Uganda Be Kidding Me

  We went on a sunset ride through the delta to check out the landscape before dinner. We met Z’s tracker, whose name was Sparks, and we drove for a bit until we stopped the jeep in a pond of lilies. The water was so placid and clear, we could see all the way to the bottom. There were different species of birds doing the same thing we were doing—sitting still and taking in the surroundings. It was a beautiful moment in a beautiful part of the world that took everyone’s breath away, including my own. It was silent for a moment too long, so I decided to ask the question that was on all of our minds.

  “Is this where we get raped?”

  Rex took this as an opportune time to describe to Z what kind of women he was dealing with and what to be prepared for. Z said he already loved us and that he had dealt with our kind before.

  “Well, then, I shall say no more,” Rex told him.

  This puzzled me. “Rex, you said you had never met anyone like us.”

  “I never have!” he defended himself. “I swear on my mother’s life, I never have.”

  “No, no, no,” Z said with a smile. “I speak wrong. My English is not perfect. I have never dealt with this kind of women before, but I like it.”

  “Like it or love it?” I asked.

  “I love it!” He smiled again. Z’s tracker didn’t speak a word of English but knew when it was time to smile. This was when I tackled both of them in the front seat.

  In Botswana we weren’t required to get up until seven a.m., so unlike the previous eight days, we really let it rip that night. Z had a harmonica, and Sparks played what I think was a sitar.

  I decided to make my move on Rex. I got up from the table after several cocktails and in the middle of the entertainment, announced I was going to bed. “Rex, let’s go.”

  I walked toward my room, and when I didn’t see him following me, I walked back to the fire everyone had moved over to and repeated myself. “Rex, let’s go to bed.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to bed with you.”

  I hadn’t even contemplated the idea that Rex might not be attracted to me: I was in shock, but I told myself to keep moving. When one of the African female staffers saw me walking, she joined me to escort me over the bridge to my villa.

  “Will you be needing anything in your villa?” she asked me.

  I looked at her and at the laundry basket on her head. “Do you guys have any thriller porn?”

  June 29, Friday

  I woke up to Molly staring at me, smiling. “Herro.”

  “Herro.” We’ve been saying hello like Asian people since we were very young.

  “Do you remember telling Rex last night that you were a gasoline heiress?”

  “Why is my hair in a French braid?” I asked her.

  “I did that before you made your big exit last night. And that you once taped a bar stool to a paddle board because you were crossing the Nile and didn’t want to overexert yourself?”

  My mortification was unparalleled. I’ve had many mornings where I’ve woken up knowing that something had gone terribly wrong the night before, but this was an entirely different level of shame.

  “Was it as bad as I think?”

  “It was pretty bad. I’ve never seen you like that.”

  “Why do you think he rejected me?”

  “Does it really matter, Chelsea?” she said, tilting her head to the side.

  “Oh god. How am I going to face him?”

  “You can face him,” Molly reassured me. “It’s just going to be humiliating.”

  “Thank god you’re here, Ricky,” I told Molly. I call her Ricky whenever we’re alone because it’s my safe word, and she knows when I use it, I need her to stick close by.

  I got up and walked over to the mirror, where I discovered the mosquito bite on my forehead had tripled in size. “I look like that boy from that Cher movie Mask. What was his name?”

  “Rocky Dennis.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Well, you need to apologize.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Chelsea, it’s not like we haven’t all made asses out of ourselves on this trip. Just don’t make a bigger deal about it than it is.”

  She was right. There was no point in beating myself up over trying to have sex with a safari guide who rejected me.

  I wrapped a bandana around my mosquito bump and we got our things together, then joined the group on the main deck, where we were meeting to be taken to our bush breakfast.

  I locked eyes with Shelly, who was still wearing her pajamas that I ordered for her online from the AutoZone.

  “Hi!” she bellowed. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Great,” I said, and walked directly over to Rex. “I want to apologize to everyone for my behavior last night, and Rex, to you especially. That was really gross and I’m really sorry. I hope you don’t think that I think that you’re a male hooker.”

  “No worries at all,” he told me and patted me on the back like we were soldiers fighting together in Afghanistan.

  Everyone else reverted back to their conversations regarding the night before. Apparently, after I had gone to bed, everyone stayed up until 1 a.m. listening to someone play the guitar—a whole night had taken place after my performance, so no one was as concerned with my behavior as I was.

  I kept my distance from Rex that morning. Vurumba was a three-day camp, which meant we had two more nights to go, and I didn’t want him to think I was going to act like that again.

  We got in the jeep with Z and Sparks. I sat down next to Simone, who was sitting in the first row behind the driver’s seat. She had an ice pack for me and propped my leg on her knee. “Do you need any lip balm?” she asked me.

  The morning after Rex rejected me.

  Me, confiding about being sexually rejected.

  I don’t know what I would do without my sister. She has always made me feel better when I am teetering on the edge. The night before her own wedding she had to calm me down, because I had a meltdown. I was scared that once she got married, she would start having sex, which would lead to her own family, followed shortly thereafter by her desertion of me. She stayed up with me until 2 a.m. convincing me that her marriage was never going to lead to her abandoning me. “I’ll always be your real mother,” she assured me. “It doesn’t matter how many kids I have. You will always be my firstborn.”

  Simone wasn’t my mother, but my mother was so lazy, Simone had to step in and do the major disciplining. She knew how retarded my parents were. If “helicopter parenting” is the term to describe parents who are meddlesome and overprotective, “ceiling fan parenting” would be the term to describe mine.

  Simone taking custody of me early on.

  We arrived at our bush breakfast to find another happy African man smiling from ear to ear.

  “Chelsea, Molly, do you want one?”

  “No, I think I’m good.”

  “No, Chelsea wants one,” Molly corrected me. I did want one, but in my shame spiral I didn’t think I deserved one. Step 1: After apologizing, proceed as usual.

  The plan for the day was to eat breakfast, go for a morning ride, and then head back to the lodge. At 3 p.m. we would take a flat-bottom-boat ride through the delta.

  After our morning ride, Molly and I went over to Sue and Hannah’s room so I could commiserate with them about being rejected. Sue is always able to see things objectively, and I was desperate for someone other than a family member to shed some light on the subject. Plus, Shelly and Simone’s villa was a long walk across the bridge, and my knee was hurting more than usual.

  “Chelsea wants to know why Rex rejected her,” Molly announced when Hannah opened the door.

  “How’s it feel, Chels?” Hannah asked. Hannah’s bloviating had dissipated once we got to Botswana, so I was ready to have an honest conversation with her.

  “Not great.”

  “Yeah, in all the years I’ve
known you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get sexually rejected.” This wasn’t true, but it wasn’t something I was going to contest.

  “Thanks, Hannah,” I said sincerely. At least she was backing up my hubris. “I feel like I’ve hit my sexual nadir. What if this is it for me? What if I’ve peaked?”

  “Rex got pretty wasted last night after you went to bed,” Molly said. “It wasn’t pretty for him, either. He may not even remember what happened.”

  “Oh, he remembers,” Sue confirmed, sitting down on the twin bed across from the one I was sitting on. “I don’t think that’s something any of us will ever forget. Plus, I actually asked him this morning in the gift shop why he did in fact turn you down.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He said he’s just not that type of guy,” she said, shrugging. “That he has a girlfriend and that he doesn’t cheat on her.”

  “Do you see the irony here, Chels?” Molly pointed out. “The very thing you disdain most in a man is disloyalty, and then someone rejects you out of honor and loyalty, and you’re upset? You would never want to be with a guy that cheats on his girlfriend.”

  Molly was right. I hate cheaters; I find infidelity cowardly and selfish, and I wasn’t proud of myself for making a move on someone with a bona fide girlfriend.

  “If that’s the real reason, I’m fine with it,” I reassured the girls. “My fear is that it’s because I’ve put on so much weight and that he actually finds me unattractive.”

  “Well, that’s a possibility, too,” Sue confirmed. “He actually said Simone was more of his type.”

  Molly jumped in. “I knew it! Everyone has a crush on Simone!”

  This made no sense at all. “Simone?”

  “Oprah or NOprah?” Hannah bellowed, as she walked out of the bathroom she was sharing with Sue. “Can’t you just give your sister this one, Chels? I mean, compare both of your sex lives. Don’t you think you can throw her a bone? I don’t mean to sound like a pastor, but she just got divorced, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You’re right. I just don’t want him to think that I think he’s a prostitute. Like I flew him out here to have sex with him.”

  “But isn’t that what you did?” Sue asked.

  “Well, yes, but he didn’t have sex with me.”

  “Well, then I guess he’s not a prostitute. What Rex should really be doing with his life is working in Thailand teaching all those teenage prostitutes that their body is their choice and that the word No is an option to use with their johns.”

  “He slept in Shelly and Simone’s room last night,” Hannah revealed.

  “Why would he do that?” I asked.

  “Maybe he thought that’s where he’d be safest,” Sue said.

  “Or maybe he wanted to be with Simone!” Hannah squealed.

  “Shelly and Simone’s room has a little extra room that you can lock someone in like a caged animal.”

  This was news to me. Hannah came over to the twin bed I was sitting on.

  “Listen, tootsie roll. I don’t mean to sound like a pimp, but there are a lot of men who would die to sleep with you. Let’s focus on the fact that we are on a trip of a lifetime and you are responsible for bringing us all here.”

  “Yeah,” Molly said.

  “Yes,” Sue agreed. “If you hadn’t broken up with your fourth boyfriend in two years, we’d all be at a Dodgers game right now.”

  I realized my bathos needed to end. It was time to change the subject.

  “Don’t think I won’t be purchasing a twin bed for my bedroom in LA. I’ve already looked on Expedia, and there are tons for sale.”

  “Do you mean Craigslist?” Molly asked.

  “Why would you buy a used bed?” Sue asked.

  “I’ve decided to start cutting corners. Gas has gone up, and so has the price of milk. We’re in a fiscal crisis.”

  “Well, what happens when you bring a guy home?” Molly asked.

  “We will just have to use one of the guest rooms.” I did a full-circle head motion, Queen Latifah style, trying to lighten the mood. “Or perhaps I’ll get two twin beds and we can push them together during our lovemaking.”

  “I don’t mean to sound like a clock, but what fucking time is it?” Hannah asked. For once, Hannah was worried about time, and she was right.

  “That’s impressive, Hannah,” I told her. “You’ve really stepped up your game since we got here.”

  “Thanks, Chels. I’m trying to pull my own weight around here.”

  “I can see that,” I reassured her.

  “Me too,” Molly agreed.

  Molly and I went back to our room and changed out of our sweaty clothes.

  We all met in front of the lodge and hopped in the jeep with Z and Sparks. We drove around the reserve and through the delta and ended up at an ancient tree that Z told us was over five thousand years old. Z told us that in Setswana, which is the original language of Botswana, the tree was called the baobab tree, which meant “the tree of life,” and if we all touched the tree at the same time, our lives would be filled with love and happiness and we would be bound together forever. Upon hearing this, Simone opted out of the photo and offered to take it instead. “I don’t know if I want to be bonded with you guys for life.”

  I continued to keep a healthy distance from Rex when we got to the boat and chose to sit at the front after I had seen him take a seat in the back. Again, the water was crystal clear. Z told us, “The ecosystem is so clean here you can drink the water,” so we all did. The water was filled with tall grass and lily pads and tons of different flowers.

  Sue sighed gleefully, as people who love birds tend to do, and she asked Shelly to point out each species of bird we were seeing. Using a bird book they had bought at the first camp, the two of them had become fanatical about identifying everything they had seen. They reminded me of the couple on their honeymoon at Camp Londolozi who journaled every night. They would be the type of people to become mesmerized by birds, just like the type of people who go snorkeling and then want to sit around all day identifying the marine life they saw.

  Speaking of marine life, I once traveled to Buenos Aires with an ex-boyfriend and a gay couple. The four of us spent an entire dinner conversation discussing the extinction of caviar until, in an attempt to end it, I proposed the notion of a marine gynecologist going in and harvesting sturgeon eggs so that the fish wouldn’t have to lose their lives so violently. “There’s no reason marine biology shouldn’t also include marine gynecology. What fish wouldn’t be willing to get into stirrups as an alternative to being killed for its ovarian production?” What I thought was a very astute proposition was met with looks of concern, which as always only made me talk even more to convince them I was actually smarter than I seemed. “Think about it,” I told them with an emphasis on it. “If the world, or rather the sea, was open to this kind of progressive underwater thinking, can you imagine how many fish could be saved from ovarian cancer?”

  Back at the lily pond in Botswana, after everyone was done tasting the water we were floating in, I decided to add my two cents.

  Hannah and Sparks had developed their own relationship and were at the back of the boat together, when she suggested we all smoke a joint, making it one of the nicest boat rides I’ve ever been on.

  After dinner that night, we gathered around the fire and watched all the women who worked at the camp come out in traditional African garb and perform one African dance number after another. It was a beautiful thing to see, and Sue of course was the first one to join them on the sand dance floor. Rex was in bad shape and couldn’t form a sentence. He got up several times only to fall back into the seat he had tried to get up from.

  “Maybe now’s the time to make your move, Chels,” Hannah said, observing him.

  I asked Molly if I was that bad when I was drunk.

  “No,” Molly reassured me. “You can at least walk. You slur and sometimes get cross-eyed, but you get from point A to point B.”

&n
bsp; Shelly and Simone ended up carrying Rex back to their room and locking him in the little bedroom that was off theirs. Apparently, he kept trying to escape with loud grunts and banging on the door, but Simone and Shelly decided to leave him in there so he could pass out. That morning when they did open the door he was lying on the floor next to the bed, naked.

  June 30, Saturday

  This was the condition Rex was in on the morning of our third and final day at Vurumba.

  “Rex, do you have diarrhea?” Sue asked him, touching his knee.

  “I have some pills for that,” Molly offered. “I can go back to my room and get them.”

  “I’ve got a tampon,” Sue offered him.

  “Not to sound cocky,” I interjected as I lotioned myself up, “but I firmly believe that if I lived during a time when moisturizer hadn’t been introduced to society, I would invent it.”

  “I’m so fat,” Hannah grumbled. “We should see if the next camp offers a juice cleanse.”

  Hannah is not fat. In my professional opinion, she borders on malnutrition. It’s annoying to people who are actually struggling with their weight when a skinny girl loses weight on a juice cleanse. I have never once lost a pound on a juice cleanse. In fact, I have done two juice cleanses and both times gained three pounds. Not to sound like a nutritionist, but in my estimation there should be stricter instructions for detoxing. Not eating a half pound of prosciutto and a ball of fresh mozzarella would be helpful information to include in a pamphlet—that is, if these juice biologists are really serious about their clients losing weight.

  “I’m not joking about an adult obesity camp. Somewhere with adult dodgeball,” Sue announced.

  “Fat camps usually have a lot of fat people, though,” Hannah noted.

  “That’s the point, Hannah. Think about how easy it would be to hit a person at a fat camp. We’d be the thinnest ones there, and we’d become dodgeball champions.”

  “A fat camp sounds awful,” Molly commented. “I’d rather have high tea and learn a wind instrument.”