Many of you may be aware of our awesome WildEarth game drives that have been taking place twice daily for a good few weeks now. My divine guest hooked onto it after reaching out to me a few weeks ago. She also has an only child (we really bonded over this – as our sons sound quite similar in fact) and wanted to get in touch with the children they met whilst on safari in Namibia last year. Her boy has been covering Africa at school (virtual school nowadays) and was really hoping to become pen pals with the children from Namibia.
As luck would have it we tracked down numbers and so a global friendship has bloomed using WhatsApp! I love technology when it works like this.
During the process I encouraged them to have a look at the safaris too. In New York, our afternoon game drive coincided with their morning lesson – so they took a step further and watched as a class! And then the teacher had an idea to have a class with one of our rangers. Nicky Muller put his hand up and one evening after the game drive and his return to the lodge he joined their Zoom meeting to field questions from the class. It was amazing to be included as one of 33 folks on the meeting.
I am not sure what was more entertaining, their delight at asking their really awesome questions and talking to a real live game ranger, or the bickering on the chat I was privy to seeing! Telling each other to turn off their mics and such. I felt flung straight back into school again at that age.
Just fabulous! I must say that has been a real sense of happiness over these strange and interesting times we are all navigating our way through…
years