Maasai

Sorry for the delay in postings, but we've been lacking in the internet department as of late. We just finished our safari in Kenya, and now we're in a hotel for lunch in Tanzania. I'll just talk about Kenya here, because we've only been in Tanzania for a few hours. Kenya is surprisingly green for the dry season, but it's also ridiculously dusty. We all enjoyed the roads (by "we" I mean the eight of us, Kirsten Steketee, her husband Chris Morscheck, their kids Chloe and Sarah, and Kirsten's cousin Kim, plus her husband, Chris. Yeah. Two Chris's) with all the potholes and speedbumps, and dad and I got a taste of Montezuma's african cousin, coloblo. Dad came up with the name, he made it sound like a Swahili word. I've learned about thirty words in Swahili, and I'm trying to learn a song called Kenya Best in Swahili.

The people here are very different from what I'm used to. There are 54 different tribes in Kenya, and more than a hundred in Tanzania. If you ask someone what tribe they are from, you do't get a short answer, you get the name of the tribe, an idea of the language, and what the tribe is famous for. Our guide, Dominique, is from a tribe famous for carving. fdon't remember the name though.

the most interesting of the people though, based solely on looks, is the Maasai. there are a lot of Maasai, and they do wierd things to their bodies. They get their ears pierced, then weigh down the earrings to turn the peaircing into a big hole. Sometimes the earlobes touch the shoulders! We went to a Maasai village and watched them dance and sing. We leaerned two Maasai words (Ashay is thank you and sopa is hello) and danced with them. Most of them had shaved heads, but some had long, braided hair. While they were dancing one of the ones with hair hit me with it. The Maasai live in little huts made out of cow crap. the wives build the houses and the termites eat it. The Maasai are poligamist and a man can buy a wife for 6 to 7 cows. I'm kinda curious as to how that works. Does the man haggle for a price with the father of the girl? It's all quite wierd.
On the topic of the actual safari, we saw a TON of animals. We saw lions, leopards, vervet monkeys, baboons, cheetahs, hyenas, girraffes, elephants, zebras, all sorts of songbirds, a bat eared fox, warthogs, jackals, hippos, thompsons gezzelle, impalas cape buffalo and ostriches. There was a big swamp where hippos and elephants stayed all day, and a road running through it. A bunch of elephants were on the road, and a little baby one got mad at us when we tried to pass it. It bellowed more loudly than I imagined possible, then ran into the water. It also ran into papa, who bellowed and threw the kid into the water, both of the protesting loudly. We were also chased by two different Cape buffalo and we were threatened by a baboon. We frightened warthogs on multiple occasions, and I have to tell you, they're hilarious. When they run their tails go up like radio antennae and they book it. I gotta go. more later.