Woo Hoo!!!
I cam not sure but I think I finally got Mr. King to believe that I am a Delicate Flower after all!! I told him how freaked out I was when I sat up in my bed in my tent and glanced out of the window to see (by moonlight) a 3-ton Hippo looking at me with this face pressed up against my window. At that moment I recall the guides warning that Hippos kill more people than any other animal...
"EEEECCCCCKKKK!!!"
Afte Mr. King's fit of laughter, he said "I don't know...I may have screamed too." So he won't chalk it up to my Delicate State but I am hopeful, eventually.
Anywho...I took a few students to lunch and shared some other stories from my trip to Tanzania. I told them about the library conference and the safari. For some reason they found my safari experience more entertaining. I reiterated that I am not here for their personal amusement, but I think they disbelieve me. Oh well, it was so touching to hear how much they all missed me.
AAAWWWW Shucks!
There is one story everyone laughs at the most: I arrived in my tent and thought it was odd that the mosquito nets were draped back away from the bed. Isn't the point to keep mosquitos out? And so I walk into the restroom and noticed an adorable plastic little lizard on the mirror. I thought "Oh nice touch." But I was immediately summoned to my first excursion. So after a 3 hour boat safari, where we saw hippos and crocodiles and huge lizards, I returned to my tent and prepared to use the restroom, since they give you sodas while on the boat.
I once again pondered the draped mosquito net, I assumed house-keeping would have come while I was out to hang the net totally around the bed..."Oh well." I went to the toilet and right before I sat down I thought..."Now that is just plain ODD! House-keeping came in but instead of pulling back the mosquito net, all they did was move the little lizard off of my mirror and put it on the wall." I thought that was really dumb, because if it is a decoration, it is so much harder to see it since it is the same color as the wall. DUH!!
So I begin to unzip my pants and at that instant...the umm "fake" little lizard shoot ups to the ceiling and with the same speed I run outside of my tent. But I recalled all the large lizards that were lurking outside of my tent...."YIKES!!!"
So for a long time I stood there, with one hand gripping the unzipped portion of my pants and hopping from one foot to the other while screaming frantically. I was creating some sorta insane lady lizard repellant dance.
The managers came running with their first aid kits, to assist me, because they were certain I was being eaten alive or killed in some equally torturous manner. They ran to my tent and I explained "There is a little lizard in my bathroom! Eeeccckkk" They went in and after a loud burst of laughter, the Italian guide returned and explained, "No...that is no lizard, is a Gecko! And you want them there because they eat the insects that you said you are afraid of!"
A Gecko. Oh okay. I was not pleased but surely was not staying outside with the monkey on my porch and the real lizards and hippos, etc...so I returned inside. I calmed myself by imitating the Gieco commercials with a talking Gecko. I figured I'd speak to my roommates in a language they understood and ask them if they could save me money on my car insurance. No response.
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When I returned to civilization, I called my dad. There was no phone, no internet, no television, no radio, nothing. Which caused me a modicum of "withdrawal" the first day but was much appreciated after that. So once I could talk to my dad, I told him my harrowing account of the Gecko and Hippo attacks I suffered in my tent.
He, too, laughed saying,
"Baby, you can't be 'SLOW' (witted) in the jungle!"
