By early morning, I must have gotten some sleep. Drowsy,  I heard the gentle urging outside by a member of the camp staff, "Jambo, jambo," hello in Swahili. Then, a "heh, heh," he seemed to be enjoying my early awakening.  "Jambo, jambo," I replied or he wouldn't stop because we needed to rise early for our game drive while it was still cool and the animals active.

The added incentive for my compliance was the warm water I knew he was pouring in a basin outside. I unzipped the tent and stuck my head outside to look.  Steam coming up in the basin.  No animals around, I emerged. With caution I turned to look around the side of the tent, to the place where I'd feared the buffalo slept.   Those humps I saw were nothing but bent over grass.

 

I don't know if it was fatigue from the long days riding on dusty bumpy roads viewing animals or trust in the guides' reassurances of our safety,  but by the second night of  our four in the Serengeti, I was falling asleep listening for the sounds of the animals.  It came to me later that I would not have felt as close to the animals if we hadn't camped that way ... a guest in their home.

 

Only later did I learn from one of the guides that at times they had to drive in the Jeeps in order to pick up the guests at their tents because of danger alert. Either because they saw a lion and then it disappeared or they saw the tell-tale droppings of the buffalo.

 

We followed rules to never interfere with an animal or a hunt. Still, I saw one safari group at a water hole set up tables with red and white checked cloths and bottles of wine to have a party, a line of softball-sized elephant dung right before them and the big animals off not far away in a clearing. It occurred to me that  tourists, many from the United States, had probably contributed to the global warming that threatens wild animals and perhaps contributed to the month-early return of the rains.

When I think back on my trip, the animals are foremost in my mind since it was a safari. But, I need also to say a few words about the Tanzanian people. Everyone I met was kind,  welcoming and generous. Eighty-five percent of the people still live off subsistence farming, the life expectancy only 53.   Safari tourism is a major factor in their economy but we must have looked ridiculous to them at times as we moved from parks to animal preserves in our Jeeps, converted four-by-four trucks with pop-up roofs for game viewing, that would converge in clusters near an animal.

There was a generosity to the Tanzanians' welcome that went deeper than money, a sincerity I found among the people I met.  To celebrate my birthday on the Serengeti, the camp staff, members of the Bantu tribe, donned silly costumes and did a dance as well as making me a birthday cake. I shall never forget it.
 

The 53 children in the sixth grade class at the Rhotia primary school near the main city of Arusha stood for us and sang the Tanzanian anthem, proud in their worn maroon and white uniforms. They knew how to say “hello” in English and thanked us for the school booklets we were able to provide.
 

Poverty is everywhere, including the open market near  Arusha where all the rejected clothing and shoes that Goodwill and other charities can't sell even by the pound in America finally land.  I saw one woman in a Michigan Wolverines sweatshirt and endless children in tattered T-shirts with designer names like Calvin Klein still visible.

The Maasai members of one boma,  which are little gatherings of mud-dung thatched roof houses, invited us to visit.  We watched as they milked their herds of cows, sheep and goats, their whole settlement protected only by a large circular thornbush fence.  Their diet is all from the milk, blood and meat of their animals. They are tall and quiet and elegant. Our guide pointed out the boma of one old man, now almost 100, who had 22 wives and so many children that the country had to build him his own elementary school.
 

I came back home elated but exhausted, to yet another appliance in my newly purchased condo was no longer working.  Unfortunately, it was my washing machine and I'd already spot cleaned all my safari clothes in anticipation of washing them. 
 

At first, I was dismayed. But, then I thought of the Serengeti and the life and death struggles that go on there every day.  I looked at the red dust on my shoes and I managed to smile.

©2015 Sonya  Zalubowski for SeniorWomen.com