Day 6 Aldara Gorge/ Maasai Village

There is going to be an emphasis on Sociology/ Archeology/ Paleontology today as our first stop on the northward trek is a Maasai Village. Most of the vast tracts of land that we've been crossing are lands that once belonged to the large tribe of Maasai people. This tribe is the last bastion of purely East African culture, clinging steadfastly to their ancestral beliefs and customs.








For several days we've seen the young "warriors" herding cows, the women hauling water in large clay pots which they carry with tremendous grace on top of their heads, and the children waving to us enthusiastically from the roadside. The Maasai dress in red and blue to distinguish them from other tribes. They are tall, very slender with blue black skin coloring. In my opinion, they are elegant and beautiful!


As we entered the village, we met the only English speaking male in the village who is also the son of the chief. He brought us to a central area where we were given a dance show by the adults in the village. The males danced about virility and strength; the women (sequestered away from the males) not surprisingly danced about children and hearth. Although the sexes do not interact during their respective dances, they each have a set of rhythms, harmonies, ostinati, that intricately blend with everyone else. Several days ago I referred to this as their imitation of the sounds of nature in a cacophony of their own making.

The young man then took us inside one of the mud and thatch huts where we were given a lesson about living a tribal life. Interestingly, we were met at the opening of the first hut by a woman who refused to offer us admission to her home. (Can't blame her). At the second hut we had better luck as the woman who lived there was sitting inside quietly nursing her two year old child.


Here is the story as told by our young guide:
In this village the chief has 10 wives. Each wife has her own hut where she raises her children fathered by the chief. Wives are not allowed to have but one spouse. The chief can buy as many wives as he has the cows to barter with another Maasai tribe! He then rotates each night to a different wife/hut for mating. The children of the "chosen" mate for the night are then sent to sleep with another wife for the evening.

Each wife builds her own hut out of clay, cow dung, and straw. The roof is made of sticks overlaid with clay and straw. Light comes through built in holes in the structure of the walls. The floors are dirt and there are two beds in every hut; one for the mother and children/ the other for mating purposes for those nights when the chief comes to sleep. This sounds quite like the arrangement that the lions have.

The wives are solely responsible for raising the children, cooking the food, building the huts, and herding the cows (if the warriors are otherwise indisposed). The chief's job is to oversee the wives and mate with them!!!

Maasai are strictly carnivores. They mainly subsist on milk and the blood of animals. Meat is for special occasions. There is a fire pit in each hut and smoke is emitted from holes in the roof.
Each hut has a place for storage of firewood and cooking utensils.

Boys are circumcised between the ages of 12 and 18. If a boy cries or flinches during the circumcision, he is forever relegated to be among the women. This is a terrible stigma.
Once a boy is circumcised, he becomes a warrior and is responsible for protecting the village's herd of cows. Once he turns 25 he may marry a Maasai girl from another tribe if he has the cows to buy her!

Once the wife is bought she leaves her tribe of origin to go live in the tribe with her new husband. There is a ceremony, exchange of jewelry. Girls are married off at 15 or 16. Girls are circumcised between the ages of 14 and 16 (ostensibly to make child bearing easier).

Women are basically slaves and the bearer of children.

There is a strong government movement to educate the young children of the Maasai by sending them to private westernized schools in Arusha primarily supported by America.

Our next stop was the Aldara Gorg, home of mankind. This is the place where scientists believe humans first evolved and started their inexorable trek northward to Europe and Asia and ultimately across the Bering Strait to North American down to South America (30, 000,000 years ago).

We stayed in the Serena Lodge this night and had fun watching tribal Sindimba dancing that originated in Zanzibar. Beautiful costumes and drumming.

Day 5 Ngorogoro Crater

Our lodging had a very humble name, Gibb's Farm. It was dreamed up and developed many years ago by a British colonial who obviously wanted to create an African paradise with English flair. This was truly one of the most romantic "farms" imaginable.

We stayed in a cottage that was all glass casement windows over-looking an exotic African garden complete with outdoor rain head shower. At bedtime one of the staff members lit the fire in our hearth that was beside a huge (very English) soaking tub.

The 40 acre estate consisted of a 10 acre organic vegetable garden where the proprietors used only bug resistant flowers for keeping down the grubs and crop rotation to keep the nitrogen in the soil. Unfortunately, they have problems with the elephants breaking down fences and robbing them of vegetables! And I thought our deer population was a nuisance!!!

Well, I loved Gibbs Farm and I hope to replicate their vegetable garden concept on a much smaller scale our on farm in Pocahontas County.

It's time to move off to Ngorogoro Crater and a new day of adventures.

The absolute highlight of this day was the sighting of a very large pride of lions. Ephata was in his element. I'm in awe of his ability to glance out his driver side window and spot a lion hidden on a ridge in tall grass about 200 meters off the dirt road, but this is exactly what he did. We parked the safari jeep and waited.

We could see 2 male lions (about 4 years old) and 4 female lions through our binoculars. Ephata assured us that if we waited patiently for the sun to come out and warm the lions that they would come down to the river (much closer to us) for a drink. Amazingly, when the sun came out the lions marched to the river, some appearing over the ridge. We counted 19 lions! This was spectacular, both in sheer numbers and the close proximity to us.

We soon heard terrible roaring from deep in the river gorge. One of the younger male lions ran out of the fray because he had been chastised by the leader of the pride. The message was, you are a big boy now...go get your own pride! The rebuffed young male sought sympathy from several of the female lions who seemed to be happy to offer him solace.

A side bar about lions: A pride usually consists of the alpha male and several female lions who mate only with the alpha. The females do the hunting, but the alpha male is the first to eat the kill. The idea is that he has to reserve his strength for more important things like fighting off his rivals who want to steal his pride. More about lion behavior later.

Day 4 Tanzania on the road to Lake Manyara game preserve

After a sad good bye to the Tree Tops Tent Camp and our new friend, Lembris (whose name means grace in his native language), we headed off into the sunrise on our slow trek north through Tanzania. Next stop, Lake Manyara!








A side bar regarding Lake Manyara......
This is a shallow lake, but considered by many to be the most beautiful in all of Africa It is located in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania and is very alkaline (pH about about 9.5). It covers 89 square miles and is home to baboons, hippos, impalas, elephants, wildebeests, buffalo, and giraffes. Most of the enormous ficus and mahogany trees draw water from underground springs which is also how this lake gets its water.

The flora in this area was quite different than that of the Tarangire and the view of the gorgeous Rift Valley escarpment affords a dramatic backdrop to the lake. In this area we do not see the ancient Baubab trees but we do see the Sycamore ficus and the yellow barked acacia.







As we drove we saw trees with scores of storks in each branch, eerily redolent of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie! In my experience, it is most unusual to see a single stork, but to see hundreds of them populating the branches of fig trees was amazing.

A highlight of this day was seeing the thousands of migratory birds such as:
pelican, storks, egrets, pink flamingos. The flamingos were so numerous that, at a distance, they looked like a pink pond within the larger lake!

Herds of hippo, impala, zebra and wildebeest (for where there are zebras there will be wildebeests) were very large.


The animals in this region tended to be closer to the dirt roads so it was easier to observe the behaviors up close. We had to stop several times to wait for herds of elephants to cross the road. A baby elephant got separated from its mother and panicked trying to cross to her safely. Once he found her he huddled directly under her enormous body for protection. Elephants are very good mothers.

Side bar about elephants: The female elephants and their young roam together for food and protection. All of the females co parent the babies. It's a lovely and moving phenomenon to watch....Guess that it indeed "takes a village" to raise an elephant.







In the afternoon, Ephata took us to see the family of an Iraq tribe. These people are among the descendants of four tribes that converged in the area. According to Ephata, there was much fighting between the Maasai and the Iraq people with each group claiming that the other stole its cows. In Tanzanian tribal cultures, cows are the currency used for barter, buying wives, and generally marking the wealth of a tribe. Cows are very important! At some point, the two made peace with one another and now there is even a bit of intermarrying going on among the youth!

Anyway, I digress. The Iraq family was most interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, the alpha male wore a Cleveland Indian t shirt under his tribal swaddling wrap. He spoke the King's English while his wife wore traditional African and spoke no English. His wife showed us some of her home made crafts including a leather and beaded wedding wrap (for sale) and several sweet grass baskets (similar to those sold in So. Carolina).

While this whole experience was calculated as a tourist trap, it proved to be educational.
The man boasted that his wife the "mama" was his one and only spouse and that they have 4 children. The wife has several young female "helpers" for her various jobs (which seem to be legion). She is responsible for the children, growing crops, keeping the house, milking the cows that have not been stolen by the Maasai (ha), and weaving baskets in her spare time.

At one point, the "mama" draped the wedding garment on me over my western clothes. She got so close to me that I could detect the lingering smell of spoiled mother's milk on her clothing!
We didn't buy the proffered garment, but we did purchase a couple of her baskets. BTW she was allowed to keep the money for her baskets!
It made me wonder what the "papa's" responsibilities might be, other than edifying tourists and collecting t shirts of American
baseball teams.

We stayed in another coffee plantation this night called Gibbs Farm. Lovely place!

Day 3 Predawn Game Drive and Night game drive

Yawn....stretch.....
I was awake most of the night attending to the rooting sounds of some unknown critters near our tent site. Ephata, our fearless guide wanted to take us on a predawn game drive followed by a picnic breakfast in the bush so it was easy to get up at 5:00 am! We're learning that Ephata is passionate about finding and watching the animals...all of them!




The ostriches were the most fascinating birds to watch and, yes, they are HUGE! The fancy one on the right sporting pink neck and legs with a black torso is the male. The plain Jane is the female. He is desperately trying to get her to accept his proposal for mating; she's having none of it until she's good and ready. Meanwhile he follows her around like a puppy on a leash. When she does lay eggs (whether as the result of mating with him or another handsome ostrich) she will share her nest with several other female ostriches. She will nest sit during the day and the male will nest sit at night. Great arrangement and one of the most egalitarian in nature!


We spotted this cheetah lounging on a termite mound about 20 feet from the dirt road. Bingo! We found our very first cat. We must have watched this guy for 20 minutes and he put on quite a show.

A word about the termite mounds.... The termites eat the dry grass and are able to make huge dirt looking mounds that become the habitat for snakes and mongoose. Interestingly, snakes and
mongoose are both prey and predators to one another; just
depends on whose lucky that day.





















We watched these elephants for quite a while wondering how long it would take them to discover "Waldo" ah um the well camouflaged female lions in the grass watching them. They say that the lions are the only animals who really sleep soundly in the wild, but these elephants reconnoitered and found the sneaky carnivores watching. The elephants made a straight line in front of the lions to mark their territory and they put their young babies in the middle of the ring for protection. I couldn't help but root for the elephants!




After dinner back at the camp site, we went on a night game drive under a full moon that looked like a magnificent topaz stone that had been dropped into a black velvet sea. Our guide found these two male lions about 20 feet from our open jeep. He assured us that if they were hungry they would go for the zebras before they would come for us! These two young males are around 3 years old, are brothers and best friends who hunt together as they become of age to challenge the leader of a pride.

Tanzania Day 2 Tarangire and Tree Tops

At 5:30 am we were awakened by a Maasai staff member bringing hot coffee, steamed milk and cookies to our tent! Now this is what I call camping!! Actually, he had to come out and lower the trap door so that we could descend the stairs from the tent. NO ROAMING THE GROUNDS AT NIGHT.

After a breakfast spent in the open watching the sun come up as we were entertained by the Superb Starlings (a gorgeous cerulean blue bird with brown bars) trying to steal the breakfast right off the buffet, we headed off with Ephata for a full day of animal watching in the bush.

The road from this camp is arguably the most bumpy ride I've ever had in my life....and that includes some of the crazy roads in Pocahontas County. The very first creature that Ephata pointed out to us was a Puff Adder, one of the most deadly snakes on Earth. According to Ephata, a victim can only survive a bite if he can get to a hospital within 30 minutes and IF that hospital happens to have the proper anti venom. Well, considering that it takes 30 minutes just to get to the main gate of Tarangire, a snake bite is tantamount to a death sentence!

Other deadly poisonous snakes in Tanzania are: vipers, black mambos, and green mambos, cobras (who spit their venom into the eyes of the victim).








We soon saw two young male impalas sparring with one another over their female love interest (who was standing nearby grazing and rather impervious to the trouble she was causing).

Not far from the impalas we saw several majestic giraffes at a distance with their heads taller than the Acacia trees they were eating.

Giraffes walk like camels...right rear leg followed by right front leg/ then left rear leg followed by left front leg. This is the gate that gives them the loping appearance.

One of the animal highlights of the day (for me) was when we spotted a large troop of baboons lounging, grooming, and playing in a sausage tree. A sausage tree is so named because it looks like it has several large sausages dangling from its limbs when, in fact, these are fibrous fruits with bark like exteriors. Very odd looking, but the baboons love this fruit.

We continued to see giraffes, elephants, baboons, and many species of exotic birds and Eagles.

One fact that really surprised me was that these creatures live together in harmony; they are not segregated in the wild! Having only seen these animals in a zoo, I always thought that they were isolated from one another.

In the late afternoon, Ephata took us back to the Tree Tops Tents where we had planned to take an afternoon game walk through the bush. Imagine our concern when we were met by a guard toting a rifle and a Maasai tribesmen carrying a spear to accompany us on the game walk. We were told to be quiet, to stay in a line, to walk behind the guard and in front of the Maasai warrior. YIKES.

At this point I was seriously having second thoughts. As it turned out, we did have to take a detour through some pretty high grass to avoid a herd of elephants. (I was really wondering what could be worse...death by being trampled by an indignant elephant or death by Puff Adder bite!

That night the entire camp had a barbecue dinner by the campfire where we enjoyed some tribal dancing provided by the Maasai workers in the camp. The dancing and singing was fascinating to me and sounded much like their imitations of animals in the wild. Each voice took on a different rhythm and pitch which gave the eerie effect of a cacophony. I'd love to study this more in depth.

Day One Tanzanian Adventure with photos

Dear Friends,
I know that reading anecdotes of other people's vacations can be about as scintillating as pouring over photographs  of other people's grandchildren.  Believe me when I say that Tanzania is a very special place and this trip was one of the richest experiences we have ever had.  This first installment is lengthy, but I'll stay with highlights for subsequent e-mails, okay?  Photos are:  Baubab tree (about 700 years old), water buffalo, coffee trees, elephants, Tarangire River, street market

Tanzania Day One:

After spending literally 18 hours of actual air time inside a jet, we finally arrived in Kilimanjaro, met our guide Ephata, and were summarily squired to our first night of recuperation at The Coffee Plantation of Arusha.  Ephata's attempts at friendliness were unfortunately met with grunts and yawns; my head felt like a rubik cube from jet lag.

The Coffee Plantation was lovely and so completely modern that I realized that this trip was going to teach me many lessons about judging the proverbial book by it's position on the world map.  The room was appointed with a sumptuous king sized bed shrouded with the ubiquitous mosquito netting.  The bathroom was elegant with glass counter tops that looked like coffee beans fossilized in amber and up lit with golden light. 

In the morning, we were awakened by the music of an exotic song bird perched in the coffee trees just beyond our window.  We ate a wonderful buffet breakfast (rather English style) by a shallow pool with a mosaic design of flowers at the bottom...The best coffee imaginable (having been grown right outside our door).  In fact we learned that they grow the coffee, but then send the beans to another country to be processed before returning the beans to Tanzania!  No infrastructure for manufacturing one of their greatest exports.

We soon met up with Ephata and embarked on our journey toward Tarangire National Park for an all day game drive. We wended our way through the town of Arusha, a bustling place that seemed to be straddling the fence between African and western culture. The streets were teeming with women dressed in billowing long wrap skirts of brilliant colors and bold designs.  Most also wore shawls that in no way matched the skirts and many wore head wraps of yet another design and bright color.   Some wore the head wraps of Muslim women. (Tanzania has both Muslim and Christian as well as many tribal spiritual practices.)

The shops were open front concrete structures that lined the roadway.  Woman sat on colorful blankets selling their fresh produce and woven clothing as passers by argued over the prices.  The narrow streets were crammed with noisy cars with choking exhaust fumes (no rules about air pollution in Tanzania).  The effect was surreal, that of a country experiencing the inexorable transformation to westernization while hanging on steadfastly to the vestiges of tribal life.

There are 126 tribes in Tanzania alone, each speaking it's own mother tongue!  The Tanzanian government declared that Swahili would be the national language so that the descendants of the various tribes could communicate with one another.  There is a very strong push to educate the children in private schools in Arusha (some paid for by American donors).  These children, dressed in western school uniform, are a jolting contrast to the adult women in the market place. 

As we drove through Tarangire I was baffled by the sheer number and variety of animals that we saw.  I knew there would be animals, but they were everywhere.... so visible, not like the shy animals of the North American forests.  Around every bend in the bumpy road we would find a group of elephants assaulting the trees, eating every bit of green they could get their trunks on!

(An aside about elephants:  Apparently they are such indiscriminate eaters and their gastric system is so inefficient that they digest only 30% of what they consume.  Their dung resembles little bails of hay and is coveted by the native tribes for its healing properties.  There are so many different herbs in the elephant poop that it can be smoked and used to cure all kinds of fever (including malaria).  Ha!  No thanks, I'll take the malaria!!!!)

Gene was snapping photos like there was no tomorrow.  Finally Ephata had to gently remind him that we had another 12 days and would see many such sights.  We were completely in awe of simply seeing these creatures.  I had imagined that we would have to lie in wait for a giraffe to come into our sight line.  Who knew that they were so free, so unconcerned about the land cruisers roaming their territory? 

Day one was the obsession with identifying.....
We saw wildebeest, zebras, water bucks, impalas, ostrich, giraffes, elephants.  Our wise and patient Ephata answered our questions and told us many stories of the nature of the various animals in the wild.  I'll share some of those in subsequent e-mails. 

The day culminated with our arrival at the Tree Tops Tents just outside of Tarangire Park.  These are literally tents that are on platforms up in the Baubab trees.  We were greeted in the front by the entire staff of the place with a most warm and welcome, "Jambo," (hello in Swahili), handed a cold glass of Baubab juice, and a wet towel drenched in Eucalyptus for our dusty hands and faces. 

More about these fabulous tents later....
We had a lovely dinner on the veranda as we watched the silhouette of hippo against the blood red African sunset!

Lena Clark Hurd July 17, 1923- February 1, 2010

Lena Francis Clark was born on what must have been one of the hottest days of 1923, in an ramshackle house in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. She was the third and youngest daughter of Jim and Rosa Clark, two store keepers in the local mercantile. Her older sisters were Willie Blanche (Bill) and Mary Elizabeth (Mae Mae).

Lena Francis' earliest and most indelible memories of childhood reflected her life as a child of the depression. She remembered not having a bicycle to ride with her best friend Mary Jeanette. She remembered spending a lot of time sitting in a corner of the store by herself as both of her parents worked hard to try to provide basics for the family. She read a lot and her favorite book was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a poignant story about an young immigrant girl living in Brooklyn going through many of the same loneliness and poverty issues as Lena. Her favorite color was blue, and she won an art contest at the age of 9. She had painted a water color of a boat on a blue ocean....lost at sea.

When Lena was in high school, her mother decided to separate from her father and move to Memphis, TN. Lena and her mother had to live on the meager earnings of her older sister Mae Mae who was working as a secretary. Lena remembered feeling like the poorest kid in her new school. She wore the same dress to school each day, but made sure that it was washed and ironed each night. She earned lunch money by serving the other high school kids their lunches on trays....another humiliation. Lena had two boyfriends in high school/ one was handsome and the other was a wonderful dancer.....She preferred the dancer!

Lena Francis Clark graduated from Humes High School in May 1940. The country would soon be caught up in WW II after the Dec. 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Lena would spend her young adulthood helping to craft airplanes in a factory as all of the eligible young men were eagerly signing up to fight in the war. Lena was the quintessential "Rosie the Riveter." She often told stories of not having stockings or root beers because the materials were needed for the boys fighting in the war.

Lena married Arthur Eugene Meredith in 1949 believing that she was the first wife of this dashing young soldier returned from the war. She was wrong. He had been married to a woman in Belgium and this woman had born his child; he had been married to a young woman in Mississippi where he had attended Ole Miss until he was expelled from the university. This woman named Lillian had also given birth to two daughters of Gene Meredith. Ultimately,Lena also gave birth to two of his children, the oldest Joann...the youngest Arta Gene.

Lena and Gene traveled to California where he tried many different jobs and she also got jobs as a neighbor babysat Joann. When Lena became pregnant with their second child, they headed back to Memphis where they eventually stayed after Lena secured a civil service job with the US Postal service. Lena along with her parents, bought a house in Memphis. Her father had become confined to a wheel chair. She found herself in the position of having to support her two babies as well as lend support to her parents. In return, her parents watched over the babies as Lena worked. Gene Meredith was not a provider for the family.

Unlucky in life, now it was painfully clear that she had not chosen a good husband. After years of emotional abuse, she finally divorced Gene Meredith in 1960. By this time she was well ensconced in her job. She claimed custody of her children in return for not asking for a single dime of alimony or child support. She went to college at night to earn an associate degree in accounting.

After her years of working in the airplane factory, Lena had become proficient in the use of power tools. She parlayed her natural creativity into carpentry work....unprecedented for women at that time. In 1962, she decided to reconfigure the house into two apartments and single handedly added a bathroom that she wired and plumbed herself! She began making her own furniture and learned that she had tremendous creativity and energy. It was not unusual for our kitchen table to be covered with hammers, saws, and nails!

Lena finally met Eddie Hurd, the love of her life, when she was 45 years old, but refused to marry him until her girls were old enough to leave home. They married in 1970 at a chapel in Las Vegas. Lena's tragic flaw was that she loved gambling. She had been going to Bingo games, then the dog track in West Memphis, Ark. When she discovered Las Vegas, she joined the big leagues.

Her years married to Eddie Hurd were the happiest of her life. Eddie was a loving husband and was very supportive of her creativity and energy. His three children were of similar age to Lena's two daughters and the combined familty enjoyed a decade of family dinners on Sunday evenings as the grand children came along.

After Eddie passed away in 1988, Lena spent two years in deep mourning. When she emerged from this painful time, she vowed to find a man who "was a good dancer with a full head of hair!" Bruce Logan fit the bill and she and Bruce had a 10 year rocky romance full of fun, music, and dancing. I've often thought that this was the "teen aged" period of her life that she didn't get to have because of the war.

Bruce left Lena when she began showing signs of aging and TIA strokes. In 2002 Lena suffered a massive stroke that robbed her of balance, the ability to walk and the ability to speak. We moved her to Charleston and after a few months, she became part of Sandy and Rob Breedlove's family. The last 8 years of her life were spent in the love and care of this wonderful family who took the greatest care of Lena. The Breedlove's were her blessing from God at a time that she would have chosen simply to die. They proved to be the family that she always wanted and needed, the stability that had eluded her most of her life.

She passed away on Feb. 1st 2010 after having spent only 3 days in the hospital. She did not suffer and she was not in pain. She died peacefully and will be laid to rest with her beloved Eddie in his grave.

Lena Francis Clark Hurd was born at a most unfortunate time in history and her milestones through life were marred by depressions, wars, and social climates unfavorable to her. She struggled through a career watching the civil rights movement pass black men to positions above her because black men were given some rights through affirmative action that were not deemed as necessary for women (particularly single white mothers) at that time. She was a very remarkable woman, a ground breaker and a survivor.

She will be missed by her surviving family. Daughters Joann Cordell and Meredith Armstrong, grand children Chad Cordell, Andrea Cordell, and Robyn Davis, and sister Mary Elizabeth Taylor, and surrogate family: Sandy and Rob Breedlove, LJ Breedlove, Joy, Scott, Gail, Scott, Taylor, Kailin, and Raily.