Rolf Digs Animals

So Friday morning, Eric, the Hobsons and I left Beira early to go to Goronghosa National Park, the biggest safari park in Mozambique. We actually went past Goronghosa (the city and the park), trying to get to another town further north where one of the Hobsons’ missionaries from Cape Verde is going to school and studying to be a teacher (she’s the only one of their Mozambican missionaries that they hadn’t had a chance to see yet during their time here). We didn’t make it the whole way—we made it to a city a few hours away and needed gas, not having stopped because we hadn’t seen any gas stations, not realizing that the collections of yellow plastic buckets that you’d often see with a guy sitting on them were, in fact, the local gas stations. We finally stopped at one of these to fill our tank (basically, pouring gas from one of the buckets into a siphon made from an old two-liter into our gas tank)—I also bought some honey in an old 20-ouncer that a kid was selling on the side of the road. Way tasty. Unfortunately the gas wasn’t quite as good as the honey, and we ended up having car trouble and were lucky to make it back to Goronghosa (the city outside the park, with the same name), where we got it fixed. The saddest part was that we weren’t able to see the Hobsons’ missionary—but we were all mainly grateful that we weren’t stuck with a broken-down car by the side of the road in the middle of REALLY-nowhere, Mozambique. So we headed to the park, and by the time we got into the park and the camp, it was dark, and the Hobsons were pretty tired from all the trouble, so we called it a night.

And yesterday was our big safari day! Well, very-fun-even-if-not-big safari day. We did a lot of driving around, and saw a fair amount of cool animals, interspersed by extended periods of grass-watching. It was really fun, though, kidding aside—especially just for the chance to chat with the Hobsons and Eric the whole time, who are all people I love and love talking to, made even cooler by being in such a peaceful, beautiful place, and seeing a number of God’s most beautiful creatures. I think I would be bored out of my mind to be on the staff here, and I think I could live the rest of my life happily without even going on another safari, but it’s been a very nice thing to do once. If there were a way to do it not in a car, hiking or biking or something, I think I’d love it. Too bad that with lions and elephants and hippos and all that might be, y’know, fatal.

We didn’t see any elephants or lions or leopards—we did see a hippo from way far away, a couple small different types o’ cats, and tons of various and very pretty gazelle-related things and very amusing-looking warthogs. At one point on one of the roads, Brother Hobson saw a few piles of elephant dung and got very, very excited. Once he ran over it and got very excited when it squished, going, “Ooo, look it’s fresh!” It was kinda hard not to laugh. Later we went on a night drive after dark, led by some of the two of the park guides (a Zimbabwean blonde surfer-ish dude and a Mozambican girl), who had a series of rather amusing old-married-couple-with-only-one-remote-control-type spats over who held the floodlight. During the course of the whole day, a number of times I felt impressed by the sheer beauty of the place, which is a very lush and pretty green place—it made me think of the Creation (we actually had a really interesting conversation in the car in this sense about the endowment ceremony), and our stewardship over the earth. For the first time, my mind made a connection between that stewardship and D&C 121:39—“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” In that context, it suddenly made so much more sense way people feel so free to exploit the environment—because our natural impulse in any situation of power, if we do not control ourselves, is to exercise unrighteous dominion. It’s a depressing realization, but it makes a ton of sense—and helps as a reminder of my need to keep tabs on the natural man within myself.

We took a break in the middle of the day, while the Hobsons rested a bit, I read my scriptures, and Eric wandered around a bit. I was wondering where he was until I turned my head a bit while reading, and saw him out of the corner of my eye near a building that some local workers were knocking down. He had asked for one of the hammers, and was taking a turn knocking down one of the walls himself. I couldn’t help thinking that that is the epitome of Eric: looking around until he finds some way to do something and help. I love that guy.

Today we took our time getting up at Goronghosa, as we weren’t in much of a hurry, and after eating a small breakfast and packing up and such, we headed out on our way home. We talked a bit to Mario, the sculptor who makes the stuff for the gift shop, who I had talked to a bit the night before and become friends with—my only regret about meeting new good people and sharing experiences with them is when you realize you have to leave and you can feel that the person will miss having you to talk to, even if you barely knew each other. That’s how I felt this morning.

Before we left the grounds, we went to a lookout spot called Bué Maria (which means “Blessed Maria” in Sena—like Bua Jesu in the traditional evangelical song we sing a lot at work). It was a really pretty spot, and one thing I liked even more on the drive back from it is that we stopped at this overgrown old chapel on the side of the road. Eric and I tried to look around inside, and it was a bit hard, as it was really grown over, but as we were leaving, I felt an impression to go back inside and say a prayer, to simply give thanks for the chance to spend, on the Lord’s day, at least some of my time in a house dedicated to His name. As I said that prayer, and really felt that gratitude to be where I was, a feeling of peace and comfort and warmth came over me. I’d been anxious since yesterday about the issue of staying overnight at the park into Sunday, not being able to go to church, and having to pay people to work on the Sabbath day. But as I stood in that overgrown old church and prayed, I felt the most comforting peace and warmth in my chest—it felt like the Lord was telling me, “It’s okay. You’re okay.” Moments like these remind me of why people give so many thanks and sing so many praises for the comfort and, specifically, the peace of the gospel. I felt that peace today.

On the drive back, we had some great conversations—really, at least half of what’s made the whole weekend great have been the conversations we’ve had in the car. It’s really reminded me of the long and thoughtful conversations my family would have on our summer month-long car trips to visit family out West. This weekend we talked about race, social class, cross-cultural issues, Cheney speaking at graduation, tons of things. I was reminded of family, and that made it all the more awesome. Like life. Life is awesome.