Sakina Scholars on Safari

On Sunday, I took the Sustain Foundation Sakina Scholars that I worked with in 2009 on safari to Lake Manyara National Park.  None of the scholars had ever been to the national parks or seen any safari animals in real life before.  They were so excited!

We took a mini bus (with 4WD) and squeezed all 16 of us into the mini bus for the 2.5 hour drive to the park.  Lake Manyara National Park is situated on Lake Manyara, which was pretty low due to a lengthy drought here.  Lake Manyara was named after a plant called emanyara, the Maasai word for "finger".  The plant looks like fingers and when it grows the fingers wrap together to form a natural fence that the Maasai used around their bomas and to protect their livestock from predators.  The plants also have a milky substance inside the stem that is poisonous to all animals, including humans.  Thus, emanyara worked well as a natural fence to keep out unwanted animals.

On the way to the park, I got a taste of some Tanzanian legend.  We passed a small village on a hill that is supposedly inhabited by one man and his many wives and children.  From the road, we could see many huts, cattle, and a small school building.  The man, a witch doctor as the rumors go, gives each wife her own hut where she can raise the children they have together.  He has so many children that the government recently established a 2-room school in this village and will be sending 2 teachers to teach in the school.  A nearby village, Mtu wa Mbu (Mosquito River), is dependent on the milk produced by the cattle from the witch doctor's village.  Not sure how much is truth and how much is legend, but all of the scholars had heard of this man

Top: Felister and Iddy at the picnic site looking over the park.  Bottom: Damian and Manase looking out over the vista of the lake

 

Once inside the park, we were greeted by some monkeys hanging out in the visitors center area.  We then drove our mini bus, which had a retractable safari roof for standing, into the park area and started looking for animals!  Lake Manyara is more of a forested area than the other parks, so you really have to keep your eyes open.  It's much easier for the animals to blend in with the trees and bushes.  Over the course of the day, we saw many animals, including giraffes, impala, warthogs (pumba!), monkeys, baboons, hippos, flamingos, swans, zebra, and elephants

Bottom: Elephants crossing the road behind our safari car

Top: Group picture!  Back row (from L to R): Elias, Iddy, Felister, Emanueli, Manase, Gerald, Dominiki; Front row (from L to R): me, Omary, Eva, Wiliam, Irene, Damian, Patrick.
 

On the way home, we saw a number of Maasai youth on the side of the road.  This in itself is not unusual, but these youth were wearing black clothes instead of the usual checkered red/purple cloth and their faces had white paint on them that made their faces look somewhat skeletal.  I learned that these young Maasai men had recently been circumcised and the dress and paint were a symbol that they had now entered into manhood in the Maasai community.   Young Maasai boys help their family tend the family livestock.  When they reach a certain age (not sure what it is, but sometime during the teenage years) they are sent out into the land (as boys) and have to live on the land for a period of time.  Then they get circumcised (where they can’t cry or make any facial expressions) and afterwards, there is a celebration and these boys return as men to the village.  They are then able to have their own herd of goats/cows to tend after and participate in village life and Maasai culture as men.  Pretty cool!

It was a very successful day at Lake Manyara, and I was so thankful to be able to share that experience with the Sakina Scholars!







word of the day: pundamilia - zebra