Day 11: The Smoke Which Thunders

In a word, today, my birthday, was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  Even though the sound of it is quite atrocious, no real word has anywhere near the gravitas required to describe Victoria Falls (aka Mosi-oa- Tunya, “The Smoke Which Thunders” in Bantu).  In many more words, I could live a thousand years and never see anything as majestic, as awe inspiring, as those waterfalls.

After a quick breakfast at the Rainbow Hotel where we’re saying, the choir took a bus to the national park.  Despite the availability of ponchos, either for sale...or in a trash can (*cough* David Tyree *cough*), most of the choir, myself included, decided to brave it without one, because getting wet was part of the experience.  While I wouldn't necessarily call this decision a mistake, it was definitely impactful as we all were soaked to, through, and beyond the bone.  I expected rain, I was not expecting a monsoon.  Though on the plus side I did get to go singing in the rain.

Along with the beautiful waterfalls torrential downpour, we paid witness to countless wildlife, innumerable flaura, and, most amazingly, what can only be described as the edge of the world.  Because of the massive amounts of water spraying back up from the falls, an impenetrable mist was formed blocking almost all view of the falls and the deep ravine into which they descend.  It was as if the world just ended right there, and beyond was just an endless abyss of white mist.

It was there, standing on the precipice of either heaven or hell (I’m still not quite sure which), where I got a moment to look back on everything that’s happened on this grand adventure so far.  I won’t lie, it’s been tough for me.  Surprisingly much of my exhaustion has come not from meeting seemingly hundreds of new people in Zambia and Zimbabwe, but from spending so much time with I had assumed I already new pretty well.  This probably is a sign of a fear of commitment or deep  relationships or something like that, but this is a blog post, not a therapy session, so I won’t go on with that thought any longer.  After the falls, we had lunch at the amazingly scenic Lookout Cafe, where we could peer into the Gorge that contains the Zambezi River.

Then after lunch Jordan and I went down the zipline just barely visible in the bottom left of that picture.  I was very proud of her she didn’t cry and I’m pretty sure her scream on the way down only shattered one of my eardrums.  I, meanwhile, was maniacally laughing the whole way down with the exception of giving off some kind of war cry.  After that we returned to the hotel for our concert with the Victoria Falls Serenaders (which you can read about in Mel’s blog post).

Altogether it was a pretty fantastic day, and probably the most interesting birthday I’ll have for a long time.  Although this trip has been stressful at times, it has still been some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Memento Mori,

Bill Goodwin

Bass II

Biochemistry

Class of 2019