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Kenya
 
Kenya
 Photo: Graeme Purdy

Kenya: One Bloody Sip
By Bryan Davis

Two hours outside Nairobi, Kenya, heading west, I feel like a bobble-head doll as our bus goes jostling along the makeshift highway.  But like those caricatured dolls’ faces, no matter the amount of whiplash my neck endures, my out-sized smile remains immovable.  I’m going on safari! it projects.

I have linked up with a group of friends and a safari outfit that is transporting us from the capital city to the Maasai Mara park reserve in southwestern Kenya.  Loosely connecting to the northern reaches of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, the Maasai Mara is a renowned wildlife hot-spot, but is also notable for its’ non-animal inhabitants: the brightly clad, ornately beaded, Maasai people. 

At this point my knowledge of the Maasai is unimpressive.  A vague recollection of a photo spread discovered in a beaten up National Geographic in a dental waiting room comes to mind.  Equally fragmented are memories of a segment on a PBS special watched with feigned interest.  And, finally, there is the Kevin Bacon movie, The Air Up There, about a basketball coach who goes to Kenya to recruit a player.  These combined experiences are culled from my memory, enlarged, distorted, and ultimately used as unintentional fright-mongers in a long-distance conversation with my parents just prior to the safari:

Yeah, MAH-SIGH…Uh-huh, in Kenya…Well, they are tall and thin, and wear bright red clothing, and have all these necklaces and bracelets; and I think some have spears…No Mom they aren't the tribe with bones through their noses…Yes, I promise I won’t get a bone through my nose, Mom…Dad, I just promised Mom I wouldn’t, okay?

Safari is a Swahili term that roughly translates to “hard journey.”  My butt comes to fully appreciate the etymology as potholes repeatedly introduce themselves on the hardened mud path that wends its’ way through the savannah.  Any physical discomfort is trumped, though, by the sight of the verdant countryside stretching infinitely toward the horizon; by the waist-high savannah grass waving lackadaisically in the slight evening breeze; by the lone acacia trees silhouetted like overgrown stalks of broccoli against the waning sun; and, certainly, by the variegated cross-section of animals that calls this land home.  After a six hours drive and a vehicle change from Nairobi, we pull into camp and are greeted by our Maasai host, Simon. 

The Maasai village is a few miles away, but they have sent a troop over to make dinner, converse with us, and guard our campsite overnight.  The dinner, held in a one-room shelter consisting of two rows of picnic tables, is simple, yet spectacular, and showcases  a corn-based porridge—infused with cow or goats’ milk—that is central to the Maasai diet.  After dinner we sip Tusker beers, an elephant’s profile peering happily from the label, as we huddle around Simon and his comrades to hear of life among the Maasai.  We emit the aura of fraternity and sorority pledges: timidly asking questions, eagerly smiling at answers, but mostly just wanting to be thought of as cool enough to hang with these guys.  Our collective naïveté further reveals itself with each subsequent question, but this is why we are here—to learn, to experience—and our Maasai hosts keenly understand this as they answer each question with forthcoming grace.  When one of our group excitedly asks Simon, “Have you ever killed a lion!?” we all have a good laugh and sip our beers; then Simon raises the flowing red cloth he is wearing to reveal legs with numerous raised scars of a size and severity I have not seen before. 

“I have killed a few lions, yes,” Simon responds with a toothpaste commercial smile, and goes on to explain that the Maasai will hunt lions that terrorize their livestock; and the scars do not bother him because they are signs of courage and points of pride. 

We retire to our two-person tents, bunched together in a tight circle, as the Maasai warriors fortify the perimeter of the campground.  Armed with spears and clubs, they stand guard against the night’s predators and passers-by; and I realize in silent wonderment that these people who hardly know us are prepared to risk their lives in our defense.  Suffused with pride in my Maasai brethren, I scrawl in my journal under the soft glow of my flashlight until the many different languages of the African night usher me to sleep.

The following day consists of two “game drives,” the name applied to the act of driving around looking for animals.  The first game drive leaves before sunrise, and the second returns just after sunset, these being the most active times of day for the majority of animals.  Only minutes from camp we see wildebeest and zebra grazing side by side in the shrouded, pre-dawn light, and within an hour we come across two mother lions dragging a freshly killed topi through the grass just off the dirt path.  Actual lions, not 20 feet away, the blood of their breakfast matted on their chins and chests. 

The late-afternoon game drive is also a success with elephants, giraffes, and buffalo seen in abundance, and even a glimpse of a solitary cheetah sitting regally under an acacia tree as still as a statue. 

 

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