SIMBA!

I am doing my best not to freak out at the idea of Jasen leaving this week. Both him and Sophie have been that constant since I’ve been here and have not only helped me settle in but have been true friends to me. Now that Sophie is gone, it’s just us two from the original group. He is like my big brother away from my big brother and I am not sure what I am going to do without him there especially at the hospital. He is the one who has taught me everything to the point where the nurses come and find me to perform a procedure they don’t feel comfortable doing.

My week was shortened to only three days, because Jordan, Kristina and I left Thursday morning for a safari. Monday was busy as normal, with everyone who decides not to come in during the weekend, plus inpatients, plus new patients all showing up in need of care. That night, Rachel and I decided we should get our noses pierced. She had bought two rings in Arusha and we brought home two suture needles from the hospital so we were good to go. Jordan was in charge of taping the procedure, Fatuma was in charge of holding the light, Jasen was the piercer, and Junior was in charge of being freaked out. He began by putting on gloves and swiping down our noses with alcohol pads. Before I even really made a connection that he was ready to pierce me, the needle was already through and he was holding the hole open with the attached string.

For the proceeding six minutes, he struggled trying to get the bent ring through. All the while, Jordan sat in front of me lying saying it was almost through and there was no blood. Poor Rachel had to watch the whole thing. After though she still made the decision to get hers done as well. Luckily hers only took about a third of the time.

Nothing major happened Tuesday or Wednesday until Wednesday just before we were about to leave. A man came in with a broken femur and several cut wounds from a pikipiki accident. As we began cutting his clothes off we found that he was wearing, a down jacket, then a long sleeved shirt, then a short sleeve shirt followed by a jersey. Each a little more drenched in sweat than the last. After I cut through his jeans, he had on sweats and then shorts. In order to continue the pattern, he was also wearing two pairs of socks underneath his hiking boots. Since our x-ray machine is broken we had to just suture what we could, splint his legs together and refer him to KCMC (the major hospital here).

That night we went out to dinner at Deli Chez for Jasen’s goodbye dinner and then a few of us went to watch a soccer game which didn’t get done until 3am. When we got home we were faced with the infamous gate, and once again were locked out having to climb over the wall onto the guard tower and back down the other side.

Jordan and I were up at 5 am to pack for our four day safari. Of course, the electricity was out and we were forced to pack in the dark, holding flashlights in our mouths. We were so proud of ourselves for being on time and ready to leave by 6...but then our taxi driver never showed up. We had to call another one and walk part of the way into town before we actually caught one. Thankfully our group was understanding and didn’t leave without us.

After four hours of driving, or four hours of sleeping for me, we pulled into Twiga Campground at our first stop by Lake Manyara (which comes from a Masai word that is a specific name of a tree) in a town called Mto kwa Mbu (Mosquito River). We ate boxed lunches while the guides started to set up camp. It was a lot different than I had pictured it. The main road was a stones throw away from our tent and white girls in bikinis splashed in a pool while more white people played Frisbee in shorts. Jordan, Kristina and I decided to go on a biking safari. A guide took us through the outskirts of town, through a jungle-like trail where there were monkeys and birds everywhere. We came out in the savannah where we rode to a herd of wildebeests.
It was at this time that Jordan realized she had popped her tire by riding over a two inch thorn. The guide said he called someone to meet us with another bike but we should all continue on via foot until they came. We ended up walking for another hour in the middle of the savannah, supposedly in the direction of the lake. The guide finally stopped and said that because the rainy season is so late this year, the lake had receded and was still another 2 hours walk away.

Since we were suppose to be back in thirty minutes for the game drive that night. The guide gave Jordan his bike and took ours, telling us to go ahead and he would walk. We hadn’t even gotten half way when she realized that she had run over another thorn. We did an awkward jog back to the camp as fast as we could while pushing our bikes. We got back dehydrated, sweaty and as red as a baboon’s butt. They hurriedly threw us in the safari car and we were off.

Lake Manyara was beautiful and we got to see almost every animal the first day. David, our safari guide, who has been doing safaris for six years said he only saw the lions in the trees two other times. Besides that we saw elephants (which were close enough to touch), giraffes, hippos, dikdiks, flamingos, all kinds of birds, zebras, warthogs, wildebeests, all kinds of monkeys and baboons, ostriches, impalas, other weird deer things, jackals, and more. We went to bed shortly after the sun did and the next morning were early to rise after it.

We passed through Ngorongoro on the way to Serengeti. The mountains were full of animals everywhere. The Masai were herding their cattle right next to giraffes. We made it to our campsite around 4, quickly set up our tents (Jordan and I were the first to set up and had to show the others how it’s done…no big deal) and then waited around for the tire on our car to be changed. While we waited, Jordan and I hiked up a nearby hill/pile of rocks. The whole time apparently the Africans were yelling at us to get down because a pride of lions lived there as well as poisonous snakes, but we didn’t hear them until we were at the top. I fairly certain that if we were to actually encounter a lion, Jordan would try to pet him. At least it would have distracted him while I ran.

When David returned with the car, we headed out for the game drive. We were lucky again and got to see a leopard fairly close as well as three cheetahs that ran right across the road then sat and watched the sunset right in front of us. We were also the only car there which was awesome.

That night I heard twigs snapping outside of our tent, followed by something hitting the side. Our screens were open, and I opened my eyes enough to see a giraffe walk past our tent. I wasn’t awake enough to connect that there was actually a real elephant there and returned to bed just thinking it was a dream or I was imagining him.

In the morning, which was actually still night because we were up an hour before the sun, the rest of our group confirmed that there was a giraffe as well as jackals. We climbed into the safari car half asleep, and drove out to the savannah. We were by a heard of elephants with their babies when the sun rose. Shortly after, a mama elephant and her baby charged us.

Serengeti translates as “never ending”, which fits it well because it just kept going and going. We saw 4 of the 5, Big Five (black rhino, lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard). Our last day in Serengeti we saw 2 prides of lions, which was a relief seeing as Jordan was set on seeing lions. Every time she would fall asleep and we would wake her for something she would jolt up, frantically look around and question, “Simba?!” And each time we would reply, “No, Jordan, bathroom break”.

The end of the third day we arrived at our campsite in Ngorongoro. We almost the first ones there and set up camp with the best view. Our site was at the top edge of the crater with the most spectacular view. While we were setting up, an elephant walked right into our camp, through the safari cars parked and over by the kitchen to wear the water supply was, and just started drinking out of the supply. Everyone was running around trying to get pictures with him. He finally had had enough and just as I was walking by to get something out of the safari car, he started flapping his ears and began to charge. Pari, a girl in our group calmly shouted, “Bree, you might want to run”. I turned around right as he outstretched his trunk and nicked me in the butt. I quickly darted behind the cook house and avoided being trampled. A few Masai warriors were standing by observing, probably thinking, “Those stupid wazungu.”

Jordan and I helped cook dinner in the big cook house with all the African guides. They were so excited we were in there helping and weren’t shy at laughing at us anytime they said something we didn’t understand or were slow at cutting up vegetables. After dinner we offered to help our cook wash dishes, and somehow got suckered into doing the entire camp’s dishes. Every time we returned with a new stack of pots and pans, we were greeted with all the cooks cheering and whistling right before they handed us another dirty stack.

The next morning, Jordan and I had learned from the previous morning and brought along our sleeping bags as well as just stayed in our pajamas. As we began our descent into The Crater (Ngorongoro) the sun was just starting to rise. We watched it while zebras, wildebeests, ostriches, hyenas, flamingos and elephants all ran around us. The view was breathtaking. Our last day was relaxing and we didn’t see anything new besides rhinos, which completed the Big 5. It was amazing though to see all the animals together in one place.

Everyone slept the whole way home. It took about 40 minutes to wash all the dirt off my body, since I decided not to shower the whole time after witnessing the suffering Jordan went through when she took one. It’s good to be home though.