All I can say is that for the last
two weeks, I wish you could have been me.
Although they were two of the coolest
and most exciting weeks I’ve had they were also very challenging. There was a
lot of traveling but we got to Ngorongoro Crater and it was incredible. I’ve
never seen so many wild animals, the crater is a bowl about 12 to 19 km across
(the diameter in different areas) and it is packed with animals…and tourists.
We had no trouble seeing lions, zebras, wildebeest, we also saw black rhinos
(which have become extinct almost everywhere else) here were eland, hardebeest,
giraffes, and we spent some time looking for leopards but hadn’t had success.
The Big 5 are lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and cape buffalo. In that one
afternoon we saw 4 of the 5 and I was dying to see a leopard. We also got to see
some lionesses hunting but once she was upwind of the zebras, the smelled her
and moved away.
The Serengeti was equally as
incredible, it was a much larger area but it was also packed with animals, we
saw some smaller ones like Jackals, rock hyrax, but we also saw leopards, too
many lions to count, a ton of cheetahs and many of the other animals that we
had seen. We had birds to study in the morning but we could be tourists in the
afternoon. That week may not sound like it was very difficult because it was so
cool but my thoughts about the tourist industry in Tanzania and wildlife
conservation have drastically been altered since I have been here. Where I
really didn’t have much to say about it at first, now I know how little of the
money from tourism goes to Tanzania itself and only the building of the
Serengeti Road (that will go right through the park itself) will benefit
Tanzania although it will also cause a number of ecological problems. So being
a tourist and representing the industry has become harder to do, nevertheless,
seeing so many animals is addicting. Wildlife conservation is something I
support, but my ideas have also changed regarding this topic. National Parks are
closed areas that keep out the local people, these people were displaced when
the parks were created and land for their livestock to graze on is shrinking. Furthermore,
even though a lot of populations of animals are thriving, others are nearly
extinct, for example, rhino populations have declined significantly (there are
maybe 12-20 of them left), and although they may not survive in areas populated
with people, the parks aren’t necessarily helping them either.
I am not trying to be a downer
because I absolutely love seeing the animals and studying them, but I’ve also
learned a lot about the negatives of tourism and tourism in these National
Parks. There is a lot more to it but I will leave it at that.
My second week we spent a night in
Wasso so that we didn’t have to camp for a night, then we headed to Maasailand
for our Maasai homestay. We spent three nights and four days with our Maasai
families, it was very interesting but I am very glad that we did it. We met our
mamas in the square and had someone translate our specific issues (if we were
going to be taking out contacts- very confusing to them, if you were vegetarian
or lactose and tolerant, etc). Then we all went to our different homes or
ebomas. A eboma is both the hut that one family lives in made of sticks and cow
dung and also the area that many wives of one man lives in. Each eboma has its
own cows and goats which determines their wealth. My family redressed me the
moment that I got to the boma, in four cloths and then decked me out in pounds
of jewelry. I spent most of my time with my 12 year old sister Koyeni and the
other children that ran round the area. We spent time gathering water, making
jewelry, fetching firewood, resting, going into town and meeting people and we
got to go to sotos at night (or the dances that you may have heard about). What
I can say about my family, is that they are some of the nicest people I know,
they let me help them make some good food and they were always concerned with
how I was doing. The sun was very hot and we all had many layers on. I had
trouble communicating sometimes, although my sister and mom spoke a lot of
Swahili their first language is Kimaasai and so that was sometimes difficult. Respect
dynamics are interesting because men are very important in society, we had to
bow down to them, and men of most ages are more important than almost all ages
of women. Furthermore, there is an interesting relationship between warriors
and girls under the age of 14 that are uncircumcised. Feel free to ask me more
details about that if you are interested.
I really loved it, maybe more than
my other homestay, but what was hard was sleeping in the eboma at night. It was
very hot (the house has two small windows that you can’t fit your hand through)
and you sleep with most of your family. I asked to sleep outside the next two
nights and they graciously moved the layer of cowskin outside for us all to
sleep on. It was cooler and you got to watch the stars and the sunrise. The
stars were incredible, there were few trees so thousands of stars would go all
the way down to the horizon. The other thing I struggled with was the idea of
community. For the maasai, everything is everyone, so I came with a little bag
of my stuff, camera, headlamp, water and although it was my personal stuff
everyone had access to it because personal items and personal space are not
really things that they concern themselves with. Nevertheless my family visited
me two days after when we were at camp after that to say hello. But they also
wanted me to buy most of the jewelry that I had been wearing…. It is difficult
to bargain with your family and I definitely paid extra.
After that we spent the next two
days before heading to Arusha hiking to waterfalls. One day we even hiked a few
hours each way to the source of the river for Maasailand that runs into Lake
Natron, and found ourselves in a large open area with the Great Rift Valley
rock walls so far up around us with water coming through the wall from
underground rivers. Too cool to explain. We also celebrated our academic
directors birthday by slaughtering a goat and having a little party.
It was a great two weeks, I really
loved everything we did but I found myself analyzing the things that I had seen
and struggled with some of the differences between Maasai and American culture.
Feel free to ask me more about it at some point there are so many other things
I could say. Once again, I am not trying to bring down the mood because it is
so fun to be here but every reality I encounter is not the easiest to digest.
We have finals week in Arusha
right now, papers and presentations and getting ready for our Independent Study
Projects. I promise I’ll keep the details of the rest of my stay lighter
hearted! Hope all is well with you!
