Ada ya mja hunena mungwana ni kitendoí

Safari was beautiful! The animals, the scenery, the drivers, Tiplikwani MaraCamp, the food, the stars, the sunrise and sunsets, the biggest blue sky ever were unimaginable until this weekend. Saturday morning Twiga Tours (The Fun People to Safari With!) picked us at Njema and drove us through the Rift Valley on our way to the Maasai Mara. It is a 6 hour ride from Nairobi to the Mara. The first hour is in Nairobi, but the next two and half hours are spent admiring the beauty of the Rift Valley which is reminiscent of Arizona, very dry, dusty, hot with cacti and twisted trees. About the third hour you enter Maasailand, which is the land the lies in southwestern Kenya and northern Tanzania that is inhabited by the Maasai people. The Maasai are a pastoral and nomadic people, who originated in Israel and migrated to Kenya and Tanzania through north eastern Africa long ago. Now the Maasai keep their livestock in small villages and move throughout the region based on the rains and the grass. The more it rains the more cow dung they have to add to the roof of their temporary homes to keep it out and as the weight of the dung increases it begins to crush the wood and dung hut. When the hut collapses they move with the animals. The Maasai are very well known for the colorful beaded jewelry, red cloth costumes, sticks and spears the are seen with. We visited a village near Tiplikwani MaraCamp with Bipemba, a young Maasai warrior who works at the camp. At the village we were greeted with the circumcision celebration dances and a speech about Maasai culture. We walked through the village and entered two homes. The Maasai keep the older goats and cows in the middle of the village and the babies in their homes. The homes are small and dark. The women sleep in their own homes, the men sleep with one of their wives and the children sleep with the grandparents. The men at the village liked me so they gave me the Maasai name Naiulang which means that I understand their people and that I am welcomed to come and live with them whenever I wish. John told me it was a great honor. Surprising to us, the Tiplikwani is owned by two partners Yuri, a Caucasian, and John, a Maasai (his name is not John, but he uses it for ease of conversation). John grew up in Talek, a small village on the edge of the Maasai Mara Game Reserve, and he was elected by the entirety of the Maasai community to represent their people across the world. He is a truly amazing soul. His dream is to build a new camp fourteen kilometers from Tiplikwani by himself inside the Game Reserve. John also knows every line to Forrest Gump. He actually introduced himself as Forrest Gump for his talk with us on Maasai culture after our game ride on Sunday. (the name of the post today is a kiSwahili proverb -handsome is as handsome does- a gentleman will be judged by his actions. Just like Forrest -stupid is as stupid does)

We had three scheduled game rides and two informal game rides. Safari is stunning! We saw four out of the big five (leopard, rhino, buffalo, elephant, lion), we did not see a rhino. All of the animals are so beautiful. Today we saw 28 giraffes walking across the mara as we were driving out of the game reserve! The lions, the hippos, antelope, wildebeest, leopard and cheetah were also very fun to watch! Dad way to remember the binoculars!

After every ride we would be pampered with a four course meal, as much tea and coffee as we wished, turndown service and a campfire at night. Zebras on the first night and lions on the second night for campfire entertainment across the Mara river. The stars. The sky is bigger here at the equator so the amount of stars one can see on the Mara is unbelievable. The stars here twinkle too!

It's dinnertime! Olesere! (that means goodnight in Maasai) (but Maasai is an oral language, so that is my interpretation of how one would write how they say goodnight!)