Our first night here, we could hear a lion walking just
outside our tents with his low grunt. Last night, we heard two lions. So this morning, we’re
trying to find the lions. We explored the road near our camp and found tracks.
Then we explored the western portion of the park adjacent to our camp – no luck. We did find a group of banded mongoose, a brown snake eagle
(which has scale on his feet to prevent snake bites), a slender mongoose, Yellow-billed Stork,
the Goliath Heron
(largest of all herons), the African Sacred Ibis,
lots of Warthogs, Kudus, and of course, Impalas. Then Jimmy, our driver, noticed recent tire
tracks on the side of the road. In the distance we could see a pride of lions.
We took a quick close-up peak at them (it was illegal to go off the road), and
then waited at the road to see if we would see a game chase with an impervious
herd of impala. But the impala discovered the lions and began to vocalize a
warning. Now the lions had no chance so we headed off for our picnic lunch. At lunch
we kept our food safe from the Vervet Monkeys, but the
Cape Franklins or Cape
Spurfowl picked up our crumbs.
In the afternoon, we finally saw elephants, one family in
the shade of a tree and another throwing up dirt near the river as a sunscreen.
Eventually they crossed the river in about 10 feet of water. We also noticed a Saddle-Billed Stork
and a flock of Blacksmith Lapwings (called that because of their 'tink, tink, tink' alarm call). As we left the river we came upon a bellow (herd) of Cape Buffalo. They
were headed to the water, so we headed there and saw about three hundred of
them – our best Cape Buffalo sighting ever!
Our final discover of the afternoon was a Sable Antelope, a
rare sight (in fact our only sighting on the trip).
 |
Sable Antelope |
African Traditions
In the evening, we gathered in the Boma, a gathering place,
to hear about African traditions. We had already seen a boma at the village yesterday, here the village gathers for decisions about the village or to settle disputes. The chief of a village or a tribe is usually a
hereditary position. Even today, the chief will settle most ‘civil’ disputes,
but crimes are usually tried at the district government level. The chief will
remain chief until his death or he voluntarily steps down. This is one of the
explanations for why so many African ‘Presidents” remain in office until they
decide to step down, ignoring term limits and election results.
In our camp Boma, We ate a traditional African meal - the men are served first and we were encouraged to eat with our fingers. In traditional Africa, the women would serve the men, but we were more egalitarian, everyone went to the buffet. On the last night at each of our camps, we would eat in the boma and then have an exchange of culture. The staff sang for us a number of songs, often with excellent harmony. As thanks, we returned the favor (?) by singing an American song or two. We started with "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain" and by our fourth camp, we had added "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
No comments:
Post a Comment