Jumbo Kenya

Jumbo Kenya, kwa heri Tanzania.

Well today is the first full day in Kenya.  It was a bittersweet farewell from Tanzania.  I was excited to see a new place, but sad to leave Tanzania.  Now that I’m in Kenya, the reality that I’m actually in Kenya and am done with Tanzania is hitting me.  The last night in Tanzania was particularly sad.  The Iraqw staff members did a farewell ceremony for us, which included a dance and prayers for safe travels and a good semester.  After talking to one of our professors, we found out that this was the first time the staff did the ceremony for a group, which was so neat and just made me want to stay with the staff even more.  The staff was definitely one of my favorite parts of Tanzania.  It was weird to see the Kenya group driving away from the border with our drivers.  It was weird to drive into Kenya with new drivers. 

We got to Kilimanjaro Base Camp (KBC) around 4:30 yesterday and had orientation, a tour of the camp, supper, and unpacked.  KBC is definitely different than Moyo Hills.  For one, its huge, we have a running track that circles the inside of the camp that is a mile long.  We don’t have a separate classroom and dining room, they are one in the same here.   The bandas are thatched roof and don’t have electrical outlets or bathrooms.  The bathrooms are open air have three toilet stalls and three shower stalls. We don’t have bunkbeds in the bandas, we also don’t have desks.  We have wildlife roaming around the camp.  I woke to the sounds of baboons this morning, a change from the cows and chickens in Tanzania.  Apparently there are hippos that walk around outside of the camp.  Finally, the closest village is an 45 minute long walk from here.

We can see Mt. Kilimanjaro from KBC, which is really cool.  Kilimanjaro is actually in Tanzania, but the best views are from Kenya.  We’re close to Amboseli National Park. 

We jump right into the schedule here; today we had academic orientation and this afternoon we’re going to a cultural boma and to a market.  Then tomorrow we have community service.  This Saturday, we leave for our second expedition to Lake Nakuru.  After we get back from Lake Nakuru, we pretty much start on our directed research.  From the sounds of it, it’s going to be a busy few weeks.  Also, the Internet in Kenya is worse than in Tanzania.  Only ten people can be on at a time and we have to sign out when we want to use it.  It’s definitely a change from Tanzania.  I think I’ll enjoy Kenya, but I have to get used to the fact that I’m not in Tanzania anymore.  It’s definitely a great opportunity to be able to get to know two countries while studying abroad, I just have to keep that in perspective. 

Well I hope everyone is doing well back in the states.  I hear there are crazy storms and hurricanes on the east coast? Scary! Ill be sending prayers up from Africa.  Kwe heri.  

Last Days of Tanzania Pictures

 One of my favorite staff members, Bora, wearing a fabulous hat made of baboons while visiting the Hadzabe tribe.

 The little boy in the pink was one of my favorite little children at the orphanage, he is beautiful.

 Piggy-back rides at the orphanage!

 The little girl on the left is the beautiful girl I played with while visiting the Hadzabe tribe.  

The kids at the orphanage and our painted mural behind them. 

Last Days in Tanzania

Goodness, it’s been a busy few days in Tanzania.  After we got back from the Serengeti, we had an off day to rest which included a goat feast (more details on everything later), the next day we had a tribal day where we visited the Hazabe tribe and Datoga tribe near Lake Eyasi, today we had community service at an orphanage.  Tomorrow we pack up, and on Monday we leave for Kenya.  Man, the time in Tanzania has sure gone by fast now that I think about it! There were times where it seemed to drag on, but looking back, it was so fast! 

I’m excited to see a new place, but I have enjoyed Tanzania immensely.  I’ll miss the staff here the most I think; they are all so great.  I will also miss the village atmosphere that we have here; in Kenya we’re about thirty minutes from the closest village.  Also, the amenities here are nicer than Kenya I believe, we’ll be roughing it in Kenya far more than we do in Tanzania.  We did meet one of the staff members from Kenya, Charles, and he is fabulous so if he is any indication of how the rest of the staff will be in Kenya, I think I’ll like the staff there as well. 

Goat Feast:

Yohana, one of the staff members here, and one of my favorites, announced at breakfast on Thursday that we would be having a goat feast for supper.  Around 5:30 he brought in two goats and announced that he would be slaughtering them shortly.  I was unsure if I wanted to watch or not, but I ended up watching out of curiosity.  As Yohana held the goat down, another staff member, Paulo, slit the throat of the goat.  Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, which I thought was odd.  We don’t have any visibility in the US’ meat industry.  No one ever really gets the inside glimpse into the process between alive animal and packaged meat in the grocery store, so this was a treat to see the whole process.  I really think it’s important to know where your meat, or any food for that matter, comes from. 

Anyways, after the slaughter, Yohana skinned the goat, and got all of the skin off in one piece, which I thought was impressive but he has been doing this since a young boy.  He took all the internal organs and showed us the four stomachs of the goat, which was pretty interesting.  One of my classes at Bethel, we learned about ruminants and the differences between the different stomachs so now I got to see the differences up close!  After a little anatomy lesson, he put the legs, ribs, and liver on sticks and roasted them over the fire.  The goat was ready in time for supper and it was absolutely delicious! I went back for seconds!  It was such a great opportunity to witness the entire process of butchering, skinning, cooking, and finally eating meat.  One I probably would not have anywhere else.

Tribes:

The Hadzabe tribe is such a different tribe than any we have visited.  They are still a hunter/gatherer and nomadic.  They speak in a language that includes lots of clicks.  Definitely a culture shock!  The tribe we visited was less nomadic because they are a tribe that hosts tourists but they still had no permanent houses.  The Hadzabe have a special permit that allows them to hunt animals on any land.  When we arrived at their camp, we passed by a tree that was covered in skulls of baboons, kudu, bush pigs, zebra, and other animals.  The men wore denim shorts but had baboon pelts for shirts.  There were about 15 to 20 people in this tribe, including the children.  When we were introduced to the tribe leader, I was surprised how young he seemed.  He looked like he couldn’t be more than 20 years old.  In fact, all of the adults in the tribe looked to be in their early 20s.  No one seemed older than that. 

We were shown how they make fire and were allowed to try it out for ourselves, and one girl actually got a fire going!  After the fire, we were shown how they search for roots under certain trees.  They found these roots or tubers, I’m not really sure, and peeled them and gave them to us to eat.  They use this type of root in the dry season to provide extra water because they were very succulent.  They tasted interesting, some people thought they tasted like watermelon, but I got dirt crossed with a water chestnut.  After the root finding session, they showed us how to shoot a bow and gave us the chance to try.  We were all pretty awful, if we had to live with the Hadzabe, we would probably starve.  They were excellent however.  Finally, they performed a dance for us. 

The cultural presentation was interesting, but it’s not the part that will stay with me.  There was a little girl, she was beautiful and she was kinda tagging around the entire time.  At the end, people were buying bows and arrows and jewelry but I saw her standing off in the distance and decided to go up to her.  I noticed she had a toy truck, like a matchbox truck, and somehow we started playing with the truck.  She would push it to me and I would push it back.  Then we began driving the truck up trees and trying to make it stay on knobs in trees.  She would giggle really hard when the truck would fall of the knob.  I can’t even describe what the experience meant to me, I got really sad when we had to leave.  Any tourist can have the experience of seeing how the Hadzabe live, but to be able to play with a little girl and enjoy the time without even being able to speak the same language is so special.  She may not remember me after yesterday, but she will stay with me.  Its those real human interactions that make this trip worth it, it’s even better than seeing animals or learning about environmental policy.  It’s the times of making connections with people that I will never meet again or can’t really communicate with that just creep its way into my heart. 

The Datoga tribe seemed fairly similar to the Iraqw tribe that we have had experiences with throughout the semester.  The Datoga tribe members are usually blacksmiths so at the cultural Datoga boma, we watched a woman grind corn and got to try it out, watched the men do their blacksmith work and watched a dance.  Honestly, nothing really special stuck with me from this experience.  This experience was just another touristy cultural trip.  I guess it just shows how much those personal connections matter. 

It is interesting how tribes are the fabric of life here.  Every person in Tanzania comes from a certain tribe, there are around a hundred and fifty or so tribes in Tanzania alone.  At our camp, the staff all comes from different tribes.  Most are Iraqw, but there are also people who are from the Chagga tribe, Sukuma tribe, Maasai tribe, and Wey Wey (I think I spelled that one wrong) plus more that I don’t even remember.  It is interesting because at first when I heard all the staff is from different tribes, I thought there would be conflicts among them, but from what I can see at least, there isn’t that.  I’ve been asked several times what tribe I come from in America.  I try to explain that we have tribes, but I’m not a part of any tribe.  One time, I had a long conversation with my ecology professor about the Native American tribes, especially the ones in South Dakota.  He was fascinated by the concept of reservations.  I told him the tribes were once hunter/gatherer tribes but have now lost a lot of traditional ways of life.  I told him that there are lots of problems associated with reservations and he told me to bring all the tribes to Africa so they could learn how to make a fresh start for themselves.  I have really enjoyed the diversity different tribes bring to the cultural makeup of Tanzania.  Tribes always fascinate me. 

Orphanage:

Today we had community service all day at Amani Orphanage in Mtu wa Mbu.  They have 38 children there ranging from the ages of 3 to 12.  All the kids there are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and come from all over Tanzania.  We raised some money and were able to buy paint for murals and walls, beds and mattresses, food, and bricks to start building an office building.  The orphanage consists of three rooms, a sleeping room, a classroom, and another room that they’re remodeling to be another sleeping room. 

When we got there, the kids were all in the classroom and they got up and sang us songs.  It was the first time of many that I cried today.  After that, the orphanage director gave an introduction and other people such as a pastor of a nearby church who helps out welcomed us.  The pastor told us that they already loved us, it was the second time I cried. 

There was no real structure to the day, just chaotic playing and painting of murals.  At one point I was helping out with the mural with a little girl that had decided to stick with me and we didn’t have paintbrushes so we decided to use our hands.  Unknown to us, the paints were all oil-paints.  So after at least 8 washes and using water, sand, straw, soap, paint thinner, and a metal scrub brush, my hands are still green.  I look like I am slowly morphing into the Grinch or a reptile. 

The kids were great.  They had so much energy.  The favorite thing today was putting kids on your shoulders than spinning around in a circle.  “Tena tena” the kids would shout (again again).  My shoulders killed and I was exhausted but it was fun!  I mainly hung around two kids, a girl who was 11, but I don’t remember her name and this adorable little boy who was 6.  I saw the little boy in the classroom when we first got there and told the girl I was standing next to that I wanted to keep him, and fortunately he wanted to hang out with me today!  He was pretty quiet and didn’t talk much, but he had the cutest smile.  As soon as he would get on my shoulder or another person’s shoulders, his face would light up.  It was precious. 

The kids have so little but they were trying to offer us all their things.  Like at lunch, they tried to feed me their measly rice and beans.  Or when I was washing off my hands, the kids would take over and get a rock to scrub my hands.  Once again, they just creep into my heart.  

If anyone wants a precious little Tanzanian child, no one has been adopted since 2009.  I was tempted. 

Well, like I said earlier, we leave for Kenya in a day.  Tanzania has offered me so many new opportunities and experiences.  I’ll be forever grateful for everything I’ve learned in Tanzania.  I definitely feel like I’m growing.  God’s doing a good thing.  Though I don’t want to live in Tanzania, it’s crawled inside my heart and will be a part of me forever.  I hope all that I’ve learned in Tanzania I will carry with me and will shape my life in the future.  It’s a beautiful country with absolutely beautiful people.  Wow, that sounds cheesy, but it really is beautiful in a raw sort of way. 

Next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Kenya! Kwa heri!

Serengeti Pictures

 Two male Cheetahs about ten feet from our car!

 This is the male baboon carrying around the dead baby, he had just sat down and was taking the baby out of his mouth.  He put the baby on his lap and began stroking the baby. 

 The young elephant with part of her trunk missing.  

 My new favorite animals, hippos (kiboko in Swahili)

 Leopard taking a mid-morning nap in a tree.

One of the male lions we saw!

Mamba! Crocodile, we drove past him once, then the next time we drove by him he was in the water stalking gazelle who were drinking at the pool.  

South Dakota or Africa?  Looks pretty reminiscent of my homeland to me!

Siringet

Jumbo!  We are back from expedition in the Serengeti! It was one crazy time.  Usually my posts about one day are long, so I have a feeling that a post about five days will be quite long. 

Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin.  We left on the 20^th around 7:00 am, made a stop at Olduvai Gorge before arriving at our campsite in the Serengeti around 4:00 pm.  The 21^st and 22^nd, we left our campsite around 6:15 am to go on morning game drives, we got back to our campsite around 10:00 am and had breakfast, then had until 2:00 pm as free time.  Those four hours were brutal.  The heat is awful at that time and we had very little shade in our campsite so if you were fairly heat tolerant, you could brave the roasting tents for a nap, otherwise we all squished under a few trees and tried to rest.  Around 2:00 pm we had guest lectures, one about an overview of Serengeti and the other about the reintroduction of wild dogs in the Serengeti.  After our guest lectures, we would head out for an evening game drive until 6:30 pm, returned to camp and had supper around 7:00 pm.  Then our night was free.  It gets dark in Africa around 6:30 pm so the first night I played Uno by the light of head lamps, but the other nights I went to bed around 8:00 pm because I was so tired.  The 23^rd was the same with game drives, but we went to a fancy lodge in Serengeti for an American style buffet complete with create-your-own pastas, salads, meat, cheese, and dessert (you would have thought we hadn’t eaten forever by the way we gorged ourselves at the buffet); after lunch we had a swim in the lodge pool. 

Schedules aren’t very exciting, I’m sure you want to hear about the actual trip and what we saw.  I still don’t know where to begin!  I guess I will begin with Olduvai Gorge. 

Olduvai/Oldupai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge (as it is commonly, but mistakenly called) is considered to be the “cradle of mankind” because archeological digs have found some of the oldest human ancestor remains.  I’m not really sure if what they have found are “human ancestors”, but that is how the man who gave us a lecture described the remains.  If you have heard of “Lucy”, the oldest remain found, it is commonly thought that Lucy was found in Olduvai Gorge, however those remains were found in Ethiopia.  What were found in Olduvai were preserved footprints that matched Lucy’s species as well as remains from different archeological periods and artifacts.  The lecturer threw out so many scientific names for the remains, but I can’t remember them at all, essentially the scientists believe the gorge was occupied 1.7 million years ago. 

In the museum, they had a plaster replica of the best-preserved set of footprints made by the same species that Lucy was.  After preserving the real footprints, the archeologists reburied the footprints to keep them from eroding.  They also had a large collection of prehistoric animal skulls and horns that have been found in the gorge.  Just from looking at the skulls and horns, I can tell you that those were some weird looking animals! 

The museum and lecture were definitely interesting, though I’m unsure how I feel about the “human ancestor” part as it evokes the idea that modern humans evolved from these chimp-like, almost humans but not quite.  Evolution is a tricky subject and one that most people, especially Christians, don’t like to get into.  I completely understand why.  Therefore, as this isn’t a blog dealing with evolution or young earth vs old earth theories, I’m going to not talk about it other to say, the visit has made me think and has brought up a lot of tricky thoughts.  Though, at the end of the day, I get the feeling that we will never know the full extent of creation and how God formed the earth and everything living on it until we reach Heaven.  I’m naturally a curious person and want to know how everything works now, but I guess I’ll have to settle for not knowing for the time being. 

Fun fact about the gorge; while its commonly called Olduvai, that is a misspelling of a Maasai word for the wild sisal plant that grows in the gorge, Oldupai.  I believe they officially changed the site’s spelling to Oldupai Gorge, but most people still know it as Olduvai. 

Fun Fact about Serengeti:

Serengeti is also a misspelling of a Maasai word.  The Maasai word for the area is “Siringet” which means “wide, endless plains”.  Wide, endless plains definitely describe parts of the park.  There were a few moments on game drives when I would look out and feel like I was transferred back to eastern and central South Dakota for a moment (minus the corn fields).  I even exclaimed to my car mates: “This is what my homeland looks like!” It was beautiful.  I love plains that go on forever.  It just shows I really am a South Dakota girl at heart!   

Exciting Things We Saw in Siringet:

First of all, guess who completed her Big Five sightings? This girl! That’s right, I’ve seen a lion, elephant, a cape buffalo, rhino and wait for it….leopard! Leopards are gorgeous.  I saw three leopards, one of them I saw four different times.  The one we saw four different times was in the same tree all four times, but changed positions each time we saw it and had a dik-dik for breakfast one morning and a Thompson’s Gazelle for breakfast the next morning.  Another car saw a leopard chase and kill a warthog.  I unfortunately did not see any kills this trip, as morbid as that sounds, kills are really exhilarating to watch!

We also saw two cheetahs, ten feet away from our car! It was crazy!  We saw a large group of cars and pulled in and a cheetah was standing right there!  He walked around and called for another cheetah, also a male therefore it was his brother as cheetahs are only found in male pairs when they are siblings, who joined him!  We watched the cheetahs for thirty minutes!  They rested in the shade of a car for a while, then drank from the nearby stream and ran off into the grassland.  Incredible. 

HIPPOS!  There have been several conversations about how we have surprise favorite animals that we didn’t give much thought to before we came to Africa and once we saw them in Africa, we fell in love.  Well I fell in love with amphibious, fat, big-mouthed, yawning, mud-wallowing hippos.  One of the coolest things we saw was a crocodile eating a rotting hippo, we passed this particular scene the first day and watched the feast progress every day as there was less and less hippo every day.  The last full day there, we went to a special hippo pool where we could get out of the car and stand 50 feet away from the pool.  It smelled awful because the hippos use the pool as their bathroom and wallowing spot, but there were so many hippos lying on top of each other! Another morning, we watched hippos run towards a pool, one of the hippos couldn’t figure out how to get into the pool and tried four different spots before he actually got into the water by sliding down the bank into the water.  Hippos, they may be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa, but they are also now one of my favorites. 

Several lion prides.  I saw two male lions.  One had a fantastic mane, the other one was younger so didn’t have much of a mane at all.  We saw so many lion cubs though! They were precious.  We saw probably a total of 40 lions throughout the five days.  It was great!  

Sad Things We Saw in Siringet:

In Africa, baboons are considered vermin.  If they get into your personal space, you can kill them with no repercussion.  Even though the government “owns” all the animals, they don’t really care about baboons.  After watching these primates for a full day in Lake Manyara National Park and writing two scientific papers about them, I have a greater appreciation for them, even if they can be nuisances. 

One day we were driving and had to stop for a baboon troop crossing the road, as we watched the baboons, we noticed one was carrying a dead baboon baby in its mouth.  This baboon, a male baboon to be exact, crossed the road and sat down on the other side taking the dead baby out of its mouth and putting it on his lap.  He then began to stroke the dead baby.  The baby had been dead for several days at least, it looked almost mummified.  In baboon social structures, there are some males who act as godfathers and take care of young that are usually related to them and we figured since baboons don’t exactly know their fathers that this male was probably a godfather to the dead baby.  This scene really touched me.  For all the bad rap baboons get, they obviously have complex brains and have feelings.  Baboons aren’t the only animals to “mourn” their dead, elephants when passing remains of a clan member or relative will rumble and move their trunks over the remains. 

The other sad thing I saw in Serengeti was a juvenile elephant with half of her trunk missing.  We were watching an elephant herd and I realized one of the young elephants only had half her trunk!  She was trying to grab grasses to eat but her trunk wasn’t long enough to reach the grasses so she had to bend over to be able to reach grass.  We asked our driver, Charles, why an elephant would be missing half a trunk and he said that it probably got caught in a snare set by poachers.  Awful. 

Visitors to our Campsite:

Fun fact: we stayed in the Dik-dik campsite.  More fun facts: We brought our own security detail and hired a guard with a gun from TANAPA (the park authority) to patrol the campsite for visitors such as hyenas, lions, cheetah, and serval – all of who visited our campsite. 

Mind you, though we were at a campsite, we were still in the middle of the Serengeti and were not separated by fences or any barriers so animals were free to visit us at any time, though they all visited during the night.  I saw a few hyenas, but didn’t see any other animals.  I definitely heard them at night laughing and howling.  Apparently last night there were a few lions wandering through our campsite and the iscari (security people) got into cars to corral the lions out of the campsite.  Of course, I slept through all the fun parts like that!  Last night there was a lion near the border of the campsite around 10:00 pm, but I had already gone to bed.  We were sharing our campsite with students from another rival study abroad program, SIT (other unwelcome guests depending on who you asked), and I guess several of the SIT students decided they wanted to get closer to the lion, and got fairly close before they got yelled at by one of our professors and hauled back to their tents.  The SIT program is not wildlife based, obviously.  I never felt unsafe though, our iscari are great and kept us very safe. 

There you have it, Serengeti.  I don’t know how to wrap up a trip like the one I experienced. The magical, mystical land of purple flying monsters; or maybe more like the magical land of endless plains abundant of beautiful creatures and God’s creation.  Siringet.  

Exams, Exams, Exams....then Serengeti!

Blah.  Studying for exams isn't fun.  Studying for exams in Africa is actually worse.  I don't think homework should be legal in Africa.  Or at least legal for SFS students.

We had our first exam today for Wildlife Ecology.  I definitely thought the broader concepts were going to be tested and not the little details, however I found that to be false.  I had to guess on a few questions and am fairly sure I got one four-part question about vegetation survey methods wrong. Blah.   That's frustrating.

We have Wildlife Management and Environmental Policy tomorrow at 8:00 am and 1:00 pm respectively (my time).  So if you're up at midnight or 5:00 am and want something to pray for, you can pray for my tests!  We had all day yesterday to study and the half of the day before as well, then the rest of this day after our exam.  Unfortunately for myself, I keep losing focus.  I did well for about six or seven hours yesterday, then 4:00 pm came and I couldn't do anything else.  I've hit that point right now as well, which is why I'm writing a blog post instead of studying.... I just can't do it. I can only go over animal count methods and policies for so long.  On top of it all, I'm pretty homesick today.  And my mouse tracker pad on my computer went awol today.  I haven't been able to use it all today.  SUPER frustrating.  I'm just blessed that the mouse pad started going crazy the day before I left so I was able to buy a bluetooth mouse just in case.

I'm trying to have an attitude shift.  I'm trying really hard.  I was told the other day a quote that goes something like "Life is great, it's just my perspective that's off".  Grumble grumble...thats totally true.  I kinda want to sit and be sorry for myself a little bit longer but that's not going to help anything.  My God is so great.  I am so blessed to be here.  My family is great.  My friends are great.  Africa is great.  I have the opportunity to learn.  I have the opportunity to study abroad in Tanzania.  This is only for a season.  I get to go to bed soon.  Oh and probably some super exciting news: the day after tomorrow (I have no concept of days of the week here, I think today is Thursday so on Saturday) we are packing everyone from the camp up and going on a little camping trip to Serengeti National Park.  No big deal or anything.  We just get to sleep for four nights in Serengeti National Park.  We get to explore probably the coolest national park in the world for five days.  Yeah after thinking about that, I really have no reason to feel sorry for myself.  I really didn't have any reason to feel sorry for myself before though either.

I won't be posting until after the Serengeti expedition.  Expect a super long post.  Pray that I get to see a rhino and leopard and cheetah and lion.  That's a pretty ambitious list of animals to see, three of them are some of the most elusive mammals in Africa.  But, hey, you have to have a goal!  Pray that I get through these two next exams unscathed. Pray for my attitude.  Thank you all!  Have a great next few days!

Home Stay Pictures

 Afternoon chai time

 Joece and Azama

 Godi after he tied himself up to the goat hitching post

 Godi!

 Mwana

 The kids ( I don't know the boy's names except for the one in the gray, Sheban), Mwana next to me, Azama on the left bottom, Godi, and Joece

Jumping rope with Joece and Azama

Home Stay

Today I lived like a Tanzanian.  Or actually, I lived like a guest in a Tanzanian house.  I definitely did not work as hard as a Tanzanian. 

Today, we had our home stays! We were paired up, I was with a girl named Jesi, and were dropped off at assorted Tanzanian homes around Rhotia around 8 am and picked up at 5 pm.  It was such a neat experience, very eye-opening. 

Jesi and I were told we would be going to the home of Mama Aziz, however when we got there, there was no Mama Aziz.  We found out later that Mama Aziz was actually in a different region of Tanzania.  I’m not sure where Baba Aziz (Father) was, if I understood the Swahili correctly, he was with Mama Aziz as well.  Anyways, we were dropped off and met by about nine children ranging from the ages of 16 to 1 years old.  At first Jesi and I thought all these children were in the same family because we would ask “kaka yako”, “dada yako” (your brother or your sister) and they would all respond saying yes.  As the day went on and we got more information, we realized that only three of the children were in the family we were staying with and the rest were neighbor children. 

The children in our family are named Mwanahawa, she is 16, Azama, she is 13, and Sheban, I believe he is 9 but I never got a straight answer.  The assorted other children were Joesy, she is 12, Godi, he is 2.5, Martini, he is at most a year old, Paulina, who is 15.  There were three to four other boys who would trickle in and out but I never got their names or ages.  So it was Jesi and I with a whole lot of kids for a while until the neighbor, Mama Godi (Godi and Joesy’s mother) came to check on us.  Mama Godi also helped make lunch.   Jesi and I decided at the end of the day that from the outside it looked like we were babysitting all of the kids, but they were actually babysitting us. 

The language barrier was really funny.  Any of the Swahili I have learned conveniently decided to leave my head today.  The kids go to school and all the schools teach English, but they didn’t know enough to help with the language barrier.  We all often ended up just laughing at the horrific Swahili that would come from Jesi or I.  Sign language was our best friend today. 

When we got there the girls served us chai (tea, but not like the chai tea goes into chai lattes, it’s confusing), and it was the best tea I have ever drank, the three heaping spoonfuls of sugar probably helped.  They also served us these fried dough doughnut type things that are delicious.  We tried to get them to eat with us, but at first they didn’t seem to want to, they wanted to treat us as guests.  All the families were told that we were to be treated like family and have to do all the same work, but it took some convincing for the girls to let us help out.  After morning chai, we washed the dishes from the morning.  After washing dishes, we cut up cabbage and jumped rope.  Jumping rope brought back many summer memories of when my neighbors, the Costellos, and my family would jump rope!  I remembered some of the songs that we used to sing while jumping too!  I taught the kids how to play “school” with the jump rope, essentially whatever “grade” youre on, dictates how many jumps you have to do; so you start with 1^st grade and do one jump, 2^nd grade, two jumps and so on. 

We brought the family’s two bags of food as compensation for putting up with us all day.  In the bags there was corn flour, salt, tea, sugar, rice, cooking oil, laundry soap, milk, meat, cabbage, tomatoes, and onions.  For lunch, Mama Godi came over and helped us with lunch.  With us helping in very insignificant ways, we made this cabbage dish with tomatoes and onions, rice, and ugali.  Ugali is a staple in East Africa.  Its corn flour and water that gets really sticky and you eat it by rolling it up into a ball and dipping it in whatever you want. Ugali has no taste, but its quite filling.  To be polite, I ate way more ugali than I ever wanted to and ever want to again.  I just kept stuffing it down.  The cabbage dish was incredible; I want to try to make it at home.  The rice was good but we were served the ugali and cabbage first so I was already stuffed when the rice was served.  Once again, I forced myself to eat more rice than I really wanted. 

After lunch, it was nap time!  At first I didn’t know if the girls offered us naps because we looked tired, but talking to my fellow students it sounds like everyone was offered a nap so it must be fairly standard for Tanzania.  We were shown to the parent’s bed and told to lie down, for a little while there were 6 of us in the bed as the kids all wanted to join us.  After our short nap, we started cooking again, or watching as the girls cooked.  They were cooking peanuts in sugar and rolling them into balls to sell at the market.  They were delicious!  You had to roll the mixture into balls when they were still extremely hot.  Jesi and I were kinda wimps but it was really hot! The girls would just grab the peanuts and roll them up without any hesitation.  After cooking a little more, it was time for chai again! I think this was only for our benefit because no one had chai this time except for us.  After chai we washed more dishes and jump roped some more.  Soon it was time to go and the day had flown by!

The kids were so much fun.  We sang songs with them and laughed a lot.  They really enjoyed pictures.  Once they found out I had a camera, I had no chance to taking any photos for myself.  The boys especially loved the camera.  I have loads of pictures of the boys doing action shots of them diving for soccer balls and posing with the cat.  The kids took so many pictures that my memory card filled up!  Most of the time I didn’t even know where my camera was exactly, which may not have been smart, but hey I got it back at the end of the day! I’m thinking right now of a lecture my Uncle Russ gave to me before leaving about trust and safety in different countries…sorry Uncle Russ, that kinda slipped by the wayside today with my camera.  The little boy, Godi, was so funny.  He folled Jesi and I around all day, repeating anything we said.  The family had a pole to tie their goat up and at one point, we looked over and Godi was tying himself to the goat pole and just lying on the ground! It was hilarious!

I was so impressed with these children.  Here they are, taking care of the other kids and all of the chores as their parents are away and the oldest is 16 years old.  They do all the chores without complaining or hesitation; it’s just what needs to be done.  Sometimes it hits me how different Tanzania and the US are, for instance, the kids basically did chores all day with only a few breaks for a little playing.  I know when my brother who is 13 is asked to do chores; it takes so much pushing and insistence before anything gets done.  Also, these kids have so little but they just make due.  Their house consisted of two rooms to sleep in, which were like the size of a bathroom in my house and a smaller lean-to type building where they tie the goats up at night and cook.  The kids don’t have any possessions or toys, but they still occupy themselves and seem to have a lot of fun.  Times like this can make me feel guilty that I come from a country of such opulence and opportunity.  We were debriefing afterwards and were all sharing the same sentiments, but we also talked about how guilt doesn’t do much good.  Instead of feeling guilty, we need to channel that into action and do things for other people, to make sure other people have their needs met and are happy. 

These kids were incredible.  They were so cute and funny, but so self-sufficient.  The girls did most of the cooking, except for lunch when Mama Godi helped some.  Jesi and I were talking and it was fine to live like this for a day, but to live like that every single day would be really hard.  The kids are such hard workers.  Mwanahawa, the oldest girl, was essentially the mother, taking care of the dishes, the cooking, the kids, and all of the other chores, as well as being a gracious host to Jesi and I.  Sometimes I idealize the Tanzanian lifestyle, thinking how great it must be to live so simply, but I’m coming to realize that living like this is really hard and I don’t know if I could ever make it.  I really like aspects of their communal living though.  Mama Godi wasn’t the mother of the kids in our family, but she helped make sure everything was running smoothly as well as taking care of her own family.  At one point, another man from the village came over and helped the boys take down and move the toilet to a different location.  While the people seem to be really self-sufficient, helping each other out seems to be a huge priority, and something that just comes naturally.  I like that aspect of Tanzanian living.  

Maasai Picture

At Maasai Manyatta.  From left to right: Eunice, Lemomo my friend, me, Erica, and another man that I don't know. He just hopped in the photo

Maasai Manyatta

Today we had the opportunity to visit a Maasai cultural center in Maasai Manyatta, a region many Maasai of the area call home.  This cultural center consists of several permanent bomas (houses) that provides the background to a tourist site.  A family of 85 people runs the site, however only 40 people were there today as 45 others were out tending to the livestock.  The Maasai practice polygamy so the patriarch, or chief of this particular family has 15 wives.  The site is home to all 15 of these wives and their children. 

Of course, this wouldn’t be a SFS field trip without an assignment.  Our assignment was to observe the activities happening at the site than to analyze through means of questions and further research if this Maasai tourist site is benefitting the people economically, ecologically, and socially.  Our professors specifically didn’t tell the Maasai running the site that we are students so they would treat us as tourists and so we could work on our investigative skills.  Of course, thirty “wazungus” toting clipboards and notebooks and writing down notes doesn’t really help the tourist disguise. 

We were greeted by Baracka (I’m not sure how to spell his name) who speaks English very well; he told us we would first be treated to a welcome dance, then go inside and be treated to a ceremonial dance, able to tour the bomas, watch how the Maasai make fire, and ask questions. 

One has to take the touristy displays with a grain of salt, Maasai people obviously don’t dance everyday and they probably change things to satisfy tourists, needless to say, I still enjoyed the dances.  The men and women are separate during dances with men doing this hop-skip move in unison while moving into different formations while the women do this dance where they move their shoulders and hips, which looked easy enough but when I tried it was quite difficult.  I loved the song during the welcome dance.  The song was like a call and response between the men and women; the men would start with guttural chants then the women would respond singing. 

After the welcome dance, we moved into the boma (boma can also refer to the collective houses and enclosures that the cattle stay in at night) and they performed a ceremonial dance.  This is definitely the tourist favorite.  During this dance, the men jump super high.  I am sure most people know what I’m talking about or have an image of this scene in their minds.   It was actually pretty neat to watch.  I definitely don’t have that talent.  My brother and I were having a jumping contest in our basement before I left for Africa, trying to reach the ceiling and I was so bad at jumping that my mom was embarrassed.  They invited the boys to join the jumping and dancing and invited the girls to go over with the women, who placed necklaces around our necks and tried to teach us how to dance.  It was a big party. 

After the dancing and watching how the Maasai use things from their environment to make fire, they made a big point to tell us they don’t use matchboxes; we had a question session.  Here was where the morning got uncomfortable.  Mind you, we had an assignment and therefore probably didn’t ask the normal touristy questions.  No, our questions were “How are viewed by other Maasai for running a tourist operation?”, “What are the ecological benefits or drawbacks to running this operation?”, “How has this affected your culture?”, “Where are most of the tourists that visit your boma from?” and so on.  In the beginning, the two men fielding our questions were giving fairly standard answers like “Everything is great”, but I think they realized that we wanted a deeper answer.  We began getting more out of the men and found out that some Maasai treat them with contempt because they have essentially forsaken the nomadic Maasai ways by having a permanent tourist site.  Also, many of the people in this family have attended school, hence their English, which can also be frowned upon in greater Maasai culture. 

The uncomfortable part was when our academic director, Kissui, who is a renowned lion researcher (and also got his PhD from the U of Minnesota and therefore he and I have a connection because we both study/studied in the Twin Cities), started asking the men why Maasai kill lions.  They were definitely not expecting this question.  They said they didn’t kill lions but Kissui wouldn’t back down and told them he had pictures and data from Lake Manyara NP, Tarangire NP, and Ngorongoro CA that Maasai had killed lions.  To this they responded they would attack lions only if it attacked their people or cattle.  Kissui asked them if it was true that if a Maasai man kills a lion, that he becomes a hero, they replied that yes that was true, but that the government says to not kill lions so they don’t kill lions.  After several minutes of intense questioning and uncomfortable silence from the rest of our group, Kissui stopped asking questions much to the men’s visible relief. 

At dinner tonight, Kissui led a group reflection.  After hearing our reactions, he talked about why he wanted to talk to the men about lions.  He knows it’s a problem and feels there is a disconnect between wildlife and the Maasai per say.  They depend on the environment and in turn the wildlife for not only their lifestyle but also as a continual source of tourists.  Kissui wanted to show them the connection between wildlife and their livelihood.  While he was talking to them this morning, he also asked if they would tell other Maasai clans not to kill lions to which they seemed slightly confused.  At dinner, Kissui explained he wanted to recruit them to be ambassadors for the wildlife and have them show their own people why lions, among other animals, are important to the entire system.  Hearing Kissui’s thoughts and reasoning made me understand his questions more. 

We were then broken into groups and assigned a guide who showed us around the boma then brought us into a house.  I definitely made another Maasai friend! I think I charmed him over by using the only word I know in the Maasai language, cow (I have no idea how to spell it so I wont even try to write the word).  He was telling two other girls from my group and I how they make the houses with mud and dung and I asked if it was cow dung (using the Maasai word for cow) and he started beaming and didn’t leave my side the rest of the time at the boma.  I’m so impressed at the resourcefulness of the Maasai people.  Making a house out of mud and dung is a great way not to use the few trees, so smart. 

I was talking to our guide after the short tour and he told me he wanted to write his name down on my paper, so unlike my Maasai friends from the dung day, I actually know this Maasai friend’s name!  His name is Lemomo Arpakwa and he is from the Esilalei Village.  He told me to write my name and village down on the same paper so I did.  Pronouncing my name proved to be kind of a challenge, it doesn’t help I have a random “j” in my name which threw him off.  I wrote that I come from South Dakota and live in Sioux Falls village.  He told me that those were funny words.  I tried to explain to him that where I come from, we have a tribe and the tribe named the village and place.  I told him about the waterfalls in Sioux Falls and he was pretty interested.  He was great.

No offense to the Iraqw tribe, my experience with them have been great as well, after all I got to wear a wedding skirt; however I am more partial to the Maasai.  It’s all started with the dung day, those Maasai were so helpful, friendly, and fun to get to know, even if it was limited and now my friend, Lemomo, was also very friendly and we were able to share both of our cultures with each other.  I bought a coiled metal bracelet from Lemomo and have no idea how I will ever get it off my wrist, so I guess you could say I’m attached to the Maasai.  I also bought a shuka (blanket/shawl) a while ago when we were in town and have tried wearing it around my body like the Maasai.  If I wasn’t American, I might want to be Maasai. 

This brings me to my thoughts on today.  After lunch, I did some required readings about how so many tribes have been exploited for the sake of tourism and I just got sick to my stomach.  Tourists, like myself, come to different countries and want to see a dressed up version of these “primitive” people and customs.  For instance, there are very few hunter-gatherer tribes left and one of them is the Sam in Botswana; one of the articles I read was all about how tourists have come to see and essentially gawk a their way of life.  Not that I can exclude myself from the tourist category, if I had a chance to see the Sam, or any other tribe, I would love to take that opportunity.  However, it’s so easy to take advantage or the customs or exploit the people.  Tourism brings in a lot of money and more and more tribes have begun to cater specifically to tourists.  When they do this, they definitely get a benefit from the increased income, but is the risk of losing elements of their culture worth it?

 As we were at the boma, it was very enjoyable, but it had an element of imitation.  As we were leaving, another group of white tourists were just arriving and the Maasai were lining up to do their welcome dance all over again.  I thought how strange that would be, to do this dance several times a day, every day.   I wanted to talk to the people more and find out if they really enjoyed this or if it was a necessary evil so they could have a little more income.  Though I completely enjoyed the experience, there was a part of me as we left that cringed at the thought of these people displaying the same parts of their culture to tourists daily.  I thought it was a shame that we as tourists only saw a few parts of their culture and would take these few pieces back to America and that would structure our entire view of the Maasai people.  I wish I could see their culture from an insiders view, from how it really works, not as a tourist or even a student.  Alas, I will never be Maasai or probably even accepted enough to be given that look.  Maybe its for the best though?

I hate to hear about cultures such as the Maasai being changed or forgotten for the sake of the tourist industry.  Today, it is so hard for people like the Maasai to live the nomadic, pastoralist way they always have.  Industry is booming and land is becoming more scarce and a lot of the times, the traditional culture and living just isn’t able to support the people.  I’m unsure of all of this, I think people such as Maasai, Iraqw, Sam and anybody else should have the opportunity to get educated or get jobs wherever they wish; but there is something so disheartening about the idea that these rich, long-lasting cultures are being lost.  I hate it.  I want all of these tribes to continue for their own sake.  I don’t want these cultures to be simmered down into a few dances and handcrafts, they deserve to last into these modern times.   Part of me thinks that the way the Sam or Hadzabe here in Tanzania live, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, is how God originally intended us to live.  That lifestyle is incredibly difficult and maybe I’m being overly idealistic, but there is something about the intense connection between man and the environment that just seems pure.  Obviously we can’t revert back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, but I want our modern world to allow the people who live like that continue to do so if they desire. 

Those are my scattered thoughts, they may be wrong or oversimplified or over idealistic.  I love cultures, I always have been fascinated with other cultures so I am grateful for the opportunity to engage with so many different cultures here in Africa.  Once again, I’m blessed. 

Pictures

 Wearing a fabulous beaded Iraqw wedding skirt

 Bandamates from the left: Kylie, Elaine, Manasi at NCA

LION!! This is the lion we saw at NCA who chased the wildebeest.

Iraq Cultural Center

Today was a non-program day and we had many choices of activities.  We could go into Karatu to the monthly local market during the afternoon, or go in Karatu in the morning, go into Mtu wa Mbu from late morning to early afternoon, go to a pizza place, or go to a cultural center in Karatu.  I decided to go to the cultural center in Karatu then go to Mtu wa Mbu.  Nothing really exciting happened in Mtu wa Mbu, I practiced my Swahili more, learned all the animals in Swahili and probably got ripped off for the two things that I bought.  But the merchants just didn’t want to haggle today!  I even told them “Sitaki bei ya mzungu” (I don’t want the “mzungu” [white person/foreigner] price) but they didn’t want to barter.  I did trade a shirt for a gift for my dad though.  What I wanted to talk about was the cultural center.

A week or two ago, a man named Daniel, came to our camp and gave a lecture about natural resource use by the Iraqw tribe.  It was a great lecture and really made me more aware of how locals respect their environment, but also need to use it in order to survive.  Unfortunately, there are more people than the environment can sustainably hold, which is where a lot of the environmental degradation is found.  This man, Daniel, is an Iraqw tribal elder and operates a cultural center in Karatu dedicated to educating people about the Iraqw traditional way of life.  After he gave his lecture at camp, he invited us all to come to his cultural center to learn more about the history and life of the Iraqw tribe; so today about ten of us students went to the center.

We arrived and Daniel went around the group, shacking our hands and asking our names and which states we came from; it always surprises me how much some Tanzanians know about the United States.  They can name all these facts about certain states.  Though, I have taken to saying I’m from Minnesota when any local asks which state I am from because no one has ever heard of South Dakota…poor South Dakota.  After introductions, we sat in a circle and Daniel told where the Iraqw tribe came from and when they came to Tanzania.  The Iraqw people are believed to come from around modern day Iraq-Iran area, hence the name.  They believe that they lived in Ethiopia before coming to Tanzania, but 2000 years ago they moved into Tanzania. 

After a history lesson on the Iraqw tribe, Daniel launched into a history lesson of how African nations got their independence.  He told us, “You should be proud to be American, your country helped the nations and tribes get freedom from the European colonization”.  Daniel basically gave an American history lesson about the slave trade, Monroe Doctrine, Emancipation Proclamation, all the way up to the mid 1900s, naming each president and the dates he was president along with what he did to help Africa.  Daniel is a very intelligent man; I think he knew more American history than we did.  He also began naming all the first presidents of African nations when they became free. 

After our history lesson, he talked about the way of life and gender roles.  He talked about how so many Westerners come to Africa and cry out about gender inequality.  However, he said, women in Iraqw culture may not accomplish the same tasks or have the same roles as men, however they have always been treated with respect and thought to have great value.  I have noticed this idea of the gender inequality in Africa.  Perhaps it’s true, I haven’t talked to enough people to make a conclusion about it though.  However, among our American group, hearing about how men can go out and hunt and do things outside of the home, whereas the women stay at home and do domestic tasks, automatically garners scoffing and seems like gender inequality.  I don’t know if that’s the case though.  I don’t think different roles necessarily mean gender inequality.  I think the most important thing is that women are treated fairly and with value.  I don’t know, it’s an interesting topic to think about. 

Anyways, during Daniel’s talk about daily life, he brought out these beautiful skirts that were handmade from goatskins.  The daily skirts were plain and took about two months to make, but he showed us wedding skirts, which are beaded and dyed and take four months to make. He asked for volunteers to try them on and I automatically stood up.  My bandamate Manasi and I were able to wear the skirts and then he began talking about the dances the Iraqw do and all of the sudden we were dancing!  Daniel and his wife, plus two of our drivers who are Iraqw, Manasi and I all performed a wedding dance, I believe.  It was so much fun! I had my camera in my pocket so I didn’t get any pictures, but several others did so I’ll have to get the pictures from them!

I want to talk about the skirts though.  Hopefully it works to upload a picture.  The skirts are beaded with different symbols to represent various aspects of life.  There are trees on the bottom which represent how a family should “bloom like vegetation”.  There are also mountains, which represent that married life is a hard climb, but that family should stay rooted and firm.  There are these lines that look like squares which represent how married life has its ups and its downs, then two suns, which the Iraqw traditionally thought of as god.  Next there are four bowls which represent, vegetables, milk, blood, and water; with these four things you are able to make a marriage oath.  On the very top there are lines of red, white, and black beads to represent unity.  The three colors, red, white, and black, actually represent the different people in the world.  Daniel called himself and Yohana, a Maasai, red.  Whereas David, another driver, was “not so much red, but a little more white, kind of in between”.  Now David looks pretty dark to me, but I guess he isn’t as dark as Daniel or Yohana. Black people are people from the equator who according to Daniel are “all black, everything in their body is black, their palms, their gums.  They are black”, he said people from Sudan and other areas like that would fall into this category. All of us students were white of course.  The funniest thing he said about the different colors of people was, “Why does America talk about so much racism with Barack Obama? He is much more white then red.  He has very little red in him.  His wife, Michelle, she is red.” 

Finally, we toured a traditional Iraqw boma. The Iraqw bomas are built underground and would probably be best compared to a sod house.  There is not much to them other than two or three places to sleep, which are goatskin stretched over wood raised up from the ground, a little corral to keep the livestock in at night, and a small kitchen area.  Daniel explained the corral was to keep the Maasai from stealing the Iraqw cattle at night.  He also showed us how to throw spears and defend a boma.  

It was a very enlightening experience.  I really enjoy learning about different cultures.  It’s always so great to see how other people live and realize that my way of living is not the only way.  This experience was also good because this coming Saturday, we will be spending an entire day with an Iraqw tribe as a homestay visit.  I’m really excited for that experience, and now I have a little more background information to help me!

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Today we went on the BEST SAFARI EVER!!! Disclaimer on this blog post, I am slightly tired and as several people have observed, when I get in this state, I become a little “slap happy” or a little loopy.  If something doesn’t make sense, I’m going to blame it on my tiredness.  In my defense, we had breakfast at 6:30 am and left camp by 7:00 am.  We spent the day at Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  Now NCA is not a National Park, it is a different type of reserved land in Tanzania.  I’m not fully aware of the differences, however the biggest difference is that NCA allows Maasai people to live traditionally in the area.  There is actually a large population of Maasai living in and around Ngorongoro.  Therefore, NCA’s mission is to conserve both the wildlife and indigenous culture.  It was pretty fascinating, we would see Maasai herders with their cattle and shoats (sheep and goats) grazing among herds of zebra and wildebeest. 

We got to NCA and had a lecture given by the director guy, I’m not fully sure what he does at NCA, but I’m fairly positive he works there.  It was interesting.  He gave this very eloquent speech on how NCA is perfect and everyone lives in harmony with everything else.  Odd.  Especially since we’ve been learning for the past four weeks about the human-wildlife conflicts of the area.  When we got back to our land rover, I asked a local staff member, Yohana, who is Maasai if what the director guy was saying is true and he laughed.  He told me Maasai hunt for lions and that if you kill a lion, you are considered a hero in Maasai culture.  He also told me a bunch of stories about Maasai going after hyenas or leopards after they killed livestock.  It would be great if there were no human-wildlife conflicts, but so far that isn’t the case.

We had a great car for the safari!  There were five students, including myself then three staff members, Yohana, our driver Pascweezy (Im not sure why we call him this, but it started and has stuck), and our Environmental Policy professor, Mwamhanga.  I really enjoy getting to know the staff members; they all have interesting stories.  We learned today that Mwamhanga is fluent in five languages, but doesn’t think that’s very impressive.  He wants to learn Spanish and French as well.  He also doesn’t like lions at all, because when he was a boy he had a dog and a lion ate his dog so ever since then, he hasn’t liked lions.  We heard more about Yohana’s background as well.  He grew up in a traditional Maasai lifestyle, but has attended school and has worked at SFS for three years now.  Yohana has Maasai eagle eyes.  We would be driving around and Yohana would casually say, “Oh, jackal on your left” and we would all be frantically looking for it, and he would point to this speck in the distance which through binoculars we could see was a jackal, but he never used binoculars. 

I have a feeling this may be a long blog post.

Ok, so the area consists of three calderas, plains, highlands, and rainforest.  As we drove into the area, we were driving through the rainforest.  It was a surreal experience. On either side of the road was dense underbrush and a thick forest of trees.  There was so much fog and mist that we could only see into the forest for about 50 meters.  After those 50 meters, there was an ocean of fog. 

We finally got down into the biggest caldera (the name escapes me) after driving through narrow dirt roads carved into a mountainside.  It’s funny, this summer my boyfriend, Joel, and his roommate wanted to go off-roading in the Black Hills in South Dakota and I was really hesitant.  I really didn’t want to go and was a little afraid.  Those roads compared to Tanzanian roads are like a piece of cake.  Tanzanian roads, especially those in national parks are barely roads.  My mom would not like these roads.  We spent the entire day exploring the caldera, which from above seemed like not a lot of area, but we spent 5 hours exploring.  The caldera was immense grassland plain with a few splotches of trees every so often. 

During this safari my car saw the entire circle of life.  One of the first things we say was an ostrich courtship dance.  There was a male ostrich lying on the ground, flapping his feathers around in an insane fashion and whipping his neck every which way.  The female ostrich cautiously circled around the male then sat down a little ways away from the male.  The male quickly stood up and flapped his wings over his head and ran to the female, then sat down on her.  I decided to give them some privacy after that. 

After we left the ostriches to their dance, we went into a brush of trees and low and behold, there was a bushbuck who had just given birth!  The calf was still wet and the mother was cleaning the calf off, then began encouraging the calf to stand.  It was precious.  Within fifteen minutes, we witnessed conception and birth! All we needed was death. 

Before I get to the death part, I’ll keep you in suspense and tell you about the other animals we saw.  We saw hyena, which was my first time seeing hyena!  I always thought hyenas would be ugly, but I actually think they have a little something something.  We saw several jackals, so we were definitely getting our carnivore fix for the day.  We saw lots of zebra, wildebeest, impala, Cape Buffalo, Grants Gazelle, and Thompsons Gazelles.  We didn’t see any giraffes today, but the environment wasn’t really suited for giraffes.  We also only saw about two elephants.  BUT we did see a very special animal off in the distance.  In fact this blog is named after this animal.  We saw a RHINO!!! It was really far off in the distance and Maasai Eagle Eyes Yohana somehow saw it amidst a herd of wildebeest, whereas we could barely see it with our binoculars.  But sure enough, it turned and we saw its profile and it was a rhino!!! I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but it was too far away.  I’m told we will see more in the Serengeti.  Seeing the rhino sparked a conversation between my professor and myself about if we were poachers if we would poach rhino or elephants.  He said he would poach rhino because their horns are worth more money.  That sounds like an awful conversation to have while watching a rhino now that I think about it, but he started it.  (Just to clarify, I detest poaching). 

We also saw some hippos.  While at the hippo pool, our professor started chatting with random people and made us wait for him for 15 minutes so we joked that we were going to throw him into the hippo pool and without hesitation he said “Ok, I’ll race against them.  I’ll probably win, I’m a pretty good swimmer, but you have to have a gold medal waiting for me when I get out.” Funny. 

Ok.  Should I finally tell the death story?  Actually, I may have stretched the truth a little bit.  There was no death involved, but there was almost death involved (mostly dead? Princess Bride, anyone?).  We were driving along in our land rover when all of the sudden we see….A LION!!!! A real life lioness, watching a large herd of wildebeest from a hill.  We were told that lions will watch their prey for several hours before actually going after the prey.  We watched this lion for almost 45 minutes.  She was beautiful.  So majestic and graceful and smart and powerful.  She would stand and creep through the grass for several meters than slink down into the grass again.  She did this several times until she was about 15 meters away from the wildebeest.  Finally, she stood up and started running full speed towards the wildebeest! She almost got a wildebeest but they all scattered too fast!  IT was AMAZING! Possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.  I have always wanted to see a kill in the wild, and though she didn’t kill a wildebeest, it was still incredible.  Ill try to see if I can post a picture sometime.  This was my favorite safari thus far.  I can’t even say how great it was.  It was just fabulous.  I’m blessed.