Of Feasts and Beasts

I haven’t been very good at chronicling the life and times of yours truly in the last month. For example, I never told you about the fantastic Diwali I celebrated with about 15 Indian families, with dinner and firecrackers included. I hadn’t done a firecracker-Diwali in almost five years! The food was delicious and I got to meet SO many people. I also got a chance to air my shalwar-kameez, which is always a good thing. And I haven’t really told you about the lovely Thanksgiving dinner I had last week, either. It was at a co-worker’s house, which is on the lower slopes of Table Mountain, and hence has an incredible view over the city and the ocean. The food was surprisingly vegetarian-friendly and delicious! I took a quiche along, (no I didn’t bake it: my inadequacies cover cooking) and everyone else brought traditional family recipes, ranging from scrumptious pumpkin pie to cranberry-raisin-stuffing. The guests were mostly Americans, and a very interesting bunch. Conversations ranged from bacteriophage-display-technology for chemically labelling cancer cells to watching the sunrise over the Okvango Delta in a tent while fending off rats. Great stuff. We actually did see the most spectacular moonrise over the mountains after dinner—the moon was brilliantly orange and hanging low enough in the sky to pluck.

So it is starting to sound like I’ve been going from one festival feast to another. While that is not entirely untrue, I did manage to fit a safari drive into my busy stuff-my-face schedule. Yeah, what?? I have one (two) word(s) for you: white lions.

I went to Pretoria on an office trip last week, and it just happened to be held on a “wildlife estate”. This means that my room, though hotel-like on the inside, was a thatched structure with wooden beams for walls. And that I spent considerable amount of time walking around, coming upon a variety of beasts such as springbok (it looks like a deer) and giraffe. And that I fell asleep to the roar of lions. And yes, I saw white lions, which are incredibly beautiful creatures. I was told that they are white because of a recessive gene which causes low pigmentation levels, including lightly coloured eyes. I also saw tigers, cheetah, leopards, wartog and wild pig. Checking off two of the Big Five.

The conference itself was a workshop on how to manage USAID funds while running a program. It was quite informative, and an interesting view into the world of foreign aid. I have some stories from the workshop, which I will keep for another blog post.