literature and mr. david livingstone.

My family has always been big on reading. Even as a little kid, I could spend hours and hours reading in the library--and we would go at least once or twice a week, especially when we lived in downtown Holland. Even then, my mom had to put a limit of 10 books per library trip that I could borrow. Thankfully, my brother could also borrow 10 books, so between the two of us, we usually had between 15-20 books to last us until the next library trip.

Jon and I went through a couple of different phases. He read The Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was probably nine years old, and got me to read it when I was probably somewhere around 11. We went through a Boxcar Children phase, and I think that we both read every single Hardy Boys book our library had. He got into Star Wars--I started reading Jane Austen. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Harry Potter, Ragged Dick, The Atonement, The Count of Monte Cristo, King Solomon's Mines, The Last of the Mohicans. All of them make me think of being a kid. 

I wish I could say it was all because we both loved literature. Honestly though, I think that that just came with time and continued exposure. At the very beginning, we both loved reading... mostly because for the majority of my childhood, we didn't have a TV or a computer. When entertainment's limited, you do with what you got. When your options are weed the garden or read a book, the book starts looking pretty darn good. I remember that sometimes, if we were really into a book, we got out of drying the dishes too. 

Needless to say, we were pretty huge nerds at the time. At least now we're both really fast readers. 

Anyways, when I was around 8 or 9, I went through this phase where I just loved biographies. I read a ridiculous number of them. Almost all of the presidents, presidents' wives, inventors, astronauts, pioneers, activists, noble prize winners, missionaries, doctors--I was obsessed. It was a genre of literature that I had never read before. Fresh meat for the ravenous little girl sitting on the library floor in front of the bookshelf.

My family owned a David Livingstone biography at the time, and it didn't take me long to find it. I believe we still have it now. Of course I read it multiple times. It was one of my first exposures to Africa in a context other than the shape of the continent on the globe.

Between that David Livingstone biography and a set of travel books that my Dad owned (black covers, engraved fronts), Africa was a place of mystique, of adventure, of danger. It was a bizarre combination of long-necked women (picture in the travel book) and malaria and slave-drivers (David Livingstone biography). It was a place where Masai warriors drank cow blood (travel book) and a place where Europeans had once never stepped foot (D.L.  bio).

Africa was the location of Victoria Falls. David Livingstone discovered Victoria Falls. I remember reading that chapter in the book, no joke. He went to the edge and looked down, crazy fellow. I remember thinking that I wanted to go there and see what he described as a scene "gazed upon by angels in their flight."

When I realized that Victoria Falls was in Zambia, I really really wanted to go. It would bring my Africa adventure full circle. However, the fact that it was so far away from Kasama and that it would cost a significant sum of money made me decide to leave it up to fate. If we made it, I would be thrilled. If we didn't have the time to travel all the way there, it wasn't meant to be anyways. 

But our container was delayed. So we decided to go to Livingstone, Africa. T'was momentous.

Chilling with Livingstone, like a boss.
second weekend in Africa.