Time

A 5,000 year old baobab tree

(Dana) For a type-A, overscheduled, overachieving mom like me, Africa has been the perfect antidote. Wide open spaces like Namibia and the Makgadkgadi salt pan with no other humans or vehicles for 100km or more. Hours-long drives too bumpy for reading with nothing to do but talk with your family, sing or just look out the window at the natural beauty. Silence that envelopes you so that all you hear is your own blood pumping. Transportation that runs on “African time” which means “sometime today.” “Bush TV” (aka a campfire) as a replacement for all electronics. Camp sites with no electricity whatsoever for guests. Game drives that will end in 30 minutes but still have 20 minutes to go after a half-hour. And a walk with the San Bushmen who used to walk for hours surviving on the land so that they could hunt for food.

I am writing this on a hammock listening to birds in the shade of a Baobab tree that is almost 5,000 years old, and I think about what it has seen in its life. And I am laughing about our flight from Johannesburg to Botswana when we were bumped from our flight and I didn’t even get upset. I am not cured, but I know already that Africa has been good for me.