Sunday: To Ukutula

We checked out and drove easily to Ukutula (except for losing a hubcap on the bumpy unpaved road). We are in a camp surrounded by an electrical fence that keeps the lions out. The reserve our camp is in, is also fenced to keep the lions in. Valerie, my travel agent, said I would love this place and I do and so does Steve.

The subject that dared not speak its name: There are things said by locals here, even locals in the tourism industry, and things we see and hear that challenge our values.

I have not followed South African politics. I have “Ostrich Syndrome” (my title) and have never sought to become informed on foreign or domestic issues of injustice. I am aware to a degree, but not informed, so I do not understand references to the current issues and politics here; nor do I want to. I am a guest here, so it is not my place to judge but I think in a couple of generations, South Africa will become racially balanced.

Today, driving out of Pretoria and to Brits and then to Ukutula, I am struck by fences. There are the fences for animals, mentioned above, and fences surround everything—and not just fences, but high nasty metal fences, often with barbed wire. And there is a heavy presence of security. You are buzzed into stores, your bags are checked when you leave the stores, and yesterday while driving with Phillip with the widow open, he shut it on my arm on instinct when he was approaching a stop sign. He was car jacked once already and that remains with you.

So, Bwana is an ostrich (we saw three large females on our way here and about a dozen babies today). My life’s purpose is nothing more than to appreciate and experience what is, to me, the beautiful things we do—like be here in Ukutula and soon in Namibia and Bostswana.

I came here thinking this will be my last time, but I wonder.

Steve is off looking for the hubcap and practicing driving for when he goes home tomorrow. Here he comes now…. No hubcap. So we went to play with the lion cubs, Hope and Buck.