You know those kids who always get the best summer jobs? Like jobs that help them for the rest of their careers? The kids who get a good job because their Mom knows someone, who knows someone? Those kids who get to work MONDAY to FRIDAY in like…an office?! Then they have a foot in the door and are never forced to move across the country desperate for work and probably now have some nice job with a practical wardrobe from Banana Republic and two kids in a tastefully decorated single detached house, with white sheets and pastel throw pillows. Their wealthy Dads still love them, and they eat salads with kale and pecans every day.
They were not the kids who were unemployed for months of summer spending every day laying on their parents basement floor with dirty pajamas watching 10 episodes of LOST in a row while applying for jobs and hearing NOTHING! Wondering, does this dial up internet work? Is my e-mail working? Does thinkpink1989@hotmail.com sound professional? Is ANYONE getting these resumes? Is the Dharma Initiative real? Why doesn’t LOST make more sense? AM I EVEN ALIVE RIGHT NOW?
So needless to say, job hunting always has been (and continues to be) VERY stressful for me and continually degrades the small degree of confidence I have in my professional abilities. When I say professional abilities, obviously I’m referencing my experience in making cheesies at Frito Lay, dodging night shift dick pics at car bumper factories, or falling asleep at call centers, and other similar experiences (more on some of my many jobs to come in future posts, I’m sure).
However, nothing seems more timely (in the times of COVID and Tiger King) than my first job at African Lion Safari. African Lion Safari, or ALS as my safari hat said, was a low budget theme park in my hometown. If you grew up in Ontario no doubt you will have just sung the jingle in your head “Go Wild! African Lion SAFARIIIIIII.” It had elephant shows, bird shows, and a really small splash pad; but the main attraction was the safari. It essentially existed on some old farmer fields and the premise was that you would drive around in your own car so that you were “caged” while the animals roamed free. To this day you can occasionally hear a lion roar as you drive by a cornfield, which just feels so wrong (which it is). I worked at the ticket admission gates where I had to warn everyone about the risk of driving through the safari. I informed them that they were required to keep their windows rolled up and that yes, the animals could potentially wreck your vehicle. Realistically the majority of the animals were so lazy that they had no interest in approaching the cars to the point that I actually remember being kind of bored when I visited as a bratty kid.
“Mommy, what do you mean that that lion is just going to lie there?”
It is possible I’d watched too much National Geographic and thought I was going to see some crazy lion chase. Also, I should confess, when I say ‘watch National Geographic’ I meant I just watch the Lion King on repeat, which is almost the same thing, right? #RIPmufasa
To be fair, the monkeys did really jump all over cars and cause some serious damage. You could always take the “monkey bypass,” but if you did that I would have certainly labelled you as no fun at all. You were probably the person who wouldn’t buy the funnel cake at the theme park either.
When I first started working at ALS I was a fifteen year old with a fanny pack, just trying to make $7.10 an hour. Our uniform, which took me half the summer to pay off, was a beige button up shirt with matching beige khaki shorts with a branded baseball cap. I’m a very pasty person, but the summer I worked at African Lion Safari I can safely say I was genuinely tanned. At least from my knees where my safari shorts ended to my ankles and from my elbows down. The ultimate safari tan. On my very first day I also learned a hard lesson about the uniform – that if it rained, which it did, the shirt would go entirely see-through. A lesson my insecure fifteen-year-old body would never forget.
Several people have messaged me recently since watching the popular Netflix documentary Tiger King to ask me if my experience was similar to working with Joe Exotic or Doc Antle. In other words, is the reason I’m so fucked up because at fifteen I was part of a polygamist cult that also involved a lot of meth and the occasional murder?
Well all you cool cats and kittens, sorry to disappoint, but I still have ALL my real teeth and African Lion Safari doesn’t even have tigers! (It should be noted that I was told this was because a tiger once mauled a guest, not that, you know, tigers don’t actually live anywhere in Africa). Maybe my criminal record wasn’t crazy enough, but my experience working there was just like most other crappy summer jobs – boring. That being said, my brother loved working there in the staff kitchen where he ate fried food all day and probably had 5 girlfriends at once (hmmm drawing some connections here…). So it’s possible it wasn’t really a bad job, but I remember I didn’t want to work there so badly that when they called me to work there the next summer, I turned them down so I could enroll in doing grade 11 advanced calculus to get a year ahead in summer school. No surprise that I was VERY cool in high school. Naturally, after I realized I had to do math for 8 hours a day in 30 degree weather I dropped out. That’s right, I was a summer school dropout #BADASS!
So despite the potential for drama and intrigue, my safari experience was dull enough to think advanced calculus held more exciting prospects for me. I thought that was the end of my run with the wild, until just a few months ago I had an incredible opportunity to tag along with a friend and go camping and do a few real safaris in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. That’s right – fifteen years later and I was going on a REAL safari! I thought that my African Lion Safari experience would FINALLY serve me well!
It was an incredible trip in a stunningly beautiful place, where I met lots of wonderful people. I learned a lot and would love to bore anyone and humble brag about it, but instead I’m going to leave a few key takeaways my friend and I learned from our trip:
- You do NOT need to pack an entire wardrobe of khaki, despite what you think. Plus you do not look good in beige.
- When people tell you it gets VERY VERY VERY cold at night camping in the desert, they actually mean it may get as low as plus 20 degrees Celsius (BRRRR) and therefore a toque and Canadian winter sleeping bag are NOT required (even if multiple sources tell you to bring one). DO NOT pack them. You will regret using your backpack space when you could have packed something that was not beige.
- Your phone camera really does suck and there is a reason people invest in good cameras. Having photo jealousy is real when someone has a majestic photo of a cheetah and you have to be like, “I think that’s its tail?”
- Even if you think you put enough sunscreen on the top of your legs and butt when swimming, you didn’t. You will burn. You will not be able to sit for days. You will wish you had the courage to ask your boss for a standing desk.
- You will lose your phone, hat, sandals, and towel and maybe find some of those items again, and maybe not.
- Fighting the impacts of climate change really really matters.
- The Lion King is a great movie.
- Konyagi and coke in a glass bottle a day will kill everything inside you and prevent you from ever getting sick.
- Those annoying messages your mom sent you about washing your hands and not biting your nails because there is some virus going around is not something to roll your eyes about and think, “My mom is SO paranoid and weird!”
- You can live through a teeny tiny airport packed with people in 45 degrees Celsius even if you didn’t know you had it in you. (One day can you please stop arriving at an airport the suggested three hours in advance- it has mostly caused more harm than good. STOP BEING SO DAMN PUNCTUAL YOU OCD PSYCHOPATH!)
- For the love of God, pack some more normal coloured clothes and more than one pair of shorts!
- Your mother would be ashamed at how poorly you can hand wash clothes.
AND LASTLY,
- Working at African Lion Safari taught you nothing about a real safari except how to accessorize your safari beige, which is, don’t.
I truly hope some of my mistake can help you all out with your future adventures – that is, if we are ever allowed to leave the country again 😉 Here’s to hoping!
*I do feel the need to acknowledge that at the time I worked at African Lion Safari I felt all the animals were cared for and loved by the people who worked there, but despite this, I didn’t understand how problematic animals in captivity could be. At the time, it was a place my brother who I idolized and many other people I knew worked as a summer job and I didn’t think much else about it, which is no excuse. I regret not being a more critical thinker and questioning what conservation and animal welfare really means. I only hope I can be better and keep trying to be better.
lisa prose 