Rants, Raves, and No Pictures...

So the last few weeks have been a little more low key than safari, but still pretty amazing in their own way.  As we arrived back at the Dorobo campsite after a few relaxing day at the Ilboro Safari lodge, I gave a slight sigh of relief knowing that now, for at least the next short amount of time, I was going to be in one place for more than 3 days…  We only spent two nights there right before safari, but for some reason this small campground and the line of six three-person tents felt more like home than I’ve felt since Riruta and possibly America.  We picked tents, and before we knew it our first lecture was had on what the hell we were going to be doing for the next two and a half weeks.

That day, we learned the basic principles of “qualitative research design” (reallll fun stuff..) and got a brief overview of the plan for the next while.  The following morning we met with around 15 kids (age 16ish-25ish) who had been hand picked out of a group of over 50 members of the community to be our translators for the next week.  This day was mainly meant for us to finalize our independent research topics and me, not being on top of my shit, had no idea what I was going to do.  I ended up talking with a few people and found that the area which most interested me had to do with population growth, the effects of it, and how Tanzania is working to help slow down the rapidly increasing population that has been the root cause for so many of their problems.  Especially problems relating to the Hadza and the Maasai who we had just returned from living with.

Anyway, this meant that I joined forces with Mali, who was studying perceptions of family planning related to gender within the community.  Me, being a perfect subject of her research, was unaware of what a personal matter “family planning” is and soon enough I was hurled into a world filled with birth control and awkwardness.  Prior to the realization that I should have just stuck with perceptions of the west or peoples thoughts on the national parks, I came to a hypothesis in which I was to see if a relationship exists between the level of education one has had and their use of family planning in the community of Olasiti where we were to do our research.  Next, Mali and I were paired with our translator, Mwaniddi (Mwah-nai-e-di), and begun to discuss our topic.   I then spent the next few days “doing research” and mainly talking to most of you reading this on the internet instead of actually writing my literature review, but I got it done eventually.  And, before we even knew it, I was once again without a home and pushed out into the open of yet another foreign world

Starting on Saturday and continuing for 6 nights, Mali and I moved to our new home.  From what we learned after meeting back up was that: not all homestays are created equal.  Some were placed in homes that were practically mansions complete with running water, electricity, cable, and even internet for some.  Meanwhile, my home was filled with minimal furniture and the electricity seemed to only work for the stereo (not kidding, we would plug our phones into the wall where the stereo was only moments before plugged into and playing loudly out of, only to be met with the blank screen of a dead phone that was not going to resurrect itself any time soon).  For some reason, this lack of electricity outside of the stereo even went as far as to have no lights in the house, but we would still listen to an audio tape of Maasai chanting during dinner some nights (ahhh..Africa.  How I’ll miss you…).  Anyway, aside from the lack of modern luxuries (which in all honesty, wasn’t a big deal at all.  This was still a step up from our tents we’ve been sleeping in for well over a month) our family was wonderful!  Young and small, it only consisted of our host father, mother, and three year old sister, Gloria (who, as much as I hate to say it, is still the only child I’ve ever actually kind of…gasp…liked…).  Our mother was actually mother to another daughter, Eggla (people here have weird names…I’ll get to that in a second) who was seven but born with some sort of severe disease (downs? Cerebreal Palsey?) where she couldn’t walk and was very limited in her social interactions etc.  Eggla lived with our mothers mother who lived only a few minutes walk away.  Everyday our mother would go over and spend time with Eggla and most days eggla would come over to our house.  This experience was unexpected, but also really cool to see how people with severe cognitive conditions like this are treated, and it was much better than expected.  I’m sure a few generations ago things may have been different, but nowadays people with conditions like these are treated as well as they could and understood equally well.

Oh, quick note about names here.  I guess a fair amount of illiterate people literally pick names out of the bible for their children.  And, according to our teacher, there are quite a few interestingly named fellows around town.  Two children we met personal were Innocence and Witness.  Another favorite was the librarian whose name was told to me as “Forehead”.  And my personal favorite “open the bible to a random page and put your finger down” name is… First Corinthians. What the fuck Africa?

Anyway, my host family was wonderful, and, though we didn’t spend too much time with them, this was definitely the lowest key and relaxing homestay of the bunch.  Our first few days were spent with the fam exploring the neighborhood and brushing up on our Swahili.  And by Monday, it was time to crack down on research.  We had a questionnaire written up and our translator ready to go and began our studies.  Most people we would talk to would invite us into their homes and we would ask them questions pertaining to their age, sex, marital status, number of children, number of expected total children, number of siblings, education, spouses education, husbands occupation (most women stay at home),  and then get into the meat of the survey.  We’d begin by asking if they used family planning and then ask why they chose their response.  I went into this project expecting this to be the real meat of the experience and to really get a handle on why people think the way they do.  I’ve also been a strong advocate of small families, and (probably just the brain of an only child talking) have never to this day been able to understand how people rationalize having more children in this day and age.  It just doesn’t make sense to me.

In traditional societies, such as the Maasai, having more children not only meant more help on the land and with the cattle, but also was a symbol of status.  But nowadays, with those ideas going down the drain, it doesn’t make sense why people would continue spitting out kid after kid.  Especially with school fees for anyone to be educated past primary education (over 80% of the people we talked to had at most a primary education), having more kids exponentially decreases the quality of life one, especially in these poorer areas, for the children they already have.  They have no need for the work and minimal resources to care for the ones they do have, but then why do they still keep having 6, 7, or more?  I don’t get it?  And in America I still just don’t understand.  I understand why people have kids in the first place, it’s a biological instinct and an enjoyable experience.  But I don’t think anyone can argue that a parent with multiple kids enjoys their child raising experience more than a person with just one.  And money, talking about secondary school fees in Africa is one thing, but the amount of money I cost my parents, and am still currently costing them, is absurd.  My family is fairly well off compared to the rest of the world, but even with one siblings my options for doing the things that I wish to do would be drastically cut.  If I had a sibling there would be no way in hell I could ever afford to be here, and likely even have afforded to go to Lewis and Clark.  These experiences I wouldn’t give the world for and I can’t see why it would make sense to jeopardize something like this to have a big family?  To continue this rant that has already gotten well out of hand, I also cannot understand how anyone with a “strong environmental conscious” who goes drastically out of their way to minimize their impact on the earth can have multiple children.  Each child that anyone has single handily doubles (at least!) their own environmental impact.  If those children have children, there you go, you’ve started an infinite chain of environmental destruction.  But I digress, that was a fairly assholeish rant and you shouldn’t take too seriously.  Actually, after writing that sentence, I just talked to Paka (Kat), about the subject and I really can only apply this rant to me actually being confused and slightly irritated to people, mainly in America, who still choose to have 3, 4, or more children.

Where was I…Oh yeah.  This whole “big picture what are they thinking” thing that I was trying to unearth never really came to surface…  Basically when asked why they use family planning, most replied with “To have less children”.  Cool.  Really? Never would have guessed.  Uhg.  That got frustrating.  We then would attempt to prod deeper on why they would like certain amounts of children or why they want less children or why less children is a good thing blah blah blah.  Never really did we get a good answer.  We did some follow up questions such as if having more children was an economic disadvantage and if they think population growth is a problem.  Almost every though that having more children was an economic disadvantage, but only said so after we gave the question.  Also, due to translation, the answer was most likely “given” to them in the way it was reworded.  A majority also thought population growth was a problem, but, after studying how our translator was saying the question, we realized she was more asking “do you think having a lot of kids (9, 10, 11) is a bad thing” which is a much smaller scale question than I was attempting to ask.  I wanted to get an understanding on if people in this community, especially in the more rural areas where we ended up doing our study, had any idea of the population pressures around them on both a local and world scale.  But, since the question was translated incorrectly, there was really no data gather on that.

Anyway, this last few bits have been my vents of frustration from the past week or so, and now that this process is over and my paper (ended up being around 20 pages with a 20 page appendix as well) is turned in I’ve come to terms that a big part of this class was both understanding the frustrations of a qualitative research project, especially one in another country, and how different languages and communication can be.

Anyway, after four days and 50 people of data collection, we were done with this portion of the project and were soon to be sent home.  Our last morning with our host mom was a sad one, especially when Gloria realized we were to be leaving that day and cried her eyes out (so cute, so sad, but SO annoying (I hate children (possibly a reason for that rant against overpopulation about (probably just my way of rationalizing hating children and wanting an excuse to have less of the little shits)))).  But, we were soon back at camp and it was once again crunch time.  That evening we took off and first joined our translators for a “Wazungu vs Olasiti FC” futbol match.  Like…against a real team.  Not cool.  My calves are still sore and we still lost pretty bad.  To this day none of us know exactly who organized that slaughter.  Oh well though, it was all in good fun.  Also went to a market and bought the most awesome Obama belt ever.  People LOVE Obama stuff here.  OH I forget to mention the market I went to at the beginning of the week where a bought an Obama-Kenya hat.  He’s like a superstar here and it’s kind of hilarious.

Anyway, that night was a trip.  When we got back, we were informed that one of the guys who went on safari with us (he was 23 and a son of one of the company owners) was going to take us out on the town.  He had already arranged for one of the drivers from the company who was with us all safari to drive us in the stretch safari cars to the bar.  So, after dinner we gathered ourselves and piled into the two cars and were off.  It ended up being the first bar that we went to way back when in Arusha with these other Americans and had a ridiculous night of karaoke and other shenanigans.  This time ended up with less karaoke and more booze, not always the best combo, but still fun.  We met some random other Americans who are living in Arusha doing various things and before we knew it were back in the stretch safari car.  Soon, we pulled up to a gate and entered the parking lot of a gated community to find ourselves at an American style house party…in Africa. White people immediately outnumbered Africans, but no one really seemed to care, and we especially didn’t mind the open bar (that is, until I tried to write my paper the next day with a few glasses of wine in my system).

After countless hours we returned and stumbled back into our tents moaning and groaning about the lecture to be had at 9 am the next morning.   The lecture, in our teachers living room (a BEAUTIFUL Americanesq house, the most comfortable I’ve been the whole time here) was filled with blank stares, but for the most part we knew how to write a results section by the end of it.  Hannah ended up throwing up outside the gate (embarrassing, yes, but we all were feeling like doing the same).  And the rest of the day was spent lazily typing up our results.  We had another lecture that afternoon on how to present and write a discussion section of a paper.  This lecture was in our professors house so, naturally, we never left.  I forgot how AWESOME it feels to be a house not made out of mud or with cement floors. That was nice…

That evening, was another strange one.  After the lecture our professor left to go work at a, yes you guessed it, Christmas craft fair.  Naturally there was a charity mustache competition going on at the same time so us guys, all with freshly shaven mustache, hopped in a car to go check it out.  Note:  I am not high.  Anyway, this mustache competition has been known about for over a week at this point, but no one knew exactly when or where it was.  Just that it existed.  Anyway, to make a long story short Devin had an atrociously large cop mustache for about 10 days.  It was awesome.  Finally it was time to go to the competition, which we knew very little about, and end his girlfriends suffering.  We weren’t in too much of a hurry because it’s Africa, and I’ve never met a single person on time to anything in Africa.  But, what we didn’t realize, is that every white person south of the equator was going to be attending this Christmas craft fair, and, as Dorthy kinda said once, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Olasiti anymore”.  Anyway, needless to say we were late, missed it, and Jane almost beat us to the ground because we guilt tripped her boyfriend into having a mustache for over a week.  Regardless of that, seeing so many white people was actually a really bizarre experience that probably would have been a lot more shocking and tramatic if it wasn’t for the ice cream and pizza as well.  God damn I miss American food.  And Mexican food for that matter…mmm burritossss……

Anyway, after that, my life has been less than eventful.  Once I finished and turned in my 20 page research paper, it was time to turn in my final paper for the class that we had way back in September about Swahili culture.  This final paper was a culmination of all of our observations and thoughts from our variety of homestays we’ve had in east Africa.  And, as I write this now, I’m currently surpassing the word count of the essay with this horrendously long blog post.  Congratulations if you made it this far.  I’m gonna end this here and have a final words post that I’ll write when I feel like it that will be a heads up for all the crazy adventures I’m soon to have.  Yes, the program ends in 3 days, but I don’t leave for another 3 weeks…!  Yesss.

Lake Natron/Oldonio Lengai

 After packing up from our last day in Maasai land, we were off on yet another full day of travel. The night before was quite an early night, and the day was spent with a fair amount of napping in the safari trucks. Though, Lake Natron and surrounding areas are the hottest place in Tanzania (and thus one of the hotter places anywhere) so sleeping wasn't always the most comfortable of options. Apparently last time our group leaders were here in '07, the low at night never went below 85. As we arrived at our camp before dark, cards were played and bedtime was at sundown after an early dinner. Why so much sleep and so many early nights? Well, because we woke up around 11:15 PM to eat breakfast, pack up, and go climb the nearby active volcano: Oldonio Lengai (The Mountain of the Gods in Kimaasai). As we head out in the middle of the hot night (a little cooler around 80) we began our 6000 ft assent up a fucking steep mountain. We had to leave so early in order to hopefully summit by sunrise and beat the midday heat on our way down. As we climbed we soon entered a cloud and the mountain became a torrential storm of mud, water, and overall bitter coldness. But, even with the dark cravasses on each side and a skinny trail of mud up a steep mountain in the middle of the night, we trudged on. As we reached the halfway point a few hours later we came upon a group of French guys who were ahead of us on the trail. A little higher up, the soda ash from recent eruptions had turned the top half of a mountain into a giant slip and slide of soapy death. So, naturally, we had to turn around. I was pretty pissed to say the least that the gods on this mountain decided to fuck us. Especially since the next day happened to be one of the coolest days of the year at Lake Natron and the mountain would have been perfectly fine to climb during the dry day. Bummer. But, after getting back around 6 am, at least it was cool enough to sleep in a tad and begin the next part of our day.

After washing an immense amount of cow poop water out of my sleeping bag, blanket, and a few clothes I wore during my homestay, it was time for yet another hike. Though not as cool as the top of the volcano could potentially have been, we hiked up a river in a beautiful canyon to absolutely on of the most gorgeous set of waterfalls I've ever been too, and probably that anyone has ever been too. The steep canyon walls were lined on top with palm trees that dropped into a canyon you'd expect to see in Utah or eastern Oregon. The water was warm and clean and we had a great time frolicking in the sun and the water. Sooo nice, there will be pictures on facebook eventually probably.... When we returned, we packed back up into the Unimog and rode down to the lake where we saw the classic scene of thousands of pink flamingos chilling out on the lake. Pretty cool, nothing too special though.

We then packed up, yet again, for another full day of driving and our last day of safari. Some sad moments were had as we passed the last heard of zebra and waved goodbye to the unanimous best month of our lives. After a few games of bridge (yes, we have gotten really into old people card games), we arrived back in Arusha in the Ilboro Safari lodge to chill out before the next independent study portion of our program. Side notes, now two more people have Malaria probably. Note to self: continue taking malaria meds. Also, if any ya'll wanna skype or something or whatevs, the place I'm going to be camping at (the compound for the safari company we've been with) I'll have internet access so just shoot me a message on facebook or something and we can figure out a time. Tutaonana tena!

Soupa? Ipa!

I may miss a few parts, due to the fact that I'm writing this a good 5 days after the homestay ended, but oh well... Anyway, after packing up in Soit from our bio final and whatnot, we traveled a short distance (only a few hours drive...) to our next camp in beautiful pastoral land. Rolling green fields spotted with cows rising right up to ridges spotted with elephants and giraffe that border the Serengeti to the west and Kenya to the north. Maasai land.

Anyways, our first day there we met with the Pastoral Womens Councel of the Maasai who are the people in charge with arranging and facilitating our homestays. They informed us of all the social pressures on the Maasai as well as the inevitbale changes, both good and bad. We discussed a wide range of problems from government corruption selling their land to wealth arabs, to these women's thoughts on female circumcision (most thought it was a good thing still). Which brings me to a short point I realized mostly during the Hadza and was solidified within the Maasai, and that's simply that people have different values and practices and in order to understand them we simply just have to accept them as equally right to our own practices. And I mean, female genital mutilation is pretty fucked up, and it's becoming increasingly less common as time goes on and has become a very optional thing for young women nowadays. But it was still pretty interesting that this older generation of women were happy that the practice was practiced on them. And, though they heavily advocate a girls right to choose, they still think it wouldn't be beneficial to eliminate the practice as a whole.

That pretty much ended the first day, and we all hit the sack pretty early to prepare for our next few days in the Maasai homes. The next morning we were met by a few of the men who were to be our translators and shown traditional uses of plants around the area. Then we met with both male and female elders and learned about the traditional roles of men and women at different ages throughout the Maasai culture. I could get into it, but that's what the internet if for anyway. Then, after lunch, we were given sticks and told to line up. Soon a parade of 19 mothers (ranging from 15 to elders. And yes, some did get host mothers much younger than they are) came and lined up across from us singing traditional songs. They then proceeded to choose our sticks, fairly randomly, and we were off for the next 3 days. My host mother also happens to be married to the same husband that Devin's mother is married too (a lot of older men have up to 9 wives, each with their own boma where them and the kids sleep and the man rotates to whichever wife he wishes to sleep with each night). Anyway, this basically meant that Devin and I shared the same cows and the same goats.

(Not my fam...But you would never know if I didn't tell you)

The first night was uneventful, but still fun. The men, like most Africa societies, don't really have as much to do as the women, so after an evening of walking around playing with baby goats, I returned home to my mothers small, dark, cow dung and stick walled, boma for dinner. My mother was probably one of the nicest women I've ever met, actually, my whole family were some of the nicest people I've ever met and were super excited to have me living in their home. Sadly, none of them even spoke much Swahili (let alone ANY english), so my very small amount of Kimaasai had to suffice. That night was spent on a cowhide mat where I slept surprisingly well considering the amount of smoke in the house and the few goats and four children sharing the room with my mother and I. The next day was spent with...COWS! To make a long story short, guys basically stand around with cows all day. Devin and I spent most of the experience together and were led around by Yioni (who we think was our host brother...) and another guy who's name was potentially Cookie...but we could be wrong...Anywayyyyy. After going to the cow car wash (cattle dip), where the cows were dipped in a bath like thing in an effort that we decided was probably to prevent them from getting Tse Tse flies we went on a nice long walk to find some giraffe (closest I've ever been to one on foot aside from the giraffe center in Nairobi). The day was unfortunately split with a prearranged meeting for us students in different villages to “meet up and talk about our experiences”. Most ended up just being fairly pissed that they were taken away from our experiences to talk. Apparently other groups found this homestay much harder, while our group had Pemba...and not much can be more difficult for a lot of people than Pemba, making this home stay a piece of cake.

goatsgoatsgoats...

Anyway, writing this in the Safari Lodge, pretty hungover from the birthday party we had last, so bear with me if this whole entry is fairly uninteresting. The things that I learned in the Maasai homestay were much more than I can simply write in a blog entry, so just ask me next time we talk and I can talk for hours about these people, their lives, how they view the world, how their world works, and so many more things. Maasai are awesome people.

So that evening was much like the first, and after herding all the cows and goats back into their pens, Devin and I took an absurd amount of pictures of and with goats with his camera. So that was fun. What wasn't fun, was the amount of cow poop water that leaked through the cow poop roof and all over me that night during the torrential rain, oooooooh well. After drying off in the morning, Devin and I walked with Yioni to (I think...) visit his brother. Little did we know it was like... 6 miles away on the boarder of both Kenya and the Serengeti National Park, a very long walk for the small amount of chapati and chai I was running on. But a beautiful walk nonetheless. We then met up once again with the group to visit the Moroni (warrior) village, where the warrior class lives. It was kind of a let down since they just wanted us to pay them to dance for us and then leave, one of the more touristy things we've done. The cool part about it was the torrential rainfall that happened yet again as we got there and had to coop up in one of their bomas during that time. Luckly we got a translator in there as well and were able to converse with one of the few women who lives in that village of young warrior men. After that whole ordeal, it was time for 6 of us to walk back to our village. On the way over we crossed a small stream, say 2 feet wide and only a few inches deep at most. Well, this stream decided that it would be a good idea to become around 20 feet wide and a good 6 or 7 feet deep. We then had to wait for it to go down (luckly only took an hour or so), but that was one of those inconveniences that end up being more fun that if we could have conveniently walked back across the stream.

That night was our last night in the homestay and fairly similar to the others (a lot of silence and awkward goat noises to break the silence). And the next morning, after throwing a few spears and what not, it was time to say good bye to our Maasai friends. After a shower and some clean up at camp, it was time for lunch and we were to serve our host mothers who had walked over to camp. Lunch was then followed by an improptu Maasai market where our mothers set up shop with jewelery they made and we were able to buy many a gifts as well as support the wonderful families we've been staying with. Later that afternoon we walked down to the local secondary school for an impromptu soccer match "Wazungu vs. Maasai".  We lost horrifically.  Then, we were off, and our time with the Maasai was sadly over.

Not Maasai Homestay...

My bad.  Haven't actually written that entry yet, maybe I will tonight or tomorrow.  Currently we're back in Arusha recovering in a nice hotel from the past month of sleeping outside, getting up at 6 every day, and being so overwhelmed every single moment.  I'll say now, Maasai homestay was incredible, spent SO much time with cows.  Then we were off to lake Natron, which was another fun few days filled with midnight vocano hikes, 85 degree lows at night, and a stunning waterfall hike.  On a few random side notes, that goat story in the last blog has turned me into a...gasp...vegetarian.  It kinda feels like...finally to me.  I realized it when I tried a piece of that goat later that night and it reminded me so much of the blood I drank earlier that I had to spit it out.  Since then, I've had a fair amount of moral discussion among friends and haven't eaten meat since.  I've been morally opposed to eating meat for a long time, but I've always been to lazy and gave too little fucks to actually care.  But I've had a few moments here where I realize that simply: when I eat meat that means an animal has to die (and consequently unjustly suffer) for me to eat the meat.  It's easy to ignore (and conversely horrifically worse) in America, but here I often see the animal just hours before it's served at dinner.  Having a fair amount of veg heads on the trip has also prompted most of the food to be prepared both with and without meat.  If I can eat a meal that tastes virtually the same, with similar nutritional value, and without having an animal suffer for me to do so,then why eat meat?  Seems like selfish indulgence to me, but that's just me.  I'm not one of those asshole veg heads who chastise others for doing so (yet...?), and no worries, I'm not a pretentious pescitarian or whatever that shit is that eats fish.  That's stupid. Anyway, that's my little bit of morality discovered in the last week or so.  Plus, next time someone asks what the last meat I ate was I can easily say it was warm blood fresh out of the goat.

PS.  For Doops and Kelso:    "aspleh-spleh"

Blood for Breakfast

After leaving Ngorongoro, we traveled across the Serengeti planes to our next camp site. And damn, that was fucking cool. Being in the wake of some serious volcanic activity, the soil in the planes only reaches a few inches deep at max before meeting a huge chunk of limestone. From this, deep-rooted plants are non existent and the planes go on and on and on for as long as the eye can see. Meanwhile, as these infinite planes passed by (we were following tire tracks through the planes probably from this same trucks previous excursion in the area) we witnessed literally thousands of thomson gazelles, grants gazelles, zebra, and wildebeest. All at the head of part of the great migration that sadly we don't have the time to see.

That drive in itself was cool, but one of the most spectacular sights we saw were what is known as “the shifting sands” This is simply a crescent shaped black sand dune, probably 20 m long, 10 m wide, and 5 m high that just moves across the planes. Every year it moves about 100 m and no one know where it came from, or how it moves without being damaged or swept away in the high winds. It simply just slowly creeps across the planes. A pretty surreal thing to think about as I was standing right on top of it. On the drive, I read a fair amount of some of the articles we are supposed to be reading for this “class” I guess we're taking (our test are usually identifying birds, ungulates, tracks, and poop) and this quote by Grzimek in “Serengeti Shall Not Die” really stuck out in my mind.

“Men are easily inspired by human ideas, but they forget them again just as quickly. Only Nature is eternal, unless we senselessly destroy it. In fifty years time nobody will be interested in the results of the conferences which fill today's headlines.

But when, fifty years from now, a lion walks into the red dawn and roars resoundingly, it will mean something to people and quicken their hearts whether they are bolsheviks or democrats, or whether they speak English, German, Russian, or Swahili. They will stand in quiet awe as, for the first time in their lives, they watch twenty thousand zebras wander across the endless plains.”

That's kinda how things are going...

The cradle of mankind...

Anyway, that drive was also Halloween, so we obviously kept with the American spirit and celebrated. I was a typical Portland hipster with a gross mustache, glasses with no lenses, flannel, and obvious beer for breakfast. Others included a Maasai and his cow, a few of the guys around camp, a flower child (Devin...), the sun, a Thomson Gazelle, a dinosaur, a caveman, and a few other creative ones for the limited resources we had avaliable. The best though, had to be Hannah's tourist costume, that she was wearing in full as we stopped at “the cradle of life”. The Oldupai Gorge is home to some of the oldest hominoid fossils ever found as well as the most diverse amount of ancient hominoid fossil discoveries. Somewhat of a touristy destination for our taste, but still a cool place to go, especially since Hannah looked EXACTLY like some of the actual tourists there with her sun hat, money belt, binoculars, camera, and more. Hilarious.

As we got to camp, we had by far THE best scary story campfire session any of us had ever been to. Absolutely awesome. And the rest of our time here until now has been, sadly, spent studying for our bio final. mehhh

Today though...Was strange. This morning was our Bio 115 final, which was low stress and fairly easy. So, stoked on that. Mean while I've been learning to play bridge. Also not all that exciting. Was was exciting, was the Maasai goat slaughter. Being after our final, the rest of today has been designated as a free day so most of our group went on a walk to go boulder and do some rock climbing on nearby cliffs. I decided to stick around and play bridge and relax for the rest of the day. Soon we were then invited to help with dinner. ie. Slaughter a goat. After strangulation and some contemplation of becoming a vegetarian, it was time to cut open the goat. I don't think I'll ever be able to get some of the blood and hair off of my knife, but at least now I know how to skin an animal without losing any of the blood. Next, came the precious blood that we've been diligantly saving. As the four of us involved were scooping out handfuls of coagulated blood (feels like jello that hasn't fullied solidified yet and tastes like...blood, obviously), the phone of one of the Maasai started ringing (literally everyone in the world has a cell phone these days). Anyway, this turned out to be one of the strangest single moments of my entire life. As we're huddled over drinking blood straight out of an animal we watch die moments earlier, we're greeted with one of the happiest, goofiest, little stupid ringtones. Just an absolutely absurd situation. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good picture of me with a fair bit of blood dripping down my face when I get this posted. Also, on a related side note, you can eat kidney straight out of a recently deceased animal as well. Chewy, but I haven't thrown up...yet.

Tomorrow beings our journey to the Maasai village we'll be living in for a few days, and I'm sure I'll have tons of stories to write once I get back... Some probably similar to the one above.

Ngorongoro Crater

After a strong goodbye with our Hadza friends and a purchase of a brand new bow and arrow set (no idea how I'm getting that back to the US...) we were off to Ngorongoro crater, one of the biggest destinations in all of Tanzania.

They call Ngorongoro crater one of the many “eighth wonders of the world” and I can see what they mean. The crater itself is the worlds largest unflooded caldera and the 6^th largest caldera overall. From this, the crater has a very fertile soil that has harbored one of the densest and most diverse areas on the entire planet. From this though, has come much controversy, specifically involving the Maasai who were removed from the area around 50 years ago.

Anyway, having incredibly high park fees, we were only able to spend one day here, but wow did we see a lot for one day. After packing up camp this morning, we were off on our drive up the crater rim and into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. As we entered, we were greeted by your average troop of baboons, paid our fees, and continued in. Instantly we were engulfed by the 2000 m crater rim and the rain forest that has grown from the clouds that collide with it. As we reached the top we were met with the sublime image of the massive crater below and the lakes, fields, and forests within. With Binoculars, we could spot herds of wildebeest and the like, often reaching over 1000 members. Then we began our journey into the crater. The whole experience was met with immense amounts beautiful scenery surrounded by dense wildlife. Within the first few minutes we encountered a cheetah, along with a few jackal, hyena, countless species of magnificent birds, and more. Throughout the day we saw rhino's, lions only a few feet away from the car, thomson gazelle, grants gazelle, impala, waterbuck, hartebeest, hippos, thousands of zebra and wildebeest, cape buffalo, and more. Honestly an amazing wildlife experience and a strong reason for supporting the conservation efforts of these areas.

Since being here, we've been having some great discussions involving what pressures are on the land and the social negative and positive consequences of these areas. Specifically kicking the Maasai out and the impact of rapid population growth on our world. Ask me someday and we can have long talks on this subject. Compared to Tarangera, this park almost seems a little more dolled up, but for obvious reasons being a World Heritage Site and all. There are some ugly ass hotels on the rim that I'm highly tempted to just burn that fucker to the ground. One charges well over a grand a night to stay there and our guide said that he had one client pay more than $300 for coffee and biscuits.

HADZA

First off, these have been by far the most awesome and incredible days of my life. We left the Nou Forest and headed towards the Yeada Valley and home of one of the last hunter gather tribes left in the world. In the valley live only a few hundred members of this tribe at most and they spend their day to day lives hunting, gathering, and living as simple as things can get, most not even having semi-permanent homes since they travel to various parts of the valley so often. Besides this, their known as not only some of the happiest and most content people in Africa but also the only tribe that has never had a problem with hunger. Over human evolution people like the hadza have learned how to live during any season. Times of heavy rain or times of complete drought just leave them with different options for food, non better than any other. And there's always a well that can be dug for fresh water, no matter the season. In recent times they've had a lot of pressure both from the government who sees them as an eyesore as well as surrounding villages disrupting their traditional way of life by bringing in livestock, over grazing the land, and decreasing their range dramatically. But, just 11 days or so ago, the Hadza actually got approval from the national government to give them a fair amount of land in the Ngorongoro conservation area where they can live, for now, uninterrupted by these outside pressures.

Anyway, like I said before just being in the presence of these people have opened my eyes on ways of life and such in ways that I can't even begin to describe in this blog entry. They're some of the funniest people, who acknowledge the existence of the modernized world and, for the most part, refuse to enter it mainly because they're some of the laziest people on the face of the earth. They've developed a system where they spend only around 3 hours a day hunting and gather the days sustenance, and the rest of the time either gambling, conversing, or smoking a good amount of weed. The men will often be on hunts for hours, well a majority of the time is just spent smoking and gambling. Anyway, the first day here after a long day of travel was a dull one for the most part. I climbed to the top of the highest hill in the area (the middle of a eons old volcano) and was amazed at the 360 unobstructed panoramic view of the Yeada Valley. That night, most were finishing our research papers and was overall not all that eventful. The next morning was an early one, with us hiking down to the main Hadza camp to get a look at the few straw houses as well as meet some of the villagers. One man we met apparently was asked to join an archery competition in South Korea, and won. What the fuckkkk. Awesome.

After a meet and greet with some of the Hadza, we were off with the women to go pick some tubers, a staple in the hunter gatherer diet. Digging for tubers is a strenuous activity, but the Hadza are also people who don't like to do too much work, so if the ground is too hard or the tuber too deep, they'll just move on to the next one. After a good hour or so of digging with the group we learned how to start our own fires with just a stick, wood, and Baobab fruit to cook the tubers that we gathered in. So...I guess next time we're lost in Africa, I can start a fire. Oh, we also ate bees straight out of a beehive. Bees, larva, honey, and all.

That afternoon was spent learning how to make arrows the traditional way. After gathering a straight Grewia stick, shaving it to make it even, and putting it in the fire to straighten it. We were given feathers and a strand of Eland tendon to chew (tastes like beef jerky) to make the bottom of the bow. Then, a while was spent pounding out a nail that the Hadza had recently traded honey for and made the head of the arrow (mine specifically used for hunting Giraffe and Hyrax). That night, having our papers done finally was meant to relax, so obviously we relaxed the Hadza way and smoked a little of their favorite plant. I don't think any stoner can beat that story...

The next day was an early one when we packed up and headed across the valley floor to our next camp. The 16 km walk in the burning sun wasn't nearly as bad as everyone assumed it would be, but did take a good chunk of the day, especially the couple hundred meters we had to ascend to the campsite at the top of the ridge. On our way we spotted a cheetah and the Hadza ran off in an attempt to catch it (apparently cheetah tastes like fish..?) but to no avail. After an evening of rest we joined the Hadza around the fire to listen to some traditional music and watch some of their traditional dance. After a few songs were even we learned how to dance to them we decided to play some for them. Two of the girls brought ukelele's and played them a few songs that most of us know the words to at this point. The best though, was obviously T-Pain's “Buy you a Drank”, one of the more absurd situations I've ever been in. That evening, after being informed that it wasn't going to rain, we slept on the flat face of a rock in the highest point in the area. Beautiful stars, until it started to rain, obviously...

That morning was another early one, but well worth it as it was our foray into first hand hunting with these incredible people. Myself, three other students, and two Hadza set off to go find something that we could eat for lunch. After a few unsuccessful stalks of dik-dik, we had our eyes set on a troop of baboons high up a hill on some rocks. In order to not alert them, we snuck around the hill to come up from behind and above. On the top of the hill though, we came across a hyrax which our hunter promptly shot and killed. The rest of the day (a good 4 hours) was spent with me carrying around this dead animal, not as bad as you'd think...

Anyway, we never ended up getting out baboon friends. On the third of the four hills we chased them on (fucking TIREING day) our hunter shot and hit a branch directly in front of one, but, obviously no kill was made. Bastard baboons... As we all got back in the mid afternoon, two of the groups were unsuccessful, one nabbed a small bird, and one got a fucking Porcupine Those are some big animals. I guess it took them over 2 hours of stalking it, shooting it, and coercing it our of holes to finally kill it. Tasty dude though... I've now not only eaten both hyrax and porcupine, but also the brains of both as well. As the Tanzanians would say, “tamu sana”. Post lunch was met with some tradition Hadza gambling, which is actually a pretty cool system. Since the Hadza rely on sharing to keep equality amongst the people, excessive gambling with even odds all around distributes material wealth evenly among the tribe members.

Our kill:

Next was met with a discussion were we had the opportunity to sit down as a group with a group of them and get all of our questions translated directly with them. Honestly by far one of, if not the, best experience I've had. The things I've learned can barely be put on paper, but it really has given me a perspective on the world that I think is almost impossible to get without being face to face to these people who don't have any capital and live day to to day. But among this, they carry no worries, no problems, no strife, and no real issues aside from outside pressures. They're simple people who are perfectly happy with what they have, and what they have is next to nothing at the beginning of each new day.

Nou Forest

Now I'm currently in the Nou forest located literally in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, rift valley rim, Tanzania. At around 7000 ft it's cold as balls up here but absolutely beautiful. Think...tropical rainforest esq. This morning we hiked down to by far the most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen. 60 foot drop cascading over smooth layers of rock within the absolute middle of a think jungle. Did I mention the palm trees lining it? Awesome. Also freezing, but worth it to jump in the pool at the base. The rest of the time here is going to be spent mainly finishing our research papers as well as spending time with the local people, the Iraqw, and learning about their culture and the differences between them and the Maasai. Then, on Tuesday (it's Sunday currently) we should be heading out back to the bush to spend time with one of the only hunter gather tribes left in the world, the Hadza. If you haven't yet, I would highly recommend googling them and reading the national geographic article on them. Absolutely incredible and I'm so excited. One of our lab assignments is to go on a hunting trip with them, how fucking cool is that?

Tarangire National Park

Days...who the fuck knows. Tarangire National Park:

So Tarangire was awesome. Each morning around 7 we woke up and soon left on safaris. Like...this shit was National Geographic/Planet Earth status. Absolutely amazing wildlife. Nothing notable on the scale of lion kills or leopard sightings, but we did see over 100 species of birds, many prides of lions, literally THOUSANDS of elephants, some even close enough to touch, along with countless other species. One day Kelsey and I climbed a tree at our camp and spotted 8 species of mammals in one rotation. By night, I would spend a good hour or two learning about the incredibly clear sky. As of now I can easily see and identify constalations such as Casiopia, Andromida, Pegasis, Orian, Cyphus, The Swan, Hurcules, Scorpio, and a good few others. Even without binoculars it's possible to see the Andromida Galaxy as well as the Orian nebula and all four moons of Jupiter.

Anyway, our main purpose in this park was to collect data to write our research paper which I'm currently procrasitinating. I chose to collect data on the small ruminant ungulates, dikdik and steenbok and compare the habitats they're found in. Fun stuff... Meaning, data collection was driving around on safari all morning. My life is tough... Anyway, along with all that cool stuff we managed to set up one of the coolest things i've ever seen. Namely, a slack line 25 feet in the air between two Baobab trees. SO AWESOME. Hopefully I'll have some pics up by the time this blog is posted.

In other news, nights are terrifying. On night an elephant literally ripped a tree down just a few meters away from one of our tents. The next night I had to hold my piss for over an hour as hyena roamed around the outsides of the tents. And now, in the Nou forest, it's pitch black and I'm positive I'm going to be eaten by a leopard. Oh well... Anyway, leaving the park was a bummer, but we'll be in Ngorongoron Crater soon enough which is supposed to be an even more incredible wildlife experience

SAFARI (part 1 of many)

So, Arusha was a good two days of rest before heading out into our next month and a half of living in tents. We ended up meeting a bunch of other exchange students and had a good time kicking it with them. Other than that I probably still have fleas...oh well. On Thursday we left Arusha and headed outside of town to a small village called Olasiti where Dorobo Safari's is based. There we found ourselves a quaint little tent village that was our home for the next two days as we debriefed and prepared for the next month of safari-ing. I never really thought I would be into birds, but dear god the birds here are incredible. Devin has identified like... 50 species in the past few days and I'm sure we've seen countless more.

Anyways, this morning (Saturday) was our first adventure out on Safari. Though, it was less of a safari and more of a 9 hour (but only 80 km) ride to the middle of nowhere basecamp. We first saw an incredible amount of birds. Kinda cool I guess. Then we got ourselves into Maasai country which was our first real encounter with these folk. They're truly unique in both their culture as a thing and their strong sense of a cultural identity which they embrace as much as possible. Then, after passing more and more into the middle of nowhere we got our first glimps at WILD GIRAFFE. That was awesome. And like.. a million zebra. And a shitton of gazelle. And birds. And more birds. OH. And we saw kilimanjaro. That was cool too. Anyway, now I'm just at basecamp updating the blog word doc. We were debriefed a tad after dinner on what can kill us and what not and fun stuff like that. Justin also recently discovered a parasitic egg sack in his foot that we're going to cut out tomorrow so it doesn't hatch into a million other flesh eat egg sacks that will get into our feet. YAY AFRICA.

Day 2: So remember that egg sack that Justin had? Well, they found one in Mali's foot, then in Katies...and so naturally I check my foot. And of course I had the biggest egg sack of them all in mine. Like, fucking cubic centimeter large egg sack under my toe. Anyway, the beginning of my morning was spent with three Maasai warriors cutting a crater out of my foot to remove this egg sack without it breaking into more parasitic things. It hurt like a bitch. At least I'm not Katie though, along with the egg sacks she has not one, but two large worms in her foot. LARGE. Whacky shit.

Anyway, on a lighter note, today we took a hike up a huge hill to get a good look at the surrounding savannah. That was awesome. No elephants, but a good amount of baboons, giraffe, zebra, and other ungulates roaming around below us. Then it was pretty much free relax time in the after noon until dinner when, unfortunately, a few tents in our camp were robbed by an unknown individual. The moment we realized a few things were missing the Maasai who are with us were UP. It's now been a few hours and they think they have a lead on where this guy went. We're absolutely in the middle of no where, so these Maasai are going to alert the surrounding village elders and hopefully we can get our stuff back. My tent wasn't broken into, but a few girls had there binoculars, cameras, money taken along with a small computer from another tent. This is the first time anything has ever been reported stolen from this area in the last 30 years that Dorobo has been coming here, so it's definitely been a shock. But, most are in high spirits and there seems to be some optimism that things will be returned. Anyway, amidst this mess I'm typing this by the fire and we just shined our light across the dry river bed we're next to and saw the eyes of a large predator in the tree across the way, probably a leopard. Fucking cool.

Day 3 & 4:

So. Good news! As we were out on our nature hike in the morning, the Maasai were out being total badasses and, to make a long story short, after an epic car chase among other things, got everyone's stuff back. Yeah Maasai! The best, most awesome and determined people I've ever met. Anyway, that was the real excitement for yesterday. Out our hike we found a poached elephant skull, obviously we got pictures with it.

But, in other more exciting news, we started the REAL safari this morning. After an early rise and out first field ID test (god damn school is tough...) we were out to Tarangeri National Park. Almost the moment we got in we began seeing elephant. SO MANY ELEPHANT. Like literally hundreds. Like...literally I can hear one eating about 100 m from my tent right now. And tons of giraffe and birds and zebra and ungulates. SO COOL. Devin has already ID'd over 110 birds. Other exciting things seen...Lioness in a tree. Python the width of my leg and few meters longer. The other group (not my safari van...) saw a cheetah. SO MANY COOL THINGS.

(this was our classroom that day)

The landscape out here is incredible though, everything you'd ever imagine Africa to be and more. Beautiful savannah planes covered in incredible large wildlife. Honestly every moment out here is like an episode of planet earth. The river running through the park is lined with palms and looks like a scene straight out of Egypt, Baobab trees are everywhere, hopefully I'll have some photos of the sunset behind these trees (with elephants included). Safari's are fucking awesome. I can't believe I'm getting credit for this. I have to count animals in the next few days for my next research paper. Life is awesome. Now I'm off to go stargaze at the clearest sky I've ever seen. We've been finding nebula's and galaxies and a this other cool stuff with only our binoculars. SO COOL.