Masai Mara Boma Visit

Day 46
6:30 Game Drive
9:00 Breakfast
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Wildlife Conservation
4:00 Visit Masai Mara Boma
7:00 Supper
9:00 Natural History

   On this morning's game drive we saw a lioness stalking a wildebeest! It was thrilling to think we might see her kill it, but it got away. Maybe she thought our trucks were in the way? “This is another example of tourism infringing on the circle of life here in the Mara.” We also found cheetahs! I took a lot of photos of them, they were so amazing. There were cubs that were only slightly smaller than their mother and they kept running at each other and playing. The cheetahs were jumping on the trucks and our driver quickly rolled up his window!
   Back at camp while working on our school assignments, we were passing around a spray bottle someone had brought. We were spraying ourselves with water it was so hot!
   We visited a boma this afternoon. “When we first got there they told us about the customary way of greeting people so we arranged ourselves to walk into the boma in a traditional fashion. All the women walked by us and we shook their hands and then the kids walked by us and we touched their heads.” We broke up into small groups to see all the cultural demonstrations. We went into a home and the woman explained how she did things like cleaning the milk container. We looked a sheep enclosure where they put the animals at night. The woman did their traditional dance, “some of the girls danced with them, it was cool! They danced in a straight line, then in a tight circle, and then moved as a tight group walking around. We showed them a version of the ‘Macarena’ – it was funny!” The men did the warriors dance where they jump straight upwards and grunt. To light a fire they use elephant dung as kindle and rub a stick with their hands on a knife. It lit very quickly. This boma visit was nothing like visiting Richard’s boma in Eremit “we were more like tourists, now they will dance for us, now they will light a fire… I’m still grateful for the cultural lesson even if it didn’t feel as authentic.” 10 years ago today I was learning about the traditional way of life for the Masai people of the Mara.

Cultural Demonstrations; womans dance, warriors dance, making fire