Bachlorettes and Elephant Bums

So Easter Weekend proved to be fairly eventful for me. Normally life consists of American Idol (rock on rocker man and Peter Brady), puppies, the internet, and markets. However, are you ready to hear about weeping engaged women, elephant bums, and good food? If so, read ahead...

So on Saturday my mom and I ventured off to what would be the equivalent of a North American bridal shower/bachlorette party with Aunty Cheryl. Except this is African style baby. So as we walk in they make this noise, I'm not sure how to describe, but they always do it when they get excited...um...yeah I'm not going to try and describe it. They escorted us up to the front row, because we're white. They play their music LOUD, like we're talking...rock concert volume. In order to talk, meet people, and make conversation, you basically had to shatter their ear drums, and gave up after saying "WHAT!?" three times. It started at one, and the bride didn't enter until about 3:30. For Zambians, this party is bigger than the wedding itself. 350 women showed up. While waiting for the bride they served us food, drinks, sang, and danced. When the bride comes in, the husband's family and wife's family dance infront of her leading her in (including the 80 yr old grandma! Sweetest dancer ever right there). Then she sits down on this matress infront of everybody with an aunt on either side, and they cry for around 5 minutes. This is because she's supposed to be sad that she's leaving her family. After that there's more singing and dancing. About ten minutes later the groom comes in, with the families dancing in front of him again. He presents gifts to the bride (she has to look sad the entire party), and then the bride and groom present gifts to her mother. The groom then dances on out. They had a lady preach after all of this, and would you like to know the three things I remember? They're wonderful little nuggets of wisdom...
"Do not come to your husband in tears. How should he hold his head up then?"
"Always be clean and smell good, for when your husband presents you, you should give him pride."
And the best...
"Now, what two things does your husband need when he comes home? Hallelujah? Amen? Yes? SEX AND FOOD!"
Haha...different cultures make me laugh. Once that wonderful message is over, it's gift time. In front of the bride there is a mat where everybody's gifts are placed. When your name is called, you dance up there, open the gift infront of the bride, tell her what it's used for, and go back to your seat. During gift opening basically every woman in the place was on her feet dancing away. So then that left us three white women in the front row sitting on our bums hoping nobody would notice. No such luck. This african woman I didn't even know comes along.
"Girl! Why don't you dance!?"
"Haha, I can't dance!"
"Oh nonsense!"
It was at this time she grabbed my hands, wrapped a chetenge around my waist and put me infront of everybody. I figured I'd look more stupid if I just stood there still. So I danced...yup. I danced. We left early (at 5:30) because we didn't think it'd end until around ten. As we were leaving one of the ladies leaned over to me and said 'wonderful dancing!' I can't help but think it was a sympathy compliment. This Saturday I get to go to the wedding, so you can be sure I'll fill you in on that.

I'll allow you intermission now, to regroup, and prepare yourself for animal stories...
Eat some popcorn....
Although I prefer chocolate...
Intermission over.

On Monday we decided to go to this hotel/game park called the Protea about an hour outside of Lusaka. It's a very nice hotel (200 bucks a night) owned by a Dutch lady. There's a really nice pool, EXCELLENT service (extremely rare to find here), and then some African animals spread throughout the property. We got there and made reservations for the 1 o clock bri buffet, seats on the 3 o clock game drive, and decided to wander over and look at Lions. We walked over to the biiiiig Lion place, and there were three of them. The one big male had his mane shaved cause the poor sucker was...well....unable to have children lets say. He also had scars on his back cause he always fights with his offsrping. They were like as big as a bear, just not as furry. They're sooo pretty though.

Since lunch wasn't for another 50 minutes, we walked down this trail, where up ahead of us were a couple ladies. All of a sudden this elephant comes walking out infront of them. The same thing was going through all our heads at that point is there anybody with that elephant...? Then this little man popped out of the bush though and we felt safe. Found out the elephant was 15 yrs old (same as me!) and turns 16 in September. Her name was something crazy and African that I could never try and type out. So then the handler, Bongo, goes "Madam, you can sit on her!" I laughed really hard and then was like meh, why not, how many times do you get to sit on an elephant in the bush of Africa? So he goes "SIT!" And the darling elephant kneels right down for me! I walked around to the other side and hopped right on up (okay, big understatement there. I had to like hang onto Bongo, throw myself onto the elephants back and grab on). Then she started to stand, and I had to grab on for all I was worth so I didn't fall off. Once she was standing, I felt SO high, it was incredible. She kept sticking her trunk up and trying to touch me. Her skin was all wrinkly and sandy. But it pretty much made me decide that elephants are my new favorite animal.

She'll grow to be twice that size and will get as old as 100 years old. So on my 50th birthday or something I'll go back there and be like hey remember me!? We're the same age and I sat on you! After hanging out with the el-e-phant we wandered back over to this sitting area. There's this big pond, and then all these trees with low tables and lounge chairs where you can sit. So we hung out there and order drinks waiting for 1 o clock to roll around. While sitting there I thought I saw what ws a statue of a Cudu in the garden, when suddenly it started moving I was like, dang, that thing's real! My mother and I ran after it with the cameras and mom took an awkward looking picture of me next to the Cudu's bum while he was trying to eat.

I felt bad disturbing him. We looked over to see some tsesabees (sesabees) and decided they deserved some photos too.


Lunch was then served and it has to be the second best lunch I have ever had in my life - so amazing. And for dessert, there was this AMAZING dark chocolate cake. We lounged around some more after that and then at 3 o clock we hopped onto the safari vehicle. We drove around the bush for a while, which was super cool cause youre in this open vehicle afraid you're basically gunna fall out and die any second. They drove us out onto their airstrip where there were these animals called Elans all in one big heard. They're pretty cool. Kinda funny looking.

I think he had an itchy back. Those horns come in handy. We continued our drive and saw some vervet monkeys, but they were pretty deep in the bush. There were also some baboons. On our drive back towards the lodge place, we came across the elephant again. This time my dad sat on it, but I also got a comparison as to what a Grandma's bum looks like when she wears jeans that don't fit her right.

After that we ventured around the lions again and went back to the lodge. Overall it was pretty nice to have a break and experience some sweet African things. Today I experienced a creepy African one hour photo service. But that's another post for another day.