Yesterday we went up near Mt. Meru to visit the Ngarasi Village. Its inhabitants are originally descended from the Massai, though nowadays they are no longer migrant nomads. They still keep the same Massai language and traditions, but this subtribe has a different style of houses and are not as polygamous as traditional Massai. Ngarasi has both a primary and a secondary school that all the children of the village attend, but since it was Saturday we didn’t get to see any of the classes going on. The people of Ngarasi are farmers, and their main crop is Irish potato. After the potato harvest they plant maize. They also farm coffee, though several years ago coffee prices fell and many farmers cut down their coffee trees. The boy in the picture to the left was helping out the farmers by trapping pesky rodents. I didn't catch the name, but it looked like a giant rat/rabbit hybrid! Perhaps some kind of mole? Cattle are very important to the Massai, so of course there were many cows as well. They feed the cows chopped up banana trees as a supplement to grazing. We got to go inside one family’s home, which was really neat. They have separate areas for the husband and young sons, the mother and daughter, and the livestock. They sleep with the livestock under the same roof to help keep the house warm. When the boys turn 14, as per Massai tradition, they undergo a circumcision ceremony and become warriors, and must then live on their own since they are considered grown men.
After touring the traditional houses, we went for a hike up through the fields of coffee and potato. We peaked at an elevation of about 2,200 meters. It was quite a climb! We all felt pretty clumsy and weak when we saw a group of women and children nimbly picking their way up the slope with perfectly balanced buckets of water perched on their heads, since our group was scrambling and slipping the whole way up.
We took a short lunch break, and then headed down the road through the rest of the village. After about an hour, we reached a gorgeous waterfall. I was surprised how much the landscape here looks like that I saw in Costa Rica last summer. Same lush greenery, same rectangular farm plots on the slopes of a volcanic mountain. And just as beautiful! Scroll through the pictures below to see some of the views from our Mt. Meru trip.
After touring the traditional houses, we went for a hike up through the fields of coffee and potato. We peaked at an elevation of about 2,200 meters. It was quite a climb! We all felt pretty clumsy and weak when we saw a group of women and children nimbly picking their way up the slope with perfectly balanced buckets of water perched on their heads, since our group was scrambling and slipping the whole way up.
We took a short lunch break, and then headed down the road through the rest of the village. After about an hour, we reached a gorgeous waterfall. I was surprised how much the landscape here looks like that I saw in Costa Rica last summer. Same lush greenery, same rectangular farm plots on the slopes of a volcanic mountain. And just as beautiful! Scroll through the pictures below to see some of the views from our Mt. Meru trip.
Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Today (Sunday) I slept in till 9. That was a nice catch up on rest, since I’ve only been able to sleep about 5 hours a night the past few days. When I woke up Suzie showed me how and where to wash my clothes and hang them up to dry. Then I did the dishes and helped the boys sort through some old Legos at the kindergarten next door. The kindergarten is actually kind of a part of our house, since Mama Grace runs it. The boys and Baba Billi repainted it yesterday so it looks all nice and fresh. Now Salim, Kelvin and I are just hanging out watching Tom and Jerry. Salim loves it. He’s also pretty entertained by the Photo Booth app on my Mac! (See photo to the left) He has a great laugh. Sundays seem to be pretty similar all over the world. Just catching up on chores, spending family time, and finishing homework. Speaking of homework, today I did my first reading for my Engineering lab. It was about ventilators (assisted breathing devices) and oxygen concentrators. Our textbook outlines common problems and tips on how to fix and subsequently test them. We’ll see how this new knowledge gets put to work in the field!