I will still give you your post about daily life and what all is going on here that I promised, but first I have to tell you – I am in love. Love at first sight has a way of taking you off guard. You know it right away that it’s love, and it is so sudden that it takes a bit to really sink in, but then every night you find yourself falling in love all over again and you realize that this is it. This is the piece that has been missing. I had to travel halfway across the world for it.
I have lived in a decent number of places in the US – Maryland, West Virginia, Texas, North Dakota, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. And each place had its charm. Maryland with its rolling hills and farmlands, West Virginia with its mountains, North Dakota with it fast open prairies, and even Pittsburgh with its tall buildings and beautiful steel bridges. But none of those can even compare.
I am in love with Africa. I know that this is where I belong, my heart is happy here. Just driving around you see gemsbok, kudu, and warthogs all the time and then every few days you see giraffes and ostriches. Tonight we were less than an hour behind a rhino. We followed his tracks, but the big chubby unicorn managed to just keep out of sight. Every night the jackals sing me to sleep and every morning the yellow-billed hornbills come over to see if I have any scraps of breakfast to share with them. You cannot even begin to count the stars at night as they cluster together as the Milky Way crosses the sky. There has not been a single night that I haven’t seen multiple shoot stars cascading down to earth. Even as I am sitting on my front porch writing this I am joined by two duikers who hang out every evening with me.
This place is magical. I have loved all the places I have lived, and home will always be with my family back in Maryland. But this place… this is it. It’s such an incredible feeling that I have in my heart. And I wish I could truly put to words what this place is, but I don’t think you can fully understand until you have felt it too. My heart belongs to Africa.
Photos in this post stolen from Tamara Schenekar
adventureiswild.com 