By the Light of the Moon and Three Floodlights

By the Light of the Moon and Three Floodlights

I am sitting here in my charming little room beside a bedside table with a night lamp trying to piece together a Safari outing I was a part of today. I have to be honest that a portion of the title of this blog is from a collection of children’s books stored in a case over my sons’ bed in the bed and breakfast that we are staying at. As I was gazing around trying to put my thoughts and feelings together about the Safari, a book, By the Light of the Moon written by Keith Faulkner jumped out at me. I read the short story, laughed and it gave me the starting point I was looking for. In short the story is about a witch, ghost and skeleton that get ready and then go out to scare the villagers and then the villagers all wide awake scare out the three because they’ve had more than they can take.
No, the Safari was not an opportunity to go out and scare animals but I think we did. Tonight’s activity was a chance for entertainment and education. Earlier in the afternoon we were all on for today’s agenda to go to a local bizarre and do some shopping and then travel on to Sun City. Sun City, which I prefer to call Sin City, is a huge Casino about an hour outside of Rustenburg, South Africa. The place had the bookings of a Disney World Day. The trappings include a water Safari world, Dance Shows and gambling, eateries, condominiums, show acts and so on and even bookings for a nighttime Safari into the local National Preserve for wildlife. Local posters are even promoting an upcoming Patti LaBelle show. This is probably very common in many Casinos’, as I have heard they are full of entertainment but I’ve never visited a Casino and after tonight don’t care if I ever enter another again.
Why do I sound so anti-Casino? Well to begin with my son said what I was thinking and that was, “hey dad are you noticing that everyone that works here seems to be black?” Yes I did notice that. He and I have noticed that almost every low level service job cleaning up behind what people appears to be done exclusively by black people. In the McDonald’s we visited, all black. In the Casino, all food service and Casino service people we saw were all black. There may be some brown skinned people but there were no white people seen to be working. The white people, and many very robust and probably hinging on a future diagnosis of diabetes, were emptying their pockets of their Rands (South African currency) drinking beer and eating food and playing games and yes buying tickets for rides and shows like I was. It was disconcerting to note the apparent delegation of service jobs to black people but some white people were heard bragging about how they were filing in to “Sin City” tonight to enjoy a musical extravaganza of the history of black music and culture in South Africa from the 1940’s to the 1990’s. I wasn’t sure but got a sense they were trying to come to terms with their feelings about having imposed apartheid and for them to feel this was some kind of achievement somehow for the Black folk. I say black folk because as I have begun to learn, the colored people (people not black anymore but with black ancestry) have lived by different rules during the oppressive culture of apartheid.
So at the “Sin City” ticket counter I voluntarily purchased 2 tickets for my son and me to go with others in my group on a night time Safari whereby we would be driven into the National Park from the Casino grounds which border the park and drive around looking for animals to be caught in a spotlight for viewing. Earlier in the day the question was asked, “Why at night?” The response was that it is easier to see them and they sort of get stunned and don’t run away. Some joking occurred about how in the past people deer hunted like this. The lights stun the animal and then their shot. This was the first reason why I began to feel perplexed about this whole plan for an outing. I really didn’t feel comfortable at all about buying these tickets which would have equaled a Disney entrance fee but didn’t feel like I could stand disappointing my son and making him miss a Safari.
My son was so looking forward to seeing lions, elephants, rhino’s and giraffe. I wanted so much for his and my dream to come true but suddenly found myself caught, as s many parents do, between making something possible and doing something that is not what God intended for people to do which was be good stewards to the creation we have been given. I also began to struggle within my heart and head with how this was measuring up to being socially responsible and being just. I mean, here I could have bought a food parcel for a family for 1 month with just my ticket if I didn’t go. But what would this be saying to my son and affect my relationship with the other people I was with that I love and care about. Would I look like a sore person and somehow become separated from them? I worried, would I be seen as the person that people would have to “be careful around” because I was on some kind of moral high horse? I worried about these things but I will worry more in the future about the cost of not doing the right thing and asking to not go out on the Safari.
Going out on that Safari cost more than just money, it cost me sense of value of living in harmony with creation. I will think often about the animals disturbed during drinking and eating. Actually it was wonderful to hear the elephant eat and to hear the crackle of the branches in it’s’ mouth. It was also just wonderful to sit and hear the call of the crickets and other wildlife when we got to sit for a few minutes with no lights, no motors, just the light of the moon and the song of the night.