Life at Kilimanjaro Bush Camp

So it's been a few days since my last post so this is going to be a little long. I now feel like I've been living here for weeks. We've begun classes so a routine has started to form here. Kilimanjaro Bush Camp is beautiful!

We all live in bandas, cabin-like buildings that are made of concrete and wood with thatched roofs. I share a banda with two other girls while most bandas have 4 people living in them. Our banda is named Tumbili or monkey. For meals and class we all meet in the big central building that is fashioned in the same way. The staff, who are all Kenyan, live in the camp just a few feet away. The best part about the location is our gorgeous view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Our camp is surrounded by a fence to discourage any big animals from coming in, but the baboons do manage to make it across.We have a resident baboon troop that hang out in our camp, fighting and making a lot of noise at 4 in the morning. They also make for wonderful entertainment and I don’t think I’ll ever get over watching them. Surrounding us are many Maasai group ranches and when walking along the fence, it’s easy to see women carrying water from the river and men herding their goats and cattle in the bush.

I have done so much already! We have been into our neighboring town, Kimana to see what it was like. The town is pretty small but includes a few buildings consisting of many small shops and stands along the road. The town isn’t a tourist destination but is on the main road to Amboseli so they do get tourists sometimes. However, we were the only white people there. There is a market there on Tuesdays which I am VERY excited to attend! The experience really made me excited to learn Swahili because I couldn’t communicate with anyone! All I could say was jambo (hello) and asante (thank you). Quite a few people knew some English so we could order things and ask questions. There was an interesting mixture of people dressed in what we consider normal urban clothing and traditional Maasai dress. Most of the women we saw dressed traditionally were covered in their beaded jewelry that they wanted to sell to all of us. They are well known by SFS and are called the Maasai mamas. The particular women that interacted with us the most was named Joyce and she was a very aggressive salesperson. She would cover your arms in the beaded bracelets and insist that you buy one, even following us around the town. It was pretty funny. We were in town when all of the kids were walking home from school so we were able to speak to a lot of adorable kids. They crowded around us when we started taking pictures so that they could see the picture on the camera screen. What struck me most about the town was the laid back feel to life there. Many people were just sitting around talking outside of stores or manning their stands. It’s really a different style of living compared to the hustle and bustle of US towns and cities.

I have really enjoyed the routine of life here so far! I wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 depending on whether I have cook crew or not. We help the staff fix breakfast which begins at 7:30 and our first class is at 8:00. We have a few breaks during the day which have been used for card games or doing some of the required readings. We have another class in the afternoon and then every day a lot of us have played soccer or volleyball with some of the staff. Soccer is an especially dusty and out of control process! The field is full of plant and bumps that keep the ball going everywhere and makes for a really fun game. The staff is especially good too!

Today we went to a nearby Maasai boma and it was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. The Maasai mamas greeted us in their beautiful and very colorful traditional clothes. They then performed a traditional song and dance. We stood in one of the animal pens where little white butterflies swarmed before the group of women. They sang and began to jump forward towards us, even bringing some of us into jump with them. It was amazing. Then we performed the dance to Waka Waka by Shakira for them which they seemed to enjoy, judging from their huge smiles. It was so nice that even though we didn’t really speak the same language, we could communicate through the dance. We were then shown some of the unique tools they use and into one of their houses. It was a small house with mud walls and a wooden roof. You had to duck into through the doorway into the dark. Light only came through a hole in the wall in the back of the house. We sat on a bench and bed in one room where we could see the cookfire in the adjacent room where another bed was tucked. It really made me think about their lifestyle and how simply they live compared to our extreme abundance. The whole house was a little smaller than my bedroom at home and a whole family lived in there. Apparently the women are in charge of building the house when they are married and it takes about 2 months to construct. After the house tour, the women set out all of their beaded jewelry and fabric for us to shop around. It was great to see all of their skill and I bought a few things, including some fabric for a skirt. I'm glad that we are exposed to the people that make up the opposing argument to conservation. It's so easy to get caught up in my love for animals that it is hard to see why anyone would be against keeping these species alive. Their livelihood depends completely on their goats and cattle and when a lion kills one of their livestock or an elephant tramples their crops, why should they not kills it? They receive no direct benefit from conserving wildlife which is why one goal of conserving these species in Kenya is to make it an economic benefit to the local people.

Classes continue tomorrow and then we go to Amboseli National Park on Monday!! I am soooooo excited! It’s hard to be sitting in a classroom talking about all these animals and issues when I know it is all so close by!

Uskiku Mwema! Goodnight!