We are back in Nairobi with the rest of the conference participants who all arrived last night and this morning. Somehow, a single week here has made us into tour guides. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, but here we are giving bargaining tips to the newly arrived Americans.
So, what to write about today. So many things to choose from. We left the Mara yesterday after a morning drive that gave Tamar an opportunity to experience the near-zebra crossing experience. This time, there were hundreds of zebras, only five crocs, but also a lioness waiting on the other side. We watched for a while as Thompson gazelles frolicked and the zebras did their little dance with the river’s edge, but we moved on. Just before leaving the hotel, we told our driver we’d really like to see some more giraffes because we’d only seen them at a distance…no sooner had we left the gate (yes, there is an electric fence around the hotel complex to keep out the animals) then we came upon a giraffe at the side of the road. A good start. Then we headed down to the river for the zebras and lion (who we first spotted trying to cross the river, but she came across something she didn’t like and went back to the side she started on), and once we left them we followed the river and saw four eland—the largest antelope—which we hadn’t see before. They are giant! Continuing on we came upon a single, ancient (our guide said he was likely in his 70’s), ginormous male elephant coming out from the bush under a tree. Lovely! But the prize of the day came a bit after when we spotted several lions perched on a rock in the distance. Oramat, our guide, said he had never seen that before and we raced over to them. While all the other vehicles stayed on the road far from the rocks, we drove right up. Oramat paid little attention to the “please stay on the roads” signs. So up we came to a pride—a PRIDE—of lions…that’s 17 lions, people. Of which we saw eleven! They moved from one clump of bushes to another, taking long, languid steps as they walked, each in their own sweet time. They are the laziest animals, sometimes sleeping up to twenty hours a day. The males are particularly lazy…they rarely hunt. The females do most of the kills and take care of the kids. The males wake themselves long enough to eat first before the cubs and the mother, then the cubs eat, and if there’s anything left the mother will finally feed. Lucky for us, this crew did not seem hungry. A young male came as close as six feet from our vehicle. Thrilling!
Oramat then took us to the airstrip where we waited for our ride to show. He had told us earlier that he was Masai, but he was dressed in modern clothing and had no marks or piercings, so we took this opportunity (okay, Tamar did) to ask him questions. He still lives in a Masai village—cow-dung huts, etc—but comes to this job everyday. He said some things are changing. He has, for instance, nine sisters. The first eight were circumcised, the last one was not. He said this was a very good thing and sounded hopeful when he said it was possible he would have a girlfriend or wife some day who was not circumcised. This made us hopeful, too. He talked about a lot of other things, too, which were all very interesting.
Then we were back in Nairobi at Pat’s for another night. Her “daughter,” a young woman she has “adopted” made us a fantastic meal and we hooked up Daudi’s computer to look at our pictures from the trip. Lucky for you, we got some great photos! Unlucky for you, we still have very spotty internet service…(I’m typing this in word and will paste it up later since the service keeps going out—Tamar is steaming on the other side of the room).
Which leads me to where we are now—the Methodist Guest House. Not exactly the Nairobi Safari Club where we thought we were staying, but nice enough. As I’m typing, there’s a service going on. We spent the afternoon at two markets buying trinkets. The first one was insane and Pat didn’t feel comfortable leaving us there…there were four of us, all women from the US, and approximately ten men circling us trying to get us to buy through them, like brokers. Pat left us momentarily and a woman from one of the stalls explained to her the racket they were running…they were trying to convince us that we could pick things from the whole market and they would price it for us at the end, which meant they would get a cut even though none of the stalls were theirs. How this can go on, I’m not sure, but Pat swooped in and we went to one another place: “sometimes cheaper is too expensive” she said. The second market was much more civilized and we had a blast on our own, bargaining away.
Tonight, we go to Pat’s for a feast with all the conference guests and we will figure out exactly what’s going on when for the next week. Tomorrow, we are in schools.
Okay. My time is almost up. I will describe Nairobi more next time. It’s like nowhere in the states, and somehow a lot like New York.
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