Farewell PACE, Hello Masai Mara

Our team left the guest house at PACE Academy on Monday, June 10th. We had an evening of fellowship and heartfelt farewells the night before. Glenda and her husband Wachira took excellent care of us while we were visiting, and we were all fascinated with Wachira's vision of an ever-expanding facility, ultimately serving 1000 students, as well as a seminary and a much greater medical facility for the surrounding community. We all prayed for the realization of this vision, which would do a lot of good.
The school is about 10 years old now, and the ministries that support it were celebrating not just their 30th anniversary, but the 40th anniversary of the family business and the 50th anniversary of Kenya's independence from British rule.

We were picked up early on Monday morning for the drive down to the game park by our driver, John. He would see us through all the way to our departure from Kenya on Thursday, and we greatly appreciated his driving and his ability to find animals in the park. 

As we drove down the highway, we saw many children waiting for their school buses to pick them up. One boy waiting at the point where the road from PACE met the highway was wearing a Batman t-shirt. A good omen.

PACE is near to the centre of Kenya, right on the equator, and the Masai Mara is to the southwest, right on the border with Tanzania.  It was about 400 kilometres (about 5 hrs.) to the park, and we saw some interesting sights and signs along the way. I saw one building that advertised itself as "The Bovine Building" and "The Lord's Answer."

Heh.

Other signs include "Classic Bart," "Sweet Banana House," and "Don't point fingers - anyone can get AIDS."  This last sign was fairly old, and partially papered over. I wonder if it is still in people's minds. I heard some strange stories about AIDS, such as one that said men in Kenya persuad women to have sex in high buildings. Their logic was that the higher you are, the less chance of passing on the disease.

The road was pretty good for most of the way to the park, but the last couple of hours they got progressively worse. Some of the parts near to the park were very bad, due to the earlier rainy season causing bits to wash out and become very rocky and full of potholes. 

Eventually we arrived at our destination, which was the "Rhino Tourist Tented Camp," just outside the Ololalmutla gate of the Masai Mara.Our "rooms" were indeed tents, but ones that had tiled floors, and fully appointed bathrooms. The guests eat in a central dining hall, and we were fed as well as we had been at PACE.

Before I get to what we saw in the park, I should say something about the Maasai and the formation of the National Reserve.

The Maasai people came from their original homeland of southern Sudan in the Nile Valley. They began to migrate south and east about 500 years ago, with a group called the Nilo-Hamatics, that included groups like  the Maasai, the Samburu, Pokot and others. The Maasai are a linguistic group, being identified by their common language, "Maa." Oral tradition says they arrived in the area of the Mara around the end of the 17th century to the start of the 18th. 

The Masai are not the most powerful tribe in East Africa, but they are certainly the best known. They are recognized for their handsome appearance, and also for being brave, stubborn, sometimes arrogant, and fiercly proud of their culture and traditions. They are clearly identifiable - the men wearing their bright red cloaks, often carrying a spear and rungu (short club); the women colourfully dressed and festooned with bangles and beads. 

We saw many Masai, both adults and children, herding their flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle along the roads towards (and inside) the park. The children often waved eagerly, but the adults were more reserved.

The Masai were devastated by the arrival of Europeans at the end of the 19th century due to death and disease and the dissection of their lands by the colonial powers. It took a long time for them and their herds to recover, but presently they are at an all-time high.

Cattle are at the centre of their existence. Their homes are built around a cattle enclosure, and the beasts are a sign of wealth and the medium of exchange. The Masai do not hunt, but rely on their cattle to provide them with the essentials of life. The Masai live in peace with the wildlife that shares the park with them. 

There are two long dry periods between the rains, which accounts for the Masai's semi-nomadic way of life. The wild animals that go through the Mara also migrate, following the water that is the source of life for them.

"Mara," is a Masai word that means spotted or mottled. Another word used to describe the area is "Serengeti," meaning wide or seemingly never-ending plains. 

The Mara is not actually a park, but a reserve, designed to protect the Masai's herds from diseases like rinderpest. It was first established as a triangle in 1948, and at that time it was much smaller. It was expanded in 1961, and further adjustments were made in 1984 to create the Masai Mara National Reserve with its present boundaries, an area of just over 1,500 square kilometres.

The reserve is controlled by the Narok and Trans-Mara County Councils. In 2001 the management of the original triangle ceded to the Mara Conservancy, a highly successful wildlife management experiment. 

Although the Masai's herds do encroach on the reserve, they mostly stay outside of it. The wild animals do not observe the man-made boundaries, however, and their is just as much wildlife outside the reserve as in it.

The future of the reserve depends on good, sustainable management which takes into account the needs of both the animals and the people. It will make the most sense if the healthy survival of the Mara increasingly becomes the Maasai people's number one asset, where everyone can clearly see its benefits.  

We saw many of the benefits, and the animals, during our three day safari, which I will get into in my next installment.