About five years ago, my husband brought back a large hippo from Kenya. It almost caused him to miss his flight home, but it also came with a very funny story, making up for the stress of the adventure.
During the weekend he had planned a little trip to the Tsavo National Park, not far from Nairobi. In the lobby of the hotel he saw huge hippo statues, so he started to ask where they came from and who made them because he wanted to buy a small one. The staff had no idea, but the driver who brought my husband to the resort told him that he had a friend in his home village, a wood carver, and artist, who could probably help him out. So, off they went. When they reached the village, they met the guy.... only to hear that he had never in his life made a hippo, but was willing to give it a try. My husband paid the deposit and received the promise that it would be ready in a few days.
Three days later, my husband and the driver went back to the village to make sure everything was still on track. The good news was that the hippo was halfway done.... the bad news was that the artist was drunk, very drunk. Apparently, the deposit had been a reason to party. So there my husband was, in the middle of nowhere, sharing a beer in a roadside shack in the company of a very happy but drunk artist, who was all the while trying to make a hippo. I am sure you get the picture.
Finally, it was time to pick up the hippo and head straight to the airport. The hippo was finished. Sort of. Nothing could be further done because time was ticking, it was getting dark, and the traffic was horrendous. At some point, the driver asked if he could take a shortcut to the airport because there was no way they would arrive in time to catch the flight. My husband agreed. So the mad dash began. The wish to get to the airport was rapidly replaced... by the hope that the car would not break down. Through the pitch dark slums at full speed, racing through the winding, narrow streets, passing the occasional roadside fires where people stood silhouetted against the flames...and eventually speeding out of the dodgy area with clouds of dust billowing up into the air.
At last, my husband managed to get to his flight, half-running with a misshapen hippo through the terminal and onto the plane. When he came home, he told me not to get too excited about the hippo, because it was not exactly what he had in mind. Upon inspection, it turned out that it has a "good" side and a "not so good" side. He was not finished, or polished at all, and overall a bit rough looking. Shortly after this adventure, we moved to the USA, and the hippo was packed and shipped... only to end up stored in the basement of the new home.
Now it is moving time again, and a few weeks ago, we discussed this hippo. Should we keep it, or should we leave it behind? It had been in its box for four years now. We decided to unpack it, and to our surprise, it looked much nicer than we both remembered. Then my husband spend a few hours sanding and polishing him, and voila!
A beautiful looking hippo, almost a yard (meter) long, and sturdy enough to sit on. We thought about a name for a while, but the name we had given him temporarily stuck, so Drunken Hippo it is :-).
