nothing. She honorably holds her part of the baairgn. Jennifer doesn't ask for t-shirts at every stand, turns away from the local souvenirs dry snakes in green bottles, diligently wraps her apples and half-finished sandwiches to be eaten later as snacks, baairgns when she buys water bottles, and generally, doesn't cause me trouble. She understands how difficult it is for a divorced mid-level accountant and a mother of two to afford this Safari trip. Her older sister, on the other hand, still stuck in the rebellious teens, tough already a college freshman, informed me that she will spend her spring break in Europe. Last year she promised me to work more. Her father got angry with this change of plans, so I am paying for her trip too. Mam, insists Jomo, “You won’t regret staying here.” Traveling with us for a week, he still can’t make sense of my spending habits. I save on the accommodations and food, baairgn for an hour and leave empty-handed, but tip well and never refuse even a bluntly-commercial sight-seeing tour. Jomo drives down the yellow sandy path into the property, turns his jeep around the corner, and extends his glistening arm to the right, inviting us to look there. Barely waiting until we come to a stop, Jennifer jumps out, and runs to a two-story structure, a tower of sorts. She climbs up the outside staircase made of the thin narrow boards, a couple of them cracking under her foot, and disappears behind the wall. I hurry after her. On the other side of the structure, in an enclosed yard with a few acacia trees, stand three giraffes. The tallest one walks toward Jennifer, who holds her hand out, and licks her fingers. His big Bambi eyes with long straw lashes are half closed, his moves deliberate. The smell he exuded is heavy and leathery.“Yuck,” laughs my daughter, her face showing happiness mixed with disgust. She shakes her hand, dripping with saliva, and wipes it on her t-shirt. “Mom! Look!” she exclaims, her voice breaking. She points to the head of the giraffe who, standing with his head high, is taller than our tower.I look at him, and laugh too. On the top of giraffe’s head, in a comfortable nook right between his horns, sit a small tousled white-faced monkey. With one hand he holds the giraffe’s horn, and with another he bangs on his own furry head. The monkey makes faces, showing two rows of strong teeth, and screeches. Suddenly, he makes a leap. From the giraffe’s head right onto Jennifer’s shoulder.My daughter freezes, half-excited and half-scared. She lifts her shoulders and waits. The monkey slides down her shoulder into her arms, and sits there, quite comfortably, occasionally making screeching sounds.“Her name is Gin-gin,” says Jomo. “Vervet Monkey. She lives here. ““Does she bite?” asks Jennifer, still a little cautious. “If you’re not careful,” responds Jomo, and shakes his head. “No worry. Gin-gin is good.”Jennifer cradles the monkey in her arms. Her face is gentle and her eyes are focused on the animal.The acacia leaves tremble with the hot wind. Giraffes are slowly walking from a tree to a tree, occasionally pulling on the branches. The evening air is noisy with various sounds rustling of tall grass and trees, calls of some animals, buzz of the insects, and chirping of birds. Meaning, that world here is peacefully quiet.“Oh, what the hell,” I say, and wave my hand. “We are staying the night here.” Jennifer doesn’t hear me, mesmerized by the animal in her arms.“I always wanted to come to Africa and play with the monkeys,” I say. Jomo nods many times, showing me that he appreciates my joke. He takes our dusty bags and suitcases out of his jeep, and hurries inside the cool lobby of the resort.He doesn’t know I am dead serious. ***“My uncle is a sea captain,” I say to Tolik. “And he brought me something from Africa. My hands immediately turn cold. My eyes shift down, and I step from one foot to another. If Tolik had known how to read the body language, he would immediately caught my lie.Tolik is my next-door neighbor. We are nine years old, and we see each other in school daily. Just a few months ago, Tolik was my friend, but something has happened with him lately. When he sees me now, he laughs with a jeer, his yellow eyes almost disappearing. As if he knows a bad secret about me. I can’t understand what I did to make him feel this way, and try hard to show that I am still the same.“What?” Tolik brings his red prickly head close to my face. His eyes are still puffy. I heard him, screaming and crying this morning, through the thin walls of our apartment building, when his mother, a drunk, took the scissors and a razor, and gave him a close haircut. I felt bad for him then, but now I can't think about it.“A monkey,” I press. “He brought me a live monkey. “Can I see her?” challenges Tolik. He stands with his legs apart, his hands clenched into fists in his pockets, pulling on the fabric. He laughs that laugh. She jumps all around our apartment, and she eats buckwheat, I say fast, as if the speed of my tongue proves the truth. She tore all our curtains. But my uncle says that we can't show her to anyone. If we open the doors, she could run away. Tolik hesitates, rocks on his feet, and then says, Jews are not allowed to travel to Africa. So it means, you have no uncle who traveled there. And there is no monkey Jolie, he takes his fists out of his pockets, relaxes his fingers, spreads his arms wide, and continues, as if with regret, You will never, ever go anywhere. His words, like nails, nail me in place. I couldn't cry, and couldn't argue. I heard it all before, and I knew he was right.So I learned to live with it. It doesn't matter, I would say to myself. Who cares about Africa? When I was ten, I picked up a new hobby. I began collecting the post cards of exotic places I would never see.Fifteen years later we were let go, and moved to America.I still can't believe that drastic change that happened in my lifetime the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, and my move here. Then, in twenty more years, I am here, in Africa, with Jennifer, a hundred-percent American kid, as I like to point out (mostly to myself, as nobody else seems to appreciate it as much as I do) I make slow careful steps toward my daughter, who still holds the monkey, and touch Gin-gin's head with my index finger. Her hair raises up. Gin-gin jerks her body, screeches, bites my finger, and, within a splitting second, flies back to the giraffe's head. The maid rushes to me with the medicine and a band-aid. Jomo runs up the stairs too. His eyes are full with guilt and regret. You need a shot, says the orange maid, and shakes her head with the matching headdress. We'll call a doctor. Yes, the shot, I agree, but I smile.I am in Africa. And he said I will never ever be here.