The adventuring continues...
After Maji Moto we set off to the Kenyan Highlands. The state of the roads were such that it took us 7 hours to go 160km. All I can say is that, in hot weather, on leather seats, on those kinds of road conditions, for that long, chaffing happens. Chaffing in the worst possible way in the worst possible places. Mike - thanks for the Ozonol tip.
We stopped briefly to run errands in a small Maasai town at the base of the hills. It was market day so the town was packed. Everyone was dressed in traditional Maasai clothing, so it was quite a sight!
Daniel drove me around the outside of the market while Titus and Nicholas ran errands. He also needed to pick up some items and told me that there was "menses in the hops". (External response: "hmmm", nods sagely. Internal response: "Awha!? What !?"). Turns out he was picking up an anti malarial herb, and that there was medicine in the herbs.
I created quite a stir in the market, getting lots of surprised looks, smiles and waves. Daniel and Nicholas said that most of the people had never seen a white person before. They joked that they were going to set up a stall in the market and charge people 100 shillings to shake my hand because they would all want to see what a mzungu felt like. We parked for a bit and I stayed in the back seat, having a looky-loo of my own. The place was recognizable as a market, but unlike anything I've ever seen in Canada. Some Maasai ladies came up to my window pointing & saying mzungu. They looked pretty pleased when I said hello in their language and shook their hands.
The road up the hills was outrageously bad. It was essentially red rocky riverbeds that had been torn up some. I spent most of the trip looking at the hill side of the road as I was terrified to see how close we were to the edge of the cliffs and the degree of our tilt. Sometimes it seemed that we came pretty close to going over and Daniel confirmed that one or the other of the front tires often tilted up off the road.
When we got to the place where we would camp there was some confusion as the camp manager wasn't around. We gained some Maasai as passengers and drove around for another hour while there were long arguments in Swahili involving mzungu and mzungu mama. Those spears are dangerous in an enclosed vehicle!
When we finally reached the actual campsite, I was sat on a stool and watched while everyone assembled the camp. No canvas tents and cots for me. It was fly tents and sleeping on a little foamy. The loo was a concrete block sort of hidden in some bushes. No door, no walls. Just bushes, politeness and an ostentatiously carried roll of TP. The "shower" turned out to be a bucket of hot water and another bush. I decided I would just be stinky along with everyone else.
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| Just looking at that foamy makes my hips cry |
While camp was being set up, we attracted a collection of young Maasai men who wanted a look at the mzungu mama. The looks on their faces were such that I decided to announce, as soon as possible, that I was married. That had the desired effect (ie. complete loss of interest).
Aside: man, coke in a bottle is good, esp when writing blog posts.
Finally, the camp manager, Robert, showed up. Half his face wasn't working & I found out later that he had been clawed by a leopard (pronounced Lee-o-pard). The people from Nicholas' village believed that leopards could rip the top of a man's skull off, just so it could eat his brains.
We went for a walk through the hills in that afternoon and I got quizzed thoroughly on my age, marital status, and whether I had children. I've come to the conclusion that the Maasai generally love to talk about marriage and cows and not much else (see future posts for futher confirmation of this point).
Towards evening, I started to feel really nauseated and shaky. Shaky on the outside, shaky on the inside, shaky hands, shaky eyeballs. It also started raining heavily, so we wound up having supper in the truck. It was a lot of fun! Nicholas and Daniel helped me with my Swahili and many jokes & stories were told.
Titus made the guys ugali, which is like unflavored white corn polenta served with stew. It tasted how you would expect, definitely not deserving of the scorn it usually gets from westerners. The stew was chicken curry. There was a neck. I pretended I didn't see it and fished out something that was definitely a leg.
It rained all night, but it was only humid and cold in my tent and never got wet, thankfully. I heard hyenas for the first time, plus donkeys, plus incessantly barking dogs, plus cow bells. Every time I heard hyenas I tried to triangulate the sound to see if they had gotten any closer. Not a restful night!
The shakes continued to the next day. Just climbing out of my tent, I started sweating way out proportion to the temperature. Life events were such that I had to develop an appreciation for the concrete block. I guess all a person really needs is a flat surface for ones feet and a handhold. Thankfully it wasn't raining anymore. Nicholas and I, and two guides, headed out to the hills.
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| No path, vines, trees, spiders, slugs for a couple hours (uphill!) |
It was amazing and beautiful and I totally crapped out. We were supposed to climb to the top of osopuku peak, but I couldn't do it. We walked through the hills, forests and plains for about 5 hours and came back to camp.
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| A meadow where we had a picnic |
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| The plains on top of the highlands |
That evening we were invited to the home of one of Robert's wives. There, Nicholas and I were quizzed some more about our respective marriage traditions. One of our guides said 'I give you child … girl child', not sure about the method he was proposing, either way, I politely declined.
Robert's wife served tea, which in Kenyan style, is milk, water, sugar and tea all boiled together. It was very delicious, right up until the point when I realized that I had seen a goat being milked outside just before we came in and that there was no pasteurization equipment in the hut. I finished it anyway.
After tea, we went out to the cow pen and the men bled a cow (ie. create a tourniquet on the neck and shoot with arrow, collect blood in gourd, consume with milk). Can't say that this really bothered me, the cow seemed more upset that someone was holding its tail.
Back at camp after supper, my guys, plus our two guides, plus our two guards had a long conversation about bringing the Maasai into the modern world, local politics and Kenyan politics in general. Pretty interesting to listen to and I kept my mouth shut when they asked my opinion. Kenyans are guaranteed easy, cheap access to clean drinking water in their national constitution. Nicholas said that he didn't know anyone who actually had this.
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| Sunset on the highlands |
More hyenas that night. This time Daniel told me that I shouldn't leave my shoes outside the tent as hyenas like to eat them. It was bitterly cold, and I froze even after I put every piece of my clothing on!
I would have enjoyed this much more if I hadn't been some kind of sick. The roughing it part was not terrible (although a softer, warmer bed would have a huge improvement) and it meant that I had the opportunity to meet a tribe of people who have little contact with urban life and western culture and yet are extremely open and friendly.
Next installment…Maasai Mara and the Big 5 and a marriage proposal!
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| Dixon, Julius and Noah (of 'I give you child' fame) |
