Birthday in the Serengeti

6/21/09
Ok, before I go into how crazy lucky we were on safari AGAIN! I forgot an important event from last week. I wrote before about how we went to the Chagga Village and the waterfall…but I forgot to say how eventful our van ride over there was. It started raining pretty hard on our way there (which in Africa is always interesting thanks to both the dirt roads and the non-four-wheel-drive vans). So we were driving up this good size hill when our van got completely stuck in the mud. So we all had to climb out while some passing villagers, the boys and our guide pushed the van down the hill in the mud until it could build up enough momentum to keep going! Also, we had a bet on who would be the first to fall in the muddy hills (no one guessed me)…and it was…me :-)
So last Wednesday was an exciting day…then there was Thursday. It was by far the worst day of placement so far (and hopefully ever). It was raining so we couldn’t have recess and the teacher David, who is awesome, said we could take pictures in the classroom since it was muddy. So it’s like the middle of recess time and all of a sudden the head guy (who is like never there and never helps with anything) comes into my room and says loudly and rudely, “Why are you taking pictures? It’s time to work!” so I think most of you who know me well know exactly what’s coming next…yup you’re right…I started crying. I can’t get yelled at, especially when I’m not doing anything wrong…I always, always, always cry when I do. So then I’m so embarrassed it just makes me cry harder. He tried to apologize but I couldn’t look him in the eye or I would cry more…Lauren and Catherine who are there too are scared of him also and said they would have done the same thing so that made me feel better! Also, David apologized and then just talked to me as if I wasn’t crying which was exactly what I needed….on the plus side I kids sure started behaving well then!!
Ok enough of that, time to talk about the safari! Thursday we drove to this insane campsite with running water and….drum roll…BEDS in the tents! Then Friday we drove to the Seregeti. We were seriously there for like 30 minutes when we saw a leopard in the tree, two lions in trees that had just ate but were sleeping, hyenas and vultures eating a zebra, a family of cheetahs about 50 yards away and a ton of elephants, zebras, and wildebeest. Then Saturday we woke up early to head out toward where the migration was. It’s impossible to describe the number of animals we saw…it was honestly over 10,000 zebra and over 10,000 wildebeest and that number might even be really low! We saw a few more lions attempting to hunt (by the end of the two weekends our lion number count was over 25!) and another leopard sleeping in a tree. But by far the most amazing thing we saw this weekend was a cheetah hunt…again the prey won out but getting to see a cheetah sprint is one of the most incredible sights in the world! The hunt started with 5 cheetahs lying right by our jeep with zebra and antelope close by. The five cheetahs were one mom and four grown cubs…this in itself was amazing because our guide said that the probability of a mother cheetah being able to raise 4 cubs is only 20% because the male leaves after the female gives birth and she has to hunt for food and care for the cubs. They didn’t catch and kill the gazelle because they spotted a lion in the distance and even if they killed something the lion would just come and fight them to claim the kill for itself. Next, we went to this hippo pool with like 50 or more hippos in it and the lesson I learned is that in real life hippos are NOT a cute as they are in Fantasia. All they do is lye around like blobs and poop and fart in the water…it was super gross but kind of funny at the same time. The whole time we kept feeling like we were in the Lion King. They told us that a popular conga (a type of fabric women wear around their waists with different sayings on the back) says “Hollywood made millions off Africa, why can’t Africa?”…very sad, but also very true.
So after all the animals, on Saturday night they whipped out a birthday cake for Matt (we have NO idea how because we were in the middle of nowhere told them Saturday morning about the B-day…they still managed to make a cake with no prior knowledge to get ingredients and NO oven!) —in the jelly icing it said “Happy Birthday Maick” :-) somehow the name got lost in translation but it’s the thought that counts…Matt’s name is always wrong, even on the door here at homebase it says Methew.
On Sunday, we headed back to Moshi which was about a 10 hour drive…it turned into more than that though because a huge rock hit the bottom of one of our cars so they had to fix it on the side of the road. Thank goodness our drivers are good mechanics because there was something wrong with the u-bolt attachment to the suspension (Does that make sense Paul?) and they fixed it in like 45 min. We stayed in our car but I guess at one point the car fell off the jack and everyone gasped because they thought our driver was going to be trapped beneath the car…thank goodness the other guys are strong and caught the car! We were still lucky though cuz we passed another car from a different company on the way back and they had gotten 5 flat tires in the weekend and were out of spares! When we got back to home base they had dinner waiting for us and ANOTHER cake for Matt :-)

Amani,
Valerie