Mozambican Adventures of the Beilfuss family (Madison chapter)
02 September 2007
More Introductions...
We celebrated our friend Cheryl's 40th birthday in early August with great fanfare -- and lots of frosting! Hendrik arranged for a beautiful and heavily frosted cake, some of which was enjoyed the traditional way and the rest of which was thrown, smeared, and otherwise blasphemed in a great food fight. (Never fear, this debauchery occurred after the young impressionables had left for bed.) I was a big chicken and fled the scene before I got besmirched by frosting, but I still had my wits about me as one of only a small few non drinkers!So let me introduce the birthday girl, Cheryl (in the red shirt with the pineapple, which was filled throughout the evening with either gin and tonic or champagne). Cheryl is Chitengo's gardener, responsible for the lovely grass around the pool and native plantings spring up around the camp. She is also the camp hairdresser (hooray!) and all around supportive friend.Another introduction is our friend Raquel (brown Gorongosa polo), conservation planner and wonderful friend. Oh, and then there's Ian in his Tigger suit, his special dress up clothes in honor of the party.
Our family has moved back to Madison (we returned mid-August 2008) for a variety of reasons. While we are very sad to have left the Chitengo family we had come to love -- and the extraordinary natural resource, Gorongosa National Park -- we are very excited to be back in our old Jean Street neighborhood in Madison, and to be able to see and communicate with our friends and family more readily.
"A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambque" by William Finnegan.
"Drawn from the Plains: Life in the Wilds of Southern Africa", by Lynne Tinley, wife of the ecologist who documented the plants and animals at Gorongosa before the wars. Out of print but available through www.abebooks.com
"The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals" by Richard D. Estes
We celebrated our friend Cheryl's 40th birthday in early August with great fanfare -- and lots of frosting! Hendrik arranged for a beautiful and heavily frosted cake, some of which was enjoyed the traditional way and the rest of which was thrown, smeared, and otherwise blasphemed in a great food fight. (Never fear, this debauchery occurred after the young impressionables had left for bed.) I was a big chicken and fled the 
scene before I got besmirched by frosting, but I still had my wits about me as one of only a small few non drinkers! So let me introduce the birthday girl, Cheryl (in the red shirt with the pineapple, which was filled throughout the evening with either gin and tonic or champagne). Cheryl is Chitengo's gardener, responsible for the lovely grass around the pool and native plantings spring up around the camp. She is also the camp hairdresser (hooray!) and all around supportive friend. 
Another introduction is our friend Raquel (brown Gorongosa polo), conservation planner and wonderful friend. Oh, and then there's Ian in his Tigger suit, his special dress up clothes in honor of the party.
