Ericka was from Greenwich, Connecticut. She was a high school biology teacher. Her friend Soumeya Powell, a fellow teacher at the school, had asked her to come. It didn’t take much coaxing; Ericka was already familiar with Habitat from having worked on a couple of houses in Stamford. She was young. And she was adventurous.
Ericka was also single.
David Venetti lived in White Plains, New York. He was a computer programmer. David had never given much thought to taking a trip to Africa, but once he had started thinking about it — especially the chance to use his weekend carpentry skills for some purpose other than helping his father build a backyard deck — the idea began to appeal to him.
David was also single.
Through the two weeks of home-building, Ericka and David had worked happily side by side. A growing friendship soon moved cautiously into the realm of romance. At twilight on their last day in the village of Serowe, as the two stood on the porch of the cabin David shared with two other single young men on the crew, as David and Ericka stood listening to the herdsmen calling their cows in for the night, as they watched the obedient cattle, their cowbells jangling, lumber through the dusktide shadows to their night pens, David reached over and kissed Ericka.
She was receptive. And she now believed that there was a very good chance that she was in love.
In the bush plane that took the two (along with two other Habitat crew-members) over the salt pans to the Okavango, Ericka and David sat in the back seat. (Roy, who had won the seat lottery for this particular flight, was next to the pilot, and Leonard — poor sad-sack Leonard who could never catch a break — huddled in the far back with all the luggage). It was hard to speak over the drone of the plane’s engine. But Ericka tried, nonetheless. She wanted to find out more about David, who hadn’t been all that forthcoming with details from his personal life. This, obviously, wasn’t the time or place to draw him out, but she definitely needed to know more about him if this relationship was to move forward.
Or would it move forward? She just didn’t know. But for now, all Ericka said was, “It has a stark beauty, doesn’t it? The landscape.”
“That’s some desert,” said David, who had very little of the poet in him.
There were a few attempts at singalongs over the campfire that first night, but mostly the group chattered away like the little monkeys who lived in the nearby trees, discussing all that they had seen during their first mini road safari. There was wildlife around every corner, and the lions were especially accommodating, the regal males allowing their human visitors to rumble right up to their open dens and impose upon their privacy without even a half-growl of protest.
Asked Soumeya of her vehicle’s driver, a congenial young Motswana named Jacob, “Are they tame? Why don’t they get upset when we drive up to them like this?”
Jacob smiled. “They don’t see you as prey. They also know that they’ll have the chance to come visit you tonight.”
“What do you mean?” asked Leonard, suddenly troubled by the thought of lions invading the campsite later that evening. With his luck, Leonard was sure that he’d be the first camper to get eaten.
“It’s a good idea not to leave your tents once you go in for the night.”
That night, David left the tent that he was sharing with Roy. He came over to Ericka and Soumeya’s tent. “I’ve got Amarula, if you girls wanna come out and join me for a nightcap.”
Amarula had become the official cream liqueur of the Serowe Habitat build of August, 1999. It was made with the fruit of the African Marula tree, a tree which, as legend had it, was favored by elephants, who enjoyed guttling the fermented yellow fruit and getting drunk. Considering the low alcohol content of the liqueur and the prodigious body weight of your average African elephant, nobody believed there to be much truth to the legend.
A potential visit by the lions of Moremi — now that, of course, was good reason to stay in for the night.
“Count me out,” said Soumeya emphatically.
Ericka thought over the invitation. “Maybe for a minute. It’s still early. When do you think the lions usually show up?”
“Around one thirty,” jested David. “The embers are still warm. Come sit with me.” David reached into the small tent to help Ericka out. She was still wearing her safari clothes. She and Soumeya had been sitting up, playing cards.
The night air was filled with the sounds of nocturnal animals broadcasting their moods, summoning their mates, commenting upon their pursuit by other more predatory creatures. Is he pursuing me? asked Ericka of herself, as David led her to the dying campfire.
The two sat for a moment without speaking. David reached out and took Ericka’s hand. She sighed. She felt like some lovestruck middle-schooler. In Africa everything you usually think about yourself gets pushed to the margins. Those more primitive, more sublimated parts of you rise impudently to the surface. Sometimes the elemental manifests itself in child-reversion: the need for food, for human comfort and companionship, the need to have one’s many fears put to rest. Most children learn in time how to combat their fears, just as a visitor to Africa learns to make similar adjustments to better appreciate the wonders and riches of the continent.
“Can you believe that we’re here?” she finally asked her fireside companion. “And not on some fancy linen-tablecloth safari. We’ve become a part of this place, haven’t we?”
“I guess you can say that.” David poured Ericka a cup of Amarula. It was better layered above crème de Menthe in a drink that the British expats called a “Springbok.” But Amarula straight up would have to suffice this night.
“David, I don’t know anything about you.” Ericka was looking up into the cloudless sky at Southern Hemisphere constellations that were unfamiliar to her.
David took a swig from the bottle, scanning the black firmament overhead. “What would you like to know?”
“What do you do with computers? My brother-in-law works for Citibank on Y2K.”
David chuckled. “It’s interesting you should say that. I work for a group that’s doing something similar.”
“What is it?”
“The techno think tank that employs me — we’re addressing the Y10K problem.”
There was a roar. It didn’t sound leonine.
“Hippopotamus, I think,” he said. “One of the guides told me that nighttime is when they generally make the most racket.”
“What’s the ‘Y10K problem’?”
“It’s all the potential software bugs and glitches that might emerge when the calendar year moves to five digits. Everything’s set up for four digits, you know.”
“You’re being serious? That’s eight thousand years away.”
“There isn’t a lot of urgency to my job. Sometimes I sleep in.”
“I have to ask you something, David. I don’t know any way around it. We’ve got two more nights of safari and then those last two nights in Vic Falls, and then the trip’s over. Am I going to see you — I mean, ever again?”
David set the Amarula bottle down and drew his legs up to his chest. “That was really to the point.”
“When you’re a schoolteacher, you learn not to obfuscate.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that I have to be very clear. I’m sorry, but don’t you think we’re starting to feel something for each other?”
“Yeah. Sure. Although I haven’t even gotten into your pants yet.”
“That was crass.”
“Was there some other way you wanted me to say it?”
“Just forget it. I’m sorry I brought it up. It just seemed like it was time to talk about where we go from here. Do you want to see me again?”