A trip to Zambia with my parents

August 2022: I am 30 years old (yikes) and apparently still going on holidays with my parents. Why? For the most part, I continued going on trips with my parents after moving out because of convenience (my Mom loves to plan trips whereas for me, the mere exposure to a travel guide blurb can induce narcoleptic attacks - probably because I have been raised as the incompetent offspring of an overprotective and intrusive matriarch smh! Also my parents tend to pick exotic, expensive destinations and naturally they pay for our trips) and nostalgic self-denial (when have I ever been on a trip with my parents where I didn’t count the days?). These days, I continue to travel with them because my Dad has Alzheimer’s and my Mom is always on the brink of snapping caring for him and managing the lives of my two ancient grandmas (if only ancient grandmas were as in-demand with museums of natural history as pilfered treasures from former colonies, our family would gladly provide ours as exposition pieces). This time, we are going to Zambia in southern Africa.

07.08.2022

We arrive at the airport five hours in advance. This is partly due to the fact that old people like my parents want to play it extra-safe (this is only true for my Mom anymore, as my Dad has long lost all understanding of numbers), on the other hand it has become necessary as the German infrastructure and service industries are falling apart after too many years of the conservative party ruling the country and a recent global pandemic. Mom exhibits increasingly insane behaviour such as scribbling multiple undecipherable bag tags for all of our luggage and approaching a nervous breakdown upon being confronted with the tags' complete illegibility or rushing into a pharmacy to double her already considerable stash of face masks (she must have boarded the plane with around 50 masks in her carry-on). Only a beer will calm her down. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to be interested in taking some benzodiazepines. I notice Dad struggling to close and open his seat belt on the plane. It hurts seeing him like this, as it always does. Fun flight ahead.

08.08.2022

Arrival in Dubai, where we’re transiting. Large advertisements claim that TripAdvisor users have voted Dubai to be the number one travel destination in the world. I wonder who enjoys traveling to a dusty city in the desert offering Sharia laws, an uninhabitable climate and endless malls full of Djihadists clad in Louis Vuitton. But then, the efficiency of an absolute monarchy is the wet dream of any anal personality. At least noone has to worry about luggage getting lost at this airport (what is the punishment for losing a customer’s luggage? Maybe a cut-off ear?). At Costa Coffee, we order some iced lattes and I experience the initial pain of leaving whatever one considers civilization (for me, it entails the effortless obtainability of my favourite caffeinated beverage - which is not instant coffee, I’m looking at you, African countries!).

After another lenghty flight, through which I mostly doze, we arrive in Lusaka, Zambia. I quite like airports in developing countries. They lack all the sleekness and sterility of Western airports, they may be run-down shacks or corroded half-finished structures. You will find sun-bleached portraits of leaders or touristic sites, very neat and meek employees clashing with the imperfect surroundings in which they are providing their services (I feel sorry for them, I’m sure they would much prefer working at Dubai airport). Linoleum, wood-paneled walls, clipboards holding shabby pieces of paper on which information about passengers is logged in smeared pencil.

A driver working for our lodge picks us up. Unfortunately I have to sit in the front of the car with him and he is very talkative. As we head out into the red dust, he gives me a long talk about politics. Apparently a new president has come into power one year ago, and people are hopeful. Also, he thinks colonialism wasn’t all bad and while Hitler wasn’t exactly a good guy his determination still deserves admiration.

09.08.2022

Sophia, the eastern German lady who runs our first lodge, joins our table at breakfast for a chat. While she’s talking to us, one of the (black) guys from the kitchen brings her a cup of coffee. Upon inspection of her beverage she finds something wrong with it and sends the guy back to the kitchen to fix it. When she receives it back, she just takes the cup, not even bothering to look at the man that delivered it, continuing to talk to us. She tells us we are in luck regarding the guide who will be with us for the entirety of the trip, Dulani: ‘our best horse in the stable’.

After a domestic flight, we arrive at our lodge at South Lwanga National Park. We meet Dulani. At first, we only meet his grim-executor-of-duties-persona. Meaning that he presents himself as exactly that, someone who doesn’t trade in banter of any kind but will spend every minute completing whatever task at hand to the best of his abilities. He even prides himself of sleeping for just a few hours each night! I bite my tongue to avoid telling him that chronic sleep deprivation may put him at risk of developing a condition like Dad’s. What he does being up all night while staying in Safari lodges with us, god knows. He’s been carrying a book about traditional Zambian ceremonies around with him, but if all he’s been getting up to all those almost sleepless nights has been studying the book then he really must be relishing every page. We feel like we are in for a let-down with this dry, humourless fart in the light of whose discipline we don’t even dare to say that we’d prefer not to get up at 5 to go on game drives every day (side note, for some reason african animals are referred to as ‘game’, probably a term coined during times when tourists came not to look at them, but to hunt them? This thought conjures up an image of Englishmen bringing along their Corgis for the hunt).

Aside from working as a guide for the German Safari travel company we’ve booked our trip with, he is also their chief mechanic, maintaining their fleet of jeeps. Furthermore, he takes imported Japanese cars from the harbour in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) to Zambia to deliver them to well-off compatriots (in the most reliable fashion, naturally - as opposed to less professional folks offering this service, a client won’t be bothered by a desperate call announcing that their to-be-delivered new car has broken down on the way and they must send help, as Dulani is naturally able to take care of any problem that might occur during the journey without the client having to assist in any way), the journey being almost 2000 kilometres one-way. 24/7, he’s incessantly working all these jobs in order to pay his childrens' boarding school tuitions. Education is free for all children in Zambia these days, but the free state-run ones apparently operate under deplorable circumstances, with about 160 children in one classroom, only some of them being able to sit at a desk and exercise books being scarce. Children in Africa, the most commonly cited example of human suffering, and apparently rightfully so. The suffering of Dulani’s children is however of a different flavour, the one inflicted by a tiger parent to whom anything but excellence constitutes mockery of his hard work which enables their education. He craps on about how each of them is on top of their class, one of them even having passed the entry exam for the most prestigious boarding school in the country. I become painfully aware of the fact that the concept of having to work really hard in (elementary-/high-)school in order to make it somewhere in life and not disappoint your parents is pretty foreign to me. How to live with this pressure? Esp. considering the fact that mental health issues like anxiety are probably not a thing in Africa. I wonder how he’d react to the ‘I do not dream of labour’-movement popular with Millenials/Gen Z in Western countries, but I guess the desire to work less and shift your priorities away from having an impressive career comes after having reason to rest assured that your elementary needs will be met.

Also, he is a pieous protestant, teaching children about morals and good behaviour at Sunday school, visiting the homes of children who have been absent to investigate the reasons for them staying away, with unprotected teenage sex resulting in pregnancy, HIV infection and even suicide attempts among them. Phew! Hard not to ponder the injustice of this hard-working man barely being able to make ends meet while us useless Mzungus (Mzungu = white person) are affluent enough to not only take time off work (jk I don’t have a job anyway), but even go on expensive intercontinental trips and hire a private guide. These ponderings may partly be triggered by neurotic projection on my side, partly by my sensing a pang of edgelord vibes here: underneath the veneer of the man who will do anything to make sure a client is happy shimmers an air of grandiosity. Another man impatiently waiting for humanity to discover his greatness! Are the meekest among us often the most arrogant? 🤔 But then, the developing country edgelord is way ahead of Western edgelords - we truly cannot know what he could have accomplished in his life had he had access to the same opportunities that are available to Westerners. Also, the perceived gap between Dulani’s work ethic and relative poverty on the one hand, our uselessness and relative affluence on the other is not exactly narrowed by Mom’s asking me to explain the concept of a square kilometre to her during dinner (what’s more, at some point she was referring to the ‘Belgian language’ (?!)).

The weekend before leaving on this trip, I had been staying in the Brandenburg countryside with some friends. In anticipation of the upcoming holiday with my parents, I had entertained the others with demonstrations of my Mom’s usual reaction to my reading in bed at night with the window open: ‘OH MY GOD!!!! All the mosquitoes will come inside!!!!’ - Quite on brand, upon entering our room Mom immediately starts to inspect all of the mosquito nets, repairing any holes with her sewing kit. All of this in addition to swallowing Malaria prevention medication and using copious amounts of repellent every few hours. Btw, we’re not in an area considered to be risky in terms of Malaria.

10.08.2022

Dulani’s duties apparently also include lengthy monologues about the country and his life, usually narrated at dinner. Once upon a time, he tells us, his Dad, uncles and aunties killed his grandpa: when his grandparents had grown old, they were taken from the village to their children in Lusaka, because - do we hear a little judgement directed at us callous individualist Westerners here? - in Africa elders are being taken care of by their children, just as they have taken care of those children when raising them. While granny was stable, just growing older and older and becoming more decrepit in a predictable, gradual manner, grandpa went downhill fast, constantly in and out of hospital. He was basically a vegetable and a huge drag for the family, his children having to take turns in taking time off work in order to care for him. Finally, they decided that they would have to find a doctor that would ‘finish him off’. A doctor was found and paid; he sneaked into the hospital and put a lethal dose of something into grandpa’s drip. Grandpa’s heart stopped beating, and the matter seemed dealt with. However, a few hours later grandpa came back to life! The doctor was appalled, claimed this was entirely impossible, the family would receive a refund and he wanted nothing to do with the entire thing anymore. A second attempt with another doctor failed similarly, grandpa’s heartbeat returning when he was already in the morgue. The time had come to consult grandma. ‘Why, you should have asked me earlier’, she said, ‘I can tell you exactly why this is happening, we need to bring him back to the village’. It turned out that in his fourties, grandpa and one of his friends had drunken a magic immortality potion mixed by a traditional healer (main ingredient: turtle). Only a counter-potion could break the spell! And so it came: after grandpa had ingested the potion, surrounded by his extended family and the entire village (he had been the chief at some point), he addressed every family member for one last time, doling out advice and instructions, before saying goodnight and finally dying in peace.

11.08.2022

It’s not just us and Dulani today: a guide working for our lodge, Mr Vic, will go on two activities with us. Seemingly the complete opposite of Dulani, Vic appears at ease, relaxed, smooth. Definitely not moving through life with an attitude of duty and discipline, as our dear African Samurai friend does. He speaks in a quiet and pleasant voice, wears a few pieces of jewellery, and rather than doling out precise facts about wildlife, he embeds everything in a story that makes the animals seem almost human. E.g., the depressed hippo: he points out that a hippo listlessly lying in a pond by itself, sometimes not even fully immersed in water, is usually the loser of a recent fight among male hippos who has been evicted from the pack. If this happens to a young-ish male hippo, there will still be some hope, some zeal in him; he will try and find himself a nice pond and hope to attract a family of his own, e.g. a single mother with her child that has left her pack because the alpha wouldn’t accept her male baby. If the loser is an elderly man however, he may give up on himself completely, despondently awaiting the end of his days, even stop feeding.

Is Dulani jealous of Vic’s smoothness? His immediate likeability? Or is he appalled by his style in guiding, too informal, not going the extra mile? I’m reminded of the classic high-school tropes, Vic the popular, handsome guy heading the football team and charming the ladies, Dulani the nerdy loner earning the best grades but not his peers' recognition.

These fairly interesting (pretty chlichéd and one-dimensional, admittedly) thought experiments are tanked by Vic showing us his sleazy side as the day goes on: upon chewing some gum, he makes a comment about ‘playing with the mouth’, and later on he encourages me to pose in between him and Dulani for a picture: ‘two slices of bread and some butter in between’. Yeah, you get to choose between skin aging and cancer from tanning or being fetishized as a piece of butter by creepy Safari guides!

Dulani increasingly presents other facets of his personality, more playfulness shining through. Sometimes he’s chipper, a ray of sunshine even, other times he’s back to his no-pain-no-gain pokerface.

12.08.2022

Saw an abundance of animals today (mating lions, two leopards, a pack of wild dogs being filmed by a National Geographic team, also a pack of hyenas feeding). Turns out a pair of lions mates 250 times within two days. Dulani, despite being an ardent Christian, doesn’t seem to mind watching animals having sex. One lion copulation lasts for about 10 seconds and ends in a roar. I can’t get that Katy Perry song out of my head for the remainder of the day. Wild dogs are an extremely rare sight and endangered species, with only 6600 individuals still roaming the continent.

It must be plainly obvious to Dulani that something’s up with Dad, the way he is basically unable to properly communicate even if I am translating (he fails to navigate the cues that orchestrate an interaction and has lost all of his English; when speaking in German he struggles to find the words and often does not give context, displaying growing agitation, irritation, even despair when others cannot follow) or follow simple instructions like ‘please hold on to the railing’ given in the jeep on a particularly bumpy road.

Me writing to an advice column: Hi there, I went on a Safari vacation to Zambia with my parents recently. We had a private guide with us for two weeks, and he quickly must have realized that something is wrong with my Dad. My Dad, a retired paediatrician, has Alzheimer’s, and the guide had to learn that his attempts at making conversation with him - whom he initially held in high esteem, addressing him with sentences like ‘Hey doctor, what do you think?’ - weren’t going anywhere, as in fact my Dad unfortunately has to be handled in a similar manner as one would a toddler. Anyways, Mom and I debated that it would be best to tell the guide about Dad’s condition to no longer leave him in the dark, the openness producing more patience and understanding, best not to leave him guessing etc. However, when we told Dad he was adamant that we refrain from telling the guide. What to do, respect his wish or tell the guide anyway? In general, how not to write Dad off completely and continue to treat him with dignity? plz help

Reply from the advice column: Hello, glad to hear you are going on an intercontinental trip to a developing country in times like these when the world is burning! You must feel like Madonna waving to those black kids from the jeep! Regarding your Dad, I guess you will have to grant him the little agency that is still his to wield, and not say anything. In what way would it help for the guide to know the exact reason for your Dad’s behaviour? I suspect that the main benefit would be a slightly lower level of embarassment experienced by you and your Mom if an explicit explanation were given. The guide will have figured that something is up, some kind of neurological issue, doesn’t that suffice? My tip is to just relax, and try to internalize the fact that your Dad’s illness does not reflect negatively on his family members, nor are you as his next of kin in any way responsible for explaining or justifying symptoms to anyone.

Another of Dulani’s stories: once, a couple was planning their private Safari trip and feeling very adventurous. Specifically, they were determined to drive into South Luangwa national park on a notoriously perilous route. The perils include staggeringly steep slopes (no pavement, obviously), giant rocks blocking the road (which have to be removed before being able to pass), the necessity to drive through rivers on occasion (this means having to determine a location where the river is sufficiently shallow, tying all of the luggage to the jeep’s roof and then I guess chanting yellow submarine), and no reception whatsoever, i.e., if you get stuck you’re kinda dead (no human settlement for miles and miles). Sensibly, it is strongly advised not to attempt traversal of this route with a single jeep - there should be two jeeps just in case one of them breaks down. However, with just a single couple on a private Safari that would have been prohibitively expensive. Clearly, Dulani was the man for the job (the guide that originally should have done it refused to participate in such foolishness). Equipped with food that would have lasted them a week and a satellite phone (always has reception) they embarked on the journey. They conquered the slopes and the rocks and the rivers (classic Dulani). But then they bumped into a stranded jeep. Desperate, desolate people inside: a group of five travelers from South Africa who had attempted the route without knowing what they were getting themselves into (not like there’s warnings printed onto maps). Their jeep had been equipped with too many electronic features and thus failed to survive the river-crossing. They only had half a litre of water and no food, and one of the windows had been open when the jeep’s electricity short-circuited and couldn’t be closed. Five days they had spent inside the jeep, with lions circling them, even sticking their heads through the open window. Safe to say these people were half-dead and severely traumatized. Dulani saved their lives, and in turn they paid his kids' tuitions for some time when Covid hit and money was scarce in the absence of tourists.

14.08.2022

We leave South Luangwa national park and head back to Lusaka. This time, we’re driving rather than flying. The trip is 10 hours because roads are often nonexistent (i.e., no pavement, just gravel), and if they are, they are full of potholes. Often these pothole-ridden roads are just a few years old and were very expensive to build; corrupt politicians having spent tax-payers' money on very bad deals whose sealing earned them some pocket-money.

Driving is bad not just because of the bumpiness but also because of the cringe-factor of being driven (in a fancy jeep, as a white person, with an African driver) through villages where people live in extreme poverity. No running water or electricity, the landscape dusty and barren, scattered with plastic waste. Huts made of brick. Shopfronts painted by hand with advertisements for large corporations (telecommunications providers and payment services mostly - note that Western Union-esque transfer services are vital in African countries as they ensure that money can be sent from the city to relatives in the villages) or with ill-fitting religious names such as ‘Only God Knows - General Supplies’, sometimes also with illustrations of items somehow relating to the type of the business (e.g. a beauty salon adorned with meticulous depictions of devices that may assist in the process of achieving maximum beauty - all this stuff is actually inside this dusty shack? Reminiscent of Mary Poppins' bag that contains entire lampshades and wardrobes). Also, we pass a van with the inscription ‘Jealous people never win’.

15.08.2022

We arrive in Lower Zambezi national park. Hard to believe it is the second most popular national park in Zambia (after South Luangwa) considering the ‘road’ leading there. Also not hard to believe that rich folks prefer so-called ‘fly-in safaris’, i.e., you travel in between national parks on small charter planes (no bumpy roads! No depressing villages!). The Zambezi is one of the largest rivers in Africa and separates Zambia and Zimbabwe, at least in the area we’re staying in.

Our lodge immediately strikes me as cursed. The vibe is off. The owners (or managers?) are an elderly white couple from Zimbabwe, Brett and Lynn. Brett is overly chummy and seems to get off on ‘holding court’ in his lodge (new guests not only provide excitement and entertainment but also an unspoilt audience for his jokes and stories, of which I assume there are approximately 24). Most of the other guests are also white African people. The (black) employees seem lackluster and hardly speak any English. One of them looks like a black Nosferatu. There’s an extremely obese cat called Tom-Tom (😻). Lynn has put Dulani in the campsite and is bewildered by the fact that he is supposed to eat with us in the lodge’s restaurant rather than heat up some cans by his tent. We feel like we’ve entered a time capsule - is colonialism really not a thing anymore?

16.08.2022

At breakfast it’s storytime with Brett. He reveals the defining event of his life: in the good old days, his family had two tobacco farms in Zimbabwe. When Robert Mugabe came into power however, the farms were expropriated and the mzungus were thrown out of the country (‘Just because we were white! It was racism! I was born in Zimbabwe!'). Hence they crossed the Zambezi river and settled in Zambia instead. Aside from the lodge, he also has a copper mine further north (in the country’s ‘copper belt’). A short rant about young people who keep buying new phones and laptops every year, oblivious to or plainly disregarding the fact that the required rare earths come from Congolese mines that mainly employ children. Unclear why he mentions his ownership of a mine and his disapproval of mining-reliant consumerism in the same breath. What do you even need copper for? Luckily I am the type of engineer that only deals in virtual materials.

Clearly, Brett is an influential man (and he must make it explicit in case it wasn’t obvious to us from the start!!!), and it comes as no surprise that his family was good friends with the Kaunda family (Kenneth Kaunda was Zambia’s first president after the country gained independence). Another ‘hilarious’ story: the main achievement of Edgar Lungu, the famously corrupt president that was voted out of office in 2021, was transitioning from the nickname Vodka-Lungu to Jameson-Lungu over the course of his presidency. Apparently it cost 30 000 dollars to be granted an audience with him, and when one of Brett’s friends booked himself a tryst one night, Lungu was completely fucked up, threw himself onto a chaise-longue and simply shouted at his staff: ‘Just give him whatever he wants!’.

After Brett departs from our table, content with his performance, Dulani shares his two cents on the topic of Mugabe. According to him, Mugabe was an outstanding politician, idealistic, determined, brutally honest, never shying away from speaking the uncomfortable truth. He claims that Mugabe didn’t simply throw all white people out but that he instead made those leave that exploited the country’s resources and people without making any effort to give back to the local community. I am struck by the impossiblity of making definitive judgments about history. Sure, historians in the West cite Mugabe as a prime example of a communist revolutionary turned despotic cleptocrat. I’m sure they have their reasons. My woke self still wants to believe the black African man. Am I just a self-congratulatory prick whose desire to not believe the established opinion is akin to the anti-vaxxer state of mind? What’s real? We can’t objectively discern objectivity 😟

In the evening, we go on a sunset cruise on the river. I sit in the back with Dulani and he’s in a talkative mood. He tells me about an elderly guy called Jost who regularly joins group Safaris but spends most of these trips reading his books rather than partaking in activities such as game drives. Here’s Dulani’s incredibly original theory about people who read a lot of books: they don’t have many friends because they enjoy being by themselves. I’ve often mentioned to Dulani that I read a lot of books, so I guess thanks to him for calling me a loner. I would like to tell him about the type of person that presents themself on social media as a lover of books, cats, and rainy days (my MBTI starts with an ‘I’, so I’m deep!), but decide not to (cultural gap most likely unbridgeable in this case).

17.08.2022

Today we are heading into the park, which is much more lush than South Luangwa. I wonder if animals actually give a shit beyond the availability of food. Would a lion ever stop and think: ‘what a fucking bleak barren landscape, I should really find myself a more pleasant scenery!’? Probably not, which saddens me. A life devoid of aesthetic experiences kinda sucks, I guess. Or maybe it’s great. Anyhow, the lushness means more greens and this means that here we spot elephants without tusks: genetic mutation! In more arid surroundings they need their tusks because they have to rely on food that is more cumbersome to come by, such as tree bark, which they can only ‘harvest’ using their tusks. Here, no need. Or maybe the mutation has been triggered by poaching. Speaking of elephants: we spot a lot of elephant babys. They are incredibly cute and very goofy. E.g., they swing their trunks in a noticably playful, Dumbo-esque way when walking. One even runs towards our jeep excitedly 🥺.

During the game drive (reminder, this means driving through a national park and looking for wildlife) we bump into a jeep belonging to the same Safari company. A group of six tourists and German guide Wolfgang. Dulani to Wolfgang: ‘Hey Wolfgang, do you have my cookies?’ - Wolfgang: ‘Dulani, such a cookie monster! He cannot possibly function without his cookies! I must find them immediately!’. He retrieves the cookies from his jeep and hands them to Dulani, who hugs and thanks him profusely. After Wolfgang has driven off, Dulani reveals he doesn’t actually like cookies but Wolfgang has given him the role of cookie monster during a Safari they were leading in tandem and Dulani has been playing this role ever since (‘for the guests’).

18.08.2022

After a few nights at the lodge we have descended to Brett’s mode of existence, curiously awaiting new guests and what they have to offer. Last night, an interesting case has arrived: a single traveler from Barcelona who is on a roadtrip from South Africa to ehm approximately seven African countries, never spending more than one night in one location. For no reason, he has already informed us that he works in Nestlé’s finance department and speaks 8 languages during dinner last night (🆗🆒). Why is he traveling in such a hurry? Today we are canoeing with him and learn about his motivation: he is on a quest to visit every country in the world! Hence, two big trips every year, and at least five countries per trip. Given the speed at which he travels, he strives for maximum efficiency and quizzes our guide with to-the-point questions like: ‘What are the top three industries in this country?’.

At dinner, after the Spaniard has long departed to his next stop, Brett feels the need to gossip about him with us: ‘That guy was a bit odd, wasn’t he?’. I tell him what we’ve learned, and Brett freaks out: ‘That’s no way of getting to know countries! You gotta talk to the people! He told me he had read about Zimbabwe’s history and Mugabe and all that, but was he there when they came to take my ranch? He should have seen with his own eyes!!!!’. The ranch! Dear god, give Brett back his ranch(es)!!!!!

Remainder of trip (19.-24.08.2022)

The last few days are hazy for me. I experience pretty debilitating side-effects of the Malaria prevention meds we are taking (Malarone): constant sleepiness and excessive napping, gloomy mood and digestive problems. Reading up on this stuff online isn’t exactly helpful (many horror stories of people committing suicide or going berzerk as a consequence of these meds). Mum isn’t being her most helpful self either, meeting my somber vibes with hysteria.

What we did: from Lower Zambezi national park we drive to Livingstone, ‘the tourist city’ of Zambia (located right next to the world-famous Victoria Falls). Our first evening there turns out to be quite miserable, contributing factors among others exhaustion after a 10-hour drive, surprisingly cold temperature, dissatisfaction with our lodge and having to say Goodbye to Dulani. The next day thus sees us moving into a luxury resort located in a small national park right next to the falls. Giraffes, Zebras and Antilopes roam freely here, and the shtick of the place is to conjure up ‘old-world’ glam (watching the sunset over the river while sipping a Gin Tonic, dust from the falls rising in the distance, elephants passing by; also there’s salons with ceiling-fans, mock-up big game hunting trophies, jazz music and board games). Interestingly though, many of the guests appear to be affluent Africans. Mom immediately realizes that the only thing that’s more inspiring to her artistically than poor African people is rich African people (they got better outfits). Mom’s attempt at consuming a traditional fish dish in the resort’s fanciest restaurant, ‘The Old Drift’, gives me 24 hours of queasiness. I have always been extremely prone to disgust, dunno what that says about me. Probably just further proof of my setting the neuroticism scale on fire.

I don’t find it easy but I think I need to keep a record of the development of Dad’s illness. Here’s this: on the way home, we stop once in Lusaka (after a domestic flight from Livingstone) and another time in Dubai. While waiting for boarding at Lusaka airport, Dad keeps thinking we are are already in Dubai, and we have a hard time convincing him otherwise. Note to self: no more overnight flights with Mom. After not having gotten any sleep on the flight from Lusaka to Dubai, she is an irritable mess on Dubai-Munich leg of the trip. The woman sitting behind her bitches at her because Mom’s seat seems to be broken and keeps flipping from the reclined to the upright position uncontrollably, disturbing the woman’s TV experience. Mom breaks out in tears and tells me she does not know how she will cope with what the future holds. Yeah, me neither. Incredibly sweet flight attendants care for her and talk to the nasty woman behind us. My gloomy mood nevertheless turns abyssmal. I shouldn’t have made things worse by watching a documentary about the mysterious death of actress Brittany Murphy in 2009 (there’s more light-hearted entertainment out there, y’all).