“It’s a beautiful day in the office,” our Maasai guide Lemomo Lesaito jokes, his smile beaming as brightly as the sun as it rises over the highlands on the outskirts of the Tanzanian town of Karatu.
asserted
it → ’ → Karatu
We’re on safari, Serengeti-bound, via the Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest inactive volcanic caldera and its promised plethora of African animals.
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We → ’re → animals
Uniformed local school children lining up for the school bus wave enthusiastically in the piercing morning light.
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children → line → light
An ordinary day for them, and what promises to be an extraordinary day for us first-timers to Africa.
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what → promise → Africa
The hot and dusty red-dirt road gives way first to a dense patchwork of small farms growing subsistence crops, then coffee and banana plantations that thrive in the volcanic soil.
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that → give → soil
It becomes noticeably cooler as we climb in elevation to enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area gates – this is not your standard African dry heat.
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this → become → gates
Lesaito explains the name Ngorongoro is onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of the cowbells that the Maasai people place around the necks of their cattle.
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people → explain → cattle
It’s not the last grammar lesson we get on our first safari.
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we → ’ → safari
We soon discover the collective nouns for the various animals that pass before us: a tower of giraffes, a dazzle of zebras, a confusion of wildebeests, a flamboyance of flamingos, a committee of vultures (unless they are in flight in which case it is a kettle).
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it → discover → flight
Even before we catch sight of any animals, the landscape is captivating: shifting from lush rainforest to alpine-like moorland then sweeping grassland savannah and wetlands.
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landscape → catch → savannah
We climb to 2500 metres above sea level and enjoy a misty view from atop the escarpment into the crater below.
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We → climb → crater
We then descend to the base, revealing a cornucopia of colourful wildlife.
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We → descend → wildlife
Lesaito pops up our vehicle’s roof and out come the binoculars, but we don’t really need them.
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we → pop → them
We get so close to a pride of golden-maned lions, we can see them lick their chops post-kill.
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them → get → chops
Pink flamingos balance on one leg in Lake Magadi; zebras gallop in their standard zigzag fashion; a gazillion gazelles (Thomson’s gazelles in particular with trademark black stripe on their sides) frolic past giant giraffes as they amble towards the acacias to munch on leaves.
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they → balance → leaves
We are numbed by the numbers of every African animal imaginable.
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We → numb → animal
The Tanzanian government moved the Maasai people en masse out of the base of the crater in 1974 to let the wildlife thrive.
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wildlife → move → 1974
They now live in thatched-roof villages that cling to the edges of the caldera.
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that → live → caldera
As we depart the crater, after an ascent through ancient rainforest, we stop at one of the picturesque villages.
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we → depart → villages
Just like in Switzerland, to which this lush landscape bears more than a passing resemblance, we hear the low, resonant “ngor ngor” of the bells echoing across the verdant highlands, as cattle move up and down the hills.
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cattle → bear → hills
No wonder nearby Arusha is called the “Geneva of Africa”.
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Arusha → call → Africa
“It’s a very peaceful life for the Maasai who live here,” Lesaito says, pointing with an arm adorned with one of the beaded Maasai bracelets his mother has made.
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mother → ’ → bracelets
“You can just hear the bells ringing, there’s no stress here, there are people living in harmony with the wild animals and the cows.
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bells → hear → animals
Cattle remain central to Maasai life, Lesaito, our unwed guide explains to us.
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Lesaito → remain → us
If he wants to marry, he will need at least 10 cows to offer a potential bride and her family, possibly more depending on her status in the community.
uncertain
he → want → community
Cows, not cash, remain currency in this part of Africa.
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Cows → remain → Africa
He lives nearby, in a village called Makutuni.
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He → live → village
We passed through there a few days before on the way to Tarangire National Park, known as “elephant’s paradise”.
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We → pass → paradise
Being woken in the middle of the night to the sound of an elephant trumpeting – fortunately far away – is one of the sounds I’ll treasure from Tarangire, along with the sight of mother elephants, bathing their babies in mud baths.
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I → wake → baths
Our long road trips in Lesaito’s “jeep/office” give us plenty of time to ask questions – not just about the animals but intricate details of Maasai life.
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trips → give → life
He tells of a local man who has 30 wives and an “uncountable number of children”.
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who → tell → children
He also details his responsibilities as the eldest in his family after his father died.
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father → detail → family
His guiding work pays for his younger siblings’ education.
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work → pay → education
He’s not sure how old he is, 30-something.
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he → ’ → ?
His mother remembers his January birth because that year it rained – but he doesn’t know the date.
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he → remember → date
Leaving Ngorongoro, we continue on the long dirt road to Ndutu Safari Lodge on the edge of the Serengeti.
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we → leave → Serengeti
Here, Lesaito swaps his khaki outfit, standard fare for most safari guides, to don his traditional red-checked shuka, the robes the cattle-herding Maasai wear, which can double as a blanket for when sleeping outdoors.
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which → swap → blanket
“I feel more comfortable in these clothes,” he explains, over a delicious dinner, while above us in the rafters, a mother genet – a small nocturnal carnivore native to Africa – feeds beetles to her babies.
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genet → feel → babies
Fortunately for us, the mosquitoes don’t feast on us that night, thanks to the mosquito nets in our stone-hewn cottages.
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mosquitoes → feast → cottages
There’s not much time to sleep anyway, as we are up at 5am for a sunrise balloon flight to view the wildebeest migration from on-high.
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we → ’ → high
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
