LYANDA: Hello dear friends. We are enjoying a rainy chill-out day at a funny little hotel in Arusha after our amazing week of camping and exploring the Northern Tanzania parks–Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire. I would have been happy to continue staying in our tent overlooking the Rift Valley for weeks, but I have to admit that last night’s hot shower felt GREAT–there was actually a river of brown muddy water flowing from my hair down the drain. Then out for pizza served with South African wine from a box–heaven!
Happily, my fears of tourist over-run in the safari parks were far overblown. We spent our first couple of days outside of the parks, camping and walking the dry hills of the Monduli mountains with our young Masai guide, Melubo, who we adore. He is 25, and just the third in his village to attend secondary school. As we walked, he told us about Masai culture, and the traditional uses of the many acacia species, and other plants. He was sweetly solicitous of Claire, and treated her as a loved little sister, patiently picking thorns out of her socks, holding her hand on the steeper spots, saying “Come, Clara, walk with me,” whenever she started to lag, and best of all, pulling out his “bush knife” to make her a Masai walking stick of her own. The second day, we walked with him to his home–”that way,” he waved his stick toward the hills. After two hours of incredible walking, Claire asked if we were almost there. “Oh yes,” Melubo gave her his winning smile, “We are just arriving.” After another hour, he said, “See, there is my home,” pointing about a kilometer across a wide valley. It’s true–for the Masai, an hour’s walk counts as “almost there.” Nearly all the Masai still dress traditionally, in a red or purple cloth wrapped around the waist, and another thrown over the shoulders and across the chest. Most have large holes in extended earlobes (though not Melubo), and eat mainly meat, milk, some beans and corn if it managed to grow, and also sometimes blood (it’s a plug for the low-carb diet–they are also invariably tall and thin). And they really do carry sticks, for walking and moving along the goats, cattle, and donkeys. Melubo is quietly proud of being Masai, and of his beautiful land–rightly so. Still, the effects of isolation and poverty are palpable–we saw so many children out herding the animals–the less shy ones would approach us, and we could see they were caked in dirt, and often torn clothes, which is perhaps not so bad, but so many of them clearly were suffering from chronic respiratory and eye infections. They held out their sweet, germy little hands to us. We loved seeing Melubo’s simple home, the boma where he was born–we sat there in the smoky dark (they cook on a fire, but there is no chimney), and as our eyes adjusted, he translated his aunt’s questions to us–you have only one child (peals of laughter, she has eight!)? Do you have cattle? When do you plant your corn? Later, at the campfire, I asked Melubo if he would consider the people in his village to be basically happy, sort of a dumb question, maybe. He said, “Well, today they are happy, because you came, and visitors are unusual. You saw them smile.” Yes, and other days? Day-to-day? “Well, yes. Some days they are happy, if they are not hungry, or if the children are not sick. The life is good, but it is difficult.”
We left dear Melubo behind, and continued with our driver and cook to our camp above Lake Manyara. There were other travelers there, but the tent-camping mode of safari seems to attract more alternative, Euro-backpacker types, and we enjoyed the camaraderie, and trading of stories.
The parks are stunning–the scale of Africa is almost inconceivable. Tarangire was so picturesque–the classic, “Lion King” image of Africa. We SO enjoyed the multi-age lines of elephants, splashing in the mud, and trailing across the river bottom–indescribably lovely. We saw one tiny baby, born this year–the smallest baby elephant ever. Her ears were much too big for her, and she seemed all fresh and new compared to the larger elephants. We named her “Hansa,” in memory of Woodland Park Zoo’s beautiful little girl elephant who died last summer. The many zebras congregate with the blue wildebeest, or “gnu,”–a regrettably ugly animal–I am sorry to say it, but it’s true. The puns roll too easily: What’s gnu? That’s gnood gnus! Honey, the gnu jokes are getting old. Should I make some gnu ones? Ha ha. So you see, we keep ourselves amused. And I know we are supposed to respect the animals as “wild,” but all I really want to do is rub my face in the lion’s mane and kiss his soft nose, or climb on an elephant’s back and lie there in the sun. xo, L
