so, yet another few days have passed since my last update, and i thought i’d fill you in on how i have been filling them.
i find the time passes quickly at Chindeni, in a happy hazy blur, and though there are variations and each day is different, there is also a daily structure and routine that keeps us on track, and means that the days of the week blur into one. there is no differentiation between the ‘week’ and the ‘weekend’ here, because we have guests in camp most days, and no ‘nights out’ or gym classes or even television programmes to anchor your mind-set down to a specific day. as a consequence it is easy to lose track (I frequently find myself mid-way through the day, and totally unsure as to whether it is sunday or wednesday), and i was pretty shocked when i realised we’ve now been here for over a month. i feel totally at home in the camp, and in my role, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that we have been here that long, but i’m finding myself disappointed in how quickly our time over here, our last little dint at freedom and fun before mortgages and sensible jobs impinge, seems to be slipping through our fingers all too swiftly.
the days start early, always early, with my alarm going off about 40 minutes before the dawn starts to paint the sky, at 5.15am. it sounds horrendous, and i’m positive my old London-self would shake and quail at the prospect of that un-godly hour of the morning, but once you get used to rising at that time it pays off, because the first hour of daylight is one of the most peaceful and picturesque, enriching and enchanting parts of the day in the park. the skies lighten quickly and dramatically, the noises of the night fade and are slowly replaced by the morning bird calls, and the rustle of baboons waking and moving about in the tree tops, and the hippos gently and quietly lumber back into the water of the lagoon, to hide from the burning sun. standing on the deck over the lapping lagoon waters, clutching a mug of steaming tea before the guests get up, listening to Sam our waiter making a final last minute sweep of the deck and watching the day come alive around us in our shared silence, is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the day.
once breakfast has been served, the guests leave camp on their morning game drive or walk, leaving us free to organise the menus for the rest of the day with the head chef, radio the previous night’s sightings, and get our head around any necessary people management, or tasks that need doing around camp. the husband and i generally split the chores, and find things to busy ourselves until the guests get back, and then it is straight into lunch, followed by siesta time for them, and an opportunity to rest up ourselves if we don’t have any guests coming or going that day. then we have tea with all remaining inhabitants at 4pm (so ex-colonial, so civilised!) after which we send them out on an evening drive, radio down to head office again for a progress report on the day, and if we are lucky the husband and i grab a sundowner together on the deck, and celebrate the end of another ‘tough day at the office’. when the night safari gets back in a few hours later there is often much running around, delivering to rooms and then collecting again minutes later, and we serve drinks, eat dinner and do our best to be charming company until the guests decide to flake out and crash out, at which point we do the same ourselves. and round and round we go.
i’ve simplified massively of course, and not included all the tedious tiny minutiae of what we do on a day to day basis, and despite the rather minimal run down of an average day we do find that the hours fly and we are busy for most of them. but when I do find myself with spare moments, they are ones to treasure and enjoy and relax into, and are so very different to the ‘dead hours’ i used to experience in my old office, where i would furtively and listlessly surf the internet, check facebook, and repeatedly refresh hotmail, just waiting for something, anything, to happen. now my spare minutes are spent sneaking a kiss from my husband, relaxing in the sunshine with a book, sketching, chatting, joking and laughing with the local staff or simply watching the stunning wildlife going about its day from the vantage of our deck. i still regularly have to give a metaphorical pinch to my brain to remind myself that what i do on a day to day basis is a job, and i’m getting paid to get up in the morning.
the days are of course differentiated by the various game sightings of our guests, which each day continue to amaze me, and the odd trauma. a few i’ve dealt with in the past week include a troop of elephants coming through camp in the middle of the night, pulling down trees, causing general devastation, and keeping me awake till the early hours in anticipation of imminent crushing by falling branch, and/or charging beast; the water supply to all the tents and our kitchen failing, and having to provide guests with buckets of murky lagoon water (affectionately referred to by one as ‘Ebola Water’) and jugs so they could flush their toilet, and bottled water to wash their faces; and howling gales as we start to hit the windy season that threaten to blow over tables, actively tear cushions from hammocks and hide them in the surrounding undergrowth, and rip paperwork from tables and dump it into the lagoon (which then requires some delicate fishing out with a long pole, some standing on tip toe, and some prayers that there are no lurking crocs around).
but mainly what makes each day different is the lovely guests that we have staying with us in our little bush
our first proper guests were a rowdy and hilarious group of 8 Sri Lankan surgeon friends, who persisted in telling rude jokes until i nearly cried, and on their first night in camp gathered on the bean bags on our deck after dinner and broke into impromptu communal singing. i made them tea, whilst one of the wives looked on indulgently and said “these are old sri lankan songs, from our childhood”. i believed her as i brewed the camomile, until i picked up a chorus of ‘My bonny flies over the ocean’, at which point i started to have my doubts as to the genuine sri lankan heritage behind their musical stylings! they were instantly forgiven however, when i heard them burst into a mournful rendition of an old classic. the words “Ce sera sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, ce sera, sera” rang out into the night, and they held a particular poignancy for me- my dear aunt who passed away this spring used to sing them as a quavering lullaby often to me when i stayed at her house as a child, and the song will always remind me of her. and that cold, starry night, as I heard the words boldly being sung out into the darkness around us, by a multitude of strangers who had become friends in two days, it was as if i properly noticed the lyrics for the first time, and it made me smile as I thought how in a strange way it was like i was following her advice by following the hand that fate dealt me, and chasing my dreams to Zambia. what will be, will be indeed.
we had the most lovely german couple come stay with us for three nights on their honeymoon, and though we always make an effort to make every guest’s stay special, these two i felt an extra responsibility towards. given that husband and i had stayed in bushcamps on our honeymoon, and only comparitively recently, i really wanted to make them love their stay as much as we had. i think we succeeded, perhaps too much- their enthusiasm was boundless, despite me having to feed the bride a fairly constant succession of strepsils, and both still being exhausted from their 3 day wedding celebrations, and by the time they left the groom was asking how we had got out to the valley, taking notes, and vowing to come back next year and steal our jobs.
following them, we had a sudden plethora of english couples, so on one night we had 4 british mr and mrs’s in camp (inclusive of us managers). once we had got over the inevitable issues of deciding who would sit on which seat on the game vehicle (“you must go in the front!, “no, really you must”, “oh but we couldn’t, perhaps you should”….) they all got on swimmingly. we organised a traditional Zambian meal for them, and they all threw themselves into eating the stiff polenta-like ‘nshima’ and chicken stew sans cutlery (with the hands is the traditional African way to eat) with gusto, in both a polite and tidy way that only a table full of Brits could do! conversation flowed freely and comfortably, and we found that one couple lived but a stone’s throw from where the husband grew up and he had gone to school with some of their friend’s children. we connected especially well with one other couple who stayed an extra night after the others left. they asked us to join them on a game drive on their last evening, we enjoyed sundowners together, and the wife and i chatted so effusively that we almost had to be pushed back on to the vehicle as the sun set. we didn’t see much amazing game that night, but they went on to another camp for a few nights, and during a transfer with some other guests we caught up with them, and what they had gone on to see- everything and more, lions, tigers and bears virtually- and i haven’t been so thrilled for a guest as i was for them, in a very long time. it was their first ever safari and they were so lovely and enthusiastic, and i think we may just have helped give them the Africa bug- they were promising to return to the valley in a year or two, and by the slight moistening in their eyes as we said our second and final farewell, i think they were telling the truth.
there was also a gorgeous Italian couple who stayed with us for two days and who taught me the Italian for ‘anchovy’ which i promptly forgot, but nonetheless they forgave me my useless language skills and i still managed to delight them by triumphantly stating ‘bellissimo’ whenever there was a lull in conversation! the italian gent was quite thrilled to find the number of things he had in common with the husband, and over tea one day pronounced of him “you play gee-tarrr, i play gee-tarr, you take photo, i take photo- you are like the African photocopy of me!”. i’m not sure which pleased the husband more- the obvious joy that they had found in the connection of two kindred spirits, or the suggestion that he was African! they wrote in our guest book, of myself and the husband, “we will never forget you!”, which is just a lovely sentiment and made me feel so proud that despite some language barriers, we had made such an impression in such a short period of time.
and a few days ago we had a fantastic aussie family of 4 (mum, dad, and two grown up kids) who were a total pleasure to look after, and so down to earth, appreciative and warm hearted that i welled up when they left after 3 nights and almost refused to let them on their transfer vehicle out of camp. i bumped into them at the airport this morning- they were leaving the valley on the same flight as me, and we greeted as old friends, hugging and exclaiming over their continued triumphant sightings. all the Australian people i’ve met who have travelled in
finally, i had (and i say just ‘i’ because by this point the husband was long on his way to England, and I was running the camp on my own) a couple stay in camp for four nights, an unprecedented lengthy period of time for one of our camp stays (2 nights is average, 3 common, 4 damned near unheard of). the husband of the couple revealed to me on his second morning that he had been a major player in one of the bigger safari tour operators a few years back, and instantly his veiled references to ‘work in Africa’ and ’25 years in the business’ slipped into place. i tried not to be intimidated by this, but i was aware that his judgement suddenly strangely meant just that little bit more because he was very well informed about what makes a ‘good bushcamp’. when on their last evening in camp i offered them a private dinner, and they turned it down in favour of eating with myself and the guide i got an inkling that i must be doing something right. when, over the course of the meal i mentioned that we had only been running Chindeni since the beginning of June, and prior to this i had hosted at the lodge and in
i’ve realised there can be little more pleasing work than being involved in a hospitality industry, doing a role like ours. we have been given excellent tools to work with- our camp is stunning, top quality and beautifully designed and built, our staff are sensible (most of the time!), knowledgeable and capable, and we have a safari guide based in camp who i genuinely think is the best in the Valley, probably Zambia, possibly Africa- so all we have to do is make sure everything happens at the right time and smile, sit back and let our guests have a great holiday. it is incredibly fulfilling, and instantly gratifying, and i can feel it changing me as a person inside. i feel so positive, and happy, and it is fantastic to be working at something that i enjoy, and that i seem to be quite good at without having to work at it, if that makes sense.
so, along with the other physical changes I’ve noticed since i arrived in camp- i’m certain my waistline is expanding, and frankly it would be naïve to believe my mother’s assertions that I would be far too busy to get fat, (the large sumptuous buffet lunches we arrange, the tea and cakes at four o’clock and the three course dinners every night are built in to the work schedule, and i’ve never been one to say no to food). god knows what kind of behemoth I will be by the end of the season. my skin has broken out a little, in reaction to the heat and the dust I expect, but on the plus side my nails are super strong and my hair is looking pretty glossy, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of tools, sprays, potions and lotions I usually have at hand to tame it. I’m finding tough little pads of hard and cracking skin working up on the side of my index fingers where I run the tent’s zip (effectively our front door) over my finger a dozen or more times a day, etc, etc- most importantly, i am finding myself incredibly happy and fulfilled emotionally. i can feel my whole body slipping back into the African rhythm. slower, more patient, more accepting, and more appreciative of the little things. i feel good, both physically and mentally. as a wise musical man once said “i’m overcome with an enormous sense of well-being.”.
but enough of my Chindeni daze on my Chindeni days. i’m sure that i am starting to ramble, by this time it is late in to the night, i still have an early start to face in a few hours, and this one will be a little out of the ordinary. when i wake up pre-dawn tomorrow morning it will not be to a beautiful serene sunrise over a private lagoon, but instead it will be to offload from a plane, bleary eyed into
i love the festival with all my heart, but its not quite as rejuvenating for my body and soul as the bushcamp is, and i think i will need every scrap of sleep i can get.
so for now, i’m signing out….
