Baobab Dreaming

by Dirk and Caz

Pops loved being on safari. He went to Hluhluwe with Dirk, and then again with Carina. I found this co-writing collaboration we did – here is just the intro that Pops wrote. We completed around 5 chapters, but I’ve lost the text in multiple computer shuffles:

Baobab Dreaming,

intro by Dirk Lamprecht

Precious was sitting in the ever-diminishing rectangle of shade provided by the tarpaulin that was secured to the Landy roof and stretched out supported by two poles. She was tapping away on her notebook and looked up nodding to me.

“Any news?” she said.

‘Nah’ She sighed. I knew she was regretting taking the diversion with us. She had succumbed to the Profs entreaties that there may be some signs of ancient settlement in the valley where he knew there to be an underground water source, Gabrielle’s winsome smile may also have had something to do with her agreement to join.

‘I have had enough of this now’ she said somewhat imperiously ‘This friend of yours, what’s his name? – had betta come soon. If we are not with the group in the next two days I will not be happy!’

Her accent was an affected but not unpleasant mix of her multi-national travels. As the daughter of the South African Ambassador, she had grown up variously in the UK, Japan and France before completing her social anthropology degree at UCLA. ‘Precocious Precious, as she was called by the envious wives and daughters of lesser diplomats and ministers, was not used to being left waiting, or wanting.

‘Rusty’ I said in answer.

“Yah, well he betta not be!” her accent falling into a Cape Town drawl.

Keen to divert the attention of one of our highest paying participants on this field trip, and unable to resist any longer I ask “So how are you and Gabrielle getting on?”

‘ Ha, Farm boy” she snorts. Then sniffs, her expression unconvincing.

Gabrielle is the complete antithesis of Precious, hard work, not handshakes had won him a scholarship place at the University of Namibia, his good looks and earnest eagerness garnering him a lot of admirers, not least of which was the Professor who when Gabrielle graduated took him on as a lab assistant and arranged for him to join the field trip. The Prof would be lost without ‘Gabe’!