When we (the Sauder Africa team) weren’t teaching in Nairobi we were visiting the local attractions. The first weekend started off with a double header. Sunday morning a slightly tired crew took off after a night of Nairobi nightlife to the Baby Elephant Orphanage. The orphanage takes care of 21 baby elephants that have either been abandoned by their mother, or their mother died of poaching or disease. It was like seeing 20 little Dumbo’s, and they love to chug milk. In order to get a good viewing you have to arrive at 11am for the morning feeding where the keepers walk the line of elephants into the viewing area and give them large almost novelty size bottles of milk. It was cool watching their attitude towards pesky tourists. On 2 occasions people got too close and they were either sprayed with water, or pushed out of the way with the elephant's trunk leaving a large dirt mark on the individual's shirt. The elephant center also kept a blind rhino, which had to be caged unfortunately to receive regular treatment. After lunch we went to a Giraffe Sanctuary, which had a viewing gallery at the same height as the giraffes. Most of the team chose a ‘unique’ way to feed the giraffes; we were provided pellets and told to put one in our mouth. Then the giraffe would come and lick the pellet from our lips. Surprisingly we didn’t get licked and the giraffe easily took the pellet. Their diet consists of eating really prickly bushes so their tongues produce a natural antiseptic, which makes the interesting feeding method hygienic. Giraffes have huge heads and the most beautiful eyes when you see them up close, which was a real treat. The center also had a very small area describing all the different types of giraffes, although they are all one species depending on the region of Africa they have different patterns and colourings.
The second weekend we visited ‘Bomas of Kenya’ which is a cultural museum. They have dances from different tribes and an area where they have built traditional huts for each of Kenya’s 42 tribes as demonstration models. In many tribes each family will have multiple huts and humorous pictures ensued with the women at different huts marketed ‘1st wife’, ‘2nd wife’ and ‘3rd wife’(below). The husband also has his own hut, but it’s usually very small and used for resting during the day as he spends his nights in one of his wives huts. The 1st wife has the largest hut and the subsequent wives will have smaller huts. Each wife had their own granary and there were also ‘boys huts’ in some tribal compounds, whereas the girls would stay with their mothers. Luckily we had our driver Fred with us who explained the unmarked exhibits and provided local context. The Maasai huts were the most primitive, constructed with cow dung including the extremely low roof. Maasai are one of the most traditional tribes, they don’t value education, which makes it difficult for them to integrate with other cultures as their Swahili is not strong. Male Maasai are often security guards in cities and coastal areas; you can see them in their red robes walking around with long sticks and a knife on their thin belts.
Our last trip together with the UBC group was to Maasai Mara, Kenya’s world famous National Park. Weeks earlier the migration had occurred from the adjacent park (Serengeti) in Tanzania and ‘the Mara’ was full of Wildebeests and Zebras. The drive from Nairobi was 6 hours, 2-3 of which were on an extremely bumpy road providing what is commonly known as an ‘African massage’. We had left Nairobi late in the day after teaching and the sun quickly set at 7pm. Bouncing around in the dark I saw my first Zebras casually crossing the dirt road, minutes later 2 giraffes stood blocked the road then casually walked across oblivious to our two vehicles. As we arrived at night we hadn’t seen the surrounding landscape. The first morning I watched the sunrise over Maasai Mara with Steve, a follow UBC alum who had returned for a 2nd year to help with the program. Our safari vehicle had a roof that raised allowing everyone to stand up and look at animals as we were driving through the park. Within the first few minutes we had seen small herds of Zebras, Wildebeest and Topi. Two Topis were smashing their horns together while Ostriches walked in the background and Giraffes were walking among Zebras on our left side; needless to say it was a great start to our day!
Little did we know, a half-hour later Zebras and Wildebeests, stretching across the savannah, would blanket the landscape. About 3 hours into the drive we had seen Elephants, Zebras, Wildebeests, Giraffes but the big cats were no where to be found. While driving between hundreds of Wildebeests a French couple pulled up beside our vehicle informing us of a pride of Lions on the upcoming hill. We took off but after circling the hill we couldn’t find them; we saw a young Wildebeest bucking and running around sporadically so we decided to drive over. Vultures were circling overhead and we arrived to find it’s mother was lying down twitching, the circle of life would become apparent as half eaten carcasses were regularly passed. Later that day we saw a Zebra dead by the side of the road, most likely it had darted in front of a vehicle minutes earlier. Upon returning 8 hours later it looked deflated; vultures cut holes in the tough exterior skin then stuck their heads inside stretching their necks a foot to eat the innards.
After 40 minutes of searching we eventually found our lions, Anoushka was the first to spot them in our vehicle letting us know with a high pitched yelp of joy. They were relaxing in a clump of shrubs, which provided shade. During the migration there is plenty of prey so the big cats are well fed, meaning you’ll rarely see them moving around during the heat of the day. The pride contained a Lion, 5 Lionesses, and 3 cubs. After hundreds of pictures our group moved on towards the Maasai River looking for water animals, on our way we saw a convoy of vehicles lined up beside the road. We couldn’t see anything and slowly drove alongside; our driver asked what everyone was looking at and we were informed there was a cheetah in the shrubs 100 meters away. The camouflage was amazing; it took 20 seconds to see it even though we knew it was in the bushes. We saw 2 cheetahs and a couple cubs over our day and a half in the park but they blended in so well it was useless trying to get a good picture unless you had a zoom lens the length of your arm. At the Maasai River we saw Hippos slowly walking in chest deep water and after walking upstream several large crocodiles. Before lunch we’d managed to see so much! As we were leaving the park on Day 1 we caught 2 final animals, a pair of Jackals running across a field and a group of Mongooses. The second morning though we were treated to a lioness eating a recently killed wildebeest! Luckily in Maasai Mara you don’t need to spot the animal just the giant clumping of vehicles. Later in the day we watched the same lioness run nearly 5 feet from our vehicle and drink water from a pond before walking away into the nearby hills. Safaris are definitely an amazing experience, and if you’re ever in Africa they are a MUST!
As a Sauder Alum I volunteered with SE101 while on a 1 Year trip around the world. I have been in East Africa for 4 months and am currently working in Arusha, Tanzania with a solar company for 6 weeks. You can read about other adventures at 1yearentrepreneur.com.
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