Big wheels keep on rolling

I didn't mean to leave you hanging with all of the bad news. It's actually been an uplifting week, filled with volunteer work, fundraisers and a "barn dance" to benefit Kyeren's Matshwane Primary School. (Can you imagine hearing the Dixie Chicks and Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson over the speakers at an outdoor square dance in the Wild West village of Maun? Well, I heard 'em. And I kicked up my heels during the Virginia Reel in an open-air hall decorated like a Texas-themed prom. I was one of the few in attendance without an appropriate costume, and here I am probably the only one in the joint who can claim to have been a Texas resident.)

A family friend of Kim and Stuart's from South Africa arrived and served as our entertainment during our dinners around the campfire and my partner at the barn dance. His storytelling last week made me laugh until I cried. Let's put it this way: Even though Derek is a card-carrying member of People For Wildlife, he's more afraid of spiders than I am, and unlike Stuart and Kirk, he would jump into a get-away golf cart and speed away before he would use a stick to remove pythons and spitting cobras from the premises. Laughter and storytelling -- these were the antidotes all of us living on the property needed.

The big, quick news flash for the day is that I am driving a burgundy Toyota Surf. I rented it from one of the lodge managers. He flew back to the bush yesterday and left the keys for me. I'll see him Friday, because, hallelujah, I'm headed to the bush again for a week. I'll be back in Savute. But, meanwhile, I've got wheels and clean feet for once (no trudging through the dust today), and, you better believe, I am rollin'! I even knocked that bad boy into 4WD on the sandy road. Ignore the fact that I tore a piece of paper and stuck it in my sun visor: "STEERING WHEEL ON THE CENTER LINE". It's my first time driving on the left-hand side of the road, and I need all the cues I can get.