SAFARI WEEKEND

I went to placement on Friday morning and the teacher told me I would be teaching english for an hour.I wasn't sure I would be able to keep their attention for an hour but it went really well. They are so eager to learn to speak english; teaching them is right up my alley. They laugh at me a lot but but I don't mind. The boys in the class seem to have better fine motor skills than the girls which I found very strange but Moses told me the boys will have more time at home to practice; the girls are expected to help out with the chores when they go home.
when we got home for placement Abass ( our Safari guide) picked us U and we were on our way. Our first stop was going to be at Lake Manyara National Park. We would be camping there for the night and driving into the park early Saturday morning.Once we got there we unpacked all our gear and then were taken to a Masai Village. When we drove in the children came running out of the fields to greet us. They love the muzungu's ( white people). We were allowed to take as many pictures of the children and village as we wanted. The Masai believe in polygamy so this village had 8 wives. They believe the more wives and children you have the richer you are. They don't send their children to school instead they teach them to be self sufficient with their land. The land that they are on is great for raising cattle, the boys are taught to be responsible for the herd first by giving them the goats and donkeys. The girls are taught to take care of the household duties.
The 8 wives greeted us with a dance; they had these disc like necklaces on that made noise when they jumped. One of the wives approached us and one at a time put a necklace on us and we would dance with them. It was really a great time. After Abass brought us into one of their homes. We needed a flashlight to find our way into the house. The houses are made out of grass and cow dung. The opening to the house was very narrow and consisted of a tiny room in the center and two separate bedrooms if you could call them that. The bedroom consisted of a 6x5 foot platform to sleep on. one for the father when he was there and one for the mother and children. It was all so interesting. It was so hot in there I can't even imagine how it was to sleep in there.
Before we left we took tons of pictures of the children. They were so excited to see themselves in the camera.They would just giggle at themselves. We headed back to the campsite and we had dinner and tried to get to sleep because we were getting an early start.
Up most of the night because there were some birds that would not stop talking all night long. Had breakfast at 6 then we headed for the park. It was beautiful. Everything was very green and we were greeted by many many baboons!!! They were so interesting to watch; like watching your own family. The smaller ones would be chasing each other around then one would jump on their mothers back so the others would stop picking on them. Just like home! There were elephants, giraffes, hippos, tons of antelope and impalas, zebras but no lion in this park. It was a great day; it was cloudy so it didn't get too hot. We went back to the campsite around 1 and had lunch than packed up so we could go to our next campsite which was about an hour and a half away. Everyone was exhausted and slept the entire was except me. The scenery was just amazing. We were headed to Ngorongoro Conservation. I noticed that the homes seemed like they were a little nicer; they were made from actual stone and mortar and there were Masai villages all along the way. Ngorongoro Conservation was all Masai land at one time so they are allowed to live inside the conservation. The conservation consists of a huge crater where we will be exploring. We camped on the rim of the crater and it was just as peaceful as can be. The stars were brighter than I have ever seen. There were quite a few other groups camping; it was really fun meeting people from all over all of them Muzungus. We all ate on long concrete blocks made into tables. All of us had our own cooks and we were treated like royalty. After dinner we sat around a bonfire had a couple of bottles of wine and Abass told us stories about this great crater. Everyone was freezing because the temperature was about 40.(Ngorongoro is approx. 6500 ft high) I was so happy to be able to sleep in the cold!! We went to bed by 10 and I slept till about 3 when I was woken up by the sound of someone scaring off some wart hogs that wondered into camp.
Everyone was up by 5 had breakfast and then were on our way so we could get into the crater early to see the lions searching for their prey. The ride in was amazing as well. It is so hard explain how beautiful this land is, It is so lush, the vegetation is unbelievable.We saw so many different trees and flowers. We were greeted again by the black faced monkeys and baboons. Eric, our driver was very knowledgeable about everything.All the safari drivers have radios in their jeeps and they talk to one another to let each other know what they see. So if one sees a group of lions on the prey they radio everyone else so you won't miss out.We did see 6 lions trying to kill the buffalo. It was amazing to see how they do it; we weren't successful in see the actual kill but just watching some of the process was great. We were lucky to see a male lion with 4 female lions right by the side of the road. They were just hanging out. It was a great day of watching all the different animals interact. The sun never came out on Sunday; they say the weather is changing. It rained all the way home so it took us even longer about 5 hours. After a long weekend of dust and dirt we were all looking forward to a shower!
I have to go now; Kiswahili lessons in 5 minutes!!! I'll try to get back on at the end of the week. Hi to everyone!!!!