The Maasai Village

Wearing his lion kill.

Friday, 24 July 2009

The rest of the game drives today were continual moments of discovery. Watching animals in their natural habitat... free... not behind bars in a zoo... was a wonderful thing indeed. However, the highlight of today's experience was visiting the Maasai Village that was about a 20 min drive from Governor's Camp. There are 42 tribes in Kenya. The local tribe on the Masai Mara Game Reserves is the Maasai, which is a male dominated tribe that lives primitively in dung huts with no modern conveniences of running water and electricity. The dung huts are about 7' x 10' and are inhabited by an average household of 7 people and 1 goat. Wealth for the Maasai men is conveyed by the number of cows and wives owned. Each wife and children get their own hut, but are cloistered side by side so that the husband can easily visit each one. At age 16, young male teens leave the village for a short spell to undergo the rites of manhood. They go to the bushlands to make their first lion kill. The women play a submissive and hard role. They do all the manual labor for the village. They build the dung huts which are made out of cow dung, clay, soil and twigs. The huts take 3 months to construct, but the women also have to bear and/or take care of children; fetch water from the river an hour away; cook; clean; tend cows, goats, and chickens; and make the livelihood for the village by handmaking all the crafts purchased by tourists such as beaded jewelry, masks, hand carved wooden animals, handwoven baskets and fabrics. Girls in the village undergo genital circumcision (labia mutilation) before puberty, although the government has imposed legal sanctions to stop the brutal practice. The boys in the village undergo genital circumcision between the age of 14-18 y/o, but they are given a choice. The girls are subject to arranged marriages between the age of 14-15 y/o. Although there is a community school away from the village that goes from year 1 to year 8 (a.k.a. 1st - 8th grade in the U.S.), girls are not likely to finish school beyond year 6 because of marriage commitments at a young age. The intended groom must pay a bride dowry in cows. Governors' Camp donates a percentage of their profits to fund the school's operations, running water, and medical clinic. They also provide butane gas and single burner camp stoves in each of the huts, so that women no longer have to burn cow dung fuel. The children walk 2 hours to school, walk 2 hours back for lunch, walk 2 hours for afternoon classes, and then walk the 2 hours back home. The school comes at a price for the tribe since education has led young graduates to find their way into the modern world and out of the primitive lifestyle of the village. The tribe I visited consisted of 210 individuals, 93 of which were children. When we arrived, the women came out and sang us a welcoming song. Following their performance, the men sang and executed their jumping dance. We toured a hut, and then were taken to a stockade filled with tables of handcrafted artifacts. It was a humbling visit and made me realize just how fortunate the U.S. was because even at our poorest, we could never equate to the poverty of the Maasai.

Out of Africa

Friday, 24 July 2009

I woke up this morning....soooo exhausted. While I was asleep, a hippo came up from the Mara River from down below the campsite, and started grazing BESIDE my tent!!! I awoke at 2:30 am to a "munch-munch-munch" sound that was coming from outside my tent, and directly behind my bed! Quickly, I recalled Gideon (safari guide) telling my group how dangerous hippos were out of the water... and realized that only a thin piece of canvas was separating me and the hungry hippo. Zoinks! My heart raced until I heard the Maasai night patrol talking softly amongst themselves nearby, and instinctively knew they had it under control. So, I released my o'dark thirty anxieties and let the sandman lull me back to Zzzzzz Land. But man was I dragging when Mandiba, my 6 am wake-up call, came by my tent and dropped off my morning tray of hot tea and scones. I gulped down my tea and hurried to meet my game drive group. The Austrians were in high spirits as we headed out, which made for a jolly start. Quickly, we came across our 3rd big-game sighting as we rounded the savannah and spotted cape buffaloes in the early morn. It was hard to imagine that the seemingly docile creatures before us were considered dangerous African animals, often attacking people unprovoked; goring and killing 200 peeps per year. Whoa! But the biggest find of the morning was the pride of female lions and their cubs feasting on a fresh wildebeest kill. The cubs were quickly smack-pawed as they tried to "snack" before the adults finished eating. And as children go, they quickly forgot their spanking and began rough housing with each other as they tumbled and wrestled tirelessly before playing "ring around the rosie" around their mother's hind leg while peskily trying to bite her tail. Ahhh, kids! LoL. There were so many safari off-road vehicles out there clicking and shuttering away.... sheesh. Afterwards, we went by the river and caught a family of hippos in the water, thus bringing me back to my pre-morning wake up call. I felt my heart racing again as I recalled my fright and shook my head at the harrowing memory. But then, one of the Austrians drew my attention to our first giraffe sighting poking his head out from behind the tree limbs in the forest across the river. Unfortunately, the river was too deep to cross so we missed our opportunity to see the giraffe up close but I was confident that we would see another one before the day was over. We headed back to camp, hungry as a hippo (ha!) and triumphant with what we saw on our first game drive of the day.

My First Game Drive!

Thursday, 23 July 2009

Jambo (Kiswahili for "Hello")!!! Just got back from my first game drive! It was TOTALLY exciting! All the Land Rovers left for the mid morning game drive at the same time, but then went their separate ways as each guide four-wheel drove over grasslands, forests, and river banks of the Masai Mara looking for big-game 5 and other exotic animals. My group spotted a family of elephants right away! Then Thompson gazelles (size of little fawns), hippos, crocs, zebras, ostrich, and a sundry of exotic birds. The highlight was 2 male lions sunning themselves on a termite mound. Gideon, our game expert, drove us near -- about 5 feet away in an open vehicle!!! But the one predator that gave us the most action was the female cheetah that we came across at the end of our drive. We saw her go after a baby gazelle. What a sad fate for the Thompson gazelle, but such is the way of life on the Masai Mara. Survival of the fittest is the creed, not the exception. But talk about an exciting first drive! I saw 2 of the big-game 5 (elephant & lion), so I have 3 more to go in the 3 days remaining of my safari. Hopefully, tomorrow will see continued success. I shared today's experience with a group of Austrians who were a lot of fun. We promised to meet back later at the evening campfire to regale our tales with other Safarians, but first I had to head to the spa room to make my massage appointment. I needed a pampering treatment after a long day's travel and an exciting game drive. Afterwards I went to dinner, and belatedly found out that people dressed a little more formally (some of the men wore dinner jackets, and the ladies were adorned in heels and jewelry). Granted this formality was something the Brits favored, but gauche diners from the U.S., Australia, and Canada remained more laid back in cargo pants and t-shirts. LoL. Dinner was another delicious fare, and discussions at the main campfire afterwards was a nice way to wind down. We didn't linger too long, because we had the next day's drives beginning at the crack of dawn. So with that, I'm closing my journal until my next post. La La Salama (Kiswahili for "Good Night")!!!