The past two weeks...

After a lot of driving on Monday we ended up at Machakos at the Liti's house. No one usually lives there so the house was overtaken by giant spiders that were lurking around every corner, on the ceiling, under the furniture, and everywhere in between. When we got there we were pretty tired so we just went to bed and headed out to Amboseli the next day. We got to the tent lodge we stayed at a few hours before dinner so we went out into the park to visit a real Maasai village.

The chiefs son took us. They greeted us by doing a short dance with the three of us separately. It was interesting. They did loud calls and singing and the guys jumped really high while the ladies danced...to top it off, we were in the middle of it. After that a few of the warriors showed us how they make fire using two sticks, it took them a while and looked like a lot of work, but thats how they live. It was awesome to see their culture that has remained unchanged over all this time. They explained a little bit about the basics of their tribe. 1) They are polygamist so the men can take many wives. 2) The women build the houses, get firewood, and basically everything that is considered 'mens work' in our culture. 3) The women sleep in 'their' houses every night in a room with their children. A man can come in and sleep in the room next to hers and invite her to his bed if he wants. He leaves his spear outside of the house next to the door and that way other men know not to go in because a man is already there. 4) They are nomadic still so they move around a lot according to where the food will be.

It is a very interesting intriguing culture. They are trying to remained unchanged and not become westernized but some forms of westernization are inevitable which causes a few people to leave the tribe due to updated opinions and beliefs. We got to tour the houses and see what the rooms are like. We even sat on the beds which are made from cattle skin. Unfortunately while we were in their village we did not get to meet the chief, but it was still an awesome experience. I mean, how many people can say they've danced with a Maasai tribe?

We returned to our lodge, ate dinner, and went to our rooms. Our rooms were big tents with nice beds and tiled floor as well as an amazing shower considering it was just a tent. The tent had curtains that pulled back and the walls where just covered with mesh screens so all night we could hear all of the cool animal noises and hyenas. The nice African weather blowing through our tent made the camping experience quite realistic. It was really nice, not too cold, but not hot either.

The next morning we headed out into Amboseli National Park. We drove around in the Liti's little car. It was dusty and bumpy but a tun of fun! We saw more elephants than we could even try to count. We saw zebra, wildebeest, water buffalo, hyenas, antelope, boars, strange birds, hippos, and all sorts of monkeys. In fact, the car even got attacked by a baboon. It was the scariest thing ever. It had huge long nails and he scrapped them on the window trying to get in. He even ripped off the visor that was over the window. At that point Dr. Liti's laugh turned into a frown and he looked very concerned and exclaimed “Ohhh that was not very nice!”. We backed up and honked until the monkeys left then he ran and grabbed the visor. The whole thing was rather amusing and we definitely will never forget it. We saw a lot of amazing wildlife and culture. It was such a blessing that the Liti's took us.

That night we stayed at a small hotel a few hours away from Amboseli. This hotel had cockroaches on the floor and there were tuns of mosquitos. However at dinner we had fantastic conversations about our monkey encounter earlier that day. Dr. Liti is extremely funny, especially at dinner. The whole time we were gone with them we ate African food. It seems that the meals center around the starch. For example potatoes or ugali will be the main dish and you eat it with a little meat/stew or sukuma and the meal always ends with Kenyan tea. I love all of the food. It is very delicious. The biggest thing we leaned about food while traveling with Dr. Liti is that the “human fork” (aka your hands) as he says, is the best eating utensil to use in any circumstance.

The following day we traveled to Mombasa. It is very hot and humid in Mombasa and the traffic is hectic. When we got there Dr. Liti dropped us off at Haller Park. Haller Park is awesome.

As soon as we got there we went and fed giraffes. Yeah, fed them. Their tongues are rough like cat tongues but much bigger. Their lips grasp over your hand when you give them food, similar to the way horses do. It was pretty much awesome. There is really no other way to describe it. Lilian went to feed one but she got scared, dropped the food, and jumped back. We got to feed them pellets- like rabbit food- the pellets were in a big bucket and monkeys would run up and grab a bunch to go eat themselves. After our earlier encounter with monkeys, we were all a little bit on edge because there were all sorts of monkeys EVERYWHERE. There were also big tortoises all over the place. They live to be 300 years old in case you were curious. At Amboseli the hippos were really far away, but at Haller Park we got to see them up close so that was cool, they are way bigger in person than on tv... they weigh over 4 tons and only eat plants, how do they sustain their weight? Good question. The main thing Haller Park is known for is the crocodiles. They had some young crocs, some that were black and some that where yellow. The yellow ones were under incubated, so they end up yellow- not black, however eventually they all end up the dark green colors. When a crocodiles body temperature is too high (they are cold blooded) they just open their mouths so we saw a lot of crocodiles underwater just chillin with their mouths open. They also can hold their breath for 45 minuets underwater. The oldest crocodile they have at Haller Park is 37 years old. While we were there they fed them some snacks and we got to see them fighting over the meat. The oldest one is much bigger than all of the rest. Our guide told us that whenever an animal dies at Haller Park they just feed it to the crocodiles, but other than that they only eat a full meal once a month aside from the small meat snacks that they get daily (which is just a show for tourists). It was, of course, another really awesome experience.

After that we walked to the north coast of the beach in Mombasa. The beach is inexplicably amazing. The sand is white and soft and beautiful. The water is insanely clear and blue. There were a few shops set up along the beach and the coolest part was the camels on the beach. We walked around for a little bit waiting for Dr. Liti then me and Danika decided we need to go into the Indian Ocean! So we ran in (it would be lame to walk into the Indian Ocean the first time ever going in). The water was so warm. It was great. We met up with Dr. Liti a little bit later, had dinner, then went to bed. The next day we spent the whole time on the beach while Dr. Liti did some work. Danika and I were proposed to quite a few time times that day, due to our white skin and “long beautiful hair”. We went swimming, drank coconut milk and just hung out all day. That evening we went to eat crocodile meat but the place was closed so we had fish instead. The next morning we took some final pictures and headed back to Machakos.

We stayed at their house in Machakos Sunday & Monday then we drove back to Eldoret Tuesday. While we were in Machakos, we had delicious Kenyan food that Lilian's mom prepared. We ate a lot of chipates, sukuma, beans, potatoes, rice, stew, and of course tea. I washed some of my clothes African style while Danika ate a flower into her chipate. We took the matatu down to Machakos town on Monday and walked around for a while. There were two little dogs out back- that weren't taken care of because no one lives there- and I absolutely fell in love with them! They were so so skinny and malnourished but they were both very sweet and I wish I could have brought them home with me. They were also very smart- I taught the one puppy to shake and he caught on SO fast! I snuck them a lot of food and even convinced Lilian to give them the leftovers. On Tuesday morning we left and drove 7 hours back to Eldoret.

The trip was fantastic and an incredible blessing. We learned a lot about the culture. Just spending 8 days with a Kamba family taught us a lot.

On Wednesday we went to the market with Connie and finished up our shopping. Mama Elizabeth and her daughter were so excited to see us one more time so we took pictures with them before leaving. Mama Elizabeth also gave us each a free necklace, it was sweet of her.