MUSINGS

We bounced along a dirt road (known as an “African massage” driving through the Thornybush game reserve in a large olive green safari vehicle, a hybrid of an adventure four-wheel drive jeep and military tank. 

“So, we were living out here in the bush and had gone to Joburg for a visit.” Shara began. The attractive woman sat turned toward us from the front row to talk to Dave and me. Shara’s husband is the director of marketing for the Thornybush reserve and all its lodges and campsites. She and her eighty four year old British mother were having a mother-daughter afternoon- lunch at the lodge, a spa treatment and an afternoon game drive. Sounds good to me as far as mother daughter shit goes. Anyway. 

She continued her story. “My daughter was three years old at the time and had grown up here at Thornybush. A dear friend who lived in Joburg had passed away and we were all very upset, naturally. And, I had to explain his passing to my daughter. 

“He died sweetheart. “ 

My daughter looked up at me thoughtfully for a second and then asked, “So what ate him, Mommy?” 

Shara laughed and concluded. “I realized then that maybe we needed to move to town. 

I loved her story for many reasons, one being that as most of you who are parents will know, it is easy to unwittingly go too far in one direction with our kids. But also, because the story so perfectly illustrates my “take- away” from our safari experience. Technology, the modern urban lifestyle, quests for gender identity and the like make us forget what life is really about; we lose ourselves in an abstract world devoid of reality. 

The reality of life in the bush is binary. 

Life or death; male or female; kill or be killed; hungry or sated; predator or prey, loners or groupies. 

By the way, life and death in the bush was not just for the animals- Shara’s daughter was right. The staff at the lodge took a lot of safety precautions, told us stories of leopards lounging on guest cabin decks or baboons learning how to turn the knob and get into the room. They repeatedly admonished us to lock our doors, even while in the room and especially when going to bed. 

Remembering the 60s in Kenya and the stories of people getting eaten by lions because they got out of the car to get up close for a photo, or staff at Voi Lodge in Tsavo Park (where my family would stay on the way to Mombasa for beach holidays), getting attacked as they delivered room service, I was happy that today there are such safety measures in place and I was unusually compliant and obedient.

“Look there.” Our guide, Enoch, stopped the car and pointed over the side. “See how loosely packed and dry that dung is- that one is from the Black Rhino (very rare now) and this one, darker and fresher dirt is the White Rhino who marked on top.” 

Then there were the fascinating dung beetles, busily rolling up the rhino dung to make a safe place for their eggs. The whole area of dung piles resembled a gold mine during the California gold rush, there were so many dung beetles scurrying around and fighting for wealth. But let’s get back to the guides and trackers for a minute.

There is actually a school for training trackers and guides. I had assumed it would be like what I had seen as a child- most game wardens and guides were Africans who had grown up in the bush. But, like everything else, I guess that it is a profession that has evolved and improved. Although Freddy and Enoch were in fact of the Shanga tribe and had grown up around the area, there were also some white South Africans, both men and women. 

Enoch’s breadth and depth of knowledge stemmed from both his years observing animals and book learning- from science. He explained, for instance, that only three animals go through menopause- whales, elephants and humans; these species are the only ones where the female outlives her reproductive years. To explain this phenomenon, the theory goes that older females are needed to pass on knowledge of how to survive. Both whales and elephants are matriarchal. I guess we humans fucked that up a bit. Still, I have noticed that older women do help younger ones, especially when babies are born.

“So, how do we know that an elephant has gone through menopause?” I asked, thinking about my doctor running hormone tests on me.

“Do they measure the hormone levels or something?”

He shook his head, waved my question off. “I don’t know how they do it- it’s the scientists that say these things.” 

I may not believe the science on this, and I don’t know if Enoch bought the theory either, but the exchange did afford me a glimpse of Enoch’s learning and training.

At first, you are absolutely gob stopped just to see the animals, at all. But as you observe them over several days you start to notice more details, ask more questions such as why the elephant is taking mud into her mouth with her trunk – she holds it there because it helps her digestion. Another benefit is that you get a chance to see different behaviors- from lions bonking (yes!) to lionesses licking and cleaning their cubs to mama rhinos showing the baby how to roll in the mud to cool off. 

The first animals we, saw, even before getting to the game reserve proper were a family of wart hogs with a few babies. We had not expected to see anything at all en route from the airport -a small indoor-outdoor affair in the bush which used to be a military airstrip. As you might imagine we were beside ourselves with excitement. The way warthogs trot, with their short legs and chunky body, proudly swishing their buts back and forth as they prance along, reminds me of our beloved pug dog. Same ridiculous gait. We also saw some impala along the way. The first time you see impala you do get excited, like with the other animals. But you see so many of them, sometimes just outside your cabin, that you get jaded. It turns out the Africans have a nickname for impalas to denote their ubiquity and usefulness to the predator animals: the McDonalds of the bush. I love it.

Before I divulge my realization about Vietnamese sidewalks, let’s take a minute to talk about getting around on foot- actually it’s more dodging and darting. 

Walking through towns and cities in southeast Asia is challenging everywhere I guess because sidewalks are narrow, with broken tiles, high sides and curbs, and they are often crowded with other pedestrians and the vendors selling everything from street food and fruit to fans and tourist tchotchkes (Bangkok, Chang Mae, Bali).  

Vietnam, however, reaches a whole new level of challenge. You  have to keep your wits about you, and multi-task while you move along- looking both at where you are putting your feet lest you step into a hole or slip on an uneven tile AND you must also look up to see what’s coming at you, like a motorbike suddenly emerging from a store and onto the sidewalk in front of you, or a bike deciding it wants to park where you are standing so it drives up onto the tiny square where you have planted your feet and says “sorry” to nudge you out of the way- and back into the street where you then dodge oncoming traffic of other bikes, pedestrians with no sidewalk to use and cars. And, while you are doing all of that, you have to try to keep your thoughts positive and not swear at anyone- because after all it’s their country and they can do whatever the fuck they want. And they do. 

So, here is my big realization about Vietnamese sidewalks.  The sidewalks in this country are used for everything except walking. That is the lowest priority. It’s a wholly different worldview.   

Field notes on experiments in acceptance.

Ensconced in a dimly lit interpretation booth at the United Nations in New York, I peered at the rows of people sitting in the semi-circle chamber below, waiting. Seated at the head table, the chairman banged the gavel and opened the meeting. He then gave the floor to the next speaker on the list, whose face appeared on the large video monitor behind him.   I turned on my microphone and began to simultaneously interpret what was being said, from his Spanish into English. The speaker hurtled along at high speed and as I tried desperately to keep up, an image from Star Trek flashed across the screen of my mind. The “Borg”, that AI collective hive of part machine, part biological life forms, was invading a new planet and announced to the inhabitants that “resistance is futile”.  I had always understood their warning to mean that the Borg would assimilate everyone, and they should resign themselves to that fate. Until recently, I never suspected that it contained a truism about real life. Like discovering a new planet that has been there all along, I happened upon my constant resistance accidentally. 

The delegate, a middle aged elegantly attired diplomat, endeavored to explain his country’s position on the issue at hand. He was speed-reading a prepared speech, trying to say everything before he exhausted his allotted time and got cut off. With over a hundred countries wanting to perform on the world stage, speaking times have had to be strictly enforced so everyone would get their turn. I struggled to stay afloat in the endless flow of words. He was talking so fast that he was breathless. How is that even possible? It is. Studies have shown that people are speaking faster and faster at international gatherings of experts, in all fields. 

Researchers have actually measured the number of words per minute- and it has more than tripled in my lifetime. Thinking about speed studies, I lost the thread of the speech. I began to despair, to wish I were anywhere but there. I feared making a mistake. My mind froze. I felt trapped. I could feel my mind pushing the words away. 

Then it dawned on me. Everything I was thinking and feeling was resistance. The brain power I was expending on resisting what was happening was a drain on my concentration, which I could ill afford at that moment. And then I just let go. I stopped trying to cram in every word. I stopped trying to control. I stopped worrying. Instead, I surrendered to the speed, giving myself over to it, trusting my brain to deal with the endless stream of words and ideas. I stopped thinking. And then, a shift occurred. Like a fight scene from The Matrix, everything began to feel as if it were in slow motion. I was suddenly able to keep pace, effortlessly. It was almost as if the situation had been magically altered once I had accepted it, because I had accepted it. Or was I engaged in magical thinking? I wondered if I could deliberately apply this approach in other situations. As if in answer to my question, life has presented me with ample opportunities to try out acceptance of what is- from unimaginably and unprecedented long lines at the airport just to get to the TSA security line, to the more banal removal of stubborn old parking stickers from the bumper of my blue Mazda.

Here is what I have learned so far. The hardest step is to even notice the existence of resistance in yourself, which is akin to an ever-present companion like your shadow, rendering it difficult to discern.  The next step is to accept. This moment is already happening and I cannot change it. It’s like jumping into the cliché. And then, defying reason or logic, reality shifts. The trick is- you cannot pretend to surrender. That is just another form of resistance. And, resistance is futile.