Ammon:
woke up and packed then I went outside, and fed some of our donuts to the ants. Then we put our luggage on the cafe porch. Then our guy he showed us around, and after he finished I found a ant highway (yes that is possible just only for a massive colony) and… lets just say im a little scared of ants now. Also, the night before I had my entire body besides my head outside the mosquito net. Even though I would be considered venomous, its actually not to scratchy. I bet the mosquitos were thinking “Man, get a load of this guy! Hes so sugary and doesn’t need barbacue sauce!” then we had a 3 minute walk to the village, and when we got there they did a dance, then showed us around. Mom gave $171 to the village because she bought a lot. Then we started the drive, which was just me on dads phone pretty much the whole time. Then we got stuck in traffic and got back to our CySuites hotel. Said goodbye to our polish friends and went to bed.
Pictures & Videos from Sept 17
LaReita:
Next to our accommodations was a traditional Maasai village. The Maasai people are the ones who can jump really high, wear the red plaid, the men walk with sticks since they are the shepherds, they have massive hanging ear-lobes, and wear lots of beads and metal jewelry. The Maasai are polygamous and is very common for a man to start another family without the 1st wife’s knowledge. The women take care of everything else: build the cow-dung-mud house, wash clothes, children, milk the cows, butcher the meat, cook, earn the money to pay the school fees, gather the wood and water, etc, etc
Edith told us about her life as a polygamous wife to a Maasai man. It is not a happy relationship for her. In telling her tale and the common theme of most Maasai men it is that of dominance instead of respect. Considering for generations how the tribe has lived among wild animals, it makes sense that an attitude of dominant/subdominant or predator/prey would be modeled in the tribe. But that’s just my theory from only observing this environment for a few days.
We bought some souveniers from the women’s ‘gift shop’. There were about 40 stalls. Dave’s propensity to ‘be fair’ to everyone would not be possible here. It was interesting to watch as Edith negotiated the price with the men. She is a strong-willed woman. She has to be. We learned that the sale is divided evenly among all the women. This is how they survive in the wild, by living communally. Dave was pleased that it would ‘be fair.’
We began our drive back to Nairobi. Edith and her daughter joined us since Edith has a Doctor’s appointment in Nairobi. We stopped in Narok and Dave wanted to treat them all to KFC. KFC is quite popular in Ghana, and interesting to see it also in Kenya. They have been to KFC before, but I think it is not a usual event.
Got back to our hotel in Nairobi and our Polish friends were sitting poolside with their luggage. They would be leaving in an hour for the airport. We greeted each other like old friends, chatted, swapped Safari stories, and pictures of our home activities, including our dogs. The little girl Leah was so happy to see Ammon she hugged him multiple times! It was darling. She’s an only child, and in a way Ammon is an only child because of the age difference between him and Jacob. Ammon commented that by the time Anthony & Gracey’s baby girl is his age, he’d be 22. I exchanged phone numbers with the mom, Alice, on WhatsApp. Who knows, maybe in our future travels we’ll pass through Poland! (The airport is named after the pianist-composer, Chopin.)
We stayed in a different room that had a washer. It was a washer AND dryer single machine. Didn’t quite dry all the way. I always bring paracord on my Africa trips. So I just tied it between the handles of the kitchen cabinets and hung them to finish drying. Worked out well. This was a great apartment hotel. If we come back to Nairobi, definitely will stay at this place.