16:13, Tuesday, 7 August, 2012

The second of August brought a beautiful morning at Dave’s den.  The hyenas were lethargic, with only Oddish sacked out by the den while Mouse Trap and Twister wandered about in the bushes.  A group of curious giraffes looked down at us as if to say, “Just when we found a place away from the road, these hyena lovers traipse through the grass and disturb our peace.”  Sorry, giraffes.  Since my scans consisted of “ODD so by den” (Oddish sacked out by the den), “TWST oos bushes” (Twister out of sight bushes), and “MT wan 5m – D” (Mouse Trap wanders 5 meters from the den), we took the opportunity to pretend we were simultaneously fisi and twiga (giraffe) researchers, stealing some photographs and watching the three little 6-footers giraffling about.

I started practicing shooting again on the second, finding out I would be going to Serena in a few days to help Dave out with darting, etc. as Julia would be away taking the IRES students to Nairobi.  I was all kinds of excited to return to Serena, the first Fisi Camp I called home.  The bull’s eye had to be replaced by the time I was through practicing, previously weakened by Charlie, who discovered a talent he didn’t know he had.

That evening after dinner I braved the kitchen tent, determined to make some gratitude brownies for the balloon pilots who had helped me get unstuck the night before.  I made Tyler come watch to make sure I was doing everything correctly.  Well, Michelle had written down the recipe, but those darn British cook by weight.  How am I supposed to know how many grams are in a cup?  Despite our carefully calculated conversions, I somehow still ended up putting in waaaaaay too much sugar.  This resulted in big chocolate air bubbles rising up and generally exploding all over the oven. Even Joseph could not rescue the would-be brownies, although he and I stayed up late trying to salvage them long after Tyler had given up for bed.  We couldn’t help but laugh as we continually opened the oven to watch them bubble and ooze, never any more cooked than the last time we checked.  I honestly don’t know what I do wrong.  Stephen chuckled from his post outside the kitchen tent as Joseph jokingly proclaimed that I would never get a husband were I a Maasai. I retorted that men are perfectly capable of cooking, and that tasty food isn’t necessary to survive.  For whatever reason they found that quite hilarious and roared away. 

Too embarrassed to take the pilots my brownie soup, we ate half at breakfast the next morning and almost the entire other half went to an ecstatic sweet-toothed Wilson.  I honestly don’t know what I do wrong.  At least Riz appreciated the story.

The next morning at the den it hit me that I am absolutely doing what I have always loved to do best, but this time as a job.  Whereas I used to work hard finishing my homework so I could climb trees and wade through grass over my head in hopes of catching a glimpse of a deer or goose, squirrel or raccoon through my dad’s binoculars, here now I was sitting with my very own binos propped up against the steering wheel, watching hyenas as my homework.  Way cool. 

Not many hyenas were out beyond the den that morning, but we did see a stillborn baby zebra.  It was lying in the grass, wetly wrapped in placenta, curled around with perfect stripes showing through.  The mother, still bloody from giving birth, stood next to it looking down.  It was as though she were wondering what she did wrong, and I was filled with sadness.  Two other zebras approached her, but she could not be persuaded to join them and stayed by her dead baby as they walked off.

To add to the sorrow, I finished reading Marley and Me later in the day.  I literally sobbed, and had to stay in my tent for a while to hide my puffy red eyes.  It made me miss my childhood dog Belle, my best pal growing up.  As though the hyenas who goofily roll in anything stinky and stand with their ears all perked forward when we approach don’t remind me of her enough as is.

20:48

August fourth was a bitter-sweet day.  It was Ian, Tyler, Nora, and Julie’s last day in the Mara.  To celebrate a wonderful summer, we all dressed in Maasai garb and walked the hour and a half to Talek.  It was beyond fun, and the Maasai really got a kick at some wazungu (white people) participating in their culture.  We got looks and smiles the whole way to town.  As for me, I felt I had been born and raised a Maasai: overlapping shukas plucked by the breeze, kanga blowing behind like a cape, jingling necklace announcing my whereabouts, manyattas of mud huts stretching for kilometers around across the flat or gently sloped grassland, a blanket of blessed clouds blocking the intense midday sun.  I could easily imagine I had known this forever.

In town, we ate at G and G’s, a nice new restaurant.  Chicken and chips.  The protein of the chicken made me feel full, a rare feeling here given the carb-based diet.  We drank cold soda, and afterwards bought some rudimentary chocolate.  While Nora and Tyler shopped for the finishing pieces to their outfits, I went off to talk with some kids, two of whom I recognized as Caroline and Juliet.  They had a friendly dog with them whose nipples were prominent; I asked if she had puppies, to which they excitedly responded yes before leading me through an alley between shops to their courtyard home.  Off to the side of some hanging clothes strung between two concrete walls was a tiny cardboard box shelter for Sue, the mother, and her two puppies, Simba and another whose name I didn’t catch.  The puppies were the sweetest things ever, plump with shy blue eyes, a tiny bit smaller than 6-week old hyena cubs, faces oddly looking more boxer-ish than Maasai doggish.  Simba is appropriately the color of a lion, and the other a dark blueish chocolate brown. It was perfect joy cradling them, the children all around beside themselves that I had come to see their puppies.  It was wonderful to actually hold those puppies since I can only ever hug the hyena cubs with my eyes.  I was reluctant to leave the alley, and was made to bring Michelle, Charlie, and Ian back to see them after announcing my side trip.

We sang in the bed of the hilux as Benson drove us to where we play soccer so we could cross the river back to camp.  Our voices chattered over the bumps, “Emyiaaaaaannna enkaina naishoOyo, EEee!”

Drove to Jackal Hill together after a shower, again in Maasai garb, to watch the sunset.  We ended up watching only gray clouds, but man did we have a blast.  We tried time and again to get a picture where we were all jumping like Maasai, failing miserably.  Tyler and I frolicked across the tall grass to a classic tree-bush nearby, the type Moon Pie likes to reside beneath. We cautiously checked for wildlife before ducking into it.  Therein was a sanctuary with a magic impermeability to all surrounding influence, the curved sturdy green-shrubbed branches enclosing to the ground in a shape like the leaves of a great willow tree.  I now understand why our hyenas fancy such places to rest.

Michelle killed us by attempting to dance and sing like a Maasai man alongside Benson and Wilson.  The hilarity!  She threw her head up and down like a nodding topi while trying, very seriously, to belt out low wild vibrato like the guys, next processing in the line between them, standing out like a sore thumb before lining up to jump like a grass rat beside two spring hares.  The scene is indescribable beyond the fact that  I almost fell off the top of the cruiser with laughter.

Dinner ended how it did last year.  After pizza, Joseph brought out a surprise cake that read “I love you all.”  Everyone sat around the table and passed the cake as Joseph and Wilson bestowed blessings.  Then we sang America’s national anthem; Joseph, Jackson, Lasingo, Benson, and Wilson followed with Kenya’s.  It was midnight by the time the festivities ended, I was packed for Serena and finally fell into bed.