Twende Serengeti!

It's been a fairly slow week here at Moyo Hill Camp.We had a poster presentation on Wednesday about the population density of the animal of our choosing. This concluded the end of our graded assignments (besides our final). It's nice to be done with the school work (even though it wasn't that hard) and be able to focus on the last week and a half of my stay

On Thursday we went to a near-by village (though it took us almost two hours to get there because of poor road conditions) to interview the people about how they use their land and animals. The people came from the Iraqw tribe and, therefore, they didn't know much Swahili. Our guide had to translate Iraqw to Swahili to English! After an hour or so, the interviews got kind of cumbersome because we asked the same questions and pretty much everyone had the same answer. It was still an interesting experience though, the land was beautiful and the people were kind. The kids were really intrigued by us. They kept coming up to the other two girls in my group and touching their hair. My hair is too short so I had nothing to offer them, but they were extremely fascinated by the long, blonde hair.

Yesterday we had a cultural day and visited two tribes. The first visit was to the Hadzabe, a group of hunter-gatherers. The Hadzabe are very unique in the sense that there are less than 5,000 of them in the world, they are allowed to hunt bushmeat with bow and arrows, they consider you a friend if you bring marijuana (!), and their language is more similar to Zulu (they use clicks) which is spoken in South Africa. For example, if you want to say "head" you just click your tongue. The Hadzabe showed us how to make a fire and then they gave us an archery lesson!

Call me Katniss. 

Next they performed one of their traditional songs. While I have seen the Maasai perform at least 3 or 4 times now, I think I like the Hadzabe's style better. They have more rhythm I think. I have attached a video of the dance they had us participate in. Hopefully it loads!

Don't mind the poor quality. 

Afterwards they showed us all their jewelry, pipes, and miniature bow and arrows. The bow and arrows they craft are very intricately carved and they are adorned with genet and baboon fur. For only 10,000 tsh (5 USD) I had to buy one! Next we watched the women dig for jicama roots (their major source of water). That concluded our visit, so we ate and talked about the problems facing the Hadzabe.

Next we drove about 20 minutes to meet with the Datoga. We didn't stay there long, but we got to see one of their houses and they showed us how they melt down scrap metal. The Datoga are blacksmiths and they still use very traditional methods to make their jewelry and arrowheads. It was a very cool thing to watch! 

Tomorrow we leave for the Serengeti and to say that we are all very excited is an understatement! We are going to be camping in the middle of the Serengeti! I'm going to get to see the sun set in the Serengeti! I'm going to see elephants in the Serengeti! Ahhhhhhh. I won't have my computer with me while I'm there so I probably won't update my blog until next Wednesday or Thursday. 

Can't wait to see some cats (paka)!

Kwaheri!