The Birthday Boy

He had one request for his birthday. "I know that this whole trip is a birthday present, Mom. This whole amazing trip. And I am really grateful and excited. But there is one, just one thing I would really like to do. If possible. " My son Sean’s voice became tentative. " Do you think we could sail on the Indian Ocean?" "Sail? On the Indian Ocean? Off the coast of Zanzibar?" I asked a quick series of questions. But before Sean could answer, I said, "Sounds like a great idea!"

Place names have always been magical for me. When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher Mr. Quigley drew a square foot on the floor of the classroom in chalk. He then asked sixteen students to come to the front of the room. They were all to stand within that square foot. "That is the population density of Java, in Indonesia," said Mr. Quigley. I don’t know what anyone else thought, but I was intrigued and vowed I would one day visit Java. On the day I arrived on Java fifteen years later, I was wide-eyed. And utterly amazed that there were not sixteen people crowded together on each square foot of the land. I cannot say that I was in any way disappointed, but certainly I was surprised!

Well, Zanzibar is one of those places for me. And nothing was going to keep me away from that exotic island now that I was so close, and sailing on the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Zanzibar, seemed like a dream come true for me. The wonderful thing is that we really did it! In an outrigger dugout canoe, or dhow as it is called in Zanzibar, we sailed off the beach at high tide towards the waves breaking gently on the reef. And the captain handed off the tiller to Sean. A birthday wish come true.


On February 22nd, Sean’s 23rd birthday, the morning dawned bright and clear. Sean dressed in his new safari clothes, purchased from REI just before he left for Africa, and stepped out of the room on to the porch and watched the day begin from the escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley. (Both escarpment and Great Rift Valley are, like Zanzibar, magic words for me. I could hardly believe that I was there.) We drove towards the Serengeti National Park, stopped at Olduvai Gorge, and into the Ngorogoro Crater Conservation area, stopped at an overlook with the crater below us, and continued on into the Serengeti. Our driver guide Kassandra pointed out the gazelles and impalas, the baboons and hyenas. We looked through our binoculars and took pictures and marveled at the vastness of the Serengeti and the closeness of the animals. We pulled off the main dirt road and followed a track to an area of low hills. We could hardly breathe. There, spread out at the top of a grassy hill was a cheetah. Knowing that Sean’s greatest wish was to see a cheetah, I smiled and said, "Happy Birthday!"


When we continued, we drove to the Simba Kopjes, and at a small rocky outcrop, curled up in the hollow of a rock was a lioness and a male lion. The male looked up as the lioness slept on. After lunch, we headed back out on our game drive, and Kassandra drove over to where there was another safari jeep stopped in front of several trees. We watched in amazement as a leopard walked down the tree trunk, and walked through the grass until we could no longer see him. After five or ten minutes, he reappeared, and climbed up another tree. He took his time finding a final perch at the end of a branch, stopping several times to plop down on a branch, his tail hanging down in distinctive curl. We probably watched for half an hour. Time loses its forward motion with something that awesome in front of you!
What a birthday! A cheetah, lions and the illusive leopard, rarely seen.