These are either mohawked horses kicking up dust in West Texas, or zebras in Africa. Hard to tell.

If they're zebras, then I finally know the literal answer to my kindergarten teacher's old riddle, "What's black and white and red all over?" Why, it's these two playful zebras frolicking across the dusty savanna in the African red sunset!

With its drab scrubby brush, it’s scorched, cracked earth, and just overall pervasive brown-ness, we were amazed and surprised at how much South Africa and Botswana resembled West Texas. On safaris, my mom would proclaim, “You know if you just squint your eyes, it’s like we’re in Lubbock!” I guess my mom found a way to squint that somehow eliminated the wandering elephants, giraffes, and blazing red African sun. But I did agree with her that in a pinch, and with the right animal wranglers, the African savanna could easily stand in for West Texas.

“Do you think they ever do that? Shoot Texas scenes here? Because you totally could. I bet you it’s done more often than you realize.”

I told her I bet that it wasn’t.

“Why not? Do you think they don’t realize how similar it is?”

"No, Mom, I think that it’s highly unlikely that 'they' would take a whole cast and crew from Los Angeles, fly them right over New Mexico and Texas, and then keep going for another 50,000 miles to Boswanna so that they could shoot a scene about Lubbock. Also, Mom, you realize that California has ugly desolate parts too, right?”

“You’re being obstinate, I’m not talking about an LA crew, I’m talking about a local African film shoot. You laugh, but I think I’m on to something here.”

I told her that, again, I think we are solving a problem that doesn’t exist— you’ve created a whole scenario where these indigenous tribal people (that we see weaving beautiful baskets and living in tents and eating Kudu) finally get their hands on a film camera, and decide they have a burning desire to point it away from all the gorgeous roaming animals and shoot a story about Lubbock, Texas? A place they’ve probably never heard of, and certainly never been to.

“They could have seen ‘Dallas,’ it was internationally syndicated, you know.”

Each safari day ends with copious amounts of wine and cocktails at sunset, so we had a version of this same argument every evening for weeks.

“Sundowner” is basically their word for a sunset Happy Hour. Think of it as like getting drunk at a West Texas bar with your football coach and watching grown men fight each other like animals. Except for with a sundowner, you are watching actual animals, and the football coach is a safari guide. Both probably have guns. Your guide sets up a whole impromptu bar out in the middle of the African savanna, miles away from civilization, and then you get drunk with him and watch the animals fight and frolic in the sunset. After which, your guide drunkenly drives you back to your lodge at high speeds in the dark, in a Hummer-esque vehicle. So, also very similar to the way you’re likely to get home with your Texas football coach.

The reason I mention sundowners is because I realized that when you can pretty much guarantee that it’s not going to rain (for a very, very, long expanse of time— possibly months) it opens up a world of possibilities. The amount of stuff that you can drag outside, and LEAVE THERE, knowing it’s unlikely to get wet or ruined in any way, becomes very freeing in terms of outdoor living and what you can do outside IN YOUR BACKYARD.

Fast forward many years later and many miles to the north, in Egypt and the Middle East— I was overcome once again with this same realization.

The shear amount of stuff that they have outside — stuff that I was raised to think of as "Indoor Things" — is enchanting. I kept worrying about all the beautiful stuff, sitting outside, night after night, and also thinking in terms of how I could possibly achieve something similar back home.

"Is all this stuff, these fabrics, are they rated for outdoor use?” I asked one of the proprietors of a beautiful and lavish outdoor patio.

"What do you mean. I’m not understanding.”

“Aren’t you worried it will all get ruined?” I’d ask. “Ruined? Oh— you mean from sand? Yes that can occasionally be a problem, and then we just move it all inside.”

“No,” I’d insist, “I mean, aren't you worried it will all get wet?”

Puzzled looks, every time.

“How would it get wet?”

Ah. Of course. Because it almost never rains here.

And then I started thinking. Back in Dallas, every summer now, like clockwork, we have huge extended periods of drought, where it doesn’t rain for months at a time, too. So why am I so afraid about things getting wet? It’s a left-over fear instilled in childhood, I’m pretty certain, that I always think things left outside in summer are bound to get wet, and ruined. But in reality, in today’s Dallas, I suspect things are much more likely to get bleached and faded by the intense and relentless summer sun than they are by water. Once you start thinking differently, you begin to realize that just like in Africa and the Middle East, we too can bring all our gorgeous things outside to our backyards here in Dallas!

And leave them there.

Yes, Mom, even overnight.

Because when she saw all these cool Moroccan rugs I had outside, right on cue my mom immediately asked, “But aren’t you afraid all this will get wet?”

And I simply echoed the desert logic of everyone I’d met in Africa:

“How would it all get wet? It doesn’t rain here anymore during the summer, remember, Mom?”

There is also a great comparison to be made between the weather in Africa and Texas. Especially after these past several summers, now that things appear to have permanently changed and Dallas consistently has weeks and weeks of 100°+ temperatures with no rain whatsoever; and when the rain finally does come, it comes in the form of a downpour or flood. In Africa, this causes crazy things to happen— all the magical animals come out of hiding to frolic for the cameras and make babies. In Dallas, it causes all the crazy people to come out in their cars, and crash for the helicopter cameras, and make traffic.

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Read more about Africa HERE.

Read more about Egypt HERE.

Read more about Morocco HERE.