mary

Hi blog readers! Blog writer here! Sorry my blog is so long, but it’s good! Hey ya know I was wondering what would happen if you put a pickle in a toaster? Will one of you try that for me? My mom won’t let me try it myself.
So anyway, in this last vacation we took, we realized how much we will miss Zimbabwe. It started on Friday, which was a half day. School got out at twelve. Why? For the teacher’s appreciation lunch. Who besides teachers would want to appreciate teachers? That’s what I want to know. None of us students appreciate our teachers. I guess it’s just something teachers do so not to bruise their self-esteem. And the worst thing about it is that we were not invited (us students) to eat lunch with them!!! They throw a party celebrating themselves, inviting nobody but themselves! Selfish. I really do love our school, though not the teachers. We have beautiful lush green grass all over campus. That’s right. No hall way. Campus. It’s awesome! We used to always eat lunch under the palm trees with the peacocks, but the peacocks keep having babies and they’re getting really obnoxious. So now we eat at the top of the big grassy hill or on the bench outside the Geography room.
After the teacher appreciation lunch, we got into two cars. Claire Ingram’s car and Amanda (Ben’s mom’s) car. In case, you are reading one of my blogs for the first time, Ben is Bryce’s best friend who is at our house every day from the time school gets out till 7. So he’s practically our brother. He even answers our gate sometimes and things like that! He’s always at our house! So we went in two cars. Me, Bryce and Ben sat in the back seat of Claire’s car with her daughter Holly in the front seat beside her. Holly is exactly one year younger than I am. We have the same birthday. So the reason we all sat in one car is because Max (Ben’s little brother) and his friend Oliver were in the other car with Amanda and my mom. And I know I am 12 and 12 year olds aren’t supposed to hate 8 year olds, but Oliver is EVIL! EVIL I TELL YOU!!!! >:( He really is. So we were sure that none of us had to sit by Oliver; all four of us kids went in a different car than the lighties. Lighties- I’m speaking British! Lighties is the Zimbabwean term for little kids. Max is okay but Oliver is an evil little kid. The whole car ride, we had a great time. Well I did any way. When we got bored, I started rhyming people’s names. I was rhyming Bryce with nice with mice with lice and I was rhyming Ben with hen and pen and then, Holly’s name I rhymed with Ollie, collie, jolly. I started laughing so hard because the activity of rhyming names was just so, so stupid. I laughed until I cried.
Then we pulled up in Antelope Park and got out of the car. (check out the pictures here) It was simply yellow grass and some straw huts. That’s what Zimbabwean hotels are like. I’m going to miss that in America where all the hotels are made of cement and bricks and have TVs in them and white walls. The ones in Zim have brown walls. But Bryce’s rich friend owns a hotel which has white walls but that’s a five star hotel and a whole different story. As I was saying, we checked in right away in reception which was simply a hut on the grassy field. The reception is a gift shop as well. We tried on all kinds of funny hats and looked at cool wooden African decorations and sculptures. The straw huts, the peacocks, the wooden sculptures- that’s when I realized it was all simply Zimbabwe. I realized I was gonna miss Zim so much. But the whole vacation was ahead of us and I had more I was going to miss. After we checked in, we went over the bridge which stood above a river and we went to the hut we’d be staying in. The river had only one crocodile in it and a few boats chained up. Our room was so nice! It had six beds and a low ceiling loft that included another four beds and even a sink and a hot water machine!!! The hot water machine was so you could make tea. There were four toilets (that’s right- a lot of toilets) down a small hall in the hut. There were even two out door showers.
Me, Holly, Ben and Bryce all slept on the loft. The adults and lighties slept on the bottom floor. Our porch had a great view of the river and horizon and plenty of animals. We even saw an otter swim by in the river!!! Watch out for the crocodile, otter!  Our first night in the hotel was just settling in. We hung out, had dinner (great steak) and then we went to bed. When we were told to turn the lights off and be quiet, we got our Nintendo D.S.’s and went into a chat room where we continued to talk. Ben does not have a D.S. and Holly forgot hers, so Holly and I shared my D.S, Ben used Bryce’s, and Bryce used the laptop for some other thing. He didn’t chat with us. Oh, and speaking of Bryce, he too is writing a blog on this adventure so tell your friends to read MY BLOG! NOT HIS! I CALLED WRITING THE BLOG, SO READ MY BLOG, NOT BRYCE’S!
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The next morning, we woke up, had some tea (everyone in Zimbabwe drinks lots of tea- another thing I will miss) and we went onto the porch to watch the sun rise. Mom and Claire were gone but Amanda was here and so were the rest of us kids. We woke up at 6: 30. We did not want to miss any excitement. I like how in Zimbabwe, you’re not in the middle of nowhere like everyone says you are—you’re in the middle of every where. You are with the lions, the elephants; you’re in the middle of nature. In the U.S, everyone is so caught up in their jobs and their cars and they sleep in late and have nothing. The U.S. has nothing, even though it has everything. No offense. You might have McDonalds and Starbucks, but you don’t have lions and straw huts. And just to prove my point, where were Mom and Claire gone that morning? They’d gone walking with the lions!
That morning, we just sat on the porch, lying back, watching the sun rise, listening to the lions roar. We had quite a busy schedule that day. At 9:00, elephant rides, at 1:30 we had cub viewing, and that was pretty much it. At 7:00 pm, the adults went on the lion hunting thing which lasted till 10:30.
At 9, we went and rode elephants. Best experience of my life! The elephants were so tame and amazing. My mom dropped her sweater; one of the elephants picked it up and gave it to her! Not only did we ride the elephants, the next day, we got to play soccer with them too! That’s right! Soccer with elephants. For the rest of the vacay, we were constantly petting the elephants, feeding them, riding them bare back, and being with them whenever we could. The elephants were named Cheebie, Jetcha, Tombie, and Amai. Amai was Bryce’s favorite because she was the one who picked things up with her trunk and gave them to us every five seconds! Ben received 6 presents from her, I received ten. She was so cute! The elephant Jetcha even picked me up with his trunk at one point when I was only trying to pet him. He was the male, therefore aggressive. We later, went to pet the lion cubs. They were so cute! The lion cub Collie even got stuck when climbing a tree. And after riding elephants, hanging in the gift shop, sleeping in the hut, building a fort out of stones, canoeing, playing games outside 24-7, I realized more than I’d ever realized that I was going to miss Africa so, so much. I’d known I would, but by the end of this vacation, that’s when I really thought it over. And it’s so sad, that we have to leave this place. The rest of the vacay went pretty cool. One very main event was when we went to the docks and were hanging on a boat chained up. It was tied to the bridge and we were basking in the sun on it. It continued to feel like the boat was drifting off down the stream. And we continued to feel relaxed…until we realized the rope tying the boat to the dock had actually come undone and we really WERE drifting down stream! Bryce ran down the bridge, screaming while me, Ben, and Holly tied the boat back up. It was so scary!!!! :} That night, the adults went on the Night watch where they watched lions hunt. The lions only made a single kill however- an impala. My mom walked with the lions too at 6 am. Did I mention that? She said it was really fun. She also said that the lions hunted then too but made no kills. A drunk man visiting from California was also staying at Antelope park and he was so, so drunk! He was singing and dancing and picking his nose. And at one point when I was not talking, he said “SHUT UP, COWG!” to me then he started to laugh hard. What is a COWG? There was a drunk people party the night the grown ups went on the Night watch. It was hilarious to watch them sing and dance so absently. And we woke up at Antelope park to the orange sun rise every morning, walking through the tall yellow grass, riding elephants, sleeping in a hut. In America, I’ll never get to do that again. I’ve finally realized just how much I’m going to miss Zimbabwe.