13 - Rain!!!

22 July 2010

Today is one of the most unexpectedly beautiful days we’ve had in a very long time. I woke up this morning at the usual 6 am and decided I was going to sleep in. Poor David had to get up to take the clients out hunting. I pawned off camera duty on him as well and snuggled deeper under the covers. Round about 7:30 my body refused to stay asleep any longer and I rolled out of bed, did some long-overdue tidying up and headed outside.

To my astonishment and great pleasure the sky was overcast with low-hanging grey clouds. The air was still and warm as though insulated by the fluffy cloud blanket overhead. It was also deliciously moist and my pleasure grew as I started walking up towards the house and began feeling little drizzly kisses on my face.

By the time I reached the house the drizzle had turned to light rain and everything was foggy and subdued and beautiful. My hair has returned to its normal state of semi-frizz and my nasal passages which have been tortured by the dryness for the past weeks are finally happy again. I know the rain can’t last forever, but I am sure enjoying it while it’s here. It’s actually a very rare thing to have rain right now, as it’s the middle of the winter dry season.

Anyway, we sent Charlie and Russ (who did eventually succeed in getting his leopard) back to the states a few days ago. It was a sentimental parting as we’d all become good friends and had lots of fun together over the last 2 weeks. The new clients are a small family, mother (Terry), father (David) and daughter (Mandy). The father and Quinn went off to Chikwalakwala yesterday to hunt buffalo, and David is in charge of taking the daughter out for zebra and giraffe. The four of us sat yesterday in a blind next to a waterhole without seeing hide nor hair of zebra or giraffe. We did, however, see a rare and wonderful sight: a bull eland.

It was the first time in my life I was able to actually see an eland’s entire body at the same time. Every other time it has just been a flick of the massive hind quarters as it propelled itself away into the bush, or a glimpse of the upright spiral horns as it hurtled itself away from me. In other words, I’ve only ever seen them running. But yesterday he was totally unaware of our presence in the blind and he magestically sauntered out in the open, wary but unafraid, heading towards the water. I was speechless at the sight of him. Huge, heavy, masculine body covered in a flawless hide the color of dry grass. The muscle rippled and flowed beneath his skin with each step. His face was incredibly intelligent-looking with big bright eyes and thick horns sticking straight up between his ears. His neck was nearly as thick as the rest of his body with a draping dewlap swinging down low to his chest. An incredibly beautiful animal, and an extremely rare sight. There are plenty of them here on the ranch but they are shy and reclusive and do not like lingering where people are. I was secretly glad when Mandy decided she would not shoot it because she was unsure if she had permission from her father to take an eland.

Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on. David has discovered that mahogany is still too hard for his power tools. I think he’s resharpened the chainsaw blade 3 or 4 times already and is beginning to get discouraged. Apparently the wood is easier to cut when it’s still slightly damp, but we only discovered this after days of battling to cut.

I have been dismayed by the gradual deconditioning and disappearance of every ounce of muscle on my body, despite the active lifestyle here, and have put my foot down. There is no gym here or dumbbells or anything so I have taken 2 large plastic bottles and filled them a little past halfway with sand from the river. The bottles have handles on them convenient for lifting in various ways, but also for slipping on to each end of a bamboo pole to use for bench press or squats or biceps curls. We’ll see how long I’m actually motivated to stick with it, but I have succeeded in making my whole body deliciously sore, a feeling I’ve not had in too long a time. So a special shoutout to all you ladies out there in the Berea Curves sticking with it and keeping in shape. You are awesome!

David and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary a couple of days ago. Seems like it’s been much longer than 3 years. We’ve done so much in so little time. Last year I started making an anniversary book on my computer, and now that we have a couple of years behind us it has been so fun to look back and see what we were doing, what we were thinking. Part of the book is for each of us to write a secret message to the other that will be sealed to be opened on our next anniversary, and it was so sweet to open that note from David and read the words that he wrote to me a whole year ago. Can’t wait for next year to read what he wrote this year!

Well as I’ve been writing this the light rain has escalated into a downpour and the roaring on the metal roof of the house is music to my ears. Loving it here in Zimbabwe but can’t wait to get back to tropical rainforest.