What's in a Name?

The Sunbirds, Zabeta, Kirstin and Catherine, enjoying a Rulo Sundance Chardonnay in Vilanculous

The past few weeks have been a really amazing experience.  As I sit in the Hong Kong airport over a long transit, looking at a few pictures (I have several thousand!) I am truly awe inspired by the trip.  Given the complexity of what we did, we had very little go wrong and nearly everything - from the weather; to customs and immigration in several countries; to the peculiarities of an old and small airplane - go right. 

We learned a few things along the way, including how to say thank you (and hello) in:

• Zulu
• Swana
• Davelli
• Shona

We also learned that Africans are very creative when naming their children.  Here are just a few of the names that we encountered along the way:

• Chote  - an amazing Bush guide who found us a beautiful female leopard early one morning at Deception Valley.
• Kay-Ha - an equally amazing guide who enacted a traditional Bush medicine dance for us...more on that later.
• Jacu - An Afrikans man, and proprietor of the Deception Valley Lodge, who was an encyclopedia of information about the Kalahari bush and was willing to take 5 gringos on a walk through it to show us how special it is, up close and personal.
• Trythings - the manager at the Elephant Hills Resort.
• Bright - a Concierge at the Elephant Hills Resort.
• Edmore - a wonderful waiter at the Elephant Hills Resort, who not only spoke 9 languages, but danced with me and Catherine on my birthday.
• Memory - Staff member at the Elephant Hills resort
• Sunny - Staff member at the Elephant Hills resort
• Moses - The Air Traffic Controller at Mashvingo, who very kindly gave us a tour of his office and was incredibly helpful in organizing both the flight plan filing and immigrations and customs for Zimbabwe.
• Welcome - Our waiter at the Great Zimbabwe Lodge.  A kind and gentle giant, who served us the worst wine I have ever tasted in my life and then made it right by finding us a replacement.  This caused us to say: "Thank you, Welcome...," which just sounded weird.
• Champion - Our very knowledgable and passionate guide at the Great Zimbabwe ruins.
• Chipo - (This means "Gift" in Shona).  A woman marketing manager for the Kyle Lake Game Reserve, who not only accompanied us on our game drive, but also ensured that we understood everything that Kyle Lake had to offer so that we could and would encourage others to come.
• Nasha - The security officer at the Mashvingo airport, who expedited our entrance and exit from the airport.
• Jimmi - the airport Marshall at Kruger airfield.  He used those red paddles to help us park the plane.  That was our only experience with the paddle thing, and it was the second to last stop on the trip...
• Senior - (a woman) the Customs officer at Kruger.  She is a twin, and the first to be born, hence the name.
• Hillary -  (a man) our general guide for Mashvingo, and (I think) the only unmarried adult that we encountered on our trip.
• Dudu - A waitress at Askari Lodge, who very kindly set a table on our porch outside our chalet so that we could have al fresco room service.
• Paolo (X2) - one was a  waiter and one a manager at the Vilanculos Beach Lodge. 
• Jefita - The Elephant Hills Resort shuttle driver, who took care to ensure that we saw everything around Victoria Falls.
• David - Jefita's brother who worked in Mashvingo at the Great Zimbabwe Lodge (600 kilometres from the Elephant Hills Resort). 
• Tian - the manager of Nxamaseri (pronounced N-click-aseri....it's a Swana language thing that has to be heard to understand).
• Kapinga (aka Adam) - Our guide in Nxamaseri, who loved birds and passed that love on to us.  I'm buying a bird book as soon as I get home.
• Emanuel - The Mashvingo airport manager. More on Mashvingo in a later post....Emanuel - The Mashvingo airport manager. More on Mashvingo in a later post....

We were blown away by the passion, customer service attitude, and interest in three women flying around in a small airplane.  We got some initial disbelief from some people when they discovered that Catherine was the pilot and that we were roaming around Africa in a plane just a little bit bigger than a VW beattle, but in large part the reaction was joy and excitement over what we were doing.  My favorite quote was just yesterday, from our game drive guide, Warren, in Askari who after hearing our story said:  "You rock!"

We did. The trip did. And none of us will ever be the same for it.