7.03.09

Today was an adventure, to say the least. Today, I went on my first hunting trip with a group of the Mighty Warriors Men. I’ve learned three main things through my experience:
One, hunting in Africa is different than hunting in America.
Two, hunting in Africa is a bit bloodier than hunting in America.
Three, I don’t like hunting in Africa.
We left after school. I asked what to wear, and they said it didn’t matter. That confused me. I understood once we got there. Hunting in Africa means you go to someone’s farm (different than American farms. Basically, someone’s bunch of land with game on it. No farm, actually.) and drive around in the back of your pickup truck. When you see game you bang on the roof of the cab and they slam on the breaks, piling everyone with guns up against the cab. Then, you shoot a bunch of times, trying to hit the game 200 yards away. When you finally wound one, you yell something in Africans at the driver that means go fast now in the general direction of that mass of animals we just shot at. The driver does as graciously asked until you bang on the roof again. Then you jump out of the back, and all the Africans chase the wounded animal with their pocket knives. The first one there wins. By “wins” I mean gets to slit the throat. Lastly, you sling the carcass in the back of the truck, readjust your stance on top of the animal, and start all over.
At the end of the escapade, we had four Spring Buck (like a deer) and one Kudu (like … a big deer?) Bethany and Tricia rode back in the cab and Tasha and I (beginning to be considered manlier than we would like) rode in the back of the truck. Meaning we rode the pile of dead animal. Tasha got urine and milk from the pregnant Kudu on her pants and Jason accidentally sat on a bullet wound with an organ hanging out. The ride was 45 minutes long and about 20 degrees and about 70 miles an hour. The girls in the cab tried to make it better for us by giving us licorice to eat, but the smell was just too much for us to eat anything.
Tasha and I have decided to tell the story this way: Once upon a time, we went hunting in Africa. We shot a Kudu and rode it back to town eating licorice. The end.