The last week of our safari through Tanzania was just that – a real, live Serengeti safari. We spent five days traversing through four parks in total: Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. We saw countless rather frisky baboons, giraffe, zebra, impala, wildebeest (we were lucky enough to witness the great migration of at least a million wildebeest into Kenya), elephant, gazelle, hyenas, and bushbuck. In the Serengeti we were even surrounded by a pride of hungry female lions so close you could have reached out and scratched one behind the ears – if you didn’t value your fingers. It’s rather incredible to stare into the eyes of an animal that you would stand no chance against should it decide to make you its next meal. All in all, the animal safari was an unforgettable experience. In the end we definitely got our money’s worth, and believe me we paid quite dearly. I imagine Klub Afriko (speaking of which, the drivers – all Maasai men – are phenomenal and have a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge between and the cooks are excellent; I would highly recommend them as a safari company) made off quite well after we came through. But one of the things that stuck with me the most was outside of the parks and effectively outside of the safari industry as a whole.
Between the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater we stopped along the way to visit a Maasai boma. When we arrived, the men and women poured out of the gates of the boma and began a traditional welcoming song, complete with Maasai jumping. Some of us even got to try jumping and singing along with them. But once we entered the little compound things started to get uncomfortable for me. We visited the “school” if you could even call it that, where a handful of adorable, dusty children sang a song and recited 0-50 in English. The sons of the village chief took us into their homes – tiny little cow-dung huts not even tall enough to stand in – and told us how the Maasai lived. Afterwards, some of the women sold us hand-made jewelry at exorbitant prices (for Tanzania).
It was eye-opening to see how the Maasai really live. My mental images are inundated with this glorious myth of a strong warrior, ready to take down a lion with the swing of his spear, and much of that proud, fascinating culture still exists today. But that image has been tarnished by a huge disparity in income. We paid so much money to go on our safari and even though it was the tourist low season we saw plenty of other people out in the savanna who probably paid just as much. But none of that money ever makes it the Maasai who used to inhabit and utilize the very land we puttered across the day before. If they could own a safari company, or even just get a cut of the booty their standard of living could go way up. According to one of the chief’s sons, it costs almost 900 US dollars each month for that particular boma to pay for the water they have to truck in from Arusha to make up for all of the water used by the safari lodges. A fortune for a village like that, but chump change to even the cheapest safari company. Instead, the Maasai are forced to turn their rich, beautiful culture into a sideshow to even marginally benefit from the tourism industry (we only paid $175 for 15 people).
While I immensely enjoyed the safari and visiting the boma, the situation of the Maasai made it hard to digest the whole experience. On the one hand, tourists like us provide a much-needed source of income to the boma and the experience may be just as eye-opening for some as it was for me. On the other hand, the Maasai people have been so marginalized that tourists like us have effectively turned their culture into a commodity. It’s difficult to say if the ends justify the means.
Memoirs of a Yankee 