I had never considered going on safari and wasn’t all that interested in the zoo. But, when I started planning my trip to Tanzania it seemed ludicrous not to add a safari to my itinerary. The whole point of going to Tanzania was to climb Kilimanjaro and tick that off my list.
So I am not going to tell you all about the climb (In this story) other than at 6.45am on Sunday April 22nd, I officially stood on top of the highest peak in Africa. I was the first person to reach the summit and my guide Victor won a bet made with the other guides. He apparently did very well as I wasn’t the favourite or the 2nd favourite !
Two days after descending Kilimanjaro I was met by Joseph, my guide for the safari. As we made our way towards Ngorongoro he explained that April is when wildebeest and giraffes start their migration. Very soon we saw our first group. Nothing had prepared me for the sheer numbers and sounds of thousands of them racing across the flat terrine.
After a long drive through the most amazing scenery, we arrived at my accommodation for the first night. A series of green and brown buildings were discreetly positioned behind trees and shrubs. The first thing I noticed was that some of the local Maasai tribe were working in the yard. One young man ran to take my rucksack smiling profusely at me. “Where from Miss – Australia, America, South Africa” ? he eagerly asked.
“I am from Ireland” I replied.
“Long way away Miss” he said as he disappeared with my rucksack clearly knowing where to take it.
“Welcome Elizabeth, I’m Shane” came a distinctive South African voice. I could hear my Da’s voice in my head, “great man in a line-out”. Shane was huge, with unruly straw coloured hair. He approached me with his massive hand outstretched. “You are a lot smaller than I expected”. The look of surprise on my face was met with “I hear you climbed the Mountain so I was expecting someone bigger”.
“Thankfully there is no height restriction on climbing” I replied and he laughed “Well good on you, it’s something I’d love to do, just never seems the right time”.
“We are right in the middle of Maasai land. There is a camp nearby and they know you are the only guest here at tonight so they have asked if you would like to go with them to herd the cattle. What do you think? Are you up for going?”.
“Absolutely, would love to” I quickly replied.
“Great, grab your camera, leave the rest of your stuff here and I’ll take it to your tent later”.
I quickly followed him to where a group of 25-30 people of various ages were waiting.
“This is Elizabeth, I am not sure how much help she will be with the cows”, Shane addressed the group laughing to himself.
A few of the older ones giggled. I was immediately struck by how tall the men were. They all wore garments of various shades of reds and purple plaids. Most held spears and practically everyone had necklaces of coloured beads, ivory and wood. They all had large wooden circular earrings in their stretched ear lobes.
A tall chap approached me saying. “I am Kadoga”, you are Miss Elizabeth from Ireland yes”.
“I certainly am” I replied. “Thanks for inviting me to go with you?”
“We go now, come follow”, as he headed away from the buildings. I walked along and felt quite like the pied piper as I had a trail of people behind me. After awhile several of the younger ones started to get closer to me and to run in front of me.
“Hello there” I repeatedly said cursing myself for not remembering hello in Swahili or Maa. Thankfully, I was met with broad smiles and nods of delight.
The evening sun was still quite high in the sky and the effect across the flat terrain was really breathtaking. As much as I wanted to take my camera out and start taking pictures, I was afraid of delaying them as presumed the cows had a routine. With the help of their sticks and ends of the spears, the cows were rounded up. When a family of giraffes approached us “Bloody Hell, look at this” I shouted, everyone around me collapsed laughing. This clearly was a very frequent occurrence to them. The family of giraffes, kept to it’s business and seemed oblivious to us.
After what seemed like a few minutes but turned out to be close to a half an hour, the group stopped after checking out the ground. We had reached our destination.
A kopje was situated to our left and several of the small children started climbing on it. I resisted the temptation to ask if that was safe or if there could be any lions lurking around, as I would probably sound like quite the idiot. I followed Kadoga and sat on comfortable stone.
“Mr. Shane said that you climbed “the” mountain, is this correct, we are not sure?” asked Kadoga.
I immediately noticed how he stressed the word “the” with a certain amount of reverence.
“Yes I did”. I replied.
He spoke to the group and everyone stopped talking and all eyes were turned to me so I said “It was brilliant, we walked for 5 days, staying in huts along the way”.
“Slower” Kadoga instructed, “Not everyone understand English like me”. He said with a certain amount of pride and sure why not. I was dead impressed with my multi-lingual cow herding guide.
Over the next few minutes I told them about the climb. Questions were thrown at Kadoga and sometimes he would ask me something and sometimes they would chat among themselves. Some of the looks I was getting gave me the impression that not everyone was believing my story. Several of the older boys waved their arms towards me and shook their heads. “What are they saying ?” I asked.
“They think you are too small, they wonder if you climbed another one and think it was “the” Mountain.”
That height issue again !! I started scrolling through photos on my camera to get to my summit photo. I passed the camera to Kadoga and said “see, this is me at the top, show them”. I watched with amusement as my camera was tentatively passed around and eager faces tried to get a glimpse of the photo.
“Very good, everyone liked to see the picture. Do you have mountains in your country?”.
Not for the first time, I cursed my lack of preparedness in not having photos on my camera of Ireland.
“I am from the most beautiful place in Ireland, Wicklow” I told them. “Our mountains seem like hills now after being here”.
Kadoga translated what I had said and asked me to say Wicklow slower. A murmur went through the group as they repeated Ireland and Wicklow.
Again the questions started coming from all directions and I realised a lot of them could speak English. I was so impressed with this, given their nomadic lifestyle.
“What is Ireland like ?” asked Kadoga.
So I went for the obvious “It’s a small country and it’s very green. It rains a lot and we have grass everywhere for our cows.” I paused while this was translated and the smiles and nods of approval spread across the group. They pointed to their cows that were now wandering about looking for something to eat.
“Have you met anyone from Ireland before?”. I asked and hoped I was the first Irish person to be taken into their inner circle.
“Not always get to talk at the hotel’ Kadoga relayed. “Most people from South Africa, America and Australia. Not sure if anyone from Ireland visit before”.
I felt ten foot tall, even though it was highly probable that Irish people had stayed at the hotel. Maybe I was the first to herd the cattle !
“Tell us more” instructed Kadoga.
“We like sport and music”. I was trying to be careful now as I was sure to be asked to elaborate.
“We like music” one shy boy pipped up. “Do you sing in your country?”
“Yes we sing and dance”. I thought I better change the subject quickly incase I was asked to give a demonstration. Me leaping about like a hare in my hiking boots is probably a vision they didn’t need to be inflicted with. So I quickly asked “what types of songs do you sing?”
“Oh everyone sing. Mothers to babies, men to women and children when playing” another young boy said and everyone nodded in agreement.
“Will you sing me a traditional song please”? I asked.
They started chatting after Kadoga translated my request.
“Okay we sing a traditional song of the Maasai, man sing to woman”.
And there on top of a kopje these wonderful people started singing and chanting as the sun was setting. The sky contained lots of shades of reds, blues and purples. It was really spectacular. The sound was melodic and I felt a tear in my eye as I thought what a privilege it was for me to be experiencing this. I could see lots of eyes on me so I decided to close mine as I didn’t want them to see that they were making me emotional.
After a few seconds, I felt some movement and opened my eyes a little. One of the older boys had stood up and leaned towards Kadoga. He removed a necklace from his neck and approached me. I felt myself freezing but I was transfixed by the moment. He closed his eyes and very slowly placed the necklace around my neck. He pressed it towards my breast bone. He then touched Kadoga in the same place and made a sign, almost like a sign of the cross.
I had to catch myself quickly. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, my inner voice said. “Oh good Jesus, I have just married a man wearing a tablecloth and carrying a spear, my Mother will bloody kill me but my Da will get a hell of a kick out of this story” !
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