Aye mambo rafiki. Harbari za mchana? (how are you doing, how is your afternoon....since its afternoon where you all are). Man am I tired after another long day here Tanz.; today we visited a traditional Masai boma and as part of our cultural exchange ended up helping them harvest some kidney beans. But, seeing as how I was cut short yesterday, first I will briefly (we'll see how briefly I guess) talk about yesterday's safari....... and I literally mean safari in the sense that we as 'westerners' understand it. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to make a day trip out of an excursion through Ngorongoro Crater in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, one of Tanzania's (and Africa's really) most popular and acclaimed natural nature preserves, and one of the best places to see a large amount of animals in a relatively short period of time. The day started out very early as we were huddled into the vaneeps at 6:30 in order to get an early start on the 2 1/2 hour drive to the Crater. To begin with, the drive was absolutely beautiful as we were able to watch the sunrise above the Tanzanian grasslands as we headed north-east, slowly leaving Mt. Meru and Arusha on the western horizon. The Crater itself, like I said, is one of Tanz. hottest tourist spots, but to be quite honest I didn't mind one bit being a typical tourist for a day and was excited about the whole experience-although I have no desire to do so again. Once inside the gate it's about a 45 minute drive into the bottom of the Crater and is only accessible by four wheel drive. It's required that you have a driver accompany you, preferably in a registered safari company car, but being that our drivers from the TCDC (Aziz and Winston) are just that bad ass our vaneeps were cleared to go! (Aziz actually used to drive through the Serengeti as a professional safari driver before he took a job with the TCDC.....more about him later) Like I said yesterday, Zebras, or 'punda melia' (literally means 'striped donkey'.............sidenote: zebras' stripes are a evolutionary defense method as lions, who thoroughly enjoy Zebra meat, are colored blind and only see black and white....which would make it kindof hard to initially pick out a Zebra amongst tall black and white grass), are the sweetest animals I have ever seen. It's as though each Zebra was personally painted by the hand of God (and boy was there a shit-ton of them). We also saw loads of wildebeest, water buffalos (which are ugly as hell, but have sweet ass goatees), jackals (wild dogs essentially), hyenas, warthogs (kick ass), Thompson gazelles, grand gazelles, hard beasts, ostriches, some other crazy birds, and hippos. We also saw a couple of tembos (elephants), a cheetah, and two rhinos from far away (and yes Dad, you were right.......that's all I'll say and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.....), but the greatest highlight of the day and honestly one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me was our experience with the Simbas. As we were approaching a large cluster of vehicles we, including our driver Aziz, were all confused as to why there was such a large congregation of 'humans' and were a bit apprehensive as to whether or not we should proceed. As we got closer we noticed that one mama lion was resting among some reeds on the side of this hill, but were obviously curious as to why there was so much commotion over just one animal. Aziz decided to pull around to the other side of the cluster and see if we could catch a better look, and to our sheer amazement there must have been at least 4 other mama lions and three little simba cubs walking around in the middle of this vaneep cluster. My first reaction was "holy shit" and my second reaction was "wow they're big." My third reaction was "those cubs are adorable and this is the coolest thing I've ever seen," and was shortly followed by another "holy shit." But it gets better.....so yeah, mama simba had come down from the little hill by now and was just chillin with the rest of her posse amongst the stupid humans and their fancy cars (that fortunately were providing some nice shade for them) and then out of no where comes Cheech and Chong, Mama's fully grown sons who were apparently still along for the ride (we know they were sons because two fully grown males who aren't from the same pride would never be seen together......unless they were ripping eachother's heads off). So yeah, these guys show up and Mama decides to move everyone away (but not after taking a huge piss infront of us all), and as Cheech and Chong are making there way towards Mama and the pride, one of them lays down in front of the car right in front of us while the other one basically cuddles up against the side of our vaneep. There's no way to describe what it was like, but just try to imagine a 350 lbs. lion nestling up against the vaneep that you're in, while his brother is taking a nap 10 ft. away. Absolutely amazing. Anyway, Mama came back (while carrying a cub in her mouth by the scruff of its neck) and apparently got the message across that it was time to leave, and the whole pride just kindof slumped away. Long story short, the Crater was awesome, the animals were all just absolutely beautiful, and it made for a very long but very tremendous day.............. as for today, while I can still say that today was a great day, I can't say that it was not without its moments. Visisting and working with the Masai was such an interesting and unique experience, but to be honest at times I was a little overwhelmed and slightly uncomfortable. The practicing Masai people are a very traditional, very conservative, and very self-sustainable Tanzanian tribe (one of Tanz.'s 125), and if you're looking for a culture shock, you need not look any farther. Just spend 10 min. with the Masai and you'll have all the culture shock you need. Aside from the fact that they still live in 1 room huts made of wood, barley, and cow-dung, aside from the fact that most Masai men have 7-10 wives, and aside from the fact that women are often married off (for the average price of 40 cows) at the age of 12 or 13, the Masai population still speaks their own language separate from Swahili and are in some ways facing the brink of extinction due the rapid spead of HIV/AIDS among them (largely due to the polygamy and promiscuity among the tribes and some of their ancient health care methods). Their boma, or village, was very beautiful though (despite the heavy smell of cow-dung) and their simplistic, systematic, direct, and sustainable lifestyle was intriguing to the least and in many ways admirable. I guess I was most uncomfortable by their approach to us as tourists rather than as friends and visitors with an educational and cooperational intent, their distinction and separation between men and women in general (which was weird being the only white male in a group of 9 young white ladies and two older white women), and honestly was very astonished and very surprised, and not necessarily in a negative way, by the way and condition in which they lived. I think what also added to my overall discomfort was my reaction to the initial discomfort which turned into my discomfort with being uncomfortable in that situation that maybe shouldn't have been uncomfortable for me but obviously was. Yeah, definitely good but definitely unlike anything I have ever experienced before..........that's for damn sure! Nonetheless, being at the boma was a great experience, I felt great about the work we did in their bean field (not that they needed our 'help' in the slightest, it was just fun and stimulating to get my hands dirty and do something I'd never done before), and I think I've learned a bit about myself and what some of my concrete values are, however 'westernized' or 'modernized' they may be, and have certainly learned a lot about a very unique, very interesting African culture. For our final event of the day we stopped by and visited our friends and colleagues who are here from Luther giving seminars and personal instruction in basic computer skills to secondary school teachers in the area. It was great to see some familiar American faces and was especially nice to talk to my good friend "Big John" Miller. As for now it is 11:00 pm (like 2pm your time I think), and seeing as how we have class at 8 tomorrow morning I should probably hit the sack. Asante sana for reading this post and until next time, salama.