My African Photo Safari - Journal Entry #6 - August 23, 1988

Afternoon Drive: We drove around looking for subjects to photograph, but as with the morning drive, no subjects initially presented themselves. At one point after lunch, everyone decided to take a bathroom break. The men went to the front of the first Land Rover, and the women went behind the third Land Rover. I didn't have to go, so I stayed in the vehicle. After everyone had been back in the vehicle for about ten minutes, simultaneous itching broke out among everyone who participated in the bathroom break. Lucky me. For once I wasn't afflicted with something. Upon close inspection, Len Sr. established that tiny, red mites were found to be the culprits.

We saw many zebras that afternoon, and I recorded on film, many different behaviors. I called one photo, "The Line-Up," as many Grant's Zebras were lined up, single-file, stopped. Then I photographed a solitary zebra drinking at the watering hole, then leaving by itself. Next, I saw two, three, and four zebra drinking together, at another watering hole. Then I noticed zebra reflections, in a small pool of standing water.

We also spotted a mother zebra, with her very large foal, still nursing. The foal was almost as big as the mother. Through my 300 mm lens, I noticed the raised, brown fur towards the back of the foal. This brown fur disappears, as the zebra matures.

We headed back to camp at dusk. When we arrived, there was a large canopy tent, and inside were the familiar card tables we used for dining. There were fluorescent lights that night, which provided much more light than the lanterns.

That night Lenny's stories went uninterrupted, as the lovely canopy kept out the nasty looking bugs. After the stories, he brought out his harmonica and began to provide us with some night music, after which, we all said good night.

Ann and I went back to our tent, and started our nightly ritual of journal writing, camera cleaning, and getting everything set for the morning so we could be ready, as fast humanly possible, for Lenny's wake up announcement. I got up, to use the "new," flush toilet, one last time before bed, and returned to our tent. As I was zipping it closed for the night, THE ZIPPER BROKE! (Lenny's story about the three men that went into a tent one night was fresh in my mind. (Please see my earlier journal entry, "Three Men in a Tent.") - You can find this story, in my Journal Entry #3 - August 13, 1988, at the third paragraph from the bottom.

"Ann, guess what just happened?" I asked. "What?" she answered. "The zipper just broke!," I said. We both laughed nervously. "What are we going to do?" she asked. "I'm going to tell Lenny. He'll probably have something to fix it with," I said optimistically.

Cliff and Don were the first people we saw on our way to find Lenny. We told them our dilemma. I don't know why Don thought to bring butterfly clips (like binder clips) but he did. I said, "Thank you Don. You're a lifesaver!" and we all laughed at this; a joke that went with Lenny's, "Three Men in a Tent," story. We borrowed all five of Don's clips, and clipped the tent flap closed, with them. Cliff lent us his Masai fighting stick, "Just in Case." The tent was once again, "secure." Ann and I went into the tent that night, and we both came out, in the morning.

Posted on December 1, 2019 10:37 PM by kathleenlryan kathleenlryan

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