Photo: Origins

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I've been hesitating about posting this, thinking it might be too navel-gazing, not interesting to anyone but myself, but here goes. So Minor (age 9) has a country project for school and picked Rwanda (his father's Rwandan) and I got him a book about Rwanda from the library and lo and behold.



This is where okapi comes from. The back of the minvan says OKAPI CAR. It was a transportation company that ran between Butare and Kigali when I lived there many, many years ago. It was known for reckless driving and speed. It has since gone out of business.

But when my father died a couple of years after I left Rwanda, he left me his minivan, so I called it okapi (after the Rwandan business) and when I was searching for a username for my AO3 account seven years later, I picked the nickname for the car (which I still drive!). I had no idea how much significance the name would come to have for me. It really is a huge part of my identity now. More often than not, I think of myself as okapi. And it was sort of incredible to open a book and see the very beginning of it, a seed which was planted seventeen years ago.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

That's fascinating. I'm glad you found the pic and shared it.

[kingstoken]

What an interesting back story for your user name

[lunabee34]

I think that's very interesting! It is so neat to find ties to yourself in places you didn't expect. What a great story.

[ancientreader]

Accepting for the sake of argument that this is navel-gazing, it's a terrifically interesting navel! Thank you for telling this story, it's wonderful.

[regshoe]

That's a very interesting story to have behind your username! What a good thing it must have been to see that picture.

[cuddyclothes]

That is fascinating!

Okapis are part of my history. When I was a kid, I had a stuffed okapi. It was one of my absolute favorite stuffed animals because it looked like several animals in one.

Later I wrote an absolutely filthy monologue as a man, about being caught naked in the okapi cage. Okapi sounded funnier than giraffe.

[luthienberen]

Thank you for sharing, it is an incredible story. I am glad you found the pic. It was great learning more about your username and how important it it is you. :)

[debriswoman]

This is actually very interesting and a fascinating reason for your user name. I have another online friend who is very fond of the animal, okapi and has the same stuffed okapi as on your pic, so I did not consider any other source:-)