Lions and Scorpions and Giraffes?- oh my, what have I gotten myself into...

Monday, July 7^th

Well, we had quite the weekend! We went camping about an hour and a half away, out in the savanna by a few Maasai bomas. By the time we got to our campsite, it was completely dark outside – so it was pretty scary to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere in a strange place and have no idea what was around you. However, we had a really great group of guides who had already set up all of our tents and had built a campfire. While they were cooking our dinner over the fire, they took us to the boma right next to our site to view a Maasai wedding celebration. As we went over there, one of the guys in our group had to translate from Swahili for us – he introduced us to a 33 year-old man as the groom, and then warned us that the bride was very young – 16 years old. Well, as surprising as that was, we were way more shocked when we actually met the bride. There was no way this girl was 16 – she looked much, much younger. We were all very polite, obviously, as we watched them dance and do their traditional songs and chants, but it was fairly disturbing from my western viewpoint to see such a young girl being married off to this older man. As we went back to the camp, I kept contending that there was no way that girl was 16, which one of our guides overheard. He explained that they referred to her as being 16 for some reason having to do with the education system (which I can’t quite remember) but that she was more likely 14 years old, perhaps even 13. Whoa. I know that they marry very young in some cultures, but 14? And a very undeveloped 14, mind you.

It’s hard to comprehend such a thing. It’s a difficult situation because you want to be respectful and sensitive to other cultures and their traditions, but it’s hard when something like that just seems so wrong. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot in our coursework – how these documents, such as the UN Declaration on Human Rights, make grand statements about protecting people, but it’s a whole other ballgame when it comes to actually implementing it. The Tanzanian government has a lot of laws in place to protect women and children, including minimum ages to marry and laws against female circumcision (or what is better known as female genital mutilation, something that the Maasai participate in as well), but the laws are not consistently implemented (what seems to be a trend here in Tanzania).

Anyways, we had a great time celebrating the 4^th, including roasting s’mores (made with some substitutions – nutella instead of Hershey bars, for example) and each taking turns singing our national anthems, with Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Korea, then ending with America. It was a lot of fun that night, but I was pretty paranoid. Anyone who knows me well (especially my family and friends in NC) will know that I am scared of the dark – and even more afraid of wild animals in the dark. (Mom, remember when I started screaming in the front yard one night because I thought I heard a Mountain Lion growl? Yeah, I’m that girl.) Well, all of the sudden, once I got to the site, it occurred to me… oh wait. I’m in the middle of AFRICA in the DARK. The moment I freaked out the most was when one of the guard dogs from the Maasai boma next door had come over to our fire – she was a really good dog, keeping watch for us. Well, she started barking and growling like crazy, toward the dark hills behind us, and then we heard the sound of a goat yelp in pain. Well, that about did me in – I thought for sure the lions had come and I was next, right after the goat. But the guides were good about assuring us that no, there were no lions here. Maybe some scorpions, (like when they made me stand up when I sitting by the fire because they thought there was one near my leg!) but no lions.

The next day we went on a hike up a huge hill, well, more like a miniature mountain, and as we were walking through the woods, one of the girls in our group spotted a wild giraffe! I can’t even tell you how amazing that was to see… I think giraffes may be the most beautiful animals I have ever seen. It was just eating leaves, out there in the savanna. It was incredible. Other highlights from the weekend included when one of the guys in our group bought one of their goats for dinner. The Maasai men slaughtered it and helped us cook it. While it was a great cultural experience, I’m not gonna lie – I had no participation. I couldn’t even stomach to go over there and watch the process, or try the goat meat. It’s just too much for me.

Probably one of my most favorite parts of the camping trip was being out in the savanna at night and being able to see the stars. It’s so strange to look up and not recognize half of the night sky. Since we’re so close to the equator (like 2 hours away by car) we literally are seeing half of each hemisphere. How mind-blowing is that? As the sun set and the stars began to glitter, I could see the Big Dipper laying very low on the northern horizon and then what I think was the Southern Cross laying low on the southern horizon. I wish I had studied up on some southern hemisphere constellations before I left – it’s crazy to think I’m looking at a part of the universe I have literally never even seen before. And since the savanna is so wide open, you could literally see the entire sky and we all commented how for the first time, you could see the sky as a huge dome, feeling the roundness of the whole earth. It is something I will certainly never forget.

We’ve got a lot of things this week, including a visit from the US Ambassador to Tanzania, the Chair of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, and also field trips out to Heifer International field sites! Hope you all are doing well.

The savanna at sunset. Our tents were behind me and you can see the outline of the Maasai boma in the middle of the picture.


The wild giraffe!!!