Mambo Mombasa

Greetings from Mombasa! I am currently enjoying a week on the Kenyan coast in the outskirts of the coast's largest city. We will be in Mombasa from March 23-29, studying the culture and environment of the East African Coast. The coast has a large population of Muslims and the different historical factors have shaped the coastal society in many ways. We will be visiting the Kaya Rabai Ecotourism Project, Fort Jesus, Mombasa's old town, as well as several museums. This is kind of a working spring break (at least it's two weeks long if we have to do readings/discussions/group presentations while we are here). Experiential learning is really growing on me. It's pretty amazing to be fully immersed in the culture we are learning about day to day. After Mombasa we will return to Nairobi for two weeks of classes before departing on our independent studies (IDS). 

We spent March 17-23 in Amboseli National Park, staying at a beautiful "glamping" (glamour camping) resort. It was an outdoor resort with an amazing view of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the distance. We all stayed in permanent tented buildings, with a metal roof thatched with grass, and a canvas tent hanging underneath. We had 4-post beds and hot water. It was the complete opposite of roughing it. There was also a pool at the resort that we took full advantage of whenever we had free time. 

One day we visited farmers in the countryside and with the help of translators we interviewed several farmers, asking them various questions about different challenges they face on their farms such as land shortage, water access, and wildlife damage to their crops. In the afternoon we visited a cultural manyatta, which is a group of Maasai traditional-style homes where tourists can visit to learn about their culture and traditions. The cultural manyatta is kind of strange, since it is a false representation of modern Maasai life and is fabricated to appeal to foreigners. However touristy this was, we were also able to interview the Maasai people living there to ask them about how their community benefits from tourism and the challenges that exist with distributing and spending the profits among other questions. 

The next day we visited Amboseli National Park, spending the entire day on a game drive in. We traveled in Safari cars with open tops that we could stand and look out of to admire the wildlife. While I made a long list of the many different species of animals we saw, some of the most memorable were the elephant, cheetah, hippo, Cape buffalo, wildebeest, Goliath heron, and saddle-billed heron. I'm currently posting from my iPhone so I don't have many good shots but I will post more photos when I'm back to a computer. 

On Thursday afternoon we embarked on our 24-hour stay with a Maasai family. In groups of two we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere (I now know the full meaning of this term). The home we stayed at, called a boma, had 3 different structures, one made of mud, dung and sticks, and two made of sheet metal. My host parents slept separately in each of the two metal homes and the children slept in the traditional mud hut, my home for the night. My family included my host parents as well as Ntidai, an adorable 5 year old girl, another sister 14 years old (I never learned her name) and Dan, our 18 year old brother. Many Maasai practice polygamy, and my host father, Musa, had 20 children in all; 7 with my host mother, Joyce, and 6 and 7 with two other wives. At our boma he had about 100 cows and 50 sheep, but also kept livestock at his other homes; he was a wealthy man in the community. Although he only had one leg, he had lost the other from the knee down as the result of an infection, he still went out on crutches in the afternoon to heard his livestock back into their pens after a day of grazing. Musa didn't associate much with the females in his family, the women are responsible for the household duties like cooking, cleaning and milking the cows while Musa spent the day relaxing underneath an Acacia tree and herding in the afternoon. We only had one conversation with him during our stay, but were able to ask him questions about the Maasai community and his relationship with Amboseli. Amboseli National Park is not fenced, and the wildlife often leave the park and cause damage to crops in farms nearby the park. Many Maasai appreciate the wildlife and recognize the benefits that tourism have brought to the region, yet are constantly forced to deal with challenges brought about by the wildlife. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS)  employs rangers to patrol the region to help farmers keep wildlife from damaging their crops, but this isn't entirely effective and in our interviews with farmers we learned that on average about 40% of crops are lost to wildlife damage. Many farmers hoped to be compensated for their losses and for increased assistance from the park rangers to deal with this issue. 

Other activities we did during our stay included fetching water, collecting firewood, repairing the walls of the hut, and herding. To fetch water we walked about 5 minutes to a nearby water source, which we never quite understood where the water came from, but my professor says that it's a government-owned pipeline carrying water from Mt. Kilimanjaro to Nairobi that is broken into by the locals. Either way, the community has access to clean (but untreated) water, whether it is legally obtained or not I do not know. We carried the water in 7 liter jugs, with a leather strap around our foreheads and the jug resting on our lower backs. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but it seemed like a good method for carrying water a long distance rather than carrying it by hand. We collected firewood from a nearby tree, breaking off the dead limbs and carrying them back home in similar style to the water. To repair the home, we took the freshest cow dung from the pen and smeared it on the hut with our bare hands. At first I was skeptical to pick up the pile from the pen, but once I got to smearing it on the house, I forgot about what I was doing and enjoyed mending the cracks on the house. Apparently I had good technique says our translator. During the afternoon we were able to help herd the sheep back home. 

For dinner we ate rice mixed with potatoes. The plate I was served looked like enough to feed 6 people, and I really don't think I'm exaggerating. We had a cup of warm milk after dinner, fresh from the cows that were milked earlier in the afternoon. We slept on a small bed on top of a cow hide laid upon a bed made of sticks. I slept much better than I imagined I would; it cooled down at night which I think helped limit the amount of flys that were in the home. During the day the flys are swarming all over you, at any time you might have 20 or so around you, often landing on your face. 

In the morning we attempted to help make pancakes (a much much greasier version of American pancakes) but the fire inside the house produced so much smoke that we could only tolerate being inside for 5 minute intervals, taking breaks outside in the fresh air. We helped with some chores before joining our host mother and translator underneath the shade of a large Acacia to make some jewelry. We learned how to make some traditional Maasai bracelets, stringing hundreds of tiny beads in a variety of colors onto metal wire. 

The 24 hours with our family went by quickly, and it would have been nice to spend more time with them. They definitely live a very simple and happy lifestyle. A reoccurring theme throughout my time here in Kenya has been opposite extremes. Often we shift quickly from one lifestyle to another, and often there are drastic changes. Leaving the Maasai and returning to our upscale safari lodge was a strange experience, similar to my experience leaving the hunter-gathering Hazda in Tanzania and returning to Nairobi.