We bought a duvet comforter a couple of weeks ago, in Tsumeb. We’d been getting by with  a couple of lightweight techno covers and Jim’s 30-year-old down sleeping bag that he made from a kit – remember those?  We almost brought my down bag (purchased in Jackson Hole in 1978) but couldn’t find the room. Just as well. The new comforter is the right size and the color even matches the “interior decorating” of the camper. I’m surprised how pleasing that is. However, the cozy comforter does make it harder to get out of bed in the morning.  The weather has gotten colder and drier.

Creature comforts are expendable. A real toilet? Whatever. A functioning shower? If there is hot water everything else can be ignored, such as the enormous spiders sharing the stall. “Donkeys”, the so-called wood-fired boilers found all over Africa, heat the water. The Beagle has a gas geyser that heats a bit of H2O, enough for rinsing off before bed. It’s been a month since we have been in a hotel room.

Beauty, an aptly-named young woman, works at the entrance to one of the smaller parks. She shows me on the park map (decidedly not a 4-color, tri-folded brochure map, but a plain black/white piece of copy paper) where the border of the park is. “There is no sign”, she says. “We do it the African way”. The park ends where the paved road begins. It is the African way.

Jim and I now say that to each other every day. The African way is signing in and out of the parks on ledgers so full of scribbled names, no one will ever put them in a data base. To always be asked “where are you going” is the African way. Stopping your truck in the middle of the road to tell the boss man you have a park permit, that is the African way. And on we go.