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My first herd of zebras!

Monday PM, March 2nd

After our 30 minute flight from Maun, Botswana to the Shinde camp on a 6 seat propeller plane across the Okavango delta, we loaded up onto an open-air safari truck for our first drive into the wild. I had no idea what I would see, but I was absolutely overwhelmed by all of the fabulous beauty, majesty and creativity of my Creator. I have always been accustomed to complimenting the Lord on every detail of His creation which I have encountered throughout my life (as many of my friends have noted in the lyrics to my songs which frequently refer to nature). Every now and then, I am moved to tears by the creative efforts of human beings as I was the first time I saw the opening number in the musical “The Lion King”. Something about the way the costume designers, choreographers and composers had portrayed the African wildlife to be presented on a wooden stage moved me with both an appreciation for the artists and the Master Designer who created the original which they mimicked.

But I was completely unprepared for the emotion that I experienced upon initially encountering firsthand the wildlife of the African savannah. I wish I had time to paint all of the dramatic pictures that I experienced, but it is almost tea time at the main camp and I certainly don’t want to miss an opportunity to have a delicious cup of Red Rooibus tea before we head out in a boat on one of the waterways of the delta.

Let me just list for you some of the animals that we saw and then you will have to see either videos or photos to give you a better picture of everything: 2 elephants, 42 zebra, 13 hippos, a mother giraffe and 2 babies, 5 baboons, inumerable impala, red lechwe, reedbuck, tsessebe, warthog, wildebeast and many, many more.

Fortunately, I was wearing the dark Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses my sweet husband bought for me which hid the tears from my friends and the Batswana guide on our journey. “The Lion King” although my favorite live performance of any kind, anywhere gives but a taste of the majesty and beauty of the Great Choreographer, Designer and Composer who created Africa.

Posted on Mon, March 2, 2009 by Jennifer Crow

1 comment (Add your own)

1. Isabella wrote:
Human trafficking and pittoisutron are intertwined. One cannot thrive without the other, especially in places where pittoisutron is legal. Local girls and women cannot or will not service the seemingly endless demand. Legalized pittoisutron areas attract human traffickers as war zones attract arms dealers. To achieve success in combatting human trafficking we must also combat pittoisutron. I recommend the approach implemented in Sweden for the past 10 years. The Swedish government has reported recently on the results and lessons learned from their 10 years of experience in attacking the demand for pittoisutron and for the most part they are on the right path to significantly decreasing human trafficking and street pittoisutron through reducing demand from johns and extending supports for prostitutes to exit/avoid the business. This summer the Canadian Federation of University Women passed a resolution at our AGM urging our federal government to adopt the Swedish model. We will be using this resolution as a basis for our advocacy work on pittoisutron and human trafficking. This resolution came from the Vancouver club, which is active in community coalitions working on this subject. Our participation has helped to increase the public profile on this issue and this approach. An unanticipated benefit has been the energizing effect on both our own club and the women's and community organizations with whom we are working. The cause is growing in interest and concern to ordinary people and to our political leaders. We are a part of this change and that is important for the relevance and viability of our local, national and international university womens' organizations and for the efficacy of all of our advocacy work. I urge the IFUW and compliment the CFUW and IFUW for advocating on this cruel barrier to women's equality.

Tue, April 3, 2012 @ 2:50 PM

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