Sarara

July 22.  Happy 75^th birthday to my mother.   With no phone access I tried emailing as well as facetime to no avail.  Such is the life on the road.

Secondly, a disclaimer.  We are all learning at a rapid pace.  There are so many features, people, customs, animals, etc.  The kids ask us, Nella, and our local questions approximately 500 questions each per day (If the cheetah is fastest, what is second fastest?  Which animal would win in a fight a crocodile or a lion?  In a fight, which animal would win, a bear or a lion?)   We hear answers from various sources and not having the time (or willing to take the time) to fact check I’m pretty much going to pass our “knowledge” along. 

We enjoyed one final short game drive in the Mara and then departed for our next destination, the Sarara resort in the Mathews Mountains.  Christian our trusty Swiss pilot arrived on time (get it Swiss and time).  Seriously, this guy was anal about time.  He’d pride himself saying that we’d arrive at our next destination in 47 minutes and sure enough, we’d arrive on the dot.  He let me land his Caravan flying from the right seat. At first he said I would be able to descend and he would land but on approach he said that I could land it.  Only bounced his new $2.15M airplane one time but he thought it was a really good landing as it was slow and I basically did as instructed so no harm no foul. 

We were met by our Samburu driver and taken to camp in a specialized Toyota Landcruiser.  These are super cool safari vehicles and they have 3 sunroofs and pads and bars on the top where you can sit (the higher you are the better you can see game).  Kids are thrilled to drive around sitting on top of a car. 

Back to the camp. We arrived at Sarara camp, deep in the Mathews Mountains. Talk about remote. It is about a million acre conservation reserve. This is home to the Samburu people and is an active trust restoring animals (mainly elephant, zebra and giraffe) to an area that was decimated by poaching (over 30,000 elephants slaughtered by Somali poachers in the 1980’s). This posh resort is owned by the community and all profits are returned to the community. The Trust believes that the only way to stop poaching is for the local Samburu to realize that tourism is more valuable than poaching and to respect and take ownership of the animals in their lands. It seems to be working. This place is even more over the top than the last, but at least the proceeds go to a great cause. The kids were delighted to swim for an hour in an amazing pool overlooking a watering hole where elephants ad a variety of animals gather throughout the day and evening. 

We went on a hike the next morning and had the first semblance of exercise in over a week. Visited a cycad grove (the oldest plant species…dating back 25 million years). Our guides pulled a baboon spider out of its hole. These are lovely creatures, about 3 inches in diameter, covered with fur, with big fangs and a poisonous bite. I jumped about 3 feet backwards when he pulled it out, which gave the kids and guides quite a chuckle.  We hiked about 1500’ up the hill to the source of their local spring and the lovely cycad trees which only grow in elevations above 6000’. 

Later we visited the “singing wells.” This is a place where the local Samburu tribe dig wells in the local river bed (by bucket and pole) and then hoist the water up to the surface to a trough and sing as they toil away. The depth of the well is measured by the number/height of the men pulling up the water. We only saw 3 man wells today (about 20’ deep) but in the driest areas they have 7 man wells. They gather the water to feed their livestock (goats and cattle) then load it in bags and jugs on donkeys and take it back to their villages. The kids weren’t too keen to see so many donkeys whipped and beaten but it was a fascinating perspective to see how much work was required using such primitive methods. No shovels, no good buckets, etc. They don’t want them and they enjoy their life just the way it is thank you very much. We headed back to the landcruiser and enjoyed cold soft drinks and bottled water while the locals continued singing and hauling cans of muddy water to be loaded on their donkeys. Shocking disparity of wealth if measured by possessions but the Samburu were the ones singing. The kids were able to spend most of the afternoon in the pool. After just over a week on the road I think that kid’s enjoyment of a place is directly proportional to the availability of a swimming pool. 

 

Late that afternoon we ventured to a local Samburu village. Traci and I have never experienced anything like this before. The village was surrounded by a circular fence about 6’ tall made from a variety of dead thorny bushes (most of the bushes have evolved thorns over the eons as a defense to becoming an easy meal for the many herbivores). The diameter of the village was about 500 yards. Inside lived probably 200 people in about 20 small huts. These huts are about 5’ high, 8’ wide, and 12’long. They are covered in cow dung (makes a decent glue) then with a couple of layers of thatch. Inside there is a tiny kitchen (a 1’x2’ firepit) and a sleeping room. We were there on a cool day and it was so dang hot and stuffy in there I couldn’t stand it. They didn’t have a fire going but usually do and live under the heat and smoke so as to repel the mosquitos. I couldn’t imagine. The entire family sleeps on dried cowhides and uses small wood pillows in an area about 8’x8’. Privacy? Not exactly but a lot of procreating gets done in there in the smoke and heat. After escaping outside we toured the remainder of the village. The locals got a good chuckle out of watching our kids attempt to milk a goat. In the center of the village was another stable protected by another fence where they kept their cows and goats and camels. Life is all about their animals and they go to great efforts to protect them from predators (mainly leopards). My lasting image will be of the smiling kids, covered in flies (but not being bothered), wearing rags or nothing at all, living in tiny cow dung and grass huts, their village a goat cage where the goats are fighting and bleating incessantly. This lifestyle dates back tens of thousands of years and it doesn’t show any signs of changing. Their culture is all about procreating and survival. Without any freedom of individual choice (spouse, education, forced circumcision for men and women, etc.), it is easy to think of their existence as somewhat barbaric (and it is through a western lens) but they are content. They are amazingly welcoming and the concern for the good of the whole village is much greater than the immediate gratification individualism and selfishness which seems to have run amok in western society.