Departure
Today we left for Lake Nakuru. There was no cook crew but I woke up at 4am to be only one of two students who were up so early to help the cooks with everyone’s breakfast. That was the trend for the rest of camp setup when we got to Nakuru, too. Everyone just sat around and watched as the staff, myself and two other students worked our butts off unloading the white rhino (a huge truck filled with camping tents, stoves, food, a weeks worth of water for forty people, and all of our bags). Thank God for Maria though (one of my fellow classmates); she came up to me with a beautiful feather and presented it to me as a metal for being the most useful student on the trip. She amazes me with her compassion and kindness.
The drive to Nakuru was really relaxing since I got a chance to be lazy too. I got to listen to my book on tape, read my hard copy book, and watch the transition of landscape from a very dry semi arid climate to the lush vegetation of the Rift Valley. We also passed through Nairobi, which is a huge urban mecca; after all it is the capital of Kenya.
The best part of the whole road trip, however, was Tusky’s. Tusky’s is a grocery store chain in Kenya much like a combination of Safeway and WalMart. It’s not as big as either but sells food and household items including things as random as laundry washing machines. Odd. Anyway, walking into that store after over a month without seeing any type of commercialization greater than a dusty and cramped Kimana market was a huge shock. I didn’t feel like it was real and it actually made me feel uncomfortable for the first ten minutes or so. After I got over the shocked phase, however, I went crazy. Everyone went crazy! We were buying cookies, Snickers bars, chocolate, ice cream, crackers and, drumroll please…. CHEESE! You can never truly appreciate any of these items until you haven’t even laid eyes on them for over a month. Feasting on junk food was glorious and everyone went into a food coma for the next leg of our trip.
We arrived at our camp in Lake Nakuru in the evening. I stepped out of the car onto lush grass and couldn’t help but squeal. My flip-flops went flying and I went prancing barefoot through the soft grass. I never thought I would be able to do anything like that in Kenya. Back at KBC, walking barefoot results in soles full of thorns.
We then proceeded to set up awesome safari canvas tents and started a fire. I was exhausted and it felt so good to be back around a campfire embraced by the warmth of the flames with the calming aroma of burning wood filling my nostrils. The next morning marked our first exploration game drive of one of the most famous national parks in Africa.
The Kenyan men that were with us (Daniel, Jackson, and Sapaya, Arthur, and the askaris) and some of the students would make fun of throwing rocks and use slingshots against them. Two moments of deceit that highlight humans as far more innovative, evolutionarily advanced, and brutish were 1) Daniel coaxed a large male baboon with a banana peel near the entrance of a tent. As the baboon tentatively reached for the banana peel the askari, who was hiding inside of the tent, reached out with a club and hit it on the hand. The male screamed like an infant and went hurtling away leaving hysterically laughing Kenyan men and a large group of student on lookers in its wake. 2) Nearly the same thing took place but on the day we left, Daniel and the askari wheeled out all of our trash to the heap, coaxed another large male and once he was near, Daniel struck him so hard that his Maasai club broke. Again, nearly every student was watching. I don't know what kind of lesson that's supposed to teach us about being good custodians for wildlife, but I don't think it is one.
Daniel is our Swahili professor. He is an amazing teacher and appeared to be an amazing human being. He's very nice, funny, fun, has a great singing voice which he uses regularly and he's very attractive... aka every girl here has been imagining him naked, especially since there's little else to behold within the confines of our compound. I was very slow to get on the Daniel bandwagon originally and I have quickly jumped off it again. There's something about him that is very dark and cold and I seem to be the only person that notices it. He is great for all of the reasons and more I stated above, but his actions towards baboons aren't okay, he gets ridiculously competitive during soccer games, when something pisses him he starts muttering to himself and I feel like he would explode if he weren't in a working environment, and I think he's noticed me noticing. He went from treating me like everybody else to be very cold and dryly answering Swahili and Maasai questions I have. The only intended interaction he has seems to be when he can put me in a position where I have to serve him. For example, during camping he came to the water spout while I was there and grunted- did not speak- GRUNTED at me to turn on and off the spigot when he wanted water. He'll grunt at me to move, to come here, to bring him a banana. During a meeting once around a campfire he was doing this weird spitting thing right next to me and I kindly asked him what he was doing. He glared at me, snorted, and then pushed me. Passing him in the kitchen sometimes results in the same thing- a glare and pushing, and that's the only acknowledgement I get while everyone else gets smiles and "Jambo! Habari?" It's a really weird thing, and maybe it's because he's Maasai with cultural differences, but he doesn't do it to anyone else. In fact, he's very cordial and light with everyone else. I feel bad writing this but something's up. He just took off for his time off for the next five days and we'll almost be gone from here by then. I can't say I'm going to miss him.
You'd think that the interns would know how to put up their own tent...
They needed a lot of assistance from the students, but that's okay.
Stacy (left) and Jenna (right) are two people that really make this trip
as awesome as it is. The student body is trying really hard right now
to convince administration to let them switch to Tanzania with us.
Fingers crossed.
The campsite. Our tents were erected right in the middle of the baboon highway. Every morning and evening the baboons would come from the trees lining Lake Nakuru and through this area to get to the campsite trash pit. The baboons here are very large and very scary and don't run away from anybody unless they have a hard object in their hand.
The Kenyan men that were with us (Daniel, Jackson, and Sapaya, Arthur, and the askaris) and some of the students would make fun of throwing rocks and use slingshots against them. Two moments of deceit that highlight humans as far more innovative, evolutionarily advanced, and brutish were 1) Daniel coaxed a large male baboon with a banana peel near the entrance of a tent. As the baboon tentatively reached for the banana peel the askari, who was hiding inside of the tent, reached out with a club and hit it on the hand. The male screamed like an infant and went hurtling away leaving hysterically laughing Kenyan men and a large group of student on lookers in its wake. 2) Nearly the same thing took place but on the day we left, Daniel and the askari wheeled out all of our trash to the heap, coaxed another large male and once he was near, Daniel struck him so hard that his Maasai club broke. Again, nearly every student was watching. I don't know what kind of lesson that's supposed to teach us about being good custodians for wildlife, but I don't think it is one.
Daniel is our Swahili professor. He is an amazing teacher and appeared to be an amazing human being. He's very nice, funny, fun, has a great singing voice which he uses regularly and he's very attractive... aka every girl here has been imagining him naked, especially since there's little else to behold within the confines of our compound. I was very slow to get on the Daniel bandwagon originally and I have quickly jumped off it again. There's something about him that is very dark and cold and I seem to be the only person that notices it. He is great for all of the reasons and more I stated above, but his actions towards baboons aren't okay, he gets ridiculously competitive during soccer games, when something pisses him he starts muttering to himself and I feel like he would explode if he weren't in a working environment, and I think he's noticed me noticing. He went from treating me like everybody else to be very cold and dryly answering Swahili and Maasai questions I have. The only intended interaction he has seems to be when he can put me in a position where I have to serve him. For example, during camping he came to the water spout while I was there and grunted- did not speak- GRUNTED at me to turn on and off the spigot when he wanted water. He'll grunt at me to move, to come here, to bring him a banana. During a meeting once around a campfire he was doing this weird spitting thing right next to me and I kindly asked him what he was doing. He glared at me, snorted, and then pushed me. Passing him in the kitchen sometimes results in the same thing- a glare and pushing, and that's the only acknowledgement I get while everyone else gets smiles and "Jambo! Habari?" It's a really weird thing, and maybe it's because he's Maasai with cultural differences, but he doesn't do it to anyone else. In fact, he's very cordial and light with everyone else. I feel bad writing this but something's up. He just took off for his time off for the next five days and we'll almost be gone from here by then. I can't say I'm going to miss him.
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