A lot has happened in the last 2 weeks, so much so that it was full of some of the most exciting, sad, eye opening, cultural, and scariest moments of my life. We started out in Ngororo crater made our way through Serengettie then to Lake Natron and the Maasai and then back to Arusha which may not sound like a whole lot but with all the crazy shit that happened to us and the opportunities we were given I couldn’t ask for a more eventful experience in which I learned more than I have in most semester long classes. Because so much happened I have a lot to write about so feel free to sit back relax and read it or just look at the pictures.
Bugger fruit
Ngororo:
Before we left Arusha we were taking a dola dola
pretty early in the morning with the morning commuters. One thing about the
dola dolas is they don’t go unless they have a sufficient amount of people in
them. Because of this we ended up waiting at some random street corner for more
people to show up in need of a dola dola. We had been there about 5 minutes
when some man got fed up and tried to escape the dola dola. Not surprisingly
the driver and change guy did not like this one bit because the man had not yet
paid so the change guy blocked the door so the man couldn’t get out. After some
pushing and shoving with no avail the man took a lunging start and started head
butting the guy in order to get out. He head butted him so hard that the change
guy flew off, luckily he was holding onto the roof ledge so it was just his
legs that flew out but it was definitely a bit crazy.
Although my least favorite part of
the 2 weeks it was still so incredibly beautiful and it felt great to be back
on safari. It was awesome to have everything taken care of. Not having to
figure out where we are staying, where we are eating, having to remember to
wear skirts or constantly getting sexually harassed by every man on the street
was incredibly nice and relaxing. Literally everywhere girls go in arusha we
constantly get cat calls, but slaps, groups of men pointing and obviously
talking about us, annoying comments like “hey sexy” as they try and hold our
hand and other things like that. Its nothing horrible but after it happening
everyday day after day it starts to wear on you. I never really thought that
that kind of sexual harassment got to me at all, in fact I thought I was pretty
good at ignoring it until one day in arusha where something clicked and I can’t
stand it anymore. Anyways Ngororo was awesome and a great way to start off the
Safari no crazy stories there.
Serengeti:
Serengeti
has by far been my favorite place we have gone to on safari. SO many different
landscapes and animals, not to mention I wasn’t tired or annoyed with people on
the trip yet and besides one lightning storm the weather was super hot and
super awesome! We were able to see leopards, cheetahs, the cutest baby
elephant, crocodiles, huge lizards, big lion prides and everything in between.
Literally everyday we saw something incredible. Everyday was super eventful and
incredible and I felt so incredible lucky that my classes were going to the
river every morning to watch birds while also watching all the other wildlife
on the river rind habitat, my afternoon classes were a hour presentation and a
nice siesta and then my extra curricular activities are a nice touristy safari.
Anyways
the 2nd night of safari as I was going to bed I kept hearing huge
packs of hyenas cackling, laughing and making a lot of noise, as well as some
other noise that I wasn’t sure what it was. So I finally got to sleep and woke
up later that night to what I thought was Bergen making Hyena noises to scare
me but what I later learned was actually a hyena sniffing and grunting ,
literally no more than 5 feet from our tents. Anyways the next morning I woke
up to be told that there had been a huge pack of hyenas and a pride of lions
that started fighting over the food in the kitchen of the campsite. There was a
lot of fighting and what not and the lions ended up killing one of the hyenas.
Naturally we wanted to go see the dead hyena so we took our pieces of toast and
ran over to the dead animal. It was literally lying dead in a small pool of
blood in the middle of the path of our campsite. It had a huge slit in its
throat but no blood there but it also had a huge gouge in its side which was
pooling blood. It was so freshly dead that I was half expecting it to jump up
at us. While I wasn’t extremely freaked out the night before it was kind of
freaky to realize that a huge fight between these two fierce predators went
down 50 ft from us… We are definitely camping in the Tanzanian bush.
Calls of hyenas we heard last night.
Whoop: call usually given while walking when females make
the call everybody comes running
Fast Whoop: made when competing with lions or other clans at
kills
Low: heard among hyenas waiting at a kill
Giggle: made while being attacked or chased
Yell: made when being attacked and trying to escape
Growl: made when threatened about to bite or actually biting
attacker.
The last day of Serengeti we were able to drive out to these
rock outcroppings and walk around and really enjoy and take in the serengeti
planes. It was once a spot of warship for the Maasai but as the NCAA made it
part of the NCA they were kicked out. The view was amazing and it was so nice
to take in our last safari of the semester. It was a weird feeling to realize
that this semester was starting to come to end. At that point all we had left
was Maasai homestay and ISP and thinking that this program only had 6 weeks
left (now 5 I think) was kind of a reality check. I keep saying but I’v learned
a lot on this program and the fact that I’m safari-ing for class is unbeatable.
dead hyena. the pooled blood is on the other side but you can see the slit
the group
Lake Natron:
The
day before our homestay we were given a day to chill at camp so baba jack took
us to this natural water fall in the canyon of the great rift valley and it was
amazing. We hiked about 30 minutes up the river to this water fall that comes
from a spring in the ground so its pretty clean and free of diseases. We all
stipped down to our underwear and jumped in. there was one place you could
stand and let the waterfall just fall all over you and then upstream a bit a
really deep pool that we could just chill and splash around in. it was such
nice perfect temperature water, although unlike Oregon streams you couldn’t
only see half an inch down because it was so murky. There were a few little
baby leaches but they weren’t a big deal because they were so little so as soon
as baba jack left we all relaxed a bit more and rid ourselves of any cloths we
were wearing. We were all freaking out about the homestay so it was so nice to
relax and have a blast with everybody one last time before we headed off to
something completely out of any of our comfort zones, something that we were
told we would need a lot of courage and persistence to get through and
something that we had zero idea what would happen to us.
Maasai Homestay:
Ohhhh man where to start. Maasai
homestay was so different than anything I have ever experienced or will ever
experience again that truthfully its really hard to explain to anybody who
hasn’t stayed with them. It was incredibly difficult but I can’t quite pin
point what was so difficult about it. And on the flip side it was one of the
most amazing experiences I have ever had but I can’t quite pin point what was
so incredible about it. Sure it was really hot, we did a lot of work and they
were constantly trying to stuff food down my throat but that’s all things I’m
used to. I will try and
explain what happened to me but if you really want to understand the Maasai
culture, what their about, and how they live you really just got to go live
with them yourself.
Day 1: we left at 9:30 with Baba Jack and Samuel giving us
words of advice telling us we would need to get all of courage and persistence
to get through these few days. We were told it would be hard but also one of
the most rewarding experiences we would ever had. Once at the towns center our
names were read off, we were given to our mamas and with the translator able to
tell them what we couldn’t eat before leaving the group and walking to the
Boma. I walked about 30 or 45 minutes with my momma and ten year old sister who
thankfully spoke some Swahili to our Boma and after hanging my bag up on a
stick in the Boma told to undress. The next 5 minutes I stripped all of my
cloths off and was standing completely naked in front of my momma and sister.
They proceeded to drape robe after robe on me until I had four robes on and
looked like a white Maasai girl. Throughout the day they started draping more
and more jewelry on me until I had a beaded hat thingy (it made me look like
the monkey from Alladin), 2 huge satellite disks ( they were necklaces but just
looked like satellite disks that protruded from my neck), about 7 or 8
necklaces, 2 chokers, 6 bracelets on each arm, 2 anklets, and 2 huge earrings
on each ear and another dangly thing that attached to my cartilage piercing.
Adorned with jewelry we started beading with the other mammas and thankfully
two other girls who were also in my Boma. After beading for a few hours we were
told we were bathing at the river so we walked down to the river had our cloths
taken off for us and bathed and splashed in the river. After bathing we were
all redressed ( basically standing butt as naked in front of our sisters and
the world to see as they draped the robs back on) and walked back to the boma
for dinner. As a side note all the cooking, napping, storage and sleeping
happens in a boma that is no more than 7x11. Needless to say in a hut made out
of poop mud and sticks, cooking on a fire mud stove makes the boma HOT. Anyways
throughout the four days we were fed either ugalli and watery beans, rice and
beans or a porridge thing for breakfast (no fruit or veggies of any kind) but
everytime I would eat I would be fed a heaping bowl of steaming food in a
really freaking hot boma. Half the struggle of eating was trying not to sweat
all the water out of your body that you were so desperately trying to drink all
day to stay hydrated. Anyways after we were fed and bejeweled we begun dancing
and singing around the Boma after about 20 minutes our sisters said we were
going so confused about where the heck we would be going at 9:30 at night we
followed our sisters and thus begun the Tour de’ Boma. We went from Boma to
Boma greeting elder mamas, picking up more and more jewelry, and gathering more
and more students until after we had visited about 5 Bomas and crossed the
rivers we arrived at our final boma where a lot of dancing and singing took
place. They taught us many dances which basically consisted of jumping and
moving our shoulders up and down. We sang and danced the night away and finally
returned to the Boma around 12. I thought I was going to be sleeping outside
like most people but ended up sleeping inside on the rawhide stick bed with my
sister. I was super fine with this until we started sleeping and realized it
was SUPER hot in this boma and my sister loved to cuddle, if you could call it
that… basically my sister fell asleep right away and as I was settling in she
started getting closer and closer until she was spooning me I was sweating all
night.
Day 2:
Day two we woke up around 630 drank a big cup of chai and
went on a long (2 or 3) mile walk into the middle of nowhere to collect fire
wood. We gathered wood for about an hour by literally breaking the dead wood
off this huge mangled mess of dead trees. Once we got a sufficient amount of
wood our sisters tied them together, put them on our head and we walked back.
The walk back was sooo hot probably about 90 degrees already and the wood was
heavy enough that the rope was digging into my head. But we made it back, ate a
big bowl of porridge ( a watery ugalli) then pretty much had the rest of the
day free. My sister and mom napped a big portion of the day while I beaded for
about 4 hours. We bathed and washed cloths again in the river and returned home
for dinner. After dinner we did a smaller version of the tour de Boma and went
to bed around 10. That night my sister who had gotten much closer to me not
only scooted closer to me but started intertwining her legs with mine so that
we were literally connected the whole night. When I would try to pull away so I
wasn’t sweating to death she would just scoot closer and push her legs into
mine.
Day 3:
day 3 went much the same but instead of collecting fire wood we all walked to
lake natron about a 4 or 5 mile walk each way and met up with a lot of other
students. I’m pretty sure that like my Bangatan homestay they planned for us to
meet up a lot during the 3 days and have little play dates. Anyways lake natron
is a alkaline lake and there were flamingos EVERYWHERE, not to mention dried up
salt and flamingo crap. After getting back the afternoon went much the same as
the others as we basically played with kids, beaded in the minimal shade and
tried not to pass out in the heat. That night my sister who was even more
comfortable with me not only latched onto my legs but put her arms around me.
When I tried to put my arm in her face so that she would move away to breath
better she just grabbed hold of my arm and cuddled with it. It was probably the
hottest night of my life.
Anyways I learned os much about their culture and how their
social structure worked. As a girl who wasn’t circumcised, wasn’t married and
didn’t have kids I was basically a 10 year old girl. Before this homestay we
would see Maasai people on the side of the road and I would think of them as a
people who were so incredibly different from me but in reality we were all the
same. Sure they had very different traditions and customs but the way they
interacted with people and the things that made them laugh or annoyed were all
the same as most Americans. I think we have a tendency to look at people who
look soooo different from us and judge them on the spot and think they must not
be happy or fulfilled in the life they live but in reality I think sometimes
they are way more fulfilled and accomplished than we are.
kitchen, bedroom, living room.
our boma with Oldonio Lengi in the background
swimming/bathing
me and my sister
me and my dad
milking a goat peacfully (without baby goats trying to get at it)
momma
Last few days:
The last few days of the homestay consisted of lounging
around and reflecting on our experiences thus far mixed in with a few
traditional Maasai traditions. These traditions consisted off an herbal tea
that made you poop your brains out, the slaughtering of a goat, and branding.
Because the tea had milk in it I wasn’t able to drink it but the other two
things I took part in along with the majority of my class. On Thursday the
night we got back we, with the help of two Maasai men, slaughtered a goat in
the traditional maasai way. To kill it they suffocate it, which was incredibly
hard to watch as it squirmed and made really helpless sounds. After about 3
minutes it was brain dead and after 5 minutes it was dead and that’s when they
started to skin the goat. These guys skinned the goat in literally 5 minutes
with all the fat left on the goat. I was able to try my hand at skinning the
goat although I can say with the utmost confidence that I sucked. After
skinning it they cut it open letting all the insides spill out but saving the
kidney and liver and making sure that no blood was spilled, they did this
flawlessly. Part of the tradition of slaughtering a goat is to eat the kidney
raw right as you slaughter it, saving the liver for the elders to eat, and
drinking the goats blood. Because I am not an elder I was given the opportunity
to partake in the eating of the kidney and drinking of the liver but because
the kidney grossed me out so much I only drank the blood. It was definitely one
of the more gross things I have done in my life but I felt that it would be a
great way to sort of rap up the maasai experience and truthfully it just tasted
like regular blood. After the slaughter and drinking of the blood they took the
rest of the de-skinned body and we roasted it for dinner and made goat head
soup….I did not try the goat head soup it stunk real bad.
Friday we had another day to chill
but we were also given the chance to get branded. In Maasai culture branding is
a HUGE beautification processes. People have brands all over their bodies and
much like piercing your ears its for beautification and the Maasai are super
into it. Most people have circle brands on their faces and I would say about
99% of the people have brands
somewhere on their bodies, usually way more than one. Anyways so one of the
Maasai guys who had been with us, Marco, is known to be one of the best
beautification people in the lake natron area and he was the one giving them to
us. It was extremely nerve racking waiting in line to get branded but and when
it was my turn I clung onto my friend will, bit his shirt and got 3 lines
branded onto the side of my arm. It didn’t’ hurt nearly as much as I thought
but the sizzling of the skin while it was happening was the only disconcerting
part. After it was done it stung a bit like a bee sting for a bit but now
hasn’t hurt at all since. Because they don’t want to really hurt us muzungu and
we can’t go back to get it re-branded it will only last about 2 years but is
still really cool and was an awesome capstone to an incredible experience.
Oh ya one more thing the rains have
come and with it SOME HUGE FREAKING BUGS!!! I thought I had escaped the
stereotype of huge bugs in Africa but ohhh man these beetles, cock roaches and
spiders are huge and going to the bathroom is the scariest thing ever. We had a
Halloween party on Friday and we kept hearing screams of girls as they would
encounter a huge beetles.
Another random experience was I was
going to the bathroom and all of a sudden eh door swung open and there was a
naked Tanzanian man standing in front of me he shut the door without a word
said and that was the end of that.
drinking/ licking a drop of goats blood
getting branded
The brand
The way home, corruption like I’v never seen it before:
On
our way back to Arusha we were passing through a check gate when all of a
sudden all hell broke loose as the villagers started attacking our cars to prevent us from passing through the gate.
This is my account and my friends accounts of what happened. It
might be a bit confusing because honestly this whole thing is a confusing blur.
Holy shit what just happened. So we were stopped at one of the gates like usual checking our papers but all of all of a sudden samual ( one of the drivers) sprinted back into his car got in and as he was trying to shut the door a group of young villagers started trying to pull him out and were hanging and pulling on his door so he couldn’t shut it. He was able to turn the car on, backed up and sped through the thorn wall around the gate and over the river. Our car follwed suit and at one point this guy ran right in front of our car with a huge boulder in his arms and through the rock directly at our car. I was in the front and thought it was going through our windshield but luckily our dirver slammed on his breaks and it only hit the tire. As we were speeding away spears nad rocks were flying by our car as the gate people were trying to mess up our car so we couldn’t get away. Our car and another car made it across the river enough away that because there were still 3 cars on the others side they didn’t care. We had no idea what was going on and wers super worried about everybody else so we were hanign our heads out the window and standing up and everyonce in awhile our driver would sprint back to the cars and speed further away. At some point after we made it across the river Baba jack jumped out of the car and walked back toward the gate and then all of a sudden started spriting but we didn’t know why. We could sort of see that the drivers were getting pulled out of their cars but couldn’t tell much else. After awhile we were told things had calmed down and were told to go wait in the bar so we walked back across the gate and sat down and got more of the story.
People stuck behind the gate:
So meanwhile there were still 3 cars still stuck back with the gate people 2 behind the gate and one car surround by villagers with machetes, rocks and spears. The gate people were trying to pull the dirvers out of their cars and steal their keys. The gate people ended up pulling the drivers out and got ahold of their keys, started beating and shoving the two drivers and even hit one with a steal pole on his head ( not super hard but still). They took the keys and drove off with them on a piki piki. While the dirvers were getting beat up the gate people were pounding on the windows and there was a lot of pushing and shoving going around with SIT crew and the villagers. in the commotion a lot of smaller details about everything that happened were lost.
Oh ya two other things that happened. after Samuel and our driver ran back to our cars screaming lets go, samuals car sped off to go get the police because the police here don’t have cars to get to the crime so you have to go get them yourself. Another thing that happened was that in the car that was on the other side of the gate but had been surrounded by spears and people holding rocks there was a Momma with her baby inside. This momma was a big woman and she jumped out of the car slung her baby over her shouldner and just started yelling at these guys…they immiately dropped their weapons and rocks and that car was able to drive off.
So we got to the gate and handed them a letter from the distrct saying we had already payed the fees and were were a group of students not tourists. The people glanced at the letter, said they didn’t think it was actually from the district and didn’t recognize it and tossed it into the trash. That’s when Samuel stormed out and drove off. Throughout this many lies were told and one of them was some guy said sam had hit him when in reality he had crashed his motorcycle in the ordeal. After our two cars had driven off and we were being chased by speras and rocks the momma got out, Baba Jack got out and sam got out. Baba Jack went to try and sort it out and some guy came running up to him grabbed him and said lets fight. Baba Jack kept his cool threw him to the ground said no and kept running, to where they were pulling the drivers out and stealing the keys. More fighting happened and the piki piki drove away with the keys to the village chairmen’s office. After the fighting stopped Baba Jack sent all of us to the bar while he was dealing with everybody else. In sorting everything out Baba Jack tried cutting them deals to get us out but they wouldn't let us pass without paying because they think they thought they could keep lying and get out of it. So three hours later we were still at the bar waiting for Samuel and the police to come. Baba Jack said that the person who threw the rock could go to jail for 10 years and the person who beat the driver with the pole could go for 20 years. Although separated by ten years both these sentences mean almost certain death because of the living conditions. The person who ran away with the keys could probably be sentenced to 1 year.
So the police came and the justice system is so corrupt that nothing came of it except that we were able to pass by the gate and they gave us our keys back. All of the elders were there with the police, townspeople, and our people and the discussion took all of 10 minutes. After 5 hours of commotion nothing ended up happening except for the fact that as we were leaving an elder came up to Baba Jack and said “sorry blah blah blah but my advice to you is to forget about it” Baba Jack in turn said “I think I’m going to take the advice of the parliament and the university that I’m sending the video and pictures to. Baba jack hadn’t pulled that card at yet and the guy had nothing to say.
Its crazy that to get justice for some of the things that happened Baba jack is going to have to call on his connections in the government and go out of his way to see any action taken. I don’t know if I really want any charges to be charged because I think that a lot of the violence that happened was a heat of the moment and part of that mob mentality and shouldn’t be punshied by death. I don’t think its alright at all that our drivers were beaten and rocks and spears were thrown at us but I don’t think they should be given a sentence that means almost certain death. Its weird to be directly connected to a situation like this in which men getting angry and heated might result in people being sent to prison long enough that they won’t make it out and its pretty uncomfortable to think about. A lot of the young generation is at unrest and I think that this was a portrayal of that more than anything. After talking with baba jack, neither of the two guys will go to prison but they will be fired, the head gate guy will write us a letter of apology and in the future we will never have problems there again and in return we said we wouldn't spread the video or pictures. I'm relieved that nobody is going to jail but that action is still being taken to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen agian. I think a lot of what happened was men getting overtaken by their anger and ego and it escalated into something more than what it should have been.
Jungle gym. 
drive up to Mazumbai in the back up a pickup truck. 
bring the headless squirming chicken back to the chicken
dinosaur tree. 
Texas Hold 'em getting intense. 
chicken squirming and squawking after it was beheaded 
swinging vine. 
Wood fueled stove we cooked on
When boys don't have football to watch...
early in the day of the saturday market
stuffed chickens with potatoes, veggies and wine around them. 
We cooked almost the whole meal. 
One of the best thanksgivings I'v ever had. 
