Meserani Village Kids

September 4, 2005
Arriving by camel, we were greeted by a crowd of giggling children.

I had hoped to meet some children in Africa and I did here in this village in Tanzania near Arusha, meeting the twenty or so offspring of one large extended family.

If I understood correctly, all the children were the progeny of a single father and his seven or eight wives.

They lived in a collection of round mud houses thatched with grass and shared the space with a smattering of goats, chickens, and donkeys.

It was DUSTY. The children were covered in it. They didn't seem to mind, happily throwing themselves down on the ground to doodle with their fingers in the dirt.

"You're a mucky little pup!", I heard Vicki say to a child, laughing.

I am so used to wiping off dirty faces at the daycare where I work that my fingers itched to use a damp wash-cloth on them. But aside from the dust, they were pretty cute I have to say.

They were curious about our watches and other jewellery and some wanted to try on my hat. They peered at their little digital images in the window of my camera in delight. A few clambered onto our laps.

They were not shy at all, most of them. I believe that the children of this village see Westerners quite regularly as part of their village income stems from allowing tourists to come and photograph their homes and families.

Vicki and I gave some of the littler ones horsey rides on our lap and sang some little preschool songs with them. I showed them "A-Rem-Sem-Sem" which I sing with the children at the daycare back home because the words are nonsense words anyway and the actions are easy. The children grinned like crazy.

After a while, many of them wandered off and returned to their daily activities, many carrying younger children with them in their arms or on their backs.

They were dressed in a ragged and colourful mix of African sarongs and wraps and western T-shirts. One child even wore a barely recognizable garment from Baby Gap.

I couldn't help but compare them to the privileged children I know back home. Not a single plastic toy was apparent. No television. No video games. No playground equipment. No bicycles.

Just sticks, rocks, and siblings.

I wouldn't wish this kind of extreme poverty on any child I know, and yet I wonder if there is some sort of happy medium in between. Because I am almost positive these African children had something North American children are in short supply of: a longer attention span. I really enjoyed watching these children play!

Fascinated from a cultural perspective though I was, daycare worker instincts die hard, and I felt compelled to step into one game and unwind the string one little girl had tied tightly around her little sister's neck to lead her around.

Of course, as soon as I'd walked a little distance away, the string went back on again.

A Camel Named Sungura

September 4, 2005

While in Morocco, I had the chance to ride a camel but the moment passed.

Now, here in Tanzania, at a place where they hold a well-known annual camel race, I was not going to let the opportunity slip by again. What can I say? I like camels.

It might be a very touristy thing to do, but I'd rather ride a camel out to the village at Meserani than walk. I think it cost me and Jeff about three dollars.

I chose the camel with the number two spray-painted on the side of his long neck because he had a nice-looking face (for a camel) and didn't seem to object to me scratching his ears. Some of the other camels were already groaning and snorting with abandon as they sat in their line waitng for us to mount, but not Sungura.

Sungura means "rabbit" in Kiswahili and one of the men handling the camels told me that it meant he was quick like a rabbit.

I didn't notice Sungura being particularly fast, but he was a very independent-minded animal. During our twenty-minute trek to the village, our camel broke his rope that tethered him to the rest of the caravan and danced nimbly out of line.

For a minute or two, the camel handler tried in vain to get Sungura to put his head down for a rope. He was very reluctant. I leaned forward in the saddle and tried to help by pushing his neck, but camel necks are strong. It was pretty funny. I couldn't help laughing.

I liked riding a camel. The saddle was broad and soft and comfortable with large, flat wooden planks at the sides to rest your feet on. There is an easy back-and-forth motion that is much more enjoyable than being on horseback to me.

Jeff didn't like it as much as me, but it was probably because he was sitting behind me and had to lean far forward to hold the metal saddle handles which jutted at the saddle's front in a V-shape. It was better for him after he learned to lean back a little and just hold my waist.

The part of the ride which was a little less relaxing was the sharp lurch down as the camel kneels to let you off. One sharp lurch forward and then one back. Actually, being on top of a camel as it gathers its knobbly knees under itself and stands up is also rather breath-taking. You don't really realize how tall camels are until you're up on one looking down.

Maasai Cultural Museum at Meserani

After our visit to the clinic, we moved on to see the cultural museum built by the local Maasai. here in Meserani.

Our guide was called Martin, a Maasai man wrapped in the now-familiar red, who introduced himself as a morani, a warrior. He led us into the dim, cave-like corridors of the museum.

Inside was a fascinating collection of scenes from Maasai life cleverly made from painted papier-mache and chicken-wire and set in surreal tableaus. The air swirled with clay dust and the floor was dirt. No Disneyesque tourist attraction this!

There was a near life-size model of a Maasai home made of mud and grasses and dung with the walls partially cut away so you could see inside. The women are the builders of homes and they are only built as high as the woman can reach.

One of the scenes showed the bleeding of a cow with a bow-and-arrow sort of tool. Cattle's blood is one of the staples of the Maasai diet and this blood-letting is a delicate process so no lasting harm comes to the cow. I remember as a child listening to a Kenyan visitor to our school and being fascinated by the tale of this tradition. I could scarcely believe it was true!

The Maasai also eat the meat and milk from cattle. Cattle are very important to the lifestyle of the Maasai.

Other exhibits showed women giving birth, warriors in their traditional costumes, and an elderly Maasai man apparently in a drunken stupor lying under a tree, an empty drink vessel near his outstretched hand. I think the man was supposed to be under the influence of some sort of ceremonial narcotic, but the scene made me blink a little.

In this same exhibit a long wooden keg hung from the same tree. I've seen these on trees on this trip and Martin informed me they were bee-hives for harvesting honey.

The exhibit showing a young boy being circumcised elicited some raised eye-brows from the group, but Martin seemed eager to explain its cultural significance.

Martin was twenty-two years old when he was circumsized and so I am sure he has a clear memory of it as no anesthesia is used.

He emphasized that it is very shameful to cry during the operation, or even to show evidence of any discomfort or emotion. A girl might be expected to cry during their circumcision, but not a boy.

He showed us the tight-lipped, impassive look a boy might wear on his face and then a look of deep, pained concentration which was very convincing. A man must be circumsised before he is able to marry.

Lizzie piped up with some thoughtful questions for the reasons behind this sort of tradition, but to sum up Martin's answers: "It's tradition."

We also passed through a room full of everyday articles such wooden spears and shields, leather carrying-bags, drinking cups made from cow horns, and a fly-swatter made from the tail of a wildebeest.

Snake Doctor

September 4, 2005

The guinea fowl didn't keep me awake last night, after all, although I occasionally heard deep-throated groans in the night from the enormous crocodiles in their pens behind our tent.

I crept out of the tent very early this morning to reach the communal showers before hordes of other campers woke up. The water was not quite luke-warm but the shower-room was reasonably clean, and I was glad to wash my hair.

And then I wandered up to the reptile zoo again to look at the snakes again. They have a few predatory birds here too--the sad-looking vulture here was the only one I saw on this trip.

Pete cooked pancakes for us this morning--delicious. A three-legged dog called Tripod that Wayne knows parked himself by our breakfast place this morning. He is obviously fed well enough here to turn his nose up at the pancakes that did not have any jam on them...

After breakfast, about half of us made a visit to the medical clinic on the campsite grounds which provides free treatment for the local Maasai people. The doctor there was expecting us.

The building was a small concrete one and several Maasai patients sat waiting outside on benches.

The first thing that greeted us inside was a row of caged snakes.

The clinic was tiny: two rooms with bare concrete floors. It REEKED of pine cleaner.There was a sink, a small table, one bed, and a very inadequate supply of medical equipment.

We met the "doctor", a friendly man who confessed that he wasn't trained as a doctor professionally, but had grown very experienced treating common complaints like diarrhea, infections, malaria, and snake bites.He was particularly an expert on toxic snake bites.

"Actually, I am a snake man", he said, nodding. His other job was snake- handler.

The doctor told us of a few of the cases he'd treated over the years. One Maasai man came to him with a festering sore on his shoulder which had been left untreated for THREE years. The wound had been infected all the way down to exposed bone. Luckily the man recovered, but he had to report to the clinic every day for a long time to have his shoulder re-dressed with a bandage.

The doctor explained that the Masai often avoid seeking medical help, being self-reliant, or are simply too isolated to find it. Some of the villages we passed were way out in the middle of nowhere, where no transportation by vehicle was available.

What would it be like to have a medical emergency here?

Well, somehow the patient would have to get to the hospital in Arusha, the nearest city, because they simply couldn't handle anything that required surgery, for instance.

"It's very difficult", the snake man told us soberly.

Before we left, the doctor let me handle one of the kinder, gentler snakes. It was a hook-nosed snake, which is non-poisonous. It just bashes its prey against the side of their burrows.

As I held the snake I looked up to see a grinning Maasai child's face pushed up against the grill of the window. He was very curious to see why the muzungus (foreigners) would want to hold a snake, I think.

We would have liked to stay and ask more questions. Sarah, the doctor in our group(who was most certainly notfond of snakes), had come up with some good ones about contraception and the like, but we noticed that there was now a line-up of men and women clad in the Maasai's traditional red blankets, stoically waiting on benches outside in the dusty yard.We hurriedly excused ourselves. We didn't want to make those people wait any longer than they had to.

I will never complain again about having to wait around in a doctor's waiting-room here at home.

Footnote:

After I got back to Canada after this trip, I sent some photographs off to some of the people from Britain I travelled with. They were such a good group of people--likeable, smart, funny people, all of them.I immediately got an email back from Helen who has been busy collecting and sending off medical supplies and various other items to this clinic in the Meserani Snake Park.. She had just received word that her supplies had made it to their destination.

I was so glad to hear from her, and what a good idea!

At the end of the trip our group leader requested that we donate what we could spare from our first aid kits: bandages, aspirin, skin ointments, whatever we could come up with, and then they would deliver it for us.

Meserani Campsite and Bar Evening

September 3, 2005

Before dinner this evening our group gathered around the truck to celebrate Jo's birthday. She turns forty today.

We toasted her with potent cane spirit fruit punch and munch chips and popcorn.

Jo told me and Jeff that one of her reasons for booking this trip in the first place was to be far, far away from England before her mother got any ideas about planning a monstrous birthday bash. A cunning plan....

This camp hosts barbeques for overlander truck groups. This afternoon I noticed a lamb turning on a spit in the cooking area. Around seven o'clock we trooped down to a covered area and find seats at long tables covered with red and black Masaii-inspired table-cloths for a huge buffet meal--all sorts of food really, vegetarian and otherwise. None of it was particularly African, but it was good.

I make friends with some of the camp's resident animals, a little cat and her friend the dog. They sat behind my chair and waited patiently for the little delicacies I handed down to them.

After our meal, most of us end up in the campsite's bar which is reached through a warren of passage-ways thatched with mud and straw and littered with rustic twig furniture.

The overlander bar is full of character and mostly-young people holding drinks. The ceiling and walls are hung with T-shirts, flags and souvenirs from all over the world. I am suddenly filled with a feeling of kinship with travellers on George-like trucks everywhere, rumbling over the roads of the world. I dunno, maybe it was just the Tusker beer talking.

There is a large section of wall by the bar crowded with photos of overlander trucks mired in mud, overturned in ditches, or crossing swollen African rivers. The overlander tourists in these photos are soaked in red dust and mud and are a good deal more scruffy-looking than I feel at this point. I am glad that I am visiting this part of the world in the dry season.

Jen and Jeff and me have a conversation here about how the group dynamics would be on a much longer trip like this. Exodus offers an eleven-week overlander trip from one end of Africa to the other. I wonder how that would be. Part of me really wants to find out; the other half of me who enjoys creature comforts frowns at the idea and hisses 'you fool! when am I going to get that hot bath you promised me?'

Jeff and I go for a walk around the camp-site before bed. We walk by peaked wooden cabins thatched with straw that you can rent here. Little clouds of green and yello love-birds chitter on the pointy rooftops. There are big tropical flowers growing among the dusty trucks and tents. We see red geraniums growing as big as shrubs here.

I wonder if the flocks of guinea fowl roosting on the grounds will keep us up all night with their noise. They make a shrill sound like creaking bed-springs. It sounds like a lot of enthusiastically amorous people.

Well, good-night to the crocodiles and off to bed.

Meserani Snake Park

September 3, 2005

After our driver Simon had gotten us safely out of the Crater, he drove the four of us to a cramped overlander tourist campsite in a nearby town to rejoin our group. At least five trucks like George were parked there. It was swarming with campers very like ourselves.

Fortunately, this was not where we were stopping for the night.

We tipped Simon and then bought piles of snacks and drinks at the campsite's little grocery store before leaving though. I am growing addicted to Tanzanian ginger beer...

From here we made one more stop before stopping for the night: a view point over Lake Manyara which is apparently famous for its local tree-climbing lions.

Is it true? I don't know. And why would these lions climb trees and not others? This curious tourist would like to know.

It was here I first saw baobab trees in the distance, their limbs looking curiously like they have been planted upside-down with their roots spreading into the air.

And then on to our campsite at Meserani Snake Park!

I was excited about camping here because of its enormous collection of reptiles, some of them among the most poisonous snakes in Africa! There were pythons, boomslangs, mambas, cobras, and adders, as well as less fearsome snakes.

These were mainly housed in large glass reptile cages, but there was also an assortment of large lizards like monitors and some tortoises housed in walled outdoor pits. In one pool there were baby crocodiles who managed to look both cute and menacing at the same time.

Most fascinating to me were the dusty wire-fenced bomas housing the adult crocodiles. The animals were about nine or ten feet long and for the most part eerily immobile. Some lay with their mouths open so that you could see right past their prehistoric-looking teeth into their pale fleshy throats.

This was my first close look at crocodiles on this trip. The one we saw in the Grumeti River on safari looked much more like a floating log than the reality of these enormous animals with their armoured hides.

At the other end of the crocodile paddocks there were pools for the reptiles to swim in and these were backed by waist-high white-washed walls.

On the other side of one of the white walls? Well, that's where Jeff and I set up our tent actually. Very late tonight I crawled out of my tent to shine my flashlight into the dark pools. Eyes glowing yellow-white glided below me in the water.

While walking in the reptile zoo before dinner, my family and I met some locals from the nearby town of Arusha. The girl was called Gilda Godfrey and we admired her intricately braided hairstyle, while one of the fellows (Nelson Osward) talked to me about crocodiles and translated the signs in Kiswahili by the crocodile pens.

Usiweke mkono na usitupe mawe. Ndani boma ya mamba. : basically it means, please don't be a stupid idiot and try to pat the crocodiles because you are sure to regret it.

Mamba is the word for "crocodile".

Later, back in Canada, I corresponded a few times with Nelson by email.

Ngorongoro Pics

September 3, 2005

These are the last of the pictures from Ngorongoro (for some reason I couldn't add them to my previous post.)

They show views over the Ngorongoro Crater as we left via the high and winding road, a few pictures of zebras of course, and a view of the inside of our Land Rover vehicle.

There is also one picture of Jeff and our African park guide and driver, Simon.

There is also one picture of a vervet monkey (a tombeli) crossing a dusty parking lot where an animal skull lies. It was here that I heard the crackling of the elephants breaking branches, but, try as I might, I couldn't spot them in the underbrush until I was leaving in the big truck and had a view from higher up.