Our Wedding I
How I knew it’s time to propose
It was the biggest adventure that we’ve done so far in our lives. A journey across Africa with our two friends Michael & Patricia. Two months on the road in one car, sleeping in the rooftents and going days without seeing civilization, sometimes.
You should see our joy when we met the first giraffe in the wild open. With Michael we naturally grabbed our cameras and went to check her out, while girls stayed in the car. After all, a giraffe might not be the only animal there. But in the end their curiosity won, they got out of the car and Suzie discovered gemstones lying on the ground, shining in the sunlight. There it was, one small round citrine stone of warm yellow tones.
The first giraffe in the open wild by Michael Novotny.
Our journey led us through South Africa, Namibia, where we spent some time with native tribes, Botswana, where we explored how animals live in the wild in places like Okawango, Kalahari and Makgadikgadi (try googling “pronking springbob”). An then we made an unplanned trip to Zimbabwe, because we (ok, “we” the boys) were curious about the revolution after dictator Mugabe’s fall, but about the only thing we got here was a very unpleasant meet with a lion in an open bush at night.
The time here gave us a perspective on life that our European comfort hardly could. When we came to what looked like the poorest slum in Namibia, a little sandstorm made us want to go back to our car, but then we saw children who started dancing like crazy, the wind and sand brought them such joy, that we realized we want to be out there with them.
For several years, fascinated by his story, it was our dream to meet Sudan, the last boy of his kind walking on the face of the Earth, a northern white rhino who had been saved several decades ago by Czechs and brought to Czech Republic, to be returned back to Kenya in 2009.
So that’s where we went next.
After some peripetia, in an emotional turn of events only weeks before he sadly passed away, his friend and caretaker James of Ol Pejeta brought us to Sudan and we spend a while with him. Later when we got back to our hut, that was when I first realized it’s time. After everything that we’ve been through together over the years and the last two months especially, it’s time I propose to Sue.
I knew that a much bigger value than any diamond, for her, has her little precious citrine, a little stone that carries this whole African story inside. So when she went to a restroom on an airport in Nairobi before our flight I unashamedly stole it from her backpack.
There was noone better to make her ring than our good friend Lenka Kerlicka, who knows Suzie’s jewelry preferences much better than me and so she secretly made it for me before our next journey.
