Back from Africa... and so distressed!

A week ago I returned from my most recent trip to Africa. Normally when I return I am fired up to write, but this time it actually took me a couple of days to even go through the things I brought back or reminisce about the trip at all. I even refrained from walking my dog in fear of running into someone who would ask about the trip. For during that first forty-eight hours I was too distraught to answer the looming questions.


Did I have a horrible time?  No.  Was my life threatened while there?  No.  Was there a scary moment with an animal that this time I didn’t think I would survive – well actually yes, but that isn’t what was wrong. What was wrong – what was realized within an hour of getting home was that a memory card containing over nine hundred photos from all but the last four days of the trip was not where it was supposed to be. It was lost.

I knew immediately what had happened although I can’t be one hundred percent sure. I was aware of the placement of that chip each moment. As aware as I was of where my passport was or where my money was. Those were the three things of most importance but rising above them all was that memory card. Take anything else. Everything else was replaceable but the photos were not.

TSA does an additional screening at the Delta gate in Johannesburg. It’s thorough and appreciated knowing you are about to fly fifteen hours; mostly over water. But this TSA agent accidentally or on purpose failed to put back into my bag what meant the most to me at the moment; a small beige zippered pouch containing only that memory card. Okay, so there is a small chance that somewhere between the Drifter’s Lodge in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and the Johannesburg, South Africa Drifter’s Lodge (via a British Airways flight) that it could have gone missing, but as close as I watched that memory card; feeling regularly of the bag to make double sure the card was still there, I find it hard to believe but acknowledge the possibility.

Oh the lost photos that at the moment I can only describe to you; our air mattress laying lonely in the vast openness of the Makgadikgadi Pans after a night of sleeping under the stars, standing at the end of the pier on the Boteti River proudly holding the bass I unexpectedly caught while holding the rod for Michael as he ran off for a second, the young leopard who we almost missed except he poked his head from a dried watering hole to see if we were something worth hunting, beautiful birds, and ahhh, believe it or not, three of the big five in one shot; lion, buffalo and elephant. I am sick to death.

In the last week, I have left a cookie crumb trail from Zimbabwe to Atlanta hoping beyond hope someone finds this and successfully reconnects it to me. It’s priceless. The photos are half the fun for me especially writing the stories that accompany them.

For now, you will have to wait to see the proof of the stories. I shall be forced to describe them in more detail so that you can see the scene in your mind’s eye as that is all we have. It may take a while, but I have to believe I will see that memory card again. When my memory of the trip is about to fade and my grief diminished over the loss, it will come back.

So let’s pray for a faded memory and diminished grief – I am ready to see the pictures!