erika, definitely on the tats piece.

Despite my calling it Simon-style. no criminal acts were committed in the writing of it.Except if my shoulder looks better than the law allows.(Although there are a handful of states where tattoo studios remain technically illegal...OK being the one I remember now.) Insent momentarily.

Oh! erika -- you tattoo piece!

I was looking at The Sun's website the other day, and I think you should submit your tattoo piece there, also, if Mouth will let you, because The Sun *will* publish previously published work. And your tattoo piece seems ideal for The Sun.

As far as I know, Mouth has gotten up my sweater, mouthed some sweet nothings and blown in my ear but we don't have any promises yet, but I'll wait to see if we go out again...but after that, hell yeah.

Steph, I just got my copy of the Sun yesterday (I'm subscribed). I'm going to see about something to submit to them, as well, but I haven't curled up with it yet.

Anyone want to see the Simon-ized tattoo piece?

erika, I would love to see it.

Really? Cool. Unlike him, I don't have to detail my research methods cause they consist of following me for just over thirty years...although sometimes my subject still wasn't honest. Insent in a sec.

erika, backflung to you.

Hey folks! I don't usually hang out in here--too much to keep up with elsewhere on the board already--but I've got a piece I'm working on that I posted up in my LJ, and Steph suggested I put it up here too. So I hope I'm not crashing the party or anything, but I'd really appreciate seeing what you have to say about this. I'm using it as a writing sample for a job I'm applying to. Thanks in advance for your help. (Steph, and others who may have seen this in LJ, the ending is a little different now.)

Toyota Country

The trouble began as soon as we crossed the border from Zimbabwe into Zambia. By all rights that's where the trouble should have ended. Our forty-eight hours in Zimbabwe had been exhilarating, but not without their share of dangers, including eight roadblocks manned by armed soldiers and the very real possibility that we might run out of gas in a remote area of a country experiencing a severe fuel shortage. Once we'd jumped through the usual hoops at the border crossing, the rest of the day's drive should have been easy.

Our destination that night was the Lake Kariba region of Zambia, a mountainous area with poorly paved roads, to which our truck, a Toyota Hilux four-wheel-drive, took an instant dislike. Every time Henrik, our designated bad-roads driver, switched gears, the car shuddered and made ominous noises; meanwhile, night was coming on rapidly. Fortunately, we weren't too far from Kariba, and we made it safely to our campground that night, but it was clear that the problem required immediate attention of the sort that we were unlikely to be able to provide ourselves. Our crew was composed of an artist, an aspiring journalist, two musicians, and an architect--not a mechanic in the bunch.

Henrik, who alone among us could claim any degree of competency in the field of car repair, eventually determined that the clutch was completely shot and would have to be repaired. The good news was that this meant it wasn't our fault: the clutch had simply worn down over several years of hard use, and the rental company would have to reimburse us for the cost of the repairs. The bad news was that we would somehow have to get the car to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, to find someone whom the rental company would authorize to fix it. I must admit we weren't terribly disappointed to cut short our stay at Lake Kariba, which was full of bilharzia and crocodiles, besides being a favorite breeding ground for mosquitoes and giant spiders. In the morning, once the violent storm of the night before had settled, we set off for Lusaka.

By some miracle, the clutch survived long enough for us to locate the Toyota dealership in downtown Lusaka. They seemed competent, and so we tried not to worry too much. We stayed the night in a nearby hostel, where I washed my hair for the first time since we'd left Mozambique. By the next day our truck was fixed and we were on our way to Victoria Falls, already back on schedule. My chief memory of the Zambian countryside is of huge red termite mounds rising out of the ground on both sides of the road, an eerie but not unpleasant landscape. We spent an enjoyable few days at Victoria Falls and then headed off into Botswana to stay in Chobe National Park.

We hadn't driven very far into the park before we came across a herd of elephants spread out across the plain before us, most congregated near a small river about a quarter of a mile away. We stopped the car and got out to admire the sight; after all, we had plenty of time before nightfall, certainly enough time to meander through the park and enjoy the views. Until we tried to move the car out of the sand, and discovered that the four-wheel-drive wasn't working anymore.

Twenty minutes and several strained muscles later, we finally managed to push the car out of the sand where it had stuck, but we had no choice but to go back into the small town we'd passed through earlier and look for a place that could fix it. Without the four-wheel-drive, we'd never be able to reach our campsite in the middle of the park; the roads, barely more than sandy tracks, were unnavigable without it. We made several inquiries, and someone directed us to a local Toyota dealership. We were in luck! Except that it turned out to be no more than a gas station, where they obviously did not employ anyone who knew the first thing about car repair, nor could they tell us who might be able to help us. We began to despair of finding anyone who could possibly fix our vehicle. Underneath a billboard proclaiming "Botswana is Toyota Country!" we drove up and down the same few roads, searching for a mechanic and cursing the incompetency of Toyota Lusaka.

Finally our luck turned, and someone pointed us in the direction of Mario's Repair Shop. Mario, our savior! Mario, I forgive you the calendars of naked women posing on the hoods of classic cars in your office; I forgive you your terrible smoker's breath and the sorry state of your bathroom. Mario, I would have forgiven even worse sins than these, for you fixed our car and put it back together properly, unlike the halfwits at Toyota Lusaka who put the gear box back in upside down. Thanks to Mario, we reached our campsite just as the sun was going down, in time to see a silent elephant shadow passing by not fifty feet away.

(continued in next post)

(continued)

Before you start out on a trip like this, you give some thought to the kind of stories you want to bring back with you. You'd like to have a story or two about lions, and a few about the interesting people you met on the way. Maybe one about haggling with a guy selling baskets or jewelry: can you believe I bought this for an old t-shirt and a couple of ballpoint pens? These are the souvenirs we think we want. And yet, often the detours--the car troubles, the wrong directions, the town you had to stop in when it got too dark to keep driving--provide the best stories. Sure, I've got the jewelry and the cloth paintings from the guys in the market, and I treasure them. But I still regret the fact that I didn't think to take one of Mario's business cards.