This post was originally from January 21, 2008

The African saga continues and the last three days have been totally amazing! On Friday we were picked up by our guide and driven a good 3 hours north or so. We unpacked our camping gear and quickly jetted off to a Masai Village. When we got out of our car the Masai greeted us and we felt truly welcomed. We were ok to take as many photos as we wanted which was nice. Each Masai village consists of one family. One husband with many, many wives and heaps of children! Each hut belongs to the wife and her children and the husband just hops around from hut to hut ‘for a good time’. We are told the husband’s friends are also welcome to come in and ‘test’ his wives out too. Hmmm…sounds a bit fishy to me. We were welcomed into one of the huts…which happen to be made out of cow shit. You literally had to squeeze in because the door frame is so narrow so that animals like hyenas wont get in. Inside there was a cow, a bed and a fire pit. (Now that I think about this…how did the cow fit but they say a hyena won’t??) It was so dark in there that the only way to see was to use our flash from our camera. Let me tell you it wasn’t a pretty smell. Later during our visit the men started out in the field chanting in a line and eventually made their way into the ‘boma’ where they made a circle and danced for us. We got to see the whole jumping thing and chanting and moving their bodies in every which way! I had shivers and I was almost in tears because it was so moving…or was that from the smell?? At the end we bought some of the beaded goods they made and tried to communicate with the ladies as much as we could. It was an amazing experience and one I will never forget!
Tenting in Africa was amusing. The sounds of the cicadas, frogs, birds and other random insects were out of this world. Of course because I have no trouble sleeping this didn’t bother me. But try having a bit of the squirts while camping out there…not very pleasant!
Saturday morning we woke up early and headed out to Ngorogoro Crater. This is a massive, massive crater that fell millions of years ago and now inside is full of all the typical African animals that you can think of. With our bodies half out of the vehicle it took quite skill to stay upright with all the bouncing around. We saw so much and the view was unreal. Rhinos, zebras, lions, cheetahs, warthogs, hyenas, jackals, water buffalo, gazelles,….oh god-I know I am missing something! Anyway it was so unreal and I cant wait to show everyone my my photos when I get back.

Sunday was just as amazing. This time we went to Lake Manyara. This terrain had more trees so we saw animals like baboons, giraffes, warthogs, impalas, hippos, and let me tell you elephants, elephants and more elephants. At one point this elephant came right up to our Landrover. It was so close that if it had reached out its trunk it would literally have touched the vehicle. Absolutely unreal! Our guide was like ‘don’t move…please be quiet…don’t use a flash’. I think I stopped breathing for a minute!
With the song from Lion King running through my head I felt like I was totally in the movie. Oh yah, at one point we saw a hyena take off with a zebra leg. yummmmy!
Let me just give you one piece of advise. If you are ever on malaria pills and you read the label that says these pills make you sensitive to light…they mean it!!!! Dumb ass over here wasn’t quite prepared for that!!

So get this, today at my placement I was talking to a Scottish girl that is volunteering through another organization. She showed me this huge gash in her arm. It actually looked like a bullet hole. What was this you ask? Well the other day she pulled a maggot looking thing out of her arm. Apparently it layed eggs in her and she had to pull it out! Holy sheep shit! This totally freaks my freak, but apparently we are not to be worried where we are staying because they fumigate.hmmmm.

Alrighty, I wont keep you any longer. But I got a half decent keyboard today and it feels like heaven!

Badae,
Dada Heather