Welcome to the Karoo

We are lying in bed for an afternoon nap debating whether we would want to see a cobra in the wild or not. I think it probably depends on the circumstances…

We have been at the game reserve for less than 24 hours, and already we have seen an enormous variety of animals. The stars of the show have been rhino, giraffe, wildebeast, and rock monitor, but the various antelope and birds have been beautiful as well. With any luck, we’ll see the cheetah and her cubs. We found the rhino yesterday within a few hundred yards of where we are sleeping. There was a monkey drinking from the swimming pool. So far, no snakes.

I was telling Sharon that it feels surreal to me to suddenly be on a game reserve seeing these exotic animals. Just a day ago we were driving along the coast after breakfast in Cape Town. Even in the car on the way up here I would not have expected to find all of this. But, here we are, suddenly enjoying what they call the Karoo in the middle of South Africa. It is a high plain or steppe that is pretty dry. The terrain is rough and scrubby for the most part. Lots of shrubs, aloe, cactus, and thorn trees. The point of the reserve is to reintroduce animals into what used to be their natural habitat, but in a very balanced, natural way, and then to allow people to come and enjoy it.

It’s been a few days now since we’ve blogged. In that time, we’ve had some really quality time with some great people. We’ve had a chance to spend quite a bit of time with the Cordles - went to church with them, celebrated Cathy’s birthday with their extended family, made guacamole for them, and discussed thoughts on faith and family. They’ve been great to us.

On Monday, we met with Garth Collins for a couple hours over coffee. Garth is a mutual friend of some of our stateside friends. He has been working with members of the parliament here for several decades, so he was able to offer us a lot of perspective on this country’s journey out of Apartheid through reconciliation to where they are today. His point of view is that he is fortunate to live in Cape Town which he presented to us as a microcosm of the world. It is hard to live there and ignore the socioeconomic disparities of our planet. He pointed out that if Americans gave all of their wealth to the poor in the world, it would simply disappear… essentially, money is not the answer. My takeaway was that that idea doesn’t mean we should stop giving money, but that there is a lot more to fixing the disparity than money. The conversation centered more around home, family, dignity, and relationships.

Which provides a nice segue to the following morning when we had breakfast with Ricky and Minty Pato. It was nice to catch up with them and talk about all that we have seen. We hope we will get to see Ricky soon in the U.S., as he is partnered with a church in Tacoma. We tried to encourage the Patos. Their work with children and adolescents in the townships felt as hopeful to us as anything else we saw here.

After the bustle and human interest of Cape Town, it has been nice to drive a bit and process together, although Sharon hasn’t found me to be too talkative during these drives. The drive to Knysna on the southern coast was a bit hairy. On the highway, we discovered some driving norms here in South Africa that we do not have in the U.S. Drivers here seem to have nerves of steel and no patience. By the time we got to Knysna, I was ready for a glass of wine and bed. In the middle of the night last night after the drive to the reserve, I kept waking up to find my fingers were numb from the steering wheel. You literally cannot take your attention away from the highway for a second.
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Andy forgot to mention a few fun things that happened on our first day in the Karoo. We petted an 11 month old Bengal tiger. Yes, you heard me correctly. We went to a place called the Cango Wildlife Ranch where they help breed endangered species such as white lions, white tigers, cheetah, etc. A bit gimmicky, yes, but we could not resist the urge to pay for the chance to pet a tiger. We went into the pen with three of the ranch workers. There were two male cubs (which are already huge at 11 months old). One wasn’t very interested in us and went over to the pool to cool down. The other just lazily stayed on the ground and let us pet him and put our hands next to his paw for perspective. It was a crazy, fun experience.

There was a brilliant lightening storm last night while we were eating dinner at Mt. Camdeboo. When it started pooring down rain, it was comforting because it smelled like rain in Central Oregon.

We are sitting in our room and time and again catch glimpses of vervet monkeys. They seem to play games to see how close they can get to the manor house. Gentlemen, we will have to tell you a fun characteristic about them at some point.

It really was breathtaking this morning to drive out onto a plain where eland, black wildebeast, mountain sprinbok, and plains zebra are roaming together. We have learned amazing things about these animals and it illustrates the beauty and amazing nature of God’s creation.
Our experience in South Africa thus far has been amazing, eye opening, encouraging, beautiful, and the list goes on. We just hope that we can be faithful to what we are learning and experiencing.

(Pictures take a while to upload so we will get some up soon. We haven't had internet access for a few days so we just wanted to get something out there.)