That one time we drove over the equator.

What I learned this weekend:

Germans are crazy-cool.

Water buffaloes like their privacy.

My hand and Sharon’s seem to have been shaped for each other.

Germans are cool, crazy-cool, because while we showed up at Queen Elizabeth National Park in a coaster bus, this couple showed up on a tandem bike. They biked from Germany. From Germany.

While a certain water buffalo was “watering the grass”, we stopped the bus and watched. Some people took pictures—only because it was all very impressive. That’s when he started chasing the bus.

My hand and Sharon’s. Saturday night, we were walking back to our tents, and we saw some massive black spots in the grass. They were waterbucks. Which are the size of bucks in Ohio, only 13 times bigger, and sharp horns replace the antlers. We had to pass them to get to our tents. Six of us got halfway, the waterbuck stood up from his sleeping position, and we all ran. On take two, there was about 16 of us. So we held hands, walked swiftly, and our lives were spared. Hah.
The only reason we would be afraid of things that look like deer: we had passed these same waterbucks (via bus) on our way to dinner. And two of them were fighting over a girl. Those horns are fierce.

What else are fierce: elephants. They’re fierce if you think about it. If you remember that their birth/gestation process is 22 months, rather than 9, so of all the animals, they are the most protective of their young. And they have tusks and truck-legs to prove it, if they have to.

After 11 hours of driving on Friday (7 hours my eye), we had some trouble getting into the park because it was after dark. And because some elephants were blocking our path.

Two grown, and their kids, were “crossing” the road. Except that just means they were standing there. Driver Charles, the only male on a bus of 24 people, assumed I was the group leader because my seat was right behind him and because I introduced myself at the start of the trip. But I only introduced myself because I was sitting behind him, not because I know whether or not he should take that short-cut in Kampala; but I played along any way. Because this meant he kept me updated. “Let me stop for gas.” Okay.
But then there were the elephants. Charles stopped the bus and asked, “Are we safe?”
He asked if we should keep going. I told the rest of the bus that Charles wanted to know if we should keep going. Betsy and I told Charles that he was the driver, it was his decision. Meanwhile someone yelled, “the whole back of the bus wants to keep driving!” They weren’t listening to Adrienne, a future zoologist if she wanted to, who said the male elephant was agitated. Charles finally pointed out that the elephants had their young with them, so we should turn around. Yet people kept saying, “Keep going,” and “I think elephants are peaceful.” But Charles stuck with his intuition (common sense, maybe?) and reversed.
He drove back to the last evidence of human life we saw—which was thankfully a police car (this was my first time seeing a police car here in Uganda). He asked the men for another route, and explained our situation. The man laughed, and said through the bus window, “They had their young with them. They would’ve killed you. Would’ve killed you all.”
Hah.

What’s funny about all of this, Betsy and I think, is God’s providence. As soon as the police man said this, Betsy gave me a look and said, “What if the people in the back of the bus were sitting behind Charles?” Because Charles really did, all weekend, what we asked him. (For instance: Sunday. Becca was waiting all 11 hours for zebras, because she missed their sighting on the ride there. So when Erin screamed zebra! Becca—who was sleeping on my lap—jumped up and yelled ‘Stop the bus!’, and sure enough, Charles immediately pulled over). Anyway, the seating arrangement and God’s provision: Friday, as we were waiting for the bus to pick us up, we stood with our bags for a half hour before Betsy pointed out that we were standing for a half hour with our bags. So she and I found a place to sit, far from our spot in line. About two minutes later, the bus showed up, and we were the last ones to load. What luck. As we sat in the only seats left, the poor ones behind the driver, I told Betsy, “This sucks too much to be purposeless. There’s a reason we’re sitting here.” But I was only kidding. Anyway, funny stuff.

Sometime during this unscheduled, night-time safari called “travel,” we passed these things that looked a lot like they were from the antelope family. Some sort of impala or gazelle or something. Sharon, though. Sharon stood up in her seat, pumped her fist and said, “That’s a kob! That’s my clan!”
Clan pride was all over her.

We saw a whole lot of Pumba this weekend. The warthogs walked around the park like stray dogs. Sharon is convinced that it was Pumba who was snorting against our tent Friday night; she may be right. That was before our tents caught fire. (Kidding).

Most of Friday night, instead of sleeping, I looked at the stars through the tent screen and wondered what it is that my family normally sleeps on when we camp. Because surely it’s not rocks. Sunday morning I remembered, and woke up saying, “Air mattresses. That’s what’s missing.”

We had a boat safari and two land ones. The boat ones were for the sake of hippos, of course. I used to think hippos were colorful, friendly guys who eat colored beads when you press their tails. But that’s only a game. “Ghost stories” in the tent, when you’re in Africa, consist of scenes your brother saw on the Discovery Channel. Lauren had to tell us about the hippo who pulled a man out of a safari truck, bit him once, watched him writhe, bit him again, watched him writhe, then ate him. Needless to say, I’ve been underestimating hippos. And now I think I hate them. Especially because Holly saw them 10 feet from our tents.

Betsy and I didn’t go on the third safari Sunday morning. The only justification for maybe going would be to see a lion—which we didn’t see in the first one—but in the grand scheme of things, they look the same at the zoo. So we stayed behind, and it was wonderful. It was the first time I’ve really felt on my own since I’ve been here. No schedule, no leader, no massive group of Americans. Just us and the massive lake and our single lonely tent.

I was walking back from the showers when I saw the most humorous thing of the weekend. It was straight from Wild America, the scene with the moose.

Because Betsy was standing at the tent, brushing her hair, as this massive waterbuck slowly walked behind her. What was hilarious, on my end, was the fact that Betsy had no idea it was behind her. It was ridiculously hilarious.

We stayed behind so we could have a Palm Sunday service. This consisted of sitting on two logs, reading the Triumphal Entry passages in the Gospels, and singing with our horrible voices. The crazy-cool Germans’ tent was only feet from us, which made me feel Muslim: only because, very often in Uganda, if you’re not woken up by the roosters, it’s the Muslims’ early morning prayers/singing that wakes you up. Suddenly the tables were turned and I wondered if the Germans thought we were crazy and/or Arab.
But it was a Palm Sunday I won’t forget. Especially because there was an omelette involved.

Speaking of the Muslim prayers. We pass this massive mosque every time we drive through Kampala. And there is always someone on a microphone singing/chanting/praying. I don’t know what to say about this, other than it is one of the most beautiful things in the world to hear. Like bagpipes, only creepier. Because I can’t decide if it’s really scary, or really soothing, to listen to them pray. But it is beautiful; that much I know.

What I realized most this weekend, I think—other than how much I miss Arby’s and the movie theatre and my sister—is how wild God is. That Derek guy from last week mentioned in passing how Adam was created in the wilderness, and Eve was created in the garden, and how sweet that is—and that has nothing to do with anything I’m about to say, other than the closeness of the words “wild” and “wilderness.”

But, really, God is so dangerous, awesome (aweful), and untamed; I really do love this about Him. It’s just that, in America, I can see a polar bear walk around its allotted area and man-made cave and green pool, but it means nothing to me, other than, “God, I’m glad you made that thing white. It’s pretty sweet.” But having to hold Sharon’s hand for the life of me as we shuffle past horned things, that are taller than us, in the dark, and hearing the man say “It would’ve killed you all,” and knowing massive hippo jaws are within walking distance from where you sleep, dang. God’s wildness gets under your skin fast, and His “Creator-ness” suddenly means a whole lot of different things than it meant three months ago.

P.S. It’s been forever since I’ve done laundry. Because it takes hours, and much pre-planning, there hasn’t been enough time. Which has made for an uncomfortable cycle of the same three outfits, for weeks. My plan was to spend all of Tuesday at home, avoid campus, and get all the laundry done. But last night as I returned home, the massive heap was clean and dried and folded nicely on my bed. Rebecca. I was so thankful, but so upset that she had to do that, that she did do that. My nasty, beyond-Febreeze clothes (red dust makes your clothes unwearable fast). I hugged her and thanked her and apologized, and she brushed it off. “But it was so easy. I did it for love, so it was not hard.”
I so love this family.