Monday night, August 23, 2004
Since classes began today at PL, I guess in a sense my sabbatical officially began on this very day - and so what a way to begin, ON SAFARI! (Actually, "safari" is the Swahili term for any journey that takes one away from home...but hey, we really, really are on a safari!)
This camp where Janice and I are staying, on the Masai Mara of the Serengeti Plain, is absolutely marvelous. (Oh: "Masai" is the name of the tribe that historically has lived in this region of Africa; and our guide informs me that "Mara" is the Masai term for "dots" or "dotted" -as in this plain can roll on for miles and be dotted only by anoccasional acacia tree. "Occasional acacia"...nice phrasing, Lodahl!)
We went out for a brief look around late this afternoon before dinner,and had a wonderful time. Our guide is a fine young man from northern Kenya, Julius. He is articulate, intelligent, interesting and (Janice tells me) quite handsome - an almost beautiful man. Our safari party is a very friendly group, with London newlyweds Nick and Corinne, and Dawn, a violist with the New York Philharmonic.
Well, what a day! Our flight to Masai Mara on Kenya Airlines - a fleet of mostly smallish planes that take off with engines whining "I think I Ken! I think I Ken" - was brief, if a little rough, and uneventful if not pleasant. (That was a very complicated sentence, but structurally sound, I think.) So what did we see today?
- a nice herd of hippos in the Mara River
- zebras (pronounced with a 'short e' sound by Julius, and apparently Africans generally
- lots of wildebeests
- Thompson gazelles by the scores, perhaps the hundreds
- several ostriches
- many buffalo
- hyenas (mmmm, lovely), especially a nursing mother with her young
That's all I can recall right now, and I have become quite tired. Time for beddy, like my sweetly sleeping honey (that's my wife :-)).Tomorrow's a big safari!