Wednesday 15 February
The elephants below camp were pretty squawky late into the evening last night but things finally settled down out there around midnight. I’d been reading/dozing for a while and finally put the book down when it got quiet. I slept solidly until the pre-dawn chorus broke out before 6. I got up to lay on the daybed on my balcony to watch the sunrise and was back in bed to doze some more until 7:30. The insomnia that has plagued me at home for the last several months has disappeared. I’m sleeping long, hard and without the aid of Ambien, which I normally have to use to get over jet lag. Safari in Kenya is truly a wonder drug.
I wasn’t meeting Daniel until 9, so I asked for my coffee to be delivered at 7:45. They leave it on the balcony and ring a wooden bell to gently wake you. I enjoyed my first cup of the day out on the balcony and then got dressed and fully sunblocked up. It’s warm even in the mornings, and I’m happy I brought two pairs of shorts and a few sleeveless tops, it’s all I’m wearing, even into the evening. It is not unbearably hot if you’re shaded and staying still, but I did ask Daniel to put the tarp across the roof of the vehicle so the sun wasn’t beating down on me as we drove back from Singing Wells. I don’t mind getting the sun but I do mind getting overheated. I’m trying to keep up with my hydration here also.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs and toast and a little granola with yogurt. I had passion fruit juice again, which is really delicious. I ate with the older British couple who have been here 6 times before. They have vast experience in Africa generally and are interesting to chat with.
We headed out at 9 for the singing wells. Since they don’t allow photography, I had no idea what to expect, and it’s a good thing. Essentially it is a series of undergound wells from which the locals bring up the water and fill troughs for their goats, cattle, donkeys or camels. They start singing miles out as they walk their herds to this one site, and the animals know to follow them and know which trough is theirs to go to. The locals alternate days to bring their herds, so it’s not inundated. But the other part of the “singing” wells is when they start the relay of buckets of water from deep down in the underground wells to the surface, with the last guy filling the troughs until the livestock is satisfied. The song is rhythmic and meant to be motivating for them as much as it is a signal to the herds of where they should be drinking from. It is not easy work, not clean work but I saw how quickly the livestock became bloated from all they drank. Many of the men strip naked to do the work because they want to keep their clothes clean, and some of the kids would get buckets of water to wash themselves and the clothes on their backs right there at the well site. All of this is certainly a lot to take in, but what really dropped my jaw was when the men would drink water out of the bucket straight from the wells, water that was quite obviously muddy, dirty and otherwise unhealthy to us. Daniel says that he drinks from it too as the Samburu have just built up a resistance to the very micro-organisms that would send us into dire illness. Fascinating.
The drives so far with Daniel are, I’ve decided, the epitome of slow travel. Normally on safari it is sort of a boomerang of activity from one sighting to the next, unless you’re waiting for something to happen or otherwise want to park yourself at a sighting to really enjoy it. With Daniel, we will stop to observe, discuss, savor some of the littlest details from which I learn so much.
This morning we were coming back to camp and pulled up next to a giraffe that the camp had rescued and raised. She was very comfortable with our vehicle so stayed put. She was chewing vegetation and I marveled as I watched her swallow, and saw the ripples of muscle push the food down her massive neck. I mentioned to Daniel how I’d never noticed that before and he told me to watch, and suddenly her stomach contracted, the muscles rippled upward this time and she was chewing again. I’d just seen the whole process in reverse! How many giraffes over how many safaris have I seen and never knew this? It was pretty cool. The bee-eater bird we saw yesterday was another example, watching it survey the air around it for a target, then snatch and grab and return to the branch to feed on it. I’ve never taken the time to see that before.
I did have a fleeting sighting of a gerenuk on the way back into camp but it spooked and moved on. I would love to see it feeding while standing on its hind legs.
As much as I’m learning about the Samburu, I’m also teaching them. We spent today discussing how our hours of daylight vary year round, how December are the shortest hours of daylight and June the longest. Here on the equator it’s 12 hours of each all the time. I told them how in places like Alaska, they have light all day around the summer equinox, and they just can’t fathom that. I also taught them about humpback whales and showed Daniel video from some of our whale watches, and it really amazed him. He says he likes learning like that too, it’s like traveling through us for him.
Quick rest in the room before lunch. I have a beading lesson with local ladies after lunch and a village visit tonight. Today is ‘culture day’!
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