Saturday, April 10, 2010
Holy Cow
Once upon a time I went to buy a loaf of bread. The store happened to be right next to the butcher. The butcher happened to have just finished chopping up a cow. The cow happened to be piled in pieces on the porch floor outside his shop. On the top of the pile happened to be a cow’s shnasholy (aka mouth) and a few other readily identifiable pieces. I didn’t throw up, but I am currently reconsidering my omnivorous status.
Visoda Vingapi?
I am currently trying to collect a bunch of soda caps, called visoda in Kiswahili. I want to do a project with the third grade class who uses them as counters when doing addition and subtraction, and also want to cover the front of a scrapbook with them when I come home and make an album of my trip.
I guess Victoria mentioned my treasure hunt to a few people here in Arusha, because a guy who lives on the mountain showed up at 8 o’clock at night to give me an entire grocery bag filled with beer bottle caps. I guess Victoria forgot to tell him that I am only interested in soda caps. The poor guy was so drunk it wasn’t even funny. I should probably thank him for his commendable effort but he didn’t have to drink all of those beers just to help me out.
I guess Victoria mentioned my treasure hunt to a few people here in Arusha, because a guy who lives on the mountain showed up at 8 o’clock at night to give me an entire grocery bag filled with beer bottle caps. I guess Victoria forgot to tell him that I am only interested in soda caps. The poor guy was so drunk it wasn’t even funny. I should probably thank him for his commendable effort but he didn’t have to drink all of those beers just to help me out.
Night Tremors
Our safari driver was quite animated on the drive back home and had the whole car cracking up laughing. It turns out that he was woken up in the middle of the night by an earthquake. That’s right, an earthquake. I guess I really do sleep like a rock because I still don’t believe it. No great shakes, I guess.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010uvc5.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010uvc5.php
What's in a Name?
I don’t know why it came up but I got into a discussion with my host family the other day about names. Much like in the States, most people here have three names. However, rather than having a first, middle, and last name they have a given name, father’s name, and surname. Given name and surname are clearly synonymous with first and last name, but the middle names of everyone here are almost always just the name of your father, regardless of whether you are a boy or a girl. I have always felt that I was missing something growing up without a middle name. I guess it never occurred to me to use Chelsea Todd.
Police Encounter
We got pulled over by the police at a road check point on Friday. We had all of the appropriate documents and should have been cleared to go, but the officer asked us to pull further off the road and park. That was about all I understood, but after a bunch of rapid Swahili speak my younger hopped out of the car to go speak privately with the officer. The officer then came up to the window again, this time on the passenger’s side, looked carefully around the inside of the car, had a brief exchange with my host father, and then let us go saying, “Safari Njema!”
It turns out that we were asked to pull off the road so that my host father could speak in private with the officer. Godfrey had told his son Gilbert to tell the cop that his leg was injured and he couldn’t come out to talk to him. The cop then came over the car to check out his leg, and then ask Godfrey for money so that he could go buy sodas for all of the officers. Godfrey told him we have no money, so he was forced to let us go. The cop was pretty disappointed that the old man with the white girl in his car wasn’t feeling in the mood to pay him a bribe, but there wasn’t too much he could do about it. Maybe if he wasn’t so interested in having a private conversation with Godfrey he would have noticed that the driver side mirror was completely smashed off and was probably deserving of a ticket.
It turns out that we were asked to pull off the road so that my host father could speak in private with the officer. Godfrey had told his son Gilbert to tell the cop that his leg was injured and he couldn’t come out to talk to him. The cop then came over the car to check out his leg, and then ask Godfrey for money so that he could go buy sodas for all of the officers. Godfrey told him we have no money, so he was forced to let us go. The cop was pretty disappointed that the old man with the white girl in his car wasn’t feeling in the mood to pay him a bribe, but there wasn’t too much he could do about it. Maybe if he wasn’t so interested in having a private conversation with Godfrey he would have noticed that the driver side mirror was completely smashed off and was probably deserving of a ticket.
Safari, Safari
The word “safari” has two different meanings depending on who you ask. If you ask me, it is a specific reference to a Lion King type of adventure in the national parks and conservation areas of Africa. However, in Kiswahili, safari just means trip or journey. If you want to talk about Land Cruisers, baboons and warthogs you say you’re going to the National Parks. Unfortunately this led to a few things getting lost in translation, as our “safari” ended up just being 2 major travel days and only 1 full day for an animal-kingdom-filled adventure. That’s a 3 day safari, right?
I woke up this morning fully expecting another day of great adventures in the park. We had said we were going to Manyara National Park, but I was told at breakfast that we might just travel down some other roads outside the park boundaries to see if we could track down some giraffes on our own since it is the only big animal (except the rhinoceros) that we haven’t seen. We had to get up early to go giraffe spotting, but it was still going to be another day for safari.
As it turns out, we woke up early in order to go back to our home in Arusha sooner and return the vehicle we were driving. The road that we went “giraffe-searching” on was just the main highway to go home, and we went past the national park we were supposed to visit at around 100 km/h with clearly no intention of entering. My spirits dropped quite a bit when I realized what was going on, but I tried to keep a smile on my face and be positive about our giraffe hunt.
A few people spotted giraffes way off in the distance, but nothing more than small yellow dots on the horizon. I was getting pretty moion sick from watching out the side window so I switched my attention to the horizon out the front window and let everyone else do the spotting.
As I was intently staring at the road, I saw a funny looking tree that I swear had a peculiar angle to its trunk. I thought it slightly resembled a strange long-necked animal and was altogether quite funny looking; not surprising however given the many awesomely awkward baobab trees and other flora here. I saw the tree catch my host brother’s eye too, and before you knew it we were parked on the side of the road within 5 feet of the most enormous, male giraffe I’ve ever seen. He was just chilling, eating a nice road-side breakfast in the tree tops minding his own business. I got to snap some cool pictures of him, and in less than 3 minutes we were on the road again. We could now put a tick in the box for spotting a giraffe and move on with the rest of our day.
As we approached Arusha where we had left our personal truck two days before, my host siblings and I stopped at a snake park to pass the time while Victoria and Godfrey went to go switch out the cars. I was slightly relieved that we had something interesting to do while we waited, and got a kick out of looking at all the snakes in cages, some big alligators with bloodstained teeth, and some very cute baby turtles.
The best part was getting to put a real live snake around my neck and pushing my frightened host siblings to do the same. I don’t know why they weren’t interested in doing the same -- the guard said she only gets hungry once a week.
After finishing up at the snake park we went across the street to the Masai cultural museum. I was very happy to get a tour from a real Masai and get to learn a lot more about their culture. I will include a separate entry for this experience at a later time since I find this tribe to be particularly interesting.
At the end of the tour there are real Masai dwellings with women selling various arts and crafts. I have no money and am desperately in need of an ATM but have unfortunately been SOL for a few days now given either the absence of time or machine along our safari. I was feeling pretty bummed that I couldn’t buy anything directly from the person who made it, but my hopes were raised when I saw that the gift shop in a different part of the museum had small sticker in the window indicating they take Visa card. I found that pretty unusual given that I haven’t been able to pay for anything with credit card since my stay at the Holiday Inn on the first night, so it was more disappointing than surprising when they told me that the machine was broken.
Not wanting to torture myself anymore by staying in the gift shop I went outside to see what everyone else was up to. It turned out they were talking to a Masai that was offering camel rides behind the museum and had just sent someone to retrieve two of them from the field.
When I think camels I think the Sahara desert, but I guess why not have them in Tanzania? In short, these guys were tall and awesome. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was super cool to see them up-close in personal. While waiting for my turn to ride them I was trying to figure out how they ever inspired a brand of cigarettes. It still baffles me but I imagine it probably has to do with their too-cool-for-school facial expression.
The two camels took their good old time coming down from way up in the sky as they took a sitting position on the sky. The process was so labored that I figured it must be hurting them or something. Actually, they were probably just thinking about how stupid the exercise of sitting down, standing up, walking 50 yards in a circle, and sitting back down is again and again.
In any case, Suzie and I got to ride together on the camel with me up in the front and her holding onto me for dear life. The guy told us to hold on tight and lean back. Before we knew it the roller coaster ride had started and there was absoutely no stopping it. I wish I had a video to show you the whole thing but you literally get thrown from front to back, thinking at one moment that you’re going to be flung off his hump onto his neck and the next that you’re going to be flipped off his backside for a 20 foot drop to the ground. The camel also takes his time standing up with a bit of a stutter, giving you enough time to wonder whether he’s about to collapse, buck you off, or continue the labored process of standing up.
Once you’re up on him it resembles something of a horse ride with an exaggeratedly rhythmic, bumpy pace to it. Being on his hump you are quite high in the air, to the point that we had to shout down to the Masai dragging Mr. Camel along by a rope to ask him about our new four-legged friend.
After maybe 3 minutes of walking in a circle we prepared ourselves for the descent. We both had the anticipation of coming up to the edge of a big waterfall as he sat down, this time feeling more like someone forgot to put on the brakes during a climbing belay than anything else. My stomach slowly found its way back into place after a brief visit with my throat as we dismounted and sat down to watch the others take their turn.
Given that there were an odd number of us, I actually got to go twice. The second time I rode on the back with my older brother on the front. The back proved to be a lot tamer than the front, except my little arms were almost ripped out of their sockets while trying to reach around my host brother to grab the hand holds in front.
After the rides I asked if it was okay to go up and pet my camel friends. I was trying to ask if there are any special rules for camels to avoid spooking them or getting hurt, but the guy seemed to indicate that everything was AOK. I guess the camel I chose to pet first was a little jealous that I had taken both of my rides on his sister because as I reached up to pet him he turned at lightning speed to bite me.
I’m glad to say that (1) he missed, and (2) that the misinformation was from the camel’s owner instead of the man at the snake park who put the supposedly harmless snake around my neck. I think that if the camel had actually bitten me (and he opened his mouth enough to show me that he had a very nice set of teeth) I would have preferred that he take his best shot spitting at me, but I think it worked out for the best in the end.
While pulling myself together after the camel ride I felt my money belt strapped to my stomach. I am particularly fond of it since it adds a few extra layers of chubbiness under my shirt, but is definitely worth the extra security. Anyway, I remembered that I had money stuffed in there with my passport for safe-keeping and for potential use on my travel back to the States. The dollars are useless pretty much everywhere I go since I haven’t been to many touristy places, but the gift shop prices were all listed in dollars. I was so excited at the discovery that I almost spent all of my lunch money at the store buying some very cool hand crafted items. Luckily I was able to bargain with the cashier for a $13 dollar discount – just enough for a good snack during my layover in Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
If we hadn’t forgone the day’s safari I wouldn’t have been able to hold the snake, chat with the Masai, ride a camel, or spend too much money on gifts. I did get to see a giraffe up close and personal, more or less completing the checklist of awesome African animals and certainly can’t complain about the incredible experience I had in Ngorongoro crater the day before. While I would love to go back to the national parks some day, ideally during a more active season, I am still very lucky to be on this 3 month safari even if the national park section lasted only one day.
I woke up this morning fully expecting another day of great adventures in the park. We had said we were going to Manyara National Park, but I was told at breakfast that we might just travel down some other roads outside the park boundaries to see if we could track down some giraffes on our own since it is the only big animal (except the rhinoceros) that we haven’t seen. We had to get up early to go giraffe spotting, but it was still going to be another day for safari.
As it turns out, we woke up early in order to go back to our home in Arusha sooner and return the vehicle we were driving. The road that we went “giraffe-searching” on was just the main highway to go home, and we went past the national park we were supposed to visit at around 100 km/h with clearly no intention of entering. My spirits dropped quite a bit when I realized what was going on, but I tried to keep a smile on my face and be positive about our giraffe hunt.
A few people spotted giraffes way off in the distance, but nothing more than small yellow dots on the horizon. I was getting pretty moion sick from watching out the side window so I switched my attention to the horizon out the front window and let everyone else do the spotting.
As I was intently staring at the road, I saw a funny looking tree that I swear had a peculiar angle to its trunk. I thought it slightly resembled a strange long-necked animal and was altogether quite funny looking; not surprising however given the many awesomely awkward baobab trees and other flora here. I saw the tree catch my host brother’s eye too, and before you knew it we were parked on the side of the road within 5 feet of the most enormous, male giraffe I’ve ever seen. He was just chilling, eating a nice road-side breakfast in the tree tops minding his own business. I got to snap some cool pictures of him, and in less than 3 minutes we were on the road again. We could now put a tick in the box for spotting a giraffe and move on with the rest of our day.
As we approached Arusha where we had left our personal truck two days before, my host siblings and I stopped at a snake park to pass the time while Victoria and Godfrey went to go switch out the cars. I was slightly relieved that we had something interesting to do while we waited, and got a kick out of looking at all the snakes in cages, some big alligators with bloodstained teeth, and some very cute baby turtles.
The best part was getting to put a real live snake around my neck and pushing my frightened host siblings to do the same. I don’t know why they weren’t interested in doing the same -- the guard said she only gets hungry once a week.
After finishing up at the snake park we went across the street to the Masai cultural museum. I was very happy to get a tour from a real Masai and get to learn a lot more about their culture. I will include a separate entry for this experience at a later time since I find this tribe to be particularly interesting.
At the end of the tour there are real Masai dwellings with women selling various arts and crafts. I have no money and am desperately in need of an ATM but have unfortunately been SOL for a few days now given either the absence of time or machine along our safari. I was feeling pretty bummed that I couldn’t buy anything directly from the person who made it, but my hopes were raised when I saw that the gift shop in a different part of the museum had small sticker in the window indicating they take Visa card. I found that pretty unusual given that I haven’t been able to pay for anything with credit card since my stay at the Holiday Inn on the first night, so it was more disappointing than surprising when they told me that the machine was broken.
Not wanting to torture myself anymore by staying in the gift shop I went outside to see what everyone else was up to. It turned out they were talking to a Masai that was offering camel rides behind the museum and had just sent someone to retrieve two of them from the field.
When I think camels I think the Sahara desert, but I guess why not have them in Tanzania? In short, these guys were tall and awesome. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was super cool to see them up-close in personal. While waiting for my turn to ride them I was trying to figure out how they ever inspired a brand of cigarettes. It still baffles me but I imagine it probably has to do with their too-cool-for-school facial expression.
The two camels took their good old time coming down from way up in the sky as they took a sitting position on the sky. The process was so labored that I figured it must be hurting them or something. Actually, they were probably just thinking about how stupid the exercise of sitting down, standing up, walking 50 yards in a circle, and sitting back down is again and again.
In any case, Suzie and I got to ride together on the camel with me up in the front and her holding onto me for dear life. The guy told us to hold on tight and lean back. Before we knew it the roller coaster ride had started and there was absoutely no stopping it. I wish I had a video to show you the whole thing but you literally get thrown from front to back, thinking at one moment that you’re going to be flung off his hump onto his neck and the next that you’re going to be flipped off his backside for a 20 foot drop to the ground. The camel also takes his time standing up with a bit of a stutter, giving you enough time to wonder whether he’s about to collapse, buck you off, or continue the labored process of standing up.
Once you’re up on him it resembles something of a horse ride with an exaggeratedly rhythmic, bumpy pace to it. Being on his hump you are quite high in the air, to the point that we had to shout down to the Masai dragging Mr. Camel along by a rope to ask him about our new four-legged friend.
After maybe 3 minutes of walking in a circle we prepared ourselves for the descent. We both had the anticipation of coming up to the edge of a big waterfall as he sat down, this time feeling more like someone forgot to put on the brakes during a climbing belay than anything else. My stomach slowly found its way back into place after a brief visit with my throat as we dismounted and sat down to watch the others take their turn.
Given that there were an odd number of us, I actually got to go twice. The second time I rode on the back with my older brother on the front. The back proved to be a lot tamer than the front, except my little arms were almost ripped out of their sockets while trying to reach around my host brother to grab the hand holds in front.
After the rides I asked if it was okay to go up and pet my camel friends. I was trying to ask if there are any special rules for camels to avoid spooking them or getting hurt, but the guy seemed to indicate that everything was AOK. I guess the camel I chose to pet first was a little jealous that I had taken both of my rides on his sister because as I reached up to pet him he turned at lightning speed to bite me.
I’m glad to say that (1) he missed, and (2) that the misinformation was from the camel’s owner instead of the man at the snake park who put the supposedly harmless snake around my neck. I think that if the camel had actually bitten me (and he opened his mouth enough to show me that he had a very nice set of teeth) I would have preferred that he take his best shot spitting at me, but I think it worked out for the best in the end.
While pulling myself together after the camel ride I felt my money belt strapped to my stomach. I am particularly fond of it since it adds a few extra layers of chubbiness under my shirt, but is definitely worth the extra security. Anyway, I remembered that I had money stuffed in there with my passport for safe-keeping and for potential use on my travel back to the States. The dollars are useless pretty much everywhere I go since I haven’t been to many touristy places, but the gift shop prices were all listed in dollars. I was so excited at the discovery that I almost spent all of my lunch money at the store buying some very cool hand crafted items. Luckily I was able to bargain with the cashier for a $13 dollar discount – just enough for a good snack during my layover in Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
If we hadn’t forgone the day’s safari I wouldn’t have been able to hold the snake, chat with the Masai, ride a camel, or spend too much money on gifts. I did get to see a giraffe up close and personal, more or less completing the checklist of awesome African animals and certainly can’t complain about the incredible experience I had in Ngorongoro crater the day before. While I would love to go back to the national parks some day, ideally during a more active season, I am still very lucky to be on this 3 month safari even if the national park section lasted only one day.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Safari PartI: Ngorongoro Crater, TZ
Allaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Groan.
Alaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Double Groan.
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
What time is it? Where is my phone?
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
Seriously?
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
Okay, fine. I’m up. It’s 5:15, but I’m up.
I’m pretty sure this takes place every morning. 5 times a day in fact. But for some reason today is the day it wakes me up like a rooster crowing in my ear. I guess it’s really just bloggers guilt, so I will spend these early hours telling you about my safari yesterday. I just hope that as I am sitting at this restaurant table in the dark, unable to find the light switch, the night guard won’t come try and kill me and I won’t have a heart attack with all these cats crawling around causing mischief. Anyway, back to yesterday...
Part I: Getting Started
We woke up not-so-bright-and-early at 7am and hit the parks by 8:30. The parks open at 6am, but whatever, we’re going to have a full day of it, right? Wrong.
While Victoria and Godfrey have been extremely generous in taking me into their home and making me a part of their family, and while the sun has given me my fair share of burns and darkened my skin a few shades, I have unfortunately not gotten any closer to looking like an African. Not even an albino African. I have done my best to be a chameleon and fit in with things, but there is no denying my mzungu status.
So, while it is very nice that Godfrey insists I am his daughter, there was just about no way the park guards would let me get through by paying the rates of the locals. Were I to have passed the test (and believe me, I had been fully warned to speak only Swahili and to be charming…) the cost of the trip would have been an entrance fee of 10,000 TZ Shillings. Unsurprisingly, however, we had to pay the white-tax of $250 just for having me in the car. (The psychology of listing local prices in shillings and white prices in dollars I found to be very interesting. I’ll let you convert the different prices for yourself. It’s impressive!)
Anyway, we made the bold move of paying for me as a local at the office and then trying to talk our way through the gates. When we were turned away, we not only had fork up the money, but also go to the back of the ever-building line, wasting even more time. I was very entertained by going into the gift shop and walking through the mini museum reading all about the park and its history, but our car just kept getting more impatient imagining the morning prowlers taking refuge out of sight range as the sun got higher.
By 10:00 am we finally made it through the gates and began our journey into Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It’s actually not a national park because people are allowed to live within its borders if they are able to live in harmony with the ecosystem. This really just means that the Masaai tribe and maybe one or two other nomadic groups is free to continue their lifestyle within the park. As we drove up, up, up to the rim of the crater we passed many Masaai herding their cattle and around their unique homes, just going about their lives. We also got to see a chui (leopard) walking along the road but he jumped out of sight before anyone had a chance to snap a pic.
At the top of the crater we stopped for a bathroom break while 3 Masaai men came over to sell me beautiful handcrafted necklaces. Being white, the price for each was 5,000/= (TZ shillings). I really wanted to buy them, but the disgusted reaction of my Swahili family made me feel far too guilty to cave at the apparently egregious price. I decided to get my Swahili on and use my superb language skills and irresistible charm to bring down the price. Yeah right.
To be honest, I’d be happy paying their asking price and supporting local tribes and art and all that other good stuff. My goal was just to get it down to a level that I wouldn’t look like a total fool to my entire family when I agreed to the price. The only problem was that they told me they could find the necklaces at other places for just 1,000/=. This is highly unlikely and most probably just dramatic banter in an attempt to get me to hike them to hike down the price. But nonetheless, having to talk them down by 4,000/= shillings is no small feat!
In any case, after a sufficient amount of getting hot and cold and chit-chatting about things completely unrelated to the necklaces I finally got them to agree to 2 necklaces for 5,000. Not bad, right? Wrong. Still not good enough. I was all set to give up as our Land Cruiser started back up and everyone started loading back into the vehicle. At the last minute one of the Masaai decided to drop to 4,000/= for two necklaces! This sounded totally reasonable to me and I mentally decided to commit. But just for kicks I looked at him and said, “3,000/=, that’s it. Good-bye!” I walked away as if I was totally serious (which I was not) and low and behold he made the deal!
I had to ask Victoria to spot me the money since I only had larger bills and felt very guilty asking him for change after pretending as if I didn’t have the money to pay for it. She was still disappointed by the extra 500/= per necklace, but I swear I saw a small smile of pride appear at the corner of her mouth that her mzungu daughter was able to talk her way into Swahili prices. I paid the man the money and was very pleased with the necklaces, but still felt very guilty about ripping him off. I wonder how much they cost him to make…
Part II: Into the Crater
By 10:30 am we were finally beginning our steep decent down into the crater. I had to fight my trigger-happy urges with my camera in the interest of preserving the battery for the things to come, but couldn’t help taking a few pictures of the lush, green plains and the amazing cotton-candy clouds that looked like they came straight out of a Philadelphia cream cheese commercial.
When we reached the bottom we lifted up the roof of our vehicle and stood with our heads peaking out the top, taking it all in. First sighting? Zebras! I swear these guys look like painted horses and couldn’t possibly be born like that. As I snapped about a million pics and short video clips of their grass munching I couldn’t help but wonder if their stripes are like fingerprints and snowflakes or if it's possible to have two-of-a-kind or more.
Temporary Wrap Up:
I have to go eat breakfast now and get ready for today’s adventure. The only animals I haven’t seen of note are giraffes and rhinoceros, so we’re off to try and find at least a giraffe or two today.
My summary notes from yesterday:
- It’s the rainy season, so the safari is apparently not as cool as it has the potential of being. This means my host family was a little less than impressed, but I made up for it with my extaticness.
- The driver seemed to be in some sort of rush and had a big case of the impatients. I tried my best to snap bumpy pics and videos when he wouldn't stop and usually only had time just for a shot or two if he did. It was a bit of a bummer because I saw most of the wildlife through the lens of my digital camera, hoping that I’d be able to appreciate it more when I uploaded them onto my computer…..that turned out to be a good call.
- Baboon butts, elephant graveyards, and gazelles teasing lions……that’s it for now….
Groan.
Alaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Double Groan.
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
What time is it? Where is my phone?
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
Seriously?
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
Okay, fine. I’m up. It’s 5:15, but I’m up.
I’m pretty sure this takes place every morning. 5 times a day in fact. But for some reason today is the day it wakes me up like a rooster crowing in my ear. I guess it’s really just bloggers guilt, so I will spend these early hours telling you about my safari yesterday. I just hope that as I am sitting at this restaurant table in the dark, unable to find the light switch, the night guard won’t come try and kill me and I won’t have a heart attack with all these cats crawling around causing mischief. Anyway, back to yesterday...
Part I: Getting Started
We woke up not-so-bright-and-early at 7am and hit the parks by 8:30. The parks open at 6am, but whatever, we’re going to have a full day of it, right? Wrong.
While Victoria and Godfrey have been extremely generous in taking me into their home and making me a part of their family, and while the sun has given me my fair share of burns and darkened my skin a few shades, I have unfortunately not gotten any closer to looking like an African. Not even an albino African. I have done my best to be a chameleon and fit in with things, but there is no denying my mzungu status.
So, while it is very nice that Godfrey insists I am his daughter, there was just about no way the park guards would let me get through by paying the rates of the locals. Were I to have passed the test (and believe me, I had been fully warned to speak only Swahili and to be charming…) the cost of the trip would have been an entrance fee of 10,000 TZ Shillings. Unsurprisingly, however, we had to pay the white-tax of $250 just for having me in the car. (The psychology of listing local prices in shillings and white prices in dollars I found to be very interesting. I’ll let you convert the different prices for yourself. It’s impressive!)
Anyway, we made the bold move of paying for me as a local at the office and then trying to talk our way through the gates. When we were turned away, we not only had fork up the money, but also go to the back of the ever-building line, wasting even more time. I was very entertained by going into the gift shop and walking through the mini museum reading all about the park and its history, but our car just kept getting more impatient imagining the morning prowlers taking refuge out of sight range as the sun got higher.
By 10:00 am we finally made it through the gates and began our journey into Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It’s actually not a national park because people are allowed to live within its borders if they are able to live in harmony with the ecosystem. This really just means that the Masaai tribe and maybe one or two other nomadic groups is free to continue their lifestyle within the park. As we drove up, up, up to the rim of the crater we passed many Masaai herding their cattle and around their unique homes, just going about their lives. We also got to see a chui (leopard) walking along the road but he jumped out of sight before anyone had a chance to snap a pic.
At the top of the crater we stopped for a bathroom break while 3 Masaai men came over to sell me beautiful handcrafted necklaces. Being white, the price for each was 5,000/= (TZ shillings). I really wanted to buy them, but the disgusted reaction of my Swahili family made me feel far too guilty to cave at the apparently egregious price. I decided to get my Swahili on and use my superb language skills and irresistible charm to bring down the price. Yeah right.
To be honest, I’d be happy paying their asking price and supporting local tribes and art and all that other good stuff. My goal was just to get it down to a level that I wouldn’t look like a total fool to my entire family when I agreed to the price. The only problem was that they told me they could find the necklaces at other places for just 1,000/=. This is highly unlikely and most probably just dramatic banter in an attempt to get me to hike them to hike down the price. But nonetheless, having to talk them down by 4,000/= shillings is no small feat!
In any case, after a sufficient amount of getting hot and cold and chit-chatting about things completely unrelated to the necklaces I finally got them to agree to 2 necklaces for 5,000. Not bad, right? Wrong. Still not good enough. I was all set to give up as our Land Cruiser started back up and everyone started loading back into the vehicle. At the last minute one of the Masaai decided to drop to 4,000/= for two necklaces! This sounded totally reasonable to me and I mentally decided to commit. But just for kicks I looked at him and said, “3,000/=, that’s it. Good-bye!” I walked away as if I was totally serious (which I was not) and low and behold he made the deal!
I had to ask Victoria to spot me the money since I only had larger bills and felt very guilty asking him for change after pretending as if I didn’t have the money to pay for it. She was still disappointed by the extra 500/= per necklace, but I swear I saw a small smile of pride appear at the corner of her mouth that her mzungu daughter was able to talk her way into Swahili prices. I paid the man the money and was very pleased with the necklaces, but still felt very guilty about ripping him off. I wonder how much they cost him to make…
Part II: Into the Crater
By 10:30 am we were finally beginning our steep decent down into the crater. I had to fight my trigger-happy urges with my camera in the interest of preserving the battery for the things to come, but couldn’t help taking a few pictures of the lush, green plains and the amazing cotton-candy clouds that looked like they came straight out of a Philadelphia cream cheese commercial.
When we reached the bottom we lifted up the roof of our vehicle and stood with our heads peaking out the top, taking it all in. First sighting? Zebras! I swear these guys look like painted horses and couldn’t possibly be born like that. As I snapped about a million pics and short video clips of their grass munching I couldn’t help but wonder if their stripes are like fingerprints and snowflakes or if it's possible to have two-of-a-kind or more.
Temporary Wrap Up:
I have to go eat breakfast now and get ready for today’s adventure. The only animals I haven’t seen of note are giraffes and rhinoceros, so we’re off to try and find at least a giraffe or two today.
My summary notes from yesterday:
- It’s the rainy season, so the safari is apparently not as cool as it has the potential of being. This means my host family was a little less than impressed, but I made up for it with my extaticness.
- The driver seemed to be in some sort of rush and had a big case of the impatients. I tried my best to snap bumpy pics and videos when he wouldn't stop and usually only had time just for a shot or two if he did. It was a bit of a bummer because I saw most of the wildlife through the lens of my digital camera, hoping that I’d be able to appreciate it more when I uploaded them onto my computer…..that turned out to be a good call.
- Baboon butts, elephant graveyards, and gazelles teasing lions……that’s it for now….
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sneak Peak!
Check out the slideshow!!
Don't worry....words to follow....and more pics....post-SAFARI!
Don't worry....words to follow....and more pics....post-SAFARI!
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