She laughed. “We have coyotes in the neighborhood where I grew up. No one has seen them, but we suspect. And crows. Crows everywhere.” Their eyes met. “Tell me about all of it,” he said. . . One sound Michael had never heard in Botswana was the rhythm and the low squeal of the heavy freight trains pulling slowly north and south along the coast of Puget Sound in the morning, far down the hill from Bayard Avenue. And the crows. Cawing and calling and harassing even the bald eagles out of the sky. “There are quail in this neighborhood,” he reported to Jillian one morning. “You’re kidding me.” “I’ve seen them two mornings now, halfway down the hill on Blue Ridge Drive.” There was no place on earth, however, like the Okavango Delta, where a large inland river formed each year, flowing south from Angola during the rainy season, and months later disgorging its water into the desert and the bush in search of the ancient lake that was once there to receive it. The land came to life and predators went hungry because the grazers could find water anywhere, instead of needing to risk the trip to one or two watering holes that had survived the dry season. When the water came, the tourist guides conducted safaris by boat. “Where could quail live in our neighborhood?” Jillian asked. “There is still enough underbrush, and seed, in some of the wilder yards where everything is not level lawn and sprinklers. They won’t last for many more years, however.” Just when Michael believed he had seen everything, it snowed. . . The idea for the trip was Jillian’s. To introduce Emily to her father’s homeland. To return to Kasane and the bush. To further her research and writing. They would stay a month, as she had planned to do the first time. The journey seemed much longer this time, traveling with Michael and a 10-year-old daughter in tow—the 9-hour flight to London; the eight hours of waiting at Heathrow; a 12-hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa and then backtracking by airplane north to Livingstone in Zambia near Victoria Falls, that great gash in the earth; then by van through Zambia to the Kazungula border station; by ferry across the Zambezi River, stepping through trays of disinfectant on the opposite shore to prevent the spread of hoof and mouth disease among the livestock; then by small truck four miles into Kasane and finally, walking the last two miles through the bush, to his home village, which had no name except to those who lived there. 22 theMeadow
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQ3NA==