Paul had a social gathering with his classmates on Friday evening at a local bar, I stayed with the boys. He said it was really lively and fun; live music, dancing etc.
Saturday our family joined an event planned by one of his classmates. It seems they plan different gatherings through the week and social events on the weekends. We rode by bus (3 hours and just a few extra people on the bus than the 32 seats available) to Arusha Snake park. This is a snake 'zoo' of sorts where you can see and learn interesting information about many snakes, the Nile crocodile, and more. The money from this (and the store they had) goes to support a clinic they have there for snake bites. The clinic is free and treats people who come in for snake bites, wounds, and complications. They treat roughly 1,000 a month. One vile of anti venom is 300.00 (yes US dollars) and if you are bit by a black momba you may use up to 9 viles. There were a few patients there being treated, one woman had a bite complications they were treating, the original bite had happened in '09. It is a valuable service to the people in the area and they educate people on how to respond to a snake bite (not cutting the area etc).
Of the caged snakes the spitting cobra looked the meanest to me, of the caged snakes. They had a big python and two different clippings about pythons that had swallowed fully grown humans, the python they had was not big enough to swallow a human but it was big. One of the staff told us it takes them 4 people to hold the snake when it is time to clean the cage. They had some other animals/birds that couldn't be released into the wild, one being a baboon who would reach through and stroke your arms, I was a bad mother and didn't jerk L's arm away when she 'groomed' him, instead I took a picture.
Here are the boys impressions of the snake park:
O: I liked it, I liked seeing the most poisonous snake in Africa, it's amazing seeing something so dangerous.
L: I liked it. I got see turtles and a baboon and the slim snout crocodile, which is an endangered species.
After we left the snake park we doubled back to go to a 'hot spring', not a real hot spring but a spring that was warm. It was a very bumpy road which we ended up taking a detour on because the bus wouldn't have been able to clear a bridge. Both on the way there and back the bus filled with sandy dust so you couldn't see. The spring was beautiful and clear and welcome after the hot dusty day. There was a random tortoise wandering near by and L saw a turtle in the water. There were fish that, once you stood still, would come and eat the dead skin off your feet and legs. That was something that was really hard to stand still and tolerate, even thought it didn't hurt. It was like a tickle but needles and also creepy in some ways.
Paul's classmates had arranged for us to eat lunch there as well. Due to various things during day we ended up actually eating there for dinner. They had skinned a male goat (there) and cooked it over open coals as well as several chickens, some fries, and chapati. This was a small open air 'restaurant', or snack bar might be better to say, and he had a low wooden table of sorts, some drinks in crates, and I am not sure what else he had or if he regularly cooked for people there.
We were so very proud of the boys who didn't complain once. There was about 6 plus hours of driving (including getting a bit lost on the way back in the dark to avoid the bridge, wandering through the brush by bus, on the way there a boy from the small village had offered, for a fee, to guide us by motorcycle) with lots of dust and bumping and no lunch. It was not at all a hard day and not hard to do as an adult but the boys just went with the flow of it all and chatted with the other adults.
When I ask them to summarize the day O says he liked the swimming and wants to go back. L says I loved it.
It makes me proud of them as travelers that they are tolerant and able to ebb and flow with the day as it unfolds. In fact as we got off our stop, once home, I heard one of Paul's classmates say you (to the boys) were great to have along and I complained more than you two! I actually didn't hear him or anyone complain.
Sunday I had planned us a day Safari trip to Tarangire National Park. We left shortly after 6 am and drove (the 3+ hours to the park) through a game park before the actual park. With in the game park there are many Maasai living. The government lets them live here free because it is illegal to take the wild animals (which are free to roam in and out of the National Park - of course) and the Maasai (this is all according to the Safari driver) do not. Instead they live there and tend to their livestock and are stewards for the wild animals.
We saw the villages from the roads and them going about their day. There were children as young as 4-5 (or so they looked) tending herds alone. I think we may try to take a cultural tour to a Maasai village. I am very curious about their culture. The day before we had seen a group of boys all in black cloth, skin looking coal black, faces white and dotted black with paint. This is how they dress for the month after their circumcision. The driver told me they can live for months on a mixture of fermented milk and animal blood and he told me how they mixed some for him to taste but when he brought it to his mouth to taste it, he smelled it and the smell was 'very strong, very strange' and he couldn't taste it. This is an example of some cultural sensitivities and norms. How smart they are to do this, a perfect use of resources and everyone here says they are very strong people who do not get sick and yet the story he told me about it (I gave a short version) made me almost gag in my mouth. Also interesting to me, is that they do not eat any dairy and meat together because it is disrespectful to eat living and dead parts of an animal together.
Once in the park we stopped for him to check in and such. We saw the cutest little monkeys (black faced velvet monkey, you wanted to cuddle them) the guide told us not to befriend them. He said they are crazy.
We were so lucky to see Impala, Cape Buffalo, African Elephants (including them walling in water, young males play sparing, and a baby nursing!! They actually have a lot of elephant in this park), Common Zebra, Lions (male and female), Cheetah (very luck to see this!), Warthogs, Masi Giraffe, Common Waterbuck, Wildebeests, Ostrich (also exciting for me!), and many many birds.
When we stopped for lunch the guide said he would stay near the safari car because the monkeys will get inside and if they don't find something to eat they will pee it in.
O's impression of the safari:
It was really amazing because we got to see actual wild animals how they really live not in a zoo or in a fake safari land. They could actually, the cheetah or lion, could go kill something they were not separated by a fence. Driving by them was dangerous because the elephants could flip your car (I am asking him now it that true and he said yeah they are strong enough).
Me:
What was your most exciting animal to see and why?
O:
Cheetah, because I like cheetah and the driver said they are really rare to see.
L's impression of the safari:
I loved it. I got to see a cheetah! Being there was slightly unbelievable.
Me:
What was your most exciting animal to see and why?
L: The cheetah because it is extremely fast and it was lucky we to see it not running, because if it was running we'd see it but it would been hard to take a picture of.
For me it was a sort of unreal experience. It is hard to believe you are really physically there in that wide open terrain with the trees silhouetting the iconic shapes you expect, looking down into a river that has spread out into a slow paced, many fingers wandering, across a flat bottom that is full during the rainy season. Seeing the animals come to drink, walk and wallow in it. Seeing the animals in the shade, the trees with marks or broken off from elephants. Hearing the animals making sounds to each other, the crack of the tusks of elephants at play, when the herds of ungulates tense and become alert at the presence of a predator.
To see how, in the wild, an ostrich is really quite big and their plum really full (compared to a stressed zoo one) and how the heard of elephants move in the natural environment. A baby in the middle, nursing then laying down before they all move on following the subtle clues given from the unbelievably large matriarch.
On our way out we stopped again at the exit (restrooms were only there and at the specific eating areas provided). Those cute monkeys were there. I saw them wandering around the small shop, I went in the shop and came out to find my family was still at the restroom huts. I myself had to go so I went over and the three of them came over with giant smiles on their faces, the boys hurrying up to tell me the monkeys have taken over the woman'e restroom and chased out a women.
As the boys tell me L is the typing and O in the parentheses:
The monkeys were just playing in the woman's bathroom and fighting (and taking out the garbage anything they could take out and destroying it and messing with it) and then a tourist came up and had to go to the bathroom (they chased her out) they started jumping their hind legs and hissing (and chasing her away from the bathroom) and she ran away screaming and we laughed then felt bad about it.
So... I think well they are tiny and so cute, I will use the bathroom and not feel afraid. I walk up and see 3 come out so how many more can really be in there? I ask you. Then I see a large one come near the door and a small one slip by. I think well maybe I will wait a second and he will move (and remember a large male is really only a bit larger than the largest house cat you ever saw, with a longer tail and longer legs) but he does not. So I come to the door and he comes at me then I back up (maybe my first mistake) and he starts to hurry forward reaching at me. I think well I have pants that stop bellow my knees what will he do if he 'gets' my legs? So I run a bit and he runs more. Paul and the boys laugh more at that. I loop around the men's hut and when I come back to the front I see a small one has a roll of unused toilet paper and takes it to the low wall where it happily (and is surprisingly quickly) sets up shredding the entire roll. By the time I run back to the safari car (and it's not really a car but that is what I hear it called) and return with my camera a woman who works there has come by and is tossing rocks at them. At which point I remember our safari guide said to do that if they come towards you at all when you have your lunches (otherwise they will take it from you or your box). I wish I had remembered that and later I tell our guide what happened and he shakes his head knowingly. I tell him I think I do not have a hard heart, because I did not stare down a small monkey. He had told me on the way there that they Massai have a hard heart (brave) because they can stare down a lion. Paul says now when the children are bad we can call them 'bathroom monkeys'.
