going to the zoo, when you live in safari land

going to the zoo in africa is probably like buying apples at stop 'n shop when you live in an orchard,  or blowing up the baby pool when you live beside the ocean, but today we went to the zoo.  i have red tailed monkeys and grey parrots in my yard and we drove an hour and a half to go to the zoo.  not a safari, but the regular old zoo.  but it was cheaper and quicker and easier and fun.

we saw all the usual suspects, lions and zebras and pythons and warthogs and giraffes.

jude loved the crocodiles with their mouths open to cool off.  zoe and bryn  loved the otters. we saw the national bird, the crested crane, and the kids took a ride on a donkey.  i most enjoyed watching the people and trying to figure out where they were from and who comes to africa to go to the zoo- (i mean at least i live here).

then we went for pizza on the shore of lake victoria. zoe made friends with a danish family, and the boys swam in their skivies, and jude ,of course, found a crew of local ugandan kids to hang out with. 

 i love this about him.  maybe most of all, because i didn't know he had it in him.  he tends to be shy.  he tends to take a while to warm up.  he likes the familiar and the routine and he can entertain himself well all alone.  but it turns out he's also the most comfortable of the three of them, playing with ugandan kids.  when they come over to our house they're always looking for 'judee'.  he's also the blondest and the palest which makes it even better. 

perhaps the highlight of the afternoon was being told by a german tourist who was watching my children swim in lake victoria, that it was very dangerous and i shouldn't be allowing them in the water, because of, you know, schistosomiasis.  i'm sure he felt obliged to tell me because he's seen us at the zoo, and figured we were tourists as well, just less informed tourists.  i thanked him, told him we lived here and would take our chances, but left out that i was a doctor so as not to inspire a false sense of safety that might draw him into the water and result in a parasitic infection. 

it was a great day.  the traffic was fine, no tickets, and the kids slept on the way home. jude even broke the camera, and i got a headache. but it was still a great day because what's a partially broken camera in the grand scheme of things, and headaches (eventually) go away. and i think it all started off well because of my newly discovered love of the low expectation.