Brideprice

Yesterday I went out with a group of people here on base to visit Masai land. We drove north towards the kenyan boarder until we reached Longido, a relatively large Masai village at the base of Mount Longido, and then turned left onto a non-descript dirt road. We traveled along this road, which became more and more rutted and rocky as we went for about 40 minutes. Finally, we arrived at a tiny little Masai village consisting of a large boma (a group of mud and dung houses surrounded by a thick fence of acacia limbs) and a few cement buildings. This area is much less effected by modern cities and so the maasai are more traditional in their dress and lifestyle. The men and women we saw driving out were beautifully clothed in bright, mostly red shukas (the red, usually plaid, cloth that they are famous for) and the women are covered in gorgeous beadwork. They have earings( they strech their earloabes and have quite lavish ear decorations), necklaces, braclets, anklets, and rings. They are stunning. Even though they look amazing seeing them walking through the bush alone, or if they are men with the cattle, brings into focus the harsh reality of their lives, which for the women includes treking for miles carrying firewood and water. Unlike the women in town who carry heavy loads on their heads, the maasai women carry things in rough pouches that have thick straps that are put across their foreheads. Saying that, I'm almost positive the maasai do not lement their lot in life as much as we westerners do, though it is a very hard life they lead. There is alot more to say about the Maasai, but I will move on because that could and does fill many books.
Anyway, when we arrived we met up with one of the few maasai wearing western clothing. he was wearing a winter coat, which seems to be the norm for most africans anytime the temperature falls below 90 degrees, and spoke very little english. We had a traslator who spoke Maasai with us and he interpreted. After introductions, the first thing he wanted to know was my brideprice. He offered our translator cattle to trade for me to stay that day as his wife. Luckily our translator was quick on his feet and said that I wasn't ready to get married that day. We didn't go into details, obviously, so I'm not exactly sure how many cattle I'm worth, but I was curious. After we had met the rest of the village, actually just the men, they continued to speculate amongst themselves about my dowry. I heard my name being used frequently in their conversation which was a little funny. At one point a murani, which is the warrior phase that the men enter after they are circumsized and before they marry, as far as I understand, placed a beaded necklace around my neck which I quickly removed after I was informed by our translator that it meant that he was indicating his intention to start our friendship so we could begin negotiation to get married. Everyone was in hystericas at this point and I was bright red. I was teased the whole way home about preparing myself to live in the boma with my new maasai husband.
Anyway, other than being bartered for I had a great time. The Maasai are very friendly as long as you don't offend them and your intentions are "good". They mostly seem fascinated by how white we are and our cameras. They did refuse pictures and I didn't want to sneak any so I don't have any photos myself. There were a few photos taken so i'll try to round those up from other folks and get them on here.

Reply

I just realized I can reply to your comments. Duh! So, that means you can leave messages and i can respond. Isn't the internet great!

PS Here's another picture from our safari! She was soooo close!

How To Eat Ugali (this is for you Daddy)

Ugali is a very common local tanzanian food. It's basically very heavy grits made from flour and corn meal. The usual compliment to it is mchicha, which is the greens. This sounds very good to a southern person because it is basically what we eat anyway. Greens and grits..mmm. Anyways, here's how you are supposed to eat it. You pinch off a piece of ugali, roll it into a ball, press your thumb into it and then scoop up a bit of mchicha to go with it. One bite of this and I'm full for the whole day. These are not your grandmas grits, these are like cement with a little more flavor. The mchicha is delicious though.

For Mom...

Need I say more?

Nzuri safari -->Good Journey

So we've now gone and returned from our safari to Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro crater. We spent one day at each park and stayed at the Bougainvillea Safari Lodge (bougainvillea are flowers that grow in abundance here in Tanzania). The lodge was super nice with private bungalows and king beds. the best part about the whole place though was the food. The food was the best i've had since I've been here. i knew lamb could be so tender and delicious. It was a five course dinner with freshly backed rolls and something called banana rice that, in it's deliciousness, overwhelmed my staunch dislike of bananas. Yum! That's enough about the hotel, now about the parks.

Lake Manyara
This park is comprised of one giant shallow lake and all the land that surrounds that lake. There are giant baobabs and tons of wildlife. The lake is very dry right now. The short rains came early in November and didn't last very long, so the dust was unusually thick. The amazing wildlife pushed us all to overcome our scratchy dry eyes and we enjoyed it a TON! We saw everything we expected plus more. There were baboons, elephants, wildebeast, buffalo, flamingos( which the park is famous for), and even one of the legendary tree climbing lions! It was a big male and he was actually sleeping under a tree but I'm pretty sure all of his females were in the tree( although I can't prove this). Anyways, we saw the hot springs and the hippos pond. The hippos weren't very exciting because they just sort of lay there in their vastness wallowing in the mud and sleeping. They did make a few rather crude noises( what would Ms. Manners think? I mean really!).
Reality Check
So what I didn't realize and what I want to explain, is that when you go on safari your basically signing up for an x amount of days road trip. Your not allowed to get out of your car in the parks except at a few designated sites and the wildlife, as might be expected of wild animals, are allowed to roam where they please so you spend all day driving around straining your eyes at the horizon looking for them. I had some small expectations tucked away in the back of my mind of a more dangerous adventure (i.e. The African Queen and Out of Africa). I didn't even realize they were there, but regarless, they were not realized. There really is very little danger except from other drivers and the conditions of a few of the roads. Even though I was a little disappointed that I wasn't nearly eaten by anything, I had a fantastic time.
Ngorongoro Crater
This park is amazing. It was by far my favorite. After you pass through the fist set of gates( and pay all the money on your person to the very serious man behing the gated counter you) you begin to drive around the crater rim. You continue on this drive for about thrity minutes all the while getting great views of the crater bottom and a few animals along the way. Then you come to the second gate, which marks the beginning of your decent into the crater. the road down is in pretty good shape although if you are afraid o heights you may not want to look down. Luckily I'm only afraid of heights in airplanes so I loved the view. At first all you see are a couple of puddles of water and a few tiny trees, then as you decsend you begin to see spots. Tiny littel brown spots and then they begin to grow into a large herd of zebra and wildebeast! Awesome! Finally on the bottom you drive around a great loop that takes you pretty much around the edge of the crater and down the middle. At first we saw only the same animals that you see everywhere, like the zebras and the wildebeasts and the gazelle, but then, what's that!? Is it? There's a lot of cars around! I think it is! YES! IT'S A LION PRIDE!!!!! We saw a pride of lions minus the male. Apparently they just lie under trees all days. Anyway, this was a group of femals with two large cubs. It was very cool. Even up close it's hard to fathom how big they really are. Then on our way back around th loop we saw the same lions and this time one of the females walked right in front of our car!!!!!!!! She was huge! I snapped a few clumsy shots with my cameras but pictures can never do her justice. She was amazing Then some others came across the road and appeared to be watch a few wildebeast who were lying in the grass. Anyways, we were hoping something would happen but it didn't they just layed there in the grass and watched. That was the most exciting thing of the day. We ate lunch by this gorgeous freshwater lake that had tons of little fish in it( where did they come from?!) and some hippos. It was lush and green which contrasted with the mostly dry green/brown of the rest of the park. On our way out we did see a Cheetah, although he was quite far away and without binoculars looked like a speck. it was still really cool to get to see one because they are not commoly seen. OH! and we saw THREE black rhinoceroses! Most people only see maybe one or two but we saw three!!!

in conclusion because this post is huge and your probably fading I would like to say that I have a wonderful time on safari and I think everyone should do it.

Christmas

Christmas eve, Josh, Renee and myself all gathered with the Carstensens for dinner. It was tons of fun and we mostly laughed all night. I even was able to take part in my first "santa leaving the presents" event. I've never had the opportunity to do that so it was pretty exciting to see what goes on behind the scenes of the Santa myth. Mostly it was exciting to see Boaz and Talia open their present the next morning.

The next morning we all went back up to the Carstenson's at about 6:30am for the present opening. That's when the picture of me and Mt. Kilimanjaro was taken!

Then we headed back to Josh and Renee's house to open our presents! I got a wall handing with elephants on it! Totally cool!

Ok here are a few pics. I'll try to get more on but I have to wait for Josh to get them on the server and then I have to convert them and it's a process so it takes time.

PIGGIESIII

This is the new litter of pigs on base. They are very cute. The pen looks a little icky but it was cleaning day and they had just taken out all of the hay to clean it out.

I'm planning on posting pics from Christmas soon. Hopefully I'll get some up tonight, but we are leaving for safari in the morning so it may not happen until Tuesday.