The big news right now is the trip that I will be taking from March 18th-25th. I’m going to Mumbai!! (Formally known as Bombay). Kenyan Airlines is having a special for two people to fly to India roundtrip for $600 (before taxes). How could you pass that up? The answer is you couldn’t, so I didn’t. I’m really excited. Outside of Africa, India is the one place I really really want to see. And I’m going!!! It doesn’t seem real. It probably won’t feel real until I’m physically there.
Outside of India life has been pretty much normal. I’m still working at Sarakasi the non-profit performing arts development organization. I’m having a great time there and need to start buckling down and write a couple grants. I’m still working on the acrobat training center in the slum Eastleigh and I now have everything set up except for the funding. Anyone know any organizations? I’m actually leaving in about 20 minutes to go see the acrobat trainer with the kids at Mama Fatuma Children’s Home in Eastleigh. I’m excited because I also just heard through the grapevine that they’re having a little party.
School has been unexciting as always and I’m actually finding this semester a little more boring because my teachers aren’t quite as eccentric. Now when I say eccentric I mean that they were both male teachers that hit on us a little. Apparently that’s okay here. This semester the two classes I’m taking are Courtship and Marriage, and African International Relations. Courtship and Marriage is entertaining. Our textbook (yes there is a textbook written by three southerners in the 80’s) has such academically titled chapters like “Choosing a Partner”, “Family Planning”, “Developing a Strong Marriage Relationship”, and “Dealing with Marital Conflict”. Basically it’s going to teach me how to snag me a man. I really don’t know if it should be a class but hey I’ll take it.
My other class is African International Relations and it’s well, interesting. The teacher talks about a mile a minute so I have a tendency not to listen. She actually uses power point (which is a USIU first for me) but I also really didn’t read the slides. This made it twice as amusing/difficult when I was trying to study for the midterm. See what I failed to realize in class was that the English on the slides is truly horrible. Like I-don’t-know-what-you’re-trying-to-say horrible. After reading over her slides I swear to God I lost the ability to form cohesive sentences. Some things were small like “the ideas was” and others were bigger like “cooperation & unity was for the better the trade politically in Africa”. My favorite Fatuma Ali (the professor) moment was the line “Gabon felt it would be swollen. . .” I actually raised my hand about that one. I was genuinely confused and a little worried I mean, did Gabon sprain its ankle? Could it be a stress fracture? Why was everything swollen? Turns out Gabon was worried that it would be consumed by the bigger nations, you know “swollen” as in the past tense of swallow. Sometimes after I chew my food I swollen it.
I think this is it for now. I’m sorry everything has been so delayed in coming. Can I use a nation in crisis as an excuse? No? Okay. Love you all, miss you all, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Maasai Mara
Last weekend we went on our second group trip to Maasai Mara. Maasai Mara is basically the largest tourist destination in Kenya. It is a huge area of open lands half in Kenya and half in Tanzania where all of the safari animals are found. The Serengeti is the Tanzanian half and Maasai Mara is the Kenyan half. The main reason that I hadn’t been to the Mara yet was because it is such a tourist destination everything is tourist priced. I can honestly say that the place we stayed was one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed in my life. It’s a resort called Tipilikwani. The “tents” (as they called them) were amazing and so was the food which was all included. This place was honeymoon quality good.
In Maasai Mara the only think there is to do is game drives. So in the span of two and days I went on five game drives. I saw ostrich, antelope, topei, dik dik, hyenas, jackals, giraffe, zebra, elephants, aardvark, Thompson gazelle, warthogs, spring hare, buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, crocodiles, lions, and a leopard! It was amazing and seeing the leopard and lions was probably the most exciting. Another cool thing about leopards is that they climb trees so although we never saw a leopard in a tree twice we saw dead antelope that it had dragged up. We saw so many lions in Maasai Mara and drove up to within 10 feet of them. One time we saw a pride so there were about 13 of them just lounging about napping.
Along with seeing all of the animals it was cool just to be in a space that was so open. You could see the sky meeting the horizon with only one or two trees in sight. One night it was raining miles away and we could see it. We could see the rain from miles off! I thought that was so cool. When we were on the game drives we were in four-wheel vehicles where the top popped off. Standing up in the car looking out of the roof speeding along with nothing in between me and the Mara was a great feeling. The best experience though was defiantly when we went on the night drive. The roof was completely off the vehicle so I stood on the seats and sat on the roof. There was a bar behind me that I held on to as we went whipping around. The rain had passed so you could see a sky full of stars. Between the speeding car, air rushing around me, open sky, and empty horizon it’s hard to even put into words how I felt. The best I can do is to say it was liberating.
Another great part about Maasai Mara was my tour guide Joseph. Joseph (and the other two tour guides) are all Maasai and were decked out in full Maasai style. I rode in the front seat of the car for almost the whole weekend so me and Joseph bonded. It’s really hard to offend people here, and almost no questions are off limits so I more or less interrogated Joseph. It was good because I learned all about Joseph’s life and Maasai culture. Maasai life is actually very similar to Samburu’s which we experienced on our Turkana trip.
Maasai usually get married when the girl is 14 and the guy is 15-18. Joseph was 24 his wife was 22 and they had a 7 year-old daughter and a 3 year-old son. Men and women are both circumcised. Women when they are 12. I asked Joseph if he thought this process would stop anytime soon and he said maybe in 50 years. The interesting thing about the tradition of circumcising women is that it is perpetuated by women. One Samburu man we spoke to on the Turkana trip said that he wanted an uncircumcised wife. He also said that if he brought an uncircumcised wife back to his village they would have to be together all the time or else the older women would take her and forcibly circumcise her when he was gone. I think female circumcision has turned into more of a “we had to do it, now you do too” kind of deal. Anyways, interesting stuff.
The most important thing in a Maasai life is cows. They are nomadic and cows are currency. Joseph said he paid nine cows, two goats, and one sheep for his wife. He said nine cows is the standard and within those nine there are requirements like one must be pure white etc. One thing that was really cool about Joseph and one of the other guys was that they had been all over the world. They had both been to Europe, the States, and Canada. I asked Joseph how he got a visa, because getting a visa to the States is really hard. He said that it’s easier for Maasai to get visas because they always return to Kenya. I thought that was interesting. I look forward to seeing someone walking around in full Maasai finery in the U.S.
In Maasai Mara the only think there is to do is game drives. So in the span of two and days I went on five game drives. I saw ostrich, antelope, topei, dik dik, hyenas, jackals, giraffe, zebra, elephants, aardvark, Thompson gazelle, warthogs, spring hare, buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, crocodiles, lions, and a leopard! It was amazing and seeing the leopard and lions was probably the most exciting. Another cool thing about leopards is that they climb trees so although we never saw a leopard in a tree twice we saw dead antelope that it had dragged up. We saw so many lions in Maasai Mara and drove up to within 10 feet of them. One time we saw a pride so there were about 13 of them just lounging about napping.
Along with seeing all of the animals it was cool just to be in a space that was so open. You could see the sky meeting the horizon with only one or two trees in sight. One night it was raining miles away and we could see it. We could see the rain from miles off! I thought that was so cool. When we were on the game drives we were in four-wheel vehicles where the top popped off. Standing up in the car looking out of the roof speeding along with nothing in between me and the Mara was a great feeling. The best experience though was defiantly when we went on the night drive. The roof was completely off the vehicle so I stood on the seats and sat on the roof. There was a bar behind me that I held on to as we went whipping around. The rain had passed so you could see a sky full of stars. Between the speeding car, air rushing around me, open sky, and empty horizon it’s hard to even put into words how I felt. The best I can do is to say it was liberating.
Another great part about Maasai Mara was my tour guide Joseph. Joseph (and the other two tour guides) are all Maasai and were decked out in full Maasai style. I rode in the front seat of the car for almost the whole weekend so me and Joseph bonded. It’s really hard to offend people here, and almost no questions are off limits so I more or less interrogated Joseph. It was good because I learned all about Joseph’s life and Maasai culture. Maasai life is actually very similar to Samburu’s which we experienced on our Turkana trip.
Maasai usually get married when the girl is 14 and the guy is 15-18. Joseph was 24 his wife was 22 and they had a 7 year-old daughter and a 3 year-old son. Men and women are both circumcised. Women when they are 12. I asked Joseph if he thought this process would stop anytime soon and he said maybe in 50 years. The interesting thing about the tradition of circumcising women is that it is perpetuated by women. One Samburu man we spoke to on the Turkana trip said that he wanted an uncircumcised wife. He also said that if he brought an uncircumcised wife back to his village they would have to be together all the time or else the older women would take her and forcibly circumcise her when he was gone. I think female circumcision has turned into more of a “we had to do it, now you do too” kind of deal. Anyways, interesting stuff.
The most important thing in a Maasai life is cows. They are nomadic and cows are currency. Joseph said he paid nine cows, two goats, and one sheep for his wife. He said nine cows is the standard and within those nine there are requirements like one must be pure white etc. One thing that was really cool about Joseph and one of the other guys was that they had been all over the world. They had both been to Europe, the States, and Canada. I asked Joseph how he got a visa, because getting a visa to the States is really hard. He said that it’s easier for Maasai to get visas because they always return to Kenya. I thought that was interesting. I look forward to seeing someone walking around in full Maasai finery in the U.S.
Lamu Round Two
Hey guys!! Sorry I’ve been out of the loop and neglectful but I’ll try to fill you in a little. The beginning of the semester was quiet and with the whole post-election madness we weren’t allowed to do very much. We went everywhere by taxi and certain areas like Mathare and Kibera were off limits. ODM kept threatening mass action so everything was kind of touch and go. One day we would be able to go to a certain area and the next it was off limits. It was extremely frustrating.
Life slowly got back to normal and on February 20th we left to spend five days in Lamu. Lamu may or may not be one of the most amazing places ever. We went last semester and it was wonderful so this time I went prepared. There are two really great women named Elizabeth and Nelly who own a tailoring shop on the waterfront in Lamu. (I think I’ve mentioned before that Lamu is a small island off Kenya’s coast? maybe? well for the record it is.) So anyways I knew there were these two great seamstresses so for the last couple of months I’ve been stocking up on fabric.
The damage ended up being two long skirts, three short skirts, one tunic, one tube dress, and one full length dress. To say that I went prepared is an understatement. But hey, when you can get eight pieces of clothing tailor made to fit your body for under $150 you can overlook everyone giving you the crazy eye for carrying about ten pounds of fabric around. The clothes are amazing too.
Last time we were in Lamu we spent the three nights in Lamu town. This time we spent two nights in Lamu town and two nights at this little beach resort on Manda Island which is a 20 minute boat ride from Lamu. The resort was adorable and the beach was amazing. Lamu is amazing for many different reasons but one is the fact you can walk around at night. Also by some stroke of luck there was a full moon. With the light of a full moon you can see everything. Lamu is one on the most peaceful and relaxing places I’ve ever been.
The people in Lamu are hilarious too. The people that we hung out with are all young guys that either work on the dhows or, well I have no idea what they do. We had a big party on Manda one night. All the music there is reggae. They also smoke a lot of pot. It’s funny because they’d say they were going to ‘check the boat’, would be gone for like an hour, and come back red-eyed and clearly high. They also all have crazy names like Fish brains, Sunflower, Incognito etc.
All together a hilarious time. I love Lamu
Life slowly got back to normal and on February 20th we left to spend five days in Lamu. Lamu may or may not be one of the most amazing places ever. We went last semester and it was wonderful so this time I went prepared. There are two really great women named Elizabeth and Nelly who own a tailoring shop on the waterfront in Lamu. (I think I’ve mentioned before that Lamu is a small island off Kenya’s coast? maybe? well for the record it is.) So anyways I knew there were these two great seamstresses so for the last couple of months I’ve been stocking up on fabric.
The damage ended up being two long skirts, three short skirts, one tunic, one tube dress, and one full length dress. To say that I went prepared is an understatement. But hey, when you can get eight pieces of clothing tailor made to fit your body for under $150 you can overlook everyone giving you the crazy eye for carrying about ten pounds of fabric around. The clothes are amazing too.
Last time we were in Lamu we spent the three nights in Lamu town. This time we spent two nights in Lamu town and two nights at this little beach resort on Manda Island which is a 20 minute boat ride from Lamu. The resort was adorable and the beach was amazing. Lamu is amazing for many different reasons but one is the fact you can walk around at night. Also by some stroke of luck there was a full moon. With the light of a full moon you can see everything. Lamu is one on the most peaceful and relaxing places I’ve ever been.
The people in Lamu are hilarious too. The people that we hung out with are all young guys that either work on the dhows or, well I have no idea what they do. We had a big party on Manda one night. All the music there is reggae. They also smoke a lot of pot. It’s funny because they’d say they were going to ‘check the boat’, would be gone for like an hour, and come back red-eyed and clearly high. They also all have crazy names like Fish brains, Sunflower, Incognito etc.
All together a hilarious time. I love Lamu
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
