7 quick takes...

Sophie and Doris get a bit emotional during the farewell ceremony for their snails.

1. Our bags (one backpack, one nappy bag without nappies and one bag with food) are packed, the house is clean, the excitement levels are sky high and all that's left to do is wait for the ferry to come so that we can start our long anticipated journey. One month, thousands of kilometers, six countries (but two only for a few hours) and lots of great plans. We cannot wait!
2. I don't think I have ever started packing for a journey this early. Normally I spend the last 30 minutes before I leave throwing everything I don't need in my bag while I forget to pack all the important stuff. Not this time. We had a very quiet week at the lodge with hardly any guests and because we were almost leaving we could not start big new projects. For the first time in our year here we found ourselves being a bit bored but that was good as boredom drove us to pack our bags and sort the things that are too broken to take to Salima.
3. "I sacrificed myself for him because I knew he would be crushed to death for sure while I had a chance to survive it." Sounds dramatic right? That's daily life with Sophie for you. She has a way with words that makes everything sound ten times bigger, worse, more dramatic and very vivid. In this case she was talking about a snail that she was holding when she made a little tumble down the steps to our house. While she fell she held the snail up high so that he would not be crushed. In case you wonder; they both survived, although Sophie had a minor battle wound.
4. On those snails; the girls had one (and then two, and then three ) Giant African land snail as a pet and because we are almost leaving and it would be impossible to find anyone who would even take me 10% serious if I would ask them to keep the snails alive, we decided to put them back where we found them; in the garden. The girls were a little sad and there were a lot more snail hugs and kisses than I anticipated but overall they did well and I thought they had understood why we let them go. I was wrong. A few days later the first snail was carried into our house again and it was only the next day that I realised that they had brought it in to keep it. They gave it food and a house and the next day there were two again. Unfortunately for the girls we had to let them go (again) which we did yesterday. I would like to believe that our house is snail free right now but you never know for sure with my girls.
5. We love most animals around our house but there is one animal that has been bothering us a lot lately and I am happy to leave it behind for a bit. This animal wakes us up at night as his teeth gnaw on anything he deems edible. The things he eats (and breaks in the process) are usually things that I would never put on my 'edible-list' and his favourite food is cables and clothes. I usually refer to him as 'mouse' and sometimes, when I am really annoyed I might call him 'rat' but actually that's wrong as this little hungry fellow is a gerbil. I have heard that people keep them as pets but after all the damage I have seen him do here I am pretty sure that I would never voluntarily take one of those creatures in. They are really clever so we haven't been able to catch many of them. He probably feels that it's unfair that we have opened war on him as he was here first and maybe he is right. Maybe we should just admit that he has defeated us and that's why we are leaving 😉
6. The next few weeks we will spend many (MANY) hours in busses and public taxis. We are definitely not the first family who has done that so I consulted the internet to learn how other families prepared for long roadtrips. I found many great ideas ranging from educational movies on your child's dvd screen, busy bags with presents for every hour and tons and tons of snacks. All great in theory but a bit hard to achieve for us as we need to travel light, the variety of snacks here isn't great and those dvd screens... Well, that just won't work. However, I did find some great road side bingo cards that I loved as it encourages the girls to carefully observe the world outside their window. It seems that many moms loved that idea too because I could find about 47336 free printable options. All beautiful, all great, and all totally inapplicable for a road trip in Africa as we won't see Mac Donald signs, a huge variety of traffic signs and lots of different car brands. Fortunately I had lots of time (lodges without guests are great 😉) so Sophie and I drew our own Africa-friendly road side bingo with goats, banana trees, people pounding mais and road side markets. She had the ideas, I drew and afterwards I checked if she understood what I had drawn. When we find a printer we will make loads of copies and we cannot wait to use them. Let me know if you want a copy too 😉
7. Ok, time to go. Time to eat, brush our teeth and pack those toothbrushes. The ferry may come in 30 minutes. Or in an hour. Or in 3 hours. You never know when it comes until it appears around the headland and when it's there you have to be ready because it won't wait. Have a great week.