A Friends Getaway!

While we are all excited to move back to the States, there will be many things about our East African life that we will miss.  Things that top out that list are our good friends, the amazing view of our twin mountains, Meru and Kilimanjaro that keep us in awe every day, and the fact that all that must be done is to drive out of town (and sometimes in town) to see spectacular wildlife that the rest of the world must view in zoos behind fences.  To celebrate all these things, Mommy and Linda and Aiden and I took a short safari to Ndarakwai.  This is Mommy's MOST favorite place in the whole world probably...and pretty high up on my list too (though I haven't visited Disneyland yet.  However, I'm the kinda kid who won't eat the dessert but begs for more salad at today's lunch table....so who knows??)

Aiden and I had sooo much fun playing the drums, seeing the animals and generally getting ourselves into trouble.  When we are together, we are double trouble and our mommies get a bit desperate to figure out a way to make us behave!  On our night drive safari we saw bushbabies and zebra and bushbacks and impala and wildabeest.  During the day today we saw all that  plus so much more.  My favorites were the baboons.  Aiden's favorites were the elephants (I call them elalals and Aiden calls them etas).  We also got to go to a tree house where we climbed up to view the animals (or aminals as I like to say) come to the watering hole.  All day long I told everyone, "I climbed a tree, I climbed a tree". 

In the morning, as the sun was coming up and Mommy was still sound asleep, I woke up and looked out of our tent and right there next to me was a beautiful impala.  I said, "mommy, see that deer, see that deer"  over and over again.  It took Mommy a few minutes to open her eyes.  She was probably thinking something like this, "OH MY @#@#$!  If I open my eyes and fully wake myself from this lovely dream I am having, there is sure to be no deer there and my son will see that I'm awake and that will be the end of it all, and I will want to pummel him on site."  Luckily....for me, she took the chance and opened her eyes and low and behold, there was a deer staring right at us.  What a nice way to wake up. 

Mommy spent some time with Peter the owner of the property.  It's 11,000 acres and he is doing GREAT things with it.  You could see Mommy light up when Peter started talking about how the key to it all is to protect the grass.  She knew he must have read the Omnivore's Dilemma and be a follower of these sorts of philisophies and sure enough....they seemed to be kindred spirits.  Peter knows the land out in west Kili soooo well and he knows all the owners, which crops are currently being grown, which are needed, which grow and which don't grow, where there are water sources and where the land is too dry, and on and on....

In fact, the rest of us got very bored listening to those two drone on....so Aiden and I decided to play bartender why Mommy talked to Peter and poor Linda was left to try to get us out from behind the bar.  Haha! 

What a fun weekend we had with Aiden and Linda.  Thank you to them for such a wonderful gift to go to Ndarakwai together and have those special times and memories.  When Aiden and I first began to play together a year and a half ago, we were friends, but now....we really love to play together and we really love each other, even when we fight over toys.  Still at the end of the day we desperately want to be around each other and when we have to say goodbye we are so sad.  I will miss Aiden so very much when we leave this place and I know how much Mommy will miss Linda.  Friends like that are not easy to come by.  Don't worry though....even if we don't live right down the street from each other, we'll always be friends!