See You Later, SA Zoo

An older pic of me and Mel

I love that gibbon

            Last year, two days before I left for Wyoming, I made one last visit to the San Antonio Zoo to see all my friends there, human and animal, one more time. Today, two days before leaving for South Africa, I did the same thing. Like last year, I kept reminding myself that this wasn’t “goodbye”, just “see you later”. Watching Arizona, the beautiful jaguar, pacing in front of me, or Endira, the gorgeous clouded leopard, lying in her favorite spot of her exhibit, or Nadya, the intimidating-yet-still-beautiful tomistoma, swimming around her exhibit, or Tumbo and Uma, the always entertaining hippos, bouncing along the bottom of their pool, reminded me how much I’d miss this place. Having practically grown up at that zoo, leaving for extended periods of time is never really easy, even when I know the time away will be worth it. As always, I couldn’t visit the zoo without stopping by to hang out with the always charming, attention hogging Mel Gibbon. I’ve been one of his many “zoo girlfriends” for quite a few years now, and visiting him can always make me smile, no matter how my day is going otherwise. Watching him jump and swing around on the wire of his exhibit, sit down right on the other side of the glass from me, and look at me with those intelligent, almost humanlike eyes has always fascinated me, and I absolutely love the fact that he’ll always, always come down to say hi to me, even if he was at the very back of the exhibit, even if there’s such a big crowd that I don’t expect him to see me, even if I’m not wearing my zoo uniform. Spending time with Mel today got me even more excited for my trip, since I’ll spend the second half of it working with another type of primate. Still, as I walked away from his exhibit and heard him calling out his gibbon chatter behind me, it was hard to know I wouldn’t see Mel again for several months.

            Okay, sadness put aside, my lifelong dream of being in Africa will come true in less than 72 hours. Thinking about that, I almost can’t contain the excitement! I only have two more nights sleeping here in my bed at home before I head out on this epic adventure. People that have done things like this have told me that it’ll really change you. As some friends told me, “you’ll never be the same, but that’s a good thing”.

            Well, I guess that’s it for now. I’ll miss you, San Antonio Zoo, but you’ll be here when I return! See you in three days, Africa. This post’s food for thought: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”- A.A. Milne