Ostriches on Safari Pt.1, Or The Beginning of Our Insanity

It would be hard for nearly anyone to give a depiction of an entire months-worth of activities, much less a man who has been on a month long Tanzanian safari. The task becomes even more strenuous and conclusively pointless when done over a single blog post; as far as I'm concerned, the best way to hear about what I have accomplished (and for that matter failed to do) is over coffee. This, however is not a possibility at the moment, and I have a hunch that at least my family would like to hear from me. Therefore, instead of trying to boil someones eyeballs with a novel-length post about each and every event encountered in the last month, I will split them into each campsite we visited, each about three days long, so that you as the reader can stop and start at your leisure.

So. Stop one. Arusha. We arrive at Dorobo Bros. homebase, a camp on the cusp of the village of Olasiti, a place we would be told to get acquainted with, due to our month long stay homestay to come. Our tents are aligned much like army bunkers, an ironic fact that is only propelled when our safari-mobile, a 1960s Army Transport Vehicle rolls up to the campsite(but more on this to come).

The behemoth truck is driven by Habibu, a sarcastic maniac who made us fear for our lives at least once a week. Habibu is one of the best drivers in the world, I'm sure of it. Along with us is Douglass, who accompanied us in Pembe Abwe, and Thad Peterson. Thad is an ox of an old man, with feathered "grandma hair" and bulging calf muscles. His sense of humor becomes both our relief at the end of an exhausting day, and eventually the bane of our existence. Both Thad and Douglass, although not trained scientists, seem to have a bottomless well of knowledge on all matters Tanzania. "Living here, you can't not immerse yourself completely in it," Thad tells us.

As we roll out of Olasiti in the massive transport, the noisy city slowly subsides. The horns and exhaust trickle away until all that is left is a makeshift shack or two. Then, abruptly, we hit a dirt road. The ways of Western civilization are behind us and will continue to be. After an hour, we abandon even the road and begin to twist through thorny acacia trees. Our first siting of a Grants gazelle is exciting, but in hindsight a laughable thing; if we only knew how tired we would get of gazelle.

We arrive at our first campsite, outside of the Maasai village of Emborette in a place called Oldonu Sambu. Our scenery consists of a dry river bed (rivers are only found flowing for three months of the year), a giant rock-hill (one that we would prepare to climb), and ashy, burnt fields. We soon find that the fields are burnt by the Maasai to prepare for the rainy season and the bounty of new grass it brings. Burning of land is somewhat frowned upon by much of the country, but getting the Maasai to do what the government thinks is acceptable is comparable to getting a llama to do your dishes.

Climbing the rock the next day brought sweaty brows (due in part to the intense heat that makes the Tanzanian Savannah famous) and a new glimpse of what we were inside of. Vast and dry, the trees are scarce and spread out enough to collect as much precipitation as possible. Wild life has adapted to such extremes by becoming virtually independent of water. It was humbling, the vast arid landscape, and yet reminded me strangely of eastern Oregon.

We were hosted by a number of Maasai from the village. Our first assignment was to interview(in swahili, of course; English had to become our second language around each of our many hosts on the trip) one of our hosts. We all became quite embarrassed when told that asking how many cows or new pastoral friends owned was much like asking an American if they were richer or poorer than us. Our Maasai hosts were quite welcoming, but for the most part kept to themselves. Our consensus on a favorite was Sitote, an elder who claimed to have fought several lions, and bragged about his many wives. We still think he's full of it.

Our first campsite also brought our first field ID, and now that safari is over, I can say this with confidence: I hate birds. I really do. I always have. Birds do nothing for me, they do not excite me in the least. I have a phobia of pigeons. The birds we had to identify and write about were, to some, quite beautiful. The most colorful bird in the world lives here: the lilac breasted roller. Or maybe its the most colorful in the country, I don't know. I don't care. I hate birds. We encountered so many ostriches ( a bird I once found quite interesting, actually) that it soon became a running joke that ostriches were the worst animal ever.

I'm glad I got that out of my system. After three days we packed up, said our "kwaherini" (or goodbyes) and packed up our excursion-mobile. On to Terigere Park.

More to come,

Tim