Takwenyo/Sopa! Backlog from Masai Mara.

Last weekend my mom and I got back from a short trip to Masai Mara, the southern part of the Serengeti here in Kenya. Masai refers to the Masai tribe (more on that later) and Mara refers to the Masai tribe (more on that later!). Takwenyo and Sopa are Masai greetings for females and males, respectively. If someone greets you in this manner, you say Iko or Ipa. Other words in my paltry Masai vocabulary: Asheoling means thank you; Ijo a means how are you; and Olesere means goodbye.

Masai Mara comprises 1/50 of the Serengeti, and features one of the highest concentrations of natural wildlife on the planet. Now is the season for the famed migration of the wildebeest, so we saw a lot of wildebeests crossing the Mara river. The animals start migrating from Tanzania to Kenya in June, so by August, the highest concentrations can be found. There are between 1.6 and 2 million of them! We saw lots of lions, elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, gazelles, antelopes (diktiks, topis, and elands), and a few buffalo, warthogs and hyenas. Cheetahs, hippos and finally, a rhino. Evidence of a leopard in the form of a baby wildebeest carcass strung on a tree branch.

I learned a lot from Samuel, our guide who seems to love offroading in his Jeep and watching animals do their thing. He excitedly taught us about the difference between giraffe "horns" and real horns (like male antelopes have)--horns are bony, and "horns" are keratinous. He also taught us some anthropology: lions engage in community breastfeeding; male wildebeests have harems (they are forever running around defending their females and babies from being stolen, or pursuing other males' "property"); hyenas are predators of lion cubs; cheetahs can jump 10 feet high and 30 feet long; and elephants live up to 60 or 70 years old and are dangerous predators of Masai people (as are buffalos). Samuel is also a fan of The Lion King and the circle of life/the food chain. As thousands of wildebeests risked their lives crossing the river full of crocodiles, he told us, "So many wildebeests! No wonder the crocs and lions eat them up! If not, there would be no grass left, even the roots would be eaten." The man makes a point.

The whole thing was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it, it was right out of the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. The only thing I didn't like at all was how close up we got to the animals. Tour guide jeeps were so eager to get up close to the wildebeests crossing the river that they'd park on the banks, with tourists getting out of the car or sitting on top of it. It throws the animals off; when this happens, the wildebeests wait or turn back, unable to cross in the presence of people on foot (they are ok with people inside the cars, apparently). We also drove right up to the lions, so close we didn't need to zoom in to get an incredible photo. Yeah, it was amazing to be that close, but it was also very disconcerting, especially when you see eight Jeeps surrounding cubs and their mother, eating the morning kill. Kind of like watching a movie scene being filmed, rather than nature unfolding itself.

It made me reflect: 1) how different are we from animals, and 2) what right do we have to be so intrusively curious about them? and 3) what gives us the ability to pursue that curiosity? I bet wildebeests don't have maps they've drawn up of our migrations, or hold tours showing their fellow beests how we mate in social groups. Something from our trip to Masai Mara tells me, in a way that is distinct from my other ways of knowing (faith, logic, scripture) that I am not just any other animal "evolved" from natural history. The height of my emotions; my ability to reason, to calculate; my capacity for guilt, remorse, shame; and even just the mere fact that I was sitting in that Jeep watching a pride of lions eat a zebra carcass, taking pictures and learning about their way of life as we humans have discerned it, reinforce my intuition that I have a deeper purpose in my existence, and that is to uphold good and stand up against bad, to be grateful to whatever awesome Power made me what I am right now, and to correct myself when I misstep, because I will be called to account for it. This is really inarticulate (and with extremely poor grammar) but it was just a fleeting moment of profound clarity.

Anyway, we also went on a nature walk. Our guide was Daniel (that’s his Christian name, I forgot his Masai name). Daniel taught us about the history of the Masai tribe’s relationship with the Kenyan government since the 1940s. It was at that time that the government independently decided to make Masai Mara a national conservatory (a part of the Serengeti where the Masai live—Mara means spotted in Masai, referring to the spots of bush dotting the flatlands). They drove the Masai out with excess force, as Daniel put it. The Masai retaliated indirectly by burning grassland (endangering herbivores) and killing wild animals, particularly endangered species. Finally, the government called a meeting with the Masai chief to reach some sort of accord. After almost two years of talks, an agreement was reached whereby the government would lease the Masai Mara land from the tribe, and give 19% of park entrance fee profits to the Masai people. With their profit, the 300,000 Masai here in the south Serengeti do things to benefit their villages, like build water dams to ensure their cows have enough water in case of drought. Interesting.

Some other things about Masai Mara I found intriguing/worrisome: the Jeeps drive over croton bushes and through herds of wildebeests, which I thought was really disruptive and disrespectful of the natural habitat. Rangers carry out controlled burning of grassland for the gazelles--they like flatland because they're able to see prey more easily, but burning grassland is bad for trees and birds that nest on the ground. (Do they do this for the tourists, because tourists will find gazelles more pleasing to the eye than birds/trees? You gotta wonder.) There are also excavations in certain places, and the introduction of (I think man-made) gravel so the dirt roads are less slippery for tourist vehicles. And tour guides regularly off-road, and allow tourists to step outside their cars. Sure, off-roading sometimes allows you to see that amazing animal you would not have otherwise reached, but the fact remains, you're an intrusion.

I'll post pictures when I can!