Serengeti Safari

There are lots of animals in the Serengeti in addition to wildebeest, zebras, and cheetahs. We did posts on those animals just because they were so very cool, but elephants, impala, hartebeest, tawny eagles, and lots of other kinds of animals are pretty amazing, too. We saw lions lolling around on rocks, cheetah drinking out of ponds, giant cape buffalo getting their noses picked by oxpecker birds, and some cool birds with shockingly bright colors perched in thorn bushes. The whole two-day trip was just filled with beautiful landscapes that changed regularly (different kinds of trees in different areas, etc.) and incredible animals. We live a mere 1.5 hours from the entrance to this world heritage site and had never been before, so it was pretty exciting.

Our totals were:
A lone leopard
6 cheetahs
11 or 13 (i.e. "lots of") lions (we think two we saw were two of the same ones we'd seen the day before)
100+ elephants
Heaps of hippos
Clumps of crocs
Groups of giraffes
Bunches of buffalo
A bazillion birds
A zillion zebra
A gazillion gazelles
A worldful of wildebeest

Cool Cats

We were tired. The day had started around 3:30am when we quickly prepared for the drive to one of the entrances into Serengeti National Park. We entered the park a little before 7am, after meeting up with our safari guide and settling into the Land Rover.

It had already been a very successful day. We'd seen a herd of about 30 elephants right off the bat. We'd seen one of the greatest wonders in the world, the Great Migration of widebeest and zebra in the region, with thousands upon thousands of animals filling the area as far as we could see. We'd seen a leopard hanging out in a tree. And we'd spent a couple hours circling rock clusters in the prairie areas, finding a number of lions in various stages of their mid-afternoon naps.

It was around 4pm and we were thinking about getting to the lodge and enjoying an evening of food and rest before Day #2. As we were driving along the open fields with tall grass our driver slowed to a snail's pace. We weren't sure what was going on. Had he seen something? Had he received a report that a particular animal had been spotted in the area? Or did he just have a hunch? As I stared out the window I all of a sudden saw the head of an animal in the distance that looked different than the other heads I'd seen to that point in the day. After grabbing the binoculars, I was able to quickly confirm that there was a cat out there with spots. We'd found a cheetah!

The cheetah was quite a ways off of the road, but since there were no other vehicles around, our driver pulled off the road and headed straight towards our exciting find. But we could no longer see her! The head had disappeared and we had to just continue towards the spot we had seen. We arrived at the spot and still couldn't see anything. But then we found her. She was laying low in the grass, hoping we'd miss her. Then we realized why. Right next to her was a freshly-killed Thomson's gazelle, her afternoon meal that she was not willing to part with. We pulled within about 15 feet of her. She wasn't happy, but was willing to put up with us as long as she could keep her meal. She grabbed the gazelle and pulled it away as we snapped away with our cameras and spent a few minutes simply staring at her. It was an amazing moment I'd realized might never happen in my lifetime. We'd found a cheetah and completed our trifecta of seeing all three large, amazing cats of the Serengeti in one day! What a blessing!

We saw five more cheetahs the next day.

Serengeti - Great Migration

Every year wildebeest, zebra, and some gazelles travel in a big circle through the Serengeti (and also go up into a different park in Kenya during one phase of their journey). This year the animals were in the western part of the Serengeti in May, which is just when we happened to be there, too! They say there are about 1.5 million wildebeests in the park, and it seems like we saw about 1.4 million of them during our two-day safari. We came across a lot of herds of them, and you can see from these pictures just how big those herds can be!


The zebra travel with the wildebeest, but stay just a little bit separate. I wonder if they feel that they are standing out in a crowd? Not all zebra migrate, but I'm not sure what causes some to do so and some to stay home. Anyway, our guide said that the zebra hear well and the wildebeest smell well, so they are good fellow-travelers, because they can warn each other of danger.



Although our vehicle was on its own driving around for most of the two days, sometimes the wildebeest created a bit of a roadblock and we caught up to other vehicles. The herds are usually just hanging out grazing, but a few times we caught them galloping along, kicking up huge clouds of dust. And if their destination lay across the road, there was no crossing that road for a little while!

BFF

Today is a pretty exciting day for us - our very first guests are on their way here! I am so thrilled that Shannon and Tom are coming to visit us!

Shannon and I have a long history of visiting each other. You see, we met in London Heathrow airport on our way to Ghana (West Africa) in June 2003 on a Wycliffe Discovery mission trip. Now if ever a story about a friendship spanning miles needed the perfect place to start, Heathrow, gateway to the airborne world, is it. Shannon and I were assigned to be roommates our first night in the country and hit it off immediately as we figured out how to hang our mosquito nets and wondered how to flush the odd-looking toilet.

On the way home from Ghana we had a three-day layover in London, and while everyone else wanted to relax and stay in the London guesthouse, Shannon and I wanted to see the town! We learned how to use public transport in London and made our way all over the place.

During that trip I persuaded Shannon to go to the same grad school I'd already decided to attend the following year, and we also planned some other visits. I was going to college in Michigan and she was in college in Indiana, and our schools had identical schedules for fall and spring breaks. So, using cars, buses, and trains, that fall she came up to visit me and that spring I went to go visit here.

We had two FABULOUS years together at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, Canada. We learned a lot about linguistics, grew a lot spiritually, and hosted lots of fun gatherings at our house, along with our third roommate, Rachel. During our time together in Langley we took a road trip to the Oregon Coast and another to Calgary, AB. We also had some unplanned road trips getting lost (turns out that one of the many things we have in common is a lack of directional sense).

I left for Tanzania after graduation and Shannon went back to Indiana. One might think that such moves would be the end of our spending time together, but oh no! Oceans can't keep us apart! I flew back to the States in 2007 for my sisters' weddings and Shannon flew out to spend five days with me. We took a trip up to Langley together and had a grand time catching up. In 2008 I was in the States for the second half of the year, so Shannon and I met up (in Panama, of all places!) for vacation and I also spent a week with her in Indiana after visiting friends and supporters in Michigan. In 2009 I went back to the States for my wedding, and of course Shannon had to be a bridesmaid, so she once again boarded a plane bound for Washington. After the wedding, Andrew and I were in England for four months for his Scripture Use training, and who should happen to be passing through England to visit us except Shannon? In 2010 Shannon got married and I made the trip to Indiana to be her bridesmaid (and have some time together before the wedding). Some friends are worth traveling for five days to get to spend five days with them!

So now Shannon and Tom are coming to Tanzania to visit us, because we couldn't let a year go by without at least one of us going to monumental efforts in the travel department to make a visit happen!

Happy Workers

Neema (Jita translator), Magoma (Jita translator), Rukia (Ikizu translator) and me (translation advisor for Jita, Ikizu, and Zanaki), happily working together. Yes, this picture was posed, but it's not completely unrealistic. We enjoy our work and the translators have fun with each other (and me) while working.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there are free rides!

Andrew and I traveled to Dar es Salaam for a week of branch strategy meetings and after a very good four days of plotting and planning with others from around Uganda and Tanzania, we returned home on Saturday. There are flights to/from Musoma only on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and since we wanted to return on Saturday, we had to fly into Mwanza instead of Musoma. Mwanza is about 3.5 hours away from Musoma and there are lots of buses that go between the two cities every day.

On the flight from Dar to Mwanza we were served little chicken salad sandwiches. One may not be given food on domestic flights in the States any more, but this was like a little free lunch on our little Tanzanian airplane! I was kind of hungry so ate mine, feeling thankful for what appeared to be a free lunch.

BUT I had forgotten the tried and true statement that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH! Sure enough, food poisoning set in not too long thereafter and I was one miserable traveler. I haven't prayed so hard (most prayers were along the lines of "Please, please don't let me throw up now, God - I can't open the window and there are people all around me!) or felt so awful while traveling in quite some time. But thanks be to God, I never actually threw up.

We got a bus from Mwanza to Musoma and arrived at about 7:30pm. Instead of stopping at the usual bus terminal, where there are always lots of taxis waiting for passengers with some money and luggage, the bus went all the way to the bus company's bus terminal, which is located on a bit of a back alley in town. There were no taxis! I saw a car drive up and although it was not marked as being a taxi, I went ahead and approached the driver, asking "Taxi?"

The driver said, "No, this is not a taxi, but I can help you if you need to go somewhere. Where is your destination?"

I explained where we needed to go and he and his friend cheerfully loaded our bags and away we went. He and I had a little conversation on the way, during which I found out that he is an engineer with Tanroads, the company which has (SLOWLY!!!) been building the road on which we live. Since he was taking us to our office, he knew that we were missionaries involved in Bible translation. He told me, "I'm a Muslim, but I like to read the Bible. It's a good book. You are doing good work in translating it into local languages."

When we arrived, Andrew tried to give him a tip to thank him for giving us a ride. He turned it down! I have never encountered someone here turning me down when I've offered money, especially money for a service rendered! We were astounded by this cheerful, helpful man who was willing to aid a couple stranded Americans.

So, there may not be any free lunches (I paid the price quite dearly for mine), but free rides still exist, at least in Musoma!