this as we were able to creep up to a mother and baby giraffe

or watch lions following the call of the wild (every 10 minutes for HOURS).

Other times it was a little too close for comfort as elephants charged our jeep, huge snakes attacked the tires and lions circled us slowly, all of us knowing just who would win a brawl. Some days I felt every inch the disgustingly pampered foreigner as we rolled through rural villages and were greeted by children with protruding bellies waving and laughing at us in our silly hats, up high on our perches, hands clasped in our laps.

Sitting here listening to Zoe's one person No Nap Protest Rally, that trip seems impossibly long ago, like it happened in another life, to another person.

But I know that it happened to me, because it was on one of those long jeep drives, just before sunset, that I realized I wanted to become a mother. That I was as ready as I was going to get. And, if it was a girl, I wanted to name her Zoe.



------------

So have at it, ladies. (Only if you feel like it. Feel free to ignore the tag. OMG I don't like tagging people. It feels like a chain letter that you might hate me for.)

1. Twin Mom Musings
2. Life in a Tiny Town
3. Eleanor Q.
4. All Dressed Up
5. ...... (Okay that's it. I now feel sick.)