I never thought I would have class next to a wildlife corridor! Sitting under a baobob tree (which we found money in, apparently the Maasai use it as a savings bank) we had a lecture about land usage and preserving the wildlife corridor for the future benefit of the animals that use it. While we were sitting there, we saw tons of flamingo miles away surrounding the lake. They were a solid line of light pink along the horizon as far as we could see. Wildebeest were moving through the area, as well as a herd of cattle and several members of a local Maasai clan. It started as a cowbell from far behind us, and evolved into dozens of huge cattle with horns all pushing each other right past me! One of them almost fell on me. I was actually frightened. No one else seemed remotely concerned because they all grew up on farms. Fortunately everything was fine. The man herding the cattle looked almost as shocked as we did to see him walking by in his traditional dress and holding his sword. I’m sure he’s not used to seeing a bunch of mzungus sitting on the land where his cattle graze.
I'm in the pink...next to the cattle
The next day we had a non-scheduled program day so we went to an art gallery started by some rich Americans. They even brought their two chocolate labs over with them. They were playing all American music and had a really fancy gift shop. It was surrounded by rolling hills and served pizza, Caesar salad amazing smoothies and even ice cream (really hard to find here)! I felt like I was in California, not Africa. The director said she comes here whenever she needs an afternoon of America.
Swahili word of the day: kifungua kinywa (breakfast)
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