Safari: Maasai Mara, part I

My experience on safari in the Maasai Mara was more than just seeing exotic animals in the wild- like so many things in life the journey getting there was a huge part of the overall experience.  Traveling off the beaten path, seeing rural Kenyan life, and witnessing amazing sky and scenery while driving down a very bumpy road for 70 km was an experience it itself.  This post is dedicated to the process of getting to the Maasai Mara (with a subsequent post about actually being there!) 

The drive out to the Mara was crazy- we left Mai Mahiu just after 6:30 am and arrived at Basecamp (our a m a z i n g lodging, more on that later) around  2 pm (ish).  Long drive. Very. long. drive.  We were in two different vans, one of which broke down when we stopped for a break at about 10:30 am, and because the last 75 km were bumpy dirt roads the trip felt a hell of a lot longer than it was. 
Here's the route we took:


View Larger Map

For the most part, we were all pretty knackered when we left for safari.  For context we left on Wednesday, August 10th, our 11th day in country, and a day after wrapping up art camp.  The night before we left we had a pretty emotional team wrap up meeting- while it was amazing working with the kids and led a successful class, we all realized we were probably not going to see most of the students again.  Super emotional, super draining, and a bit sad to be honest.  While leaving for this adventure was exciting, it was definitely tempered by that feeling of loss you get when you complete something amazing and are still trying to process what it means to your life.  Plus we were up late the night before and had to get up at the ass crack of dawn to depart by 6:30 am =)

As long as the drive was, once we turned off the highway and on to dirt roads (around Narok I think), the views became pretty spectacular and made the lenght of time spent sitting a bit more manageable.  And when I say "pretty spectacular" I mean even more spectacular than they already were, which was pretty damn stunning.  We were driving through rural, Maasai lands- Maasai huts dotted the landscape, children in bright colored wraps were herding livestock, and goats grazed freely in pastures just next to zebra and antelope.  Pretty cool really. 

In Maasai tribes it is up to women build houses, called Inkajijik  

 

One thing I remember very distinctly was the extremely blue sky that seemed to just go on forever, as well as a very dry landscape peppered with Acacia trees in really random spots.  It's impossible to describe, thankfully I captured a few shots :)  

All in all, the experience driving from Mai Mahiu to Masa Mara was petty amazing, and a once in a lifetime thing.  Having said that, having done the drive once, if given the opportunity to go again I would probably fly ;)

Mai Mahiu: goats and donkeys and chickens, oh my!

Goats, donkeys and chicken running around were just a normal part of village life.  Again, trying not to be bias, but I have to say the goats were my favorite :)

Goats:
As far as i can tell, the primary reason for goats in MM is as a food source: roast goat is called "nyama choma" and yes, I tried it while I was there.  I can honestly say it was one of the most flavorful pieces of meat I have ever tasted, but it was chewy and one bite was enough for me. 
Crazy things to do in life: eat goat?  check. 

The goats were so used to people, while they wouldn't really let you pet them, they let you get pretty up close before they moved, and even then, it wasn't too far away.

foraging for food in the garbage

just hanging out on a random tuesday afternoon

goats providing pure entertainment value, just hanging out in a spot of bare land between houses, just off the highway

* you can hear a group of kids in the background asking "wazungu, how are you?"

Donkeys:
Totally used as pack animals all over the village.  we ran into them mostly pulling carts with blue water containers or small, almost flat bed type wagons.  If they weren't working they were just hanging out, eating, sleeping or doing whatever it is that donkeys do.

It was so crazy to see both goats and donkeys just roaming around the streets, rummaging through garbage looking for food.

Taken in front of Transit Hotel first thing in the morning

Chickens
We found them everywhere- in cages, roaming around houses and buildings, and foraging alongside the goats for grubs, as well as a group that looked like they were egg laying hens.  Everyone knows what chicken look like, not going to bore you with photos on that count :) 

My craziest chicken story while in Mai Mahiu: we were at transit for lunch, about ready to head back to Ngeya for the afternoon session and we watched one of the women working carry back two live chicken into the kitchen.  Dinner tasted very fresh that night =)

kenya: the kids were so much fun

The kids we worked with, met, played soccer with were so amazing!

I felt like the Pied Piper (only a good version!) in Mai Mahiu.Our daily routine generally had us walking back and forth from Transit (our hotel) to Ngeya Primary School a couple times a day, plus we had a lot of down time during Art Camp to rotate out of the classroom and spend time with local kids that just sorta hung out around the school.  Everywhere we went we had swarms of kids running up to meet us.  They wanted to touch our faces and hair, walk along the road with us, but they wanted mostly to hold our hands!  I remember a little girl, no more than three, holding Kris' hand as we walked home one afternoon and having an absolute temper tantrum when she had to let go and go back home because we were about to cross the highway.  Her brother (who could not have been more than five or six years old) was trying to carry her back as she just wailed.  The really, really weird thing for me personally was that there were no parents in site- just about 12 or 15 kids between three and 10 years old.  (On a happy note, she came out to meet us the next couple days and we were able to part without incident :)

A few random things to share (and help provide context for the kids in these pictures):

* Kenya does not have public schools in the way we do- all kids have to pay a monthly fee to attend. While $10 or $12 a month may not sound like a lot- for an orphan, or a struggling single parent, or even working parents but with multiple kids, it is a small fortune that makes attending school unattainable. Many of the kids we saw that "loitered" around the playground were unattended, and wore the same clothes every day for days, and most didn't have shoes.

* We were there during Winter so school was not in session, so most of these kids very well may have had some sort of supervision during the school year, but then again I met a lot of the kids who said they didn't attend school at all.

* There were so many little kids that just sorta hung out, played soccer, and watched us teach. I was so inspired in that so many of the spoke at least two, if not three languages (kiSwahili, Kikuyu and English), or at least made an effort to communicate with us in English. So very sweet.

Over the 7 or 8 days we worked out of Ngeya, I had the opportunity to not only get to know the teens in our art class, but to connect with some of the kids hanging out at the school on their own.  I tried not to have favorites, but seriously, that's just impossible... here are a handful of pics of and with the kids around the Ngeya as we were teaching Art Camp.

These little girls in pink were two of my favorite girls at the school :) i know i shouldn't have favorites, but seriously, they were so much fun, and had such amazing personalities that I totally fell in love with them and laughed soooo much watching them play and be goofy.

so much fun!



Jazz hands. NO idea why to be honest..

This young woman was around 10, and cared for her little brother during the day.

he was so shy, and didn't really speak English but was so curious and wanted to watch class, hold my hand and just watch everything that was going on.

I think I had asked the kids a question and they were all very politely trying to get me to pick them to answer :)



Big smiles :)

Dogpile on Russel!

Getting Creative with a motorcycle tire.

 

Watching class......

Finally ready to share stories and photos from Kenya

I’ve been back from Kenya almost six weeks already!  How on earth that did happen and where has the time gone!?!?  I’ve had a ton of people ask about updates, stories, photos and details- so in an effort to reduce my type-a, anal retentive, information control freak side of me, I’m going to just let go and start posting the thoughts and notes I’ve been working on and not worry if they are cohesive, coherent or well written J. 

To kick this off, here are a couple videos taken the van window, day 1, driving through Niarobi on our way to village market........

Nairobi was shockingly green and lush.  Not at all what I was expecting..

OK, enough for now.. more to come :)