Hunting Stories

I love stories- true stories are the best but I'll take any story to entertain me.  Older people usually have the best stories, too.  My mom thinks it's hilarious the stories I can drag out of people (people she has known for decades, I talk to them once and hear all sorts of amazing stories that no one else knows!)  And with my background, I have a special love for a good hunting story. 

I was at work today and since 2 of our teammates are on furlough for a few months, that means we've all picked up some extra responsibilities.  I'm meeting with the ladies of our group (in addition to taking care of finances and all computer issues- yuck) along with my regular stuff.  But hanging out with the ladies is fun (far more fun then keeping the books balanced...)

We were talking about something today, but the conversation completely derailed as one lady started to tell me the story of her giraffe hunt.   Yup- you read that correctly- a giraffe hunt.  This was many years ago (I mean she is easily 60 and she said she was a child when she did this) and she was out with her family, they saw a giraffe and her uncle had what sounds like a WWII surplus rifle and that was that.  So this older woman is acting out the whole tale- how they saw the giraffe, her uncle loading the gun and passing her the gun, her sighting in and she kept saying "NImejinja!! Mimi!! Nimejinja!!!"  (its "I slaughtered it- me!  I was the one!!!")  She was very proud!!  And this is so unlike her to be so animated!! She rarely engages in lessons and today we got a story- complete with actions!!

This woman has told plenty of surprising things in the time I've known her- but I don't think she could have told me anything I would have less expected then this one!!   This was the LAST thing I expected her to weigh in with today!! I love it!!!  It had absolutely nothing to do with the lesson.  But it was an awesome story.

Plus this lady learned to write her name today.  We were talking before the lesson started and I asked if she could read- she said she couldn't even write her own name.  I figured that's something we can take care of today!  So she learned her name.  My big white board is completely covered in her name now.  Its awesome.