Nurture and Nature

Our first 2 days in Kenya are spent sightseeing in Nairobi and then driving to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, an extension of the Serengeti National park in Tanzania where we have our first game drive of the trip.  

The Nairobi National park is actually surrounded by the developed city.  Our hotel overlooks the park and you can see game safaris driving and animals if you are lucky.  The hotel has a poster that offers prizes for spotting animals but we aren’t so lucky with my binoculars which we use every time we are eating in the 3rd floor restaurant.  

Driving around the City we see baboon families beside the road and ostriches beside the highway.  Andrew says that they had to eventually fence the entirety of the park as the lions were walking into the main road and causing massive traffic jams! 

I guess it’s no difference than coyotes and bears living in Stanley park and the north shore but it seems far more exotic. 

We spend the early morning at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust that operates within the boundaries of the park, an organization that rescues injured and orphaned animals from the wild and rehabilitates them for a return to their natural habitats. This nonprofit was founded in 1977 and is now run by the daughter of the original founders who have passed away.  The trust is caring for two baby Rhinos and 2 large herds of baby elephants and it’s absolutely adorable when the babies come for their 1st of 4 feedings for the day.  They consume up to 24 litres of the special formula that the original founders took 2 decades to develop as earlier efforts using cows milk and other animals milk were not successful in getting the elephants to thrive.  

The goal is to rehabilitate the elephants and return them to the wild when they reach the age of 4 or 5 so they are not fenced in and are actually taken into the adjacent park to spend the day in their natural habitat with other animals, ensuring that they don’t become too dependant on their human caregivers and increasing the chances for successful reintegration into a wild herd.  Some of the elephants have learned how to take the bottle from the handlers and feed themselves.  We witness “dusting” behaviour where they use their trunks to grab handfuls of the bright red earth and fling it over their backs in an efforts to avoid flies and other parasites.

Next is the Giraffe Center which has on its grounds the horrendously expensive Giraffe Manor, where if one is so inclined to throw their money away, costs $2,500 per night to sleep in a room where the same Giraffes we feed will poke their heads into your room in the morning.  It is highly touristy and large groups of school kids surround us as we experience feeding the giraffes.  In Kenya there are no zoos so these animals are free to roam in and out of the Center at will but they obviously have been habituated to the regular feedings from the tourists.

Kenyans are very proud of their country and their heritage and the flag is found everywhere you look.  The flag has four colours: Black for colour of skin, green for vegetation, white for peace after independence and red for the blood shed to gain it. 

Leaving the outskirts of Nairobi, we drive on the escarpment of The Great Rift Valley which extends from  Mozambique to Lebanon and was created by the boundary of two divergent tectonic plates which are slowly splitting the main African plate into two.  Ultimately it will split Africa and the Middle East apart over the coming millennia.  

This valley extends northward for 5,950 km through the eastern part of Africa, through the Red Sea and into Western Asia.   It seems logical this valley feature was the route the Israelites took to escape persecution by the Egyptians led by Moses who parted the Red Sea and followed the valley through the Sinai into the promised land.  

We spot zebras on the side of the road and Nancy gives us a lesson confirmed by Andrew of the purpose of the Zebras stripes, when they are running the stripes form a sort of moving pattern which confuses the predators.  Andrew also says that each zebra’s stripes are unique like our fingerprints 

The small Maasai settlements that we pass through are nothing like what we saw in Rwanda and Uganda. There are no cell phone shops, beauty parlours or really any other “shops” to speak of.  The villages are organized around markets and trading and animals which are the Maasai’s primary livelihood.  The grazing is very poor you always see cattle on the move as there would be little hay or other crops to allow the type of large scale ranching we have developed in North America.  Watering holes appear to be dug by hand but it’s unclear where the water comes from in these desert like conditions of the savanna. 

Occasionally you see corrals to hold animals made from bushes and sticks woven together in a rough circle.  Herds of sheep, goats and cattle roam the sides of the road occasionally forcing us to come to a stop when the road ahead is taken over by cattle crossing it. For the Maasai cattle are a form of wealth and a typical Maasai owns 14 cattle.  Generally any other form of employment or pursuit that does not involve herding cattle is looked down upon and is considered an insult to God. The Maasai Zebu cattle all have a distinctive hump behind the shoulder and I’m guessing that this has something to with retaining water in this dry climate in a way similar to a dromedary’s hump. 

We see evidence of the work of western organizations such as the Lions Club and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation who have invested in schools for the young Maasai who live in this region with the names prominently displayed on the sides of numerous facilities. 

As we get closer to our destination the dominant landscape becomes one of low scrub, dry grasses bent in the wind and the taller Acacia trees that are always featured in pictures I have seen of the Serengeti grasslands.  Of course these areas are used for cattle reaching so there are also simple stretched barbed wire fences supported by acacia branches that seemingly run to the horizon in all directions. 

We stop at the entrance gate to the Maasai Mara National Reserve and Andrew warns us not to open the windows and we soon find out why.  Hands draped with various types of beaded necklaces, hoops, earnings and various small crudely carved  wooden trinkets are quickly thrust through the windows with refrains of mama, mama, hakuna Matata and hello, jambo echo through the van.  We are not alone as every safari vehicle is similarly surrounded.  But we can’t stay inside as it’s sweltering so we have to head out.  Right next to where we are parked is a low adobe type structure, with a sign Bead Museum, a Cafe, Gift shop and toilets that are better than anything we have encountered on the road so far.  We get a tour with a local Maasi woman and then meet the owner of the establishment, an Israeli woman named Eti Dayan who has lived amongst the Maasai for 20 years and has opened the centre to empower women and host artists in residence.  

We enter the park and on the way to our lodge we spot baboons, zebra, topi (like an antelope) and giraffes on the side of the dirt road. I’m hungry and reach for the chocolate bar and have my lesson on why you have to eat chocolate quickly in Africa, it’s now a drinkable milk shake. 

After checking in at the Mara Sopa Lodge we head out for our first game drive and spot wildebeest, giraffe, antelope, water buffalo, elephants. Zebras and many types of other animals whose names escape me.  A magical place.  We end the night with traditional Maasai dancers from the neighbouring village.  The Maasai do not have instruments so their voices do all the work with one gentleman in particular making an incredible sound that reminds me of Inuit throat singing.  They end the dance with a jumping contest and it’s amazing how high they can get. 

Hot air ballooning tommorrow over the wildebeest migration!