Sunday, a day of rest. YES!! This was a great day of hanging out at Henning’s farm which is pretty deep off he beaten track. They have a great deal of land and have taken down the fences between Kruger Park, so the animals can roam right in. We got to drive around in Pieter’s 4x4 trucks which have seats in the bed that are open to the air. This was another up close and personal look at big mammals. Like elephants. We encountered a couple groups of them, and the mom elephant would do these false charges that got our attention enough to jam the vehicles into reverse and get the heck back. It was exciting. I think everyone liked this action, although during the mock charge, Maura went from one side of the truck to the other in less than .01 seconds. I was a bit unnerved being that close to these giants. Off the record I may have had to change shorts upon returning to the farm, but officially, I was behind each and every student to protect them. Way behind them in case I had to get out of there to call for help. This is what leaders do. Really. Ask Patton.
Rhoda and Pieter Henning were just fantastic hosts, and I think it was a consensus this was the highlight of the trip. I mean, we had seen a lot of great stuff up to this visit, but elephant dodging? C’mon, that’s just plain fun. The evening we watched a lake on Pieter’s farm waiting for something to show up. Well something did: about 250 Cape buffalo. They filed in there like they owned the place. Because they pretty much do. Are you going to stop 250 buffalo? No, you’re not. There were 3 hippos drifting in the lake and a couple fish eagles hanging out. Beautiful evening. We all tried to say silent for 5 min just to hear the sounds coming from the bush. It’s hard for 15 college kids to stay silent for that long, but other than the crunch of a potato chip or a bit of phlegm clearing, they did pretty good. You could just imagine lions sneaking up…or as it turned out guineas flying up to roost. (One of those appeared to have been shot in the hiney. See an earlier blog for the tie-in here.)
Back at the farm that evening, Elvis made an appearance; apparently he’s not dead. We knew this because earlier in the week a South African wore a T-shirt that said: “I sat between Elvis and Bigfoot on the UFO”. If it’s on a t-shirt you know it’s true.
That evening we sat around a wood fire and sang campfire songs. Pieter had a guitar on the farm in case anyone wanted to play it. How great is that? So we did a couple tunes for our hosts. “Chicken Fried” was one which we knew the words. Then we did a Kansas classic, “Dust in the Wind”. We all piped in on the chorus, “All we are is dust in the wind”. Unfortunately, the verses sounded something like, “Doo dee doo dee doo dee doo doo doo dee doo”. Hmmm, maybe a bit too far back in time for that one.
DrG
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