The Beginning: Part 3

This picture was taken by LoHud to accompany
an article written about us just before we left for
Botswana in 2003. This pic was lliterally taken
amongst our 13 boxes and our dog. 

I was working at NYC Parks that day and took a moment to check our messages at home. As I punched in our passcode, the static on the other end should have given it away. There was a man with an “accent” rambling on about having lost our phone number, and apologizing for the delay. Were we still interested in the job, and…that’s when I realized the call was from Botswana.

I half listened to the remainder of the message. I hung up, looked at Mary with whom I shared an office and squealed, “That was Africa!” Only Mary knew of Peter’s letter, but in a few minutes, everyone would know.

I called Peter who never checks our messages. Call home I told him. Why? Just call home. OK, but why? Listen to our messages. I don’t know how. I had to walk him through the process because he’d never checked our messages before today.

More than a few excruciating minutes went by. Mary said, 'He probably forgot the password. He probably forgot and did something else. He probably couldn’t understand the message' 

…when finally, he returned my call.

What should I do? he asked. Do I call them back? What do you want me to say? Who would of thought they’d actually accept us? Wait, does that mean we have the job or do they just want to talk to us? What do we say? Can we really do this?

While our minds and mouths were racing, we both knew. This was really going to happen. We were going to Africa.

We scoured the website of the reserve we had applied to with a different eye. This was for keeps, not just for fun. We looked at the list of employees – pictures with names and their titles. We looked at the list of animals, activities, comments from guests. We read page after page and committed it all to heart.

We were moving to Africa to run a game reserve. It all seemed like a dream – Peter’s dream.

With very little reservation, quite honestly, none, I went along with the whole idea. I believed in my heart that this was a move we all needed to make. We would be the family Peter wanted, living the life he could not have even imagined.