IMAGINE THIS...

All in one day, different landscapes, different states…

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Riding in a Jeep in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, a middle-aged guy sits up straighter, pointing to the amazing sight in front of him: A male lion, mane blowing in the wind, and his female companion nestling her head on his shoulder as they lay on the green grass. With excitement he says to his wife, “We found them!” She puts her hand in his as they continue their ride. Suddenly, the Jeep stops. She squeezes his hand as she sees two zebras crossing the road in front of them, not bothered by the car’s engine at all. A family of zebras walks closer to the road to do the same. “Look how beautiful they are!” she says to him, admiring their stripes. “I never realized their stripes are all different.” He says, “I remember reading that they each have their own striped patterns. They are all unique. That’s what makes these animals so special.”

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A four-year-old girl in pigtails is sitting in her dad’s lap with their family in a boat along the Okavango Delta in Botswana. They are cruising along the water, surrounded by green trees, when they see an elephant standing knee-deep in the water. He’s slurping water up with his trunk, bringing it to his mouth to swallow. “What is he doing, Daddy?” She asks. He responds, “He’s drinking water, honey. That’s how elephants do that.”

A teenage girl sits, awestruck by the fact that she is sipping a cocktail for happy hour…not at a bar, but in the middle of Namibia, watching a mother rhinoceros interact with her calf. A small brown hill with a few green patches and a yellow meadow that looks like it stretches for miles surrounds her. This is pretty cool, she thinks to herself as she snaps another shot. She smiles, filled with gratitude that her family brought her on this vacation. In just a few hours, she has seen a herd of wildebeest running, zebras roaming in the field, and four giraffes walking by.

A little boy looking out of the window of the maroon Toyota pickup truck screams in his South African accent, “Giraffe! Giraffe!” on their way back to Kwali camp in Zimbabwe. His mom smiles and says, “Good job, it is a giraffe!” The wide-open field in front of them is mostly brown with green and yellow hues. The giraffe watches the passing truck go by while he grazes on a green leaf on a tree right next to him. Further up the road, they encounter a silver rhinoceros running fast alongside them on the road. “What is he running for mommy?”  The little boy asks. She pauses for a moment to watch this creature run free, so close to the road, before she responds to her son. She smiles at the magic she feels in her home country. Just another day in the bush, she thinks to herself.