alright.
this could very well be my last post while in africa. i leave this evening for home.
the last week was very.....interesting. i saw some of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen before. Lets see, where did i leave off?
We bussed from the desert town of dar es salaam to the town of arusha in central and northern tanzania. there, we met with a maasai man named joseph saningo. joseph is the founder and leader of a group called the maasai pasturalist initiave, ,focused of land conservation and ecotourism management. he took us to his village north of arusha about 4 hours, a drive which took us by mt. kilimanjaro and many other small peaks that were quite beautiful. at this area, the only people you saw were the tribal maasai wearing their red and purple cloth and carrying spears and completely covered in beautiful beads and earings. we left the main road (in a land cruiser) and trekked straight through the bush, a very semi arid climate with small trees, volcanic rocks, and hills. there wasnt much of a road anywhere we were going,, it really was just an excursion through the wild. ocaasionaly we would come across local maasai herding their goats or cows, and occasionally camels. after a very bumpy ride and 4 or 5 hours or so we arrived in a small maasai village where joseph lived. as soon as we got out of the car the children came running up to us yelling this and that and the women came up to us trying to sell their beads (something that never really stopped at all throughout the duration of ythe trip.) we were ushered into a small clay hut and served tea, chappata bread, and a strange sort of cracker.
the town was in a very lazy sort, the maasai were reclining under the trees in the shade making beadwork or sleeping, or, in our case, staring across the road at us. a few mangy looking dogs ran by, chickens that looked like they hadnt been fed for days squaked at us. as i sat on a small bench near the hut a lady came by carrying what looked to be goat entrails. she casually held them up, dangling white and greasy, took a knife and cut opened what was apparently the stomach of the goat, and pulled out whatever meager food the goat had been eating. the inside of the goat stomach looked a bit like a sponge, or a brain or some sort. i passed an uneasy glance over to amanda (a vegetarian)...we were a bit apprehensive. the lady through the entrails into a bowl of water, apparently to be discarded or maybe used for flavoring. with that lovely scene, i took a walk around the villege, introducing myself in the limited maasai that i could speak, and even making a few friends. one man, the brother of joseph, offered me a gourd to drink from. since it was roughly 200 degrees outside i agreed and took the gourd, but stopped short when i realized it was full of hot lumpy milk - more along the lines of cottage cheese. because its rude not to drink when your offered i tried to take a sip but was unable to follow through because the smell was overwhelming. the man, barack, laughed and took back the gourd and downed it himself, with the clumpy milk escaping his mouth, slowly running down his face and dripping onto his red cloth. we turned back around, with 20 children follwing at out heals and holding our hands, and we were surprisingly ushed back into the small hut were a steaming bowl of something was put before us. i looked down and realized that whatever spongy stuff this lady was cleaning was now in my bowl. it was goat stomach.
i fished around the stomach at first, nibbling on a few potatoes and sipping the broth...and then when the lady told me "eat, eat!" i took some of the spongy stomach and tried to chew on it, unfortunately this proved futile. the stomach was of the same consistency as rubber, and the pungent smell was overwhelming. honestly, the soup smelled like goat dung. i took my hand and tried to tear a piece off with my teeth but i couldnt do that either, so i ended up just swallowing the piece whole.
the next few minutes were a combination of me trying to smile, nod,listen to the casual conversation around me, and not throw up at the same time.
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