good-bye kenya...

Like all things fun, new and exciting, our time in the Kenyan wilderness flew by in what seemed like a nanosecond.  It went so fast that Aman and I found ourselves having a serious conversation about the possibility of extending our stay by a night ... oh, the joys of having a flexible travel schedule.  Cooler heads prevailed of course, when we got an estimate of what a one-night extension would cost.  We also realized that the problem was that we didn't want to leave at all, and prolonging our inevitable departure by one night did not make much sense.  Besides, we had accomplished so much during our relatively brief stay... 3 day game drives, 1 night game drive, 1 full-day excursion to the Maasai Mara, 1 walking safari, countless sightings of wildlife in connection with all of the above, and a cultural visit to a Maasai village to boot.  Not bad.  Here are some photos from our last game drive, which included a spectacular sunrise, a delicious bush breakfast, and brilliant views of a giraffe herd moving gracefully across the distant plains as we ate:

All of this says nothing of our time in camp, and all the fun we had there.  Each night was fairly similar.  After arriving home from a long day traversing the plains, we and the camp's other guests would congregate in the mess hall.  We would gather round the fire on one of the soft over-sized couches and recount the day's adventures, before moving to the dining area for a delicious family-style meal.  The camp managers, Roelof and Helen, joined us each night, as did Arthur, the camp's assistant manager.  There was also Richard and Craig from the U.K., Jonathan, a British ex-pat living in New York, and Kevin and Greg from Texas.  (Sorry guys, I never figured out how to make the font blink... trying my best with colorful bold!)

the real maasai

Apart from walking safaris, game drives and cozy nights nestled around the campfire, one of the more interesting things that we did in the Maasai Mara was to visit a local Maasai village.  One of the better known ethnic groups of Africa, the Maasai are semi-nomadic, cattle-keeping people who inhabit the vast scrubland in and around the game reserves of Kenya and northern Tanzania.  The Maasai follow various age-old customs that pertain to and influence everything from their dress (bright red clothing and intricate beaded jewelry), to their diet (heavy in milk and maize-meal), to their views about wealth (counted in terms of cattle and children -- in both cases, the more, the better), to their social organization (roughly determined by age).  A visit to the village of a Maasai tribe leaves you with a greater understanding of and appreciation for the people's pastoral lifestyle, which is incredibly uncomplicated and, in many respects, quite difficult.  For example, the children of the village where we visited must walk 12 kilometers, each way, to and from the nearest school.  The women dedicate an entire day each week to collecting water from the most nearby source -- they take all that their donkeys can carry back in one trip, which amounts to approximately 240 liters of water per family, per week. (Consider in comparison that, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the average person in the United States uses an estimated 300-380 liters of water per day.)

The particular village that we visited was as basic and traditional as it gets.  Circular in layout, the center of the village was a large pen ringed by uneven timber poles and topped with razor wire, where the cows are kept for the night.  The pen was flanked on either side by two smaller corrals for keeping smaller livestock (sheep and goats). Around the pen sat a ring of low, earth-brown houses.  Six in all, they were made of skinny timber poles, smaller sticks, grass, mud and dung.  Beyond the houses was a fence of sorts primarily made from interwoven heaps of thorny branches from the native acacia tree.  This enclosure is all that protects the people and their livestock from wild animals at night.  No hospital, no post office, no school, no general store... three corrals, six mud houses and a fence made of thorny brush.  (Stop and think about that for a minute...)

We arrived at the village in the early evening.  One of the busiest times of the day, evening is the time when the older boys bring in the livestock for the night.  Before passing through the thorny enclosure of acacia, we were greeted by one of the village elders, as well as a group of very curious little boys who were delighted by Aman's camera and our week's worth of photos from the wild.  The older men showed us a deep reservoir that they had recently dug for collecting rainwater -- an effort to alleviate the village's lack of water.  For their part, the women brought us in one of their houses -- they showed us the open fireplaces in the center of the home used for cooking and the tiny adjacent rooms where the children slept on the floor, as chickens clucked and walked aimlessly about the open doorway.  Without windows, the house was dark and the air choking-hot and thick from the lingering smell of fires past.  Outside, the children walked up to us, smiling shyly and bowing slightly so that we could touch the tops of their heads, considered to be a sign of respect, their faces full of joy.  In all, a priceless experience and one that, perhaps, is best told by the pictures...

... hello uganda!