“You are probably not overly familiar with Wisconsin,
Nick?”
“That’s something of an understatement, Jim.” I reply meeting him at the fire to top up his
champagne.
We are in the kgotla at Savuti Bush Camp celebrating Jim and Mary’s 50th wedding anniversary. Jim is a giant
of a man with a deep voice and big hands. He has made his living selling
snow-clearing equipment in a four-state area; Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and
Kansas. Later in the evening we discover that he and several other of the
guests, from New Zealand, are all keen skiers.
His wife, the diminutive Mary, is playing “pick a card” with the female
staff who are coming one by one from the staff village to see her. She has already
won them over by cleaning dishes back-of-house and presenting them with sweets,
clothing, pens and pencils. The cards are postcards from their home state and
each one represents a plant or animal native to Colorado.
It’s Monday, which is traditional
dinner night, and there is much to celebrate as another couple in camp are
celebrating forty years of marriage. The staff, including me, sing and dance
round the fire. It’s a good
performance and tears are shed under our star-studded backdrop.
The next morning at breakfast one of the Kiwi men congratulates me on a
wonderful evening saying that I really do do a great job with the “liquor and beverage.”
It’s a simple slip of the tongue
(I am the F n B, or food and beverage manager, after all), but one that quickly
enters the camp vernacular.
“Oh wow,” one of the American girls pipes up referring to F n
B, “I wouldn’t mind a little bit of that, whatever it is!”
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