Tag Archives: Tanzania

Tornadic Activities

Cast of characters:

  • A handful of random clients.
  • Me

Historical context:

  • Reoccurring dream… tornadoes!
  • I work with clients, all day, every day.
  • Sun Prairie is a medium-sized town near my home town of Waterloo, WI.
  • I visited the Institute for Underwater Archaeology in Istanbul, Turkey, for work last year.
  • Hilary was one of my best friends while growing up in Waterloo.
  • I handle operations in both Tanzania and South Africa.
  • I’m still known to write my phone number on a piece of paper for people, rather than having them just enter it into their phones. 🙂
  • I like to ride bikes.

Last night’s dream:

To continue a trend, last night’s dream was anxiety ridden.  Ahhhh… tornadoes.  So I was sitting in Hilary’s house, which was located in Sun Prairie instead of Waterloo.  It wasn’t an accurate depiction of Hilary’s house, though it had some similar features, notably, the two-story tall ceiling and cedar rafters.  Initially, I was sitting among a bunch of my clients.  We were all sitting and waiting for someone to give a presentation.  There was a podium in the southwest corner of the room, against the south and west walls, which had windows from floor to ceiling.  There was a small little woods immediately outside the windows, with the town visible beyond.  The trees were bare, and it was winter, though there was no snow.  The room we were in was one story above ground level.  Suddenly, everyone else in the room had disappeared, except for me and two older women.  We walked over to the podium and looked out the windows to the West.  The trees were now gone, and we looked out towards an open golden field.  The sky was gray, and then, out of nowhere, two whitish-gray tornadoes appeared.  The tornadoes were headed straight for us, but we stayed by the windows.  The tornadoes disappeared, and in their place, this gigantic, silvery blob appeared in the middle of the sky.  The blob was morphing into different shapes, and we wondered what it was.  We thought maybe it was an alien.  It started approaching us at a high rate of speed, and right before it slammed into the windows, we ducked for cover onto the floor.  As soon as the blob slammed into the windows, we realized that it was a big blob of rain, and then it started pouring outside.

All of a sudden, the two women and I were standing in the hallway with the other people from the meeting, taking a break.  The hallway was supposedly right outside the room that we had been sitting in when the big rain blob hit the windows; however, the hall was an accurate depiction of the second-floor hallway at the Institute of Underwater Archaeology in Istanbul.  We were all mingling in the hallway, drinking water from the water cooler out of little Dixie cups.  I was talking to some guy, who had traveled with us to Tanzania and who was now interested in traveling with us to South Africa.  I wrote my phone number on a little piece of paper so that he could call me if he had any questions.  Suddenly he was gone, so I started wandering down the hall to the East, trying to find him.  The hall got darker the farther I walked.  Then the two women appeared before my eyes, and they said that they were running late and had to get home to Waterloo right away.  They didn’t know if the bus would be coming to take them home.  I said that it was no problem and that I could take them home to Waterloo, since I was going back there anyway.  I seemed to be riding home on a bike, but there was plenty of room on the bike for them, if they wanted.

The end.

Tanzania Calling

Cast of characters:

  • Jessica S. – A current coworker.
  • Albert – My head guide while on safari in Tanzania last year.
  • Mom

Historical context:

  • I went to Tanzania on safari for the first and only time in October 2012.
  • I borrowed a really nice work camera for the safari, and the battery melted inside the camera, so that I couldn’t recharge it.  I was devastated that I couldn’t use the good camera for the entire safari, but thankfully, I had a little point-and-shoot back up.
  • I have seen the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti and have been to the Mara River, but I was not fortunate to have seen the wildebeest crossing the croc-infested Mara.  We waited… it didn’t happen.
  • On Wednesday night, I saw a Nature documentary on PBS showing the wildebeest crossing the Mara, and crocodiles having a feast!
  • Seeing this documentary made me long to return to Tanzania and reach out to Albert to say, “hello.”
  • I just put together my 2014 budget at work and made it a priority to outfit all of my guides in the field with new branded t-shirts.
  • I’m not sure that Mom ever wants to go on a safari.  I know that Dad does…
  • Jessica S. is a sweet coworker who really has nothing to do with operating my Africa trips.
  • I was at a fabulous hookah lounge in Georgetown Friday night, where there was just one tiny bathroom with nothing but toilet paper with which to dry your hands.
  • In 2001, I squatted in an apartment in Amsterdam for about two weeks with my friend, Mara, her host brother, and his friend.  We had to step up into the bathroom, and I remember the bathroom being green.

Last night’s dream:

I have really been missing Africa, a sentiment that was manifested in last night’s dream.

I was in a modest, but colorful, apartment, somewhere in Africa.  It was dark outside, and the curtains were open.  Jessica S. was sitting on the couch, reading a book by lamplight.  I then realized that it was her apartment.  I asked where the bathroom was, and Jessica pointed to a little room around the corner in the hallway.  I opened the door and took a step up into the bathroom.  It was a dirty little bathroom with mint green paint on the walls, lit by one bare light bulb above the small mirror above the sink.   The sink was straight ahead of the door, and the toilet was to my right.  After washing my hands, I wiped them off with toilet paper from an almost-empty roll.  When I walked out of the bathroom, I saw Albert standing in another dark room to my left, and Jessica was still in the lit room to my right.  He had the face of Albert, but he was shorter and had a big belly (in reality, Albert is tall and lean).  He was wearing a properly branded, white t-shirt and khaki pants.  I told him that I missed him.

Flash to me being in a safari vehicle with Mom.  We were in the middle of the Serengeti on the banks of the Mara, surrounded by wildebeest.  We could see the hungry crocodiles in the river, just waiting for the wildebeest to cross the river.  I was fumbling with my camera and couldn’t get it to work.  Mom didn’t care about taking pictures.  All of a sudden, the first wildebeest jumped into the Mara, and then thousands followed him in.  We wondered if we’d see a croc kill a wildebeest, and just then, a croc jumped out and bit a wildebeest on his snout, dragging him underwater.  I couldn’t get my camera to work, but it turns out that I had accidentally shot a slow-motion video of the kill in hot-pink technicolor.

The end.