Swahili class is finished this week and university classes don’t start until the end of September so one quick entry before I’m off on vacation. The others students from my program and I are going to visit the south and see
I peer out of the window of our rented Dhaladhala as sunlight first breaks over my first national park. I didn’t see any animals, just a hilly horizon filling with light over the acacia trees. We couldn’t see well out of the Dhaladhala windows and wished we were observing the scene from a jeep or truck, but I was still excited about the prospect of seeing giraffes, zebras, elephants, and lions in the wild. I slid the back window open as far as I could and hung my head into the cool morning air.
At first, those of us who had never been on safari jumped at each new animal citing, grabbing our cameras and running to the windows, but after a little while, we stopped taking pictures of ever swala or zebra, but we waited with bated breath to see a lion. I had to climb over a professor to take pictures, but I loved watching the graceful giraffes eat and the baby zebra play. Finally, we got stuck behind a crowd of jeeps full of Wazungus and Indians. We were able to join the throng and spot a sleeping male lion, which disappeared down a hill after a few minutes. Unfortunately, we had to wait another ten minutes for the other tourists to disperse.
If I’m able to afford it, I’m considering going on real safari up north, where I could sleep on the Ngorogoro crater and see the animals really close. Going on safari, even just to see animals, feel a little colonialistic. It is certainly not an authentic experience of a Tanzanian. We complain about paying higher prices than locals, but coming here no matter how hard we try to live the life, we’re able to do things locals can’t. However, going on a real safari may me a once in a life time opportunity. I guess we’ll see how much I have left after this week in the south.
No comments:
Post a Comment