“I don’t mean to sound like a clock, but what fucking time is it?” Hannah asked. For once, Hannah was worried about time, and she was right.
“That’s impressive, Hannah,” I told her. “You’ve really stepped up your game since we got here.”
“Thanks, Chels. I’m trying to pull my own weight around here.”
“I can see that,” I reassured her.
“Me too,” Molly agreed.
Molly and I went back to our room and changed out of our sweaty clothes.
We all met in front of the lodge and hopped in the jeep with Z and Sparks. We drove around the reserve and through the delta and ended up at an ancient tree that Z told us was over five thousand years old. Z told us that in Setswana, which is the original language of Botswana, the tree was called the baobab tree, which meant “the tree of life,” and if we all touched the tree at the same time, our lives would be filled with love and happiness and we would be bound together forever. Upon hearing this, Simone opted out of the photo and offered to take it instead. “I don’t know if I want to be bonded with you guys for life.”
I continued to keep a healthy distance from Rex when we got to the boat and chose to sit at the front after I had seen him take a seat in the back. Again, the water was crystal clear. Z told us, “The ecosystem is so clean here you can drink the water,” so we all did. The water was filled with tall grass and lily pads and tons of different flowers.
Sue sighed gleefully, as people who love birds tend to do, and she asked Shelly to point out each species of bird we were seeing. Using a bird book they had bought at the first camp, the two of them had become fanatical about identifying everything they had seen. They reminded me of the couple on their honeymoon at Camp Londolozi who journaled every night. They would be the type of people to become mesmerized by birds, just like the type of people who go snorkeling and then want to sit around all day identifying the marine life they saw.
Speaking of marine life, I once traveled to Buenos Aires with an ex-boyfriend and a gay couple. The four of us spent an entire dinner conversation discussing the extinction of caviar until, in an attempt to end it, I proposed the notion of a marine gynecologist going in and harvesting sturgeon eggs so that the fish wouldn’t have to lose their lives so violently. “There’s no reason marine biology shouldn’t also include marine gynecology. What fish wouldn’t be willing to get into stirrups as an alternative to being killed for its ovarian production?” What I thought was a very astute proposition was met with looks of concern, which as always only made me talk even more to convince them I was actually smarter than I seemed. “Think about it,” I told them with an emphasis on it. “If the world, or rather the sea, was open to this kind of progressive underwater thinking, can you imagine how many fish could be saved from ovarian cancer?”
Back at the lily pond in Botswana, after everyone was done tasting the water we were floating in, I decided to add my two cents.
Hannah and Sparks had developed their own relationship and were at the back of the boat together, when she suggested we all smoke a joint, making it one of the nicest boat rides I’ve ever been on.
After dinner that night, we gathered around the fire and watched all the women who worked at the camp come out in traditional African garb and perform one African dance number after another. It was a beautiful thing to see, and Sue of course was the first one to join them on the sand dance floor. Rex was in bad shape and couldn’t form a sentence. He got up several times only to fall back into the seat he had tried to get up from.
“Maybe now’s the time to make your move, Chels,” Hannah said, observing him.
I asked Molly if I was that bad when I was drunk.
“No,” Molly reassured me. “You can at least walk. You slur and sometimes get cross-eyed, but you get from point A to point B.”
Shelly and Simone ended up carrying Rex back to their room and locking him in the little bedroom that was off theirs. Apparently, he kept trying to escape with loud grunts and banging on the door, but Simone and Shelly decided to leave him in there so he could pass out. That morning when they did open the door he was lying on the floor next to the bed, naked.
June 30, Saturday
This was the condition Rex was in on the morning of our third and final day at Vurumba.
“Rex, do you have diarrhea?” Sue asked him, touching his knee.
“I have some pills for that,” Molly offered. “I can go back to my room and get them.”
“I’ve got a tampon,” Sue offered him.
“Not to sound cocky,” I interjected as I lotioned myself up, “but I firmly believe that if I lived during a time when moisturizer hadn’t been introduced to society, I would invent it.”
“I’m so fat,” Hannah grumbled. “We should see if the next camp offers a juice cleanse.”
Hannah is not fat. In my professional opinion, she borders on malnutrition. It’s annoying to people who are actually struggling with their weight when a skinny girl loses weight on a juice cleanse. I have never once lost a pound on a juice cleanse. In fact, I have done two juice cleanses and both times gained three pounds. Not to sound like a nutritionist, but in my estimation there should be stricter instructions for detoxing. Not eating a half pound of prosciutto and a ball of fresh mozzarella would be helpful information to include in a pamphlet—that is, if these juice biologists are really serious about their clients losing weight.
“I’m not joking about an adult obesity camp. Somewhere with adult dodgeball,” Sue announced.
“Fat camps usually have a lot of fat people, though,” Hannah noted.
“That’s the point, Hannah. Think about how easy it would be to hit a person at a fat camp. We’d be the thinnest ones there, and we’d become dodgeball champions.”
“A fat camp sounds awful,” Molly commented. “I’d rather have high tea and learn a wind instrument.”
We got to our bush breakfast that morning just in time for me to use the restroom.
Our discussion returned to the topic of twin beds.
“Twin beds with mosquito nets. Very lush,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to sleep in a twin. I love twin beds. I always wanted one when I was a child.”
Rex perked up once he was able to get a Bloody Mary into his system.
“I don’t understand this obsession you have with twin beds. Didn’t you have a twin bed growing up?” Molly asked.
“For a bit, but I mostly had a king. I stole my parents’ mattress off their bed frame and switched my twin out.”
“Without the bed frame?” Sue asked.
“I don’t think that’s really the point of this story,” Molly stated.
I answered what I thought was a valid question from Sue. “Yes, without the frame. It was after the third or fourth time my parents forgot to pick me up from Hebrew school. I had had it. It took me almost two hours to walk home, and when I got there, I marched straight upstairs and switched out my mattress with theirs.”
“How old were you?” asked Sue.
“You can be very strong when you’re determined,” I reassured her. “I was nine.”
“And what did your parents do?”
“Nothing,” Simone told them. “Everyone was scared of Chelsea. My mom just started sleeping on the twin, and my dad just slept on the couch. I don’t think anyone even mentioned it.”
“It’s not like it was a total convenience for me,” I added. “The king took up almost my entire bedroom. I couldn’t even open my door all the way before it hit the mattress.”