Dear Wonderful People we love back home,
It's the end of another great day here in the Maasai Mara in Kenya. We are quite tired, having been on two safari drives during the day. We are always bursting with excitement from such unique adventure and love talking with other parties to share thrilling sightings and gain knowledge about where to go early the next morning where special kills and sightings have occurred. We've met many different and good people along the way, many from foreign countries, especially Germany, England, Australia, the Netherlands, etc.
It was fun to see a game guide with a BYU shirt on today. When we began singing the fight song to him, though, he looked at us rather strangely and said he had gotten the t-shirt from a donation place because he liked the cougar on it, but really didn't know what BYU was. Well, he does now!
It's been kind of amusing to see the guests' attire. Many look just like Robert Redford in “Out of Africa,” and some of the women wore obviously expensive, exotic African clothes and jewelry. Whereas, we visited Savers and the D.I. quite a few times before coming and found the same type of clothing at a fraction of the price. Frankly, despite what the tour books say, you could wear practically anything on safari...and, many people did!
The day closed with another sumptuous dinner prepared by our excellent African chefs. The different African dishes are delicious and the deserts prepared with unique flair and beauty. The entertainment planned was Maasai dances, but it was rained out by the big thunderstorm that came while we dined. They would have had to walk from their outlying villages through the downpour and it's muddy, red and slick dirt, so it was no surprise when they could not come. We had seen their dancing earlier in our trip, so we were not too disappointed.
However, this part of Africa, the Maasai Mara, is the very heart of their home and we have been seeing them everywhere we go. Their villages surround the park and no one knows how to live and survive in this wild kingdom like they do.
Our waitress, Stephanie, a beautiful girl from the Machakos area, was thrilled we were the ones who worked on the measles campaign and thanked us for what it had meant to her little village. Nelson, a striking 25 year old Maasai was our waiter. He looked like a young Sydney Poitier, the first Academy Award-winning black actor. Each African has an English name, because they are required to speak English in school (if they go). They use those names when working in the hotels and elsewhere. But, they still bear their African names, too, and speak to each other most of the time in Swahili. I wonder sometimes how they really feel about so much English and the modern world being forced upon them. Nelson was very articulate, polished, and at first I thought he was an example of young Africans who were becoming more educated, sophisticated, and “advancing” into the so-called modern world. He would have turned the heads of any bright, young Harvard girl in a minute! BUT, I was not too surprised when he later told us he was taking the money he earned to buy cows so he could get his two wives, start building a family, and increase his herd. I couldn't help but wonder to myself which life would bring him the greatest happiness. He would know now, because he has seen both ways.
During dinner, a big lightning and thunderstorm descended and heavy rainfall poured for the first time in our whole time here in Africa. It was cooling and wonderfully refreshing and a soothing ending to a very exciting, but exhausting day. Our prayers again hoped the dry Chyulu hills and it's starving people were also getting some of these precious, early spring rains. After dinner, we walked to our tent a block away down a path lit only by oil torch lamps and thought about the night hunters all along the way. The zippers on our tent flaps and canvas walls again seemed pretty flimsy related to the big lions & leopards and other predators we've been seeing regularly.
We also thought about the big cape buffalo, giraffe, zebra, elephant, and hippo carcasses and other remains we've seen all over the Mara, and knew that a human would be no match for a hungry, hunting cat! However, overall, the evening was beautiful, romantic, and refreshing in the cool smells and breezes of the new storm. Nevertheless, we flashed our large flashlight down into the river bed and the surrounding trees just to see what might be lurking there.
The big bull frogs and crickets were sounding and some unusual calls of nocturnal birds were uniquely unusual and mostly soothing. As we walked across the the exotic African wood of our tent floor and settled into the clean-smelling sheets of our 4 poster king-size bed and pulled the rather lovely white mosquito netting around the large bed, we thought guiltily about the Maasai people going to bed out in the bush in their small dirt floor huts surrounded by a flimsy stick and branch wall to guard them against the big cats. How in the world could their skinny spears kill a hungry lion going after their goats and cows? And, where did they go to the bathroom at night?
It was again one of the darkest nights out there we have ever known. The large hot water bottle our steward had again put on top of our sheets again felt very warm and cozy. We listened to the strange and fascinating sounds of the night as we began to fall asleep and once again felt so blessed to be in this wonderful place and with one more day to feel and be part of it all.
We love you all very much and look forward to seeing you again. We pray for you often and hope things are going well.
Love,
Dick and Lawana in the heart of the African bush
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