Camping Under Serengeti Stars

If Ngorongoro was a bowl filled to the brim with wildlife, the Serengeti is an immense pantry with the greatest assortment of flavors, but only for those who know where to look.

The grasses in the Great Plains stand five feet tall in some places, providing the perfect shelter for grazing animals to hide from view. Compared to the other parks of Northern Tanzania, this made viewing the animals relatively difficult, resulting in only a few sightings per day rather than the near constant stimulation elsewhere.

Though animals are harder to spot, the sights to be seen in the Serengeti are not replicated anywhere else in the world. Sizable prides of lions rest effortlessly within the grasses, stomachs full from their plentiful selection of prey. A glance up at an Acacia may satisfy the onlooker with branches swaying from the weight of leopards. In one tree, I saw three, including a young cub. While books claim Lake Manyara National Park is the only place in the world for spotting tree-climbing lions, I had the fortune of witnessing this rare site in a lone tree of the vast Serengeti plain.

I’ve never been so excited to sleep as I was at the prospect of camping in the Serengeti. Using a new tent with entirely translucent walls, I was prepared for exciting nights of stargazing and animal watching. At one campsite, dusk brought a herd of running giraffes through the camp. At another, elephants drank from the waterspout at dawn.

I imagined the night like a childhood slumber party: giddy with anticipation for what surprises my sleep-mates might share. I went to rest beneath the brilliant starry sky, and drifted off to the lullaby of buzzing insects and the faint sound of nocturnal animals in the distance. After long days of game driving, I have never slept so well, at peace in the middle of the wild Serengeti.

The Bowl of the Earth: Ngorongoro Crater

Imagine a massive bowl created to preserve all of nature’s precious beauty with inescapable ceramic curves to keep intruders out and protect the prized contents.

Ngorongoro Crater is such a place, both a geological and natural wonder. About 2.5 million years ago, a volcano taller than Mount Kilimanjaro erupted, causing the top of the mountain to collapse inwards. The lasting crater is the largest caldera in the world, surrounded by high mountainous walls serving as a natural enclosure for a rich diversity of wildlife.

The descent into the crater takes about an hour, winding down steep roads, first through rainforest, and then through large groves of flat acacia trees. Below, sprawling savanna grassland and alkaline lakes welcome a dense concentration of Africa’s most famous wildlife.

I arrived early in the morning, in time to witness a spectacular sight of migratory Abim stork taking flight from around a herd of zebra. The early morning soft blue haze created a silhouette backdrop for the storks circling above and the stately black and white zebra below.

I spotted seven lions during my stay in the crater, some languidly resting off in the distance, others pacing just outside our vehicle. The regal males with their crowning gold manes reflecting the afternoon light matched only the majesty of the lone elephant, wandering at a distance with a backdrop of verdant rainforest and dark black clouds gathering above.

Ngorongoro is nature’s diamond, a miraculous place deserving as much recognition as the vast Serengeti. In a relatively small land area of 100 square miles, viewers enjoy as many different types of animals as one could see in the world's best zoos.

"Zoo, zoo, zoo!" Lake Manyara National Park

Driving through the Tanzanian countryside on my way to Lake Manyara National Park, I remembered how my brother used to sit in the back seat of my family’s station wagon chanting “zoo, zoo, zoo,” as if it were his own calming mantra. The truth is, we both loved the zoo. My parents bought season passes each year which allowed us unlimited visits to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. My grandparents, aunt, and uncle would all entertain our imaginations as we crawled through the plastic termite mounds, explored the canopy from the Skyfari, and insisted on taking the monorail several times around the simulated safari park.

As I prepared to enter my first real safari park in Northern Tanzania, I fondly reminisced, appreciating the care my family took to make my brother and me curious about the world surrounding us.

The “real deal” is even cooler than I imagined. Standing out of the popped-roof of the 4x4 safari vehicle, the wind blew through my hair, leaving a sweet fragrance like a bike ride through southern honeysuckle.

In only a few hours, I saw hippos, giraffes, a large herd of migrating wildebeest, warthogs, monkeys, zebras and baboons. The black mamba snake which crossed my path—one of the deadliest in the world, killing a human in only 15 minutes—tied with the adorable baby blue monkey for my favorite animals of the day.

Safaris bring even their oldest guests back to childhood, wide-eyed and in amazement of the world surrounding. At once, I was six again, climbing through those termite mounds, chanting “zoo, zoo, zoo” to the driver in front of me.

"I've been to the mountaintop:" Seeing Africa from it's Highest Point

In the miniature room of Kilimanjaro Backpacker’s Hotel, I unpacked and repacked my bag for the second time, cautiously accounting for each piece of climbing gear, knowing that missing only one could inhibit my ability to reach the summit of Africa’s tallest mountain safely.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is the fourth tallest of the Seven Summits and the world’s highest freestanding mountain. At 5,895 meters (19,340 feet), glaciers make a permanent home and the thin air offers about one-third of the oxygen our bodies normally enjoy.

From Machame Gate, where my trek began, blue monkeys taunted tourists attempting to eat their last restaurant-prepared meal. I had been told I would be joining a group of five, and patiently waited until a minibus arrived and four men and a woman jumped out, belting a Polish drinking song with lyrics meaning “the party must go on.”

My expedition crew contained 23 people, with a ratio of 21 males to 2 females. The five Polish twenty-eight year olds were friends from business school, enjoying a trip around east Africa. Three had climbed in the Himalayas and one shared his plans of reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. Also joining us were two guides and a large team of 14 porters and assistants tasked with ensuring our safety and well-being.

Day one began with an easy trek through the forest, one of the five ecosystems the mountain boasts. On Day two, we continued, pole pole (Swahili for slowly, slowly) up the mountain, making easy progress on the 50mi trek to ensure acclimatization. By day three, many of my peers were showing signs of altitude sickness: headaches, nosebleeds, heavy breathing, and an inability to sleep soundly at night.

The fourth day began with what the guides call, “climbing the wall,” a near-vertical ascent that takes an hour and a half. The porters accomplish this while still balancing duffel bags filled with gear on their heads, a truly amazing feat.

After a quick lunch at 4,600 meters, the sleet began to fall and blow cold ice against my face. We had already been walking in clouds for hours, and ominous thunder claps could be heard in the distance. Nine hours of high-altitude, steep hiking would be followed by a two hour rest period before attempting a dawn summit.

At the 11pm preparation meeting, the rest of my team decided they would not summit that night. The weather, their health, and sheer exhaustion made the sunrise summit less than appealing. They would wait another day, and then decide whether or not to continue to the top.

Exhausted, too, from the long day of hiking and no sleep, I decided I still wanted to go for it. My guide and I set out at midnight, pole pole up the final ascent, a very steep 1,350 meters to the top. In the frigid night, the clouds had all disappeared, exposing a beautiful star-filled sky and city lights of Kenya and Tanzania many miles away. From the East, a thin layer of clouds shot heat lightening into the sky. While I was told it was -15 degrees that night on the mountain, below in the African savannah, it was dry season and people were sweating through sleep in 85 degree weather.

As I climbed higher and higher, I passed many faces I had seen in earlier days, some still smiling, many showing visible signs that this moment was one of the hardest of their lives. Some wobbled on their feet, drunk from the lack of O2. Others, could be heard vomiting behind rocks, while still others, literally crawled towards the top. My body ached all over, with muscles unable to replenish themselves with so little oxygen. Fortunately, I experienced no serious altitude sickness. By focusing on yoga breathing, slow and deep, I made it to the summit, about two hours before our expected arrival.

It was still dark when I reached the famed sign. I wanted to wait until sunrise, but the low temperatures, blowing wind, and thin air made it almost impossible. I waited as long as I could, taking in the beautiful views from the roof of Africa, and then began my descent as the sun peeked out from the clouds below.

The full descent is accomplished the 24 hours following a successful reach of the summit, resulting in extreme exhaustion. On top of it all, my crew ran out of food, so I am quite sure I have never been so physically depleted in my life.

Climbing a mountain like Kilimanjaro requires quite a bit of preparation, both physically and mentally. Over a year ago, I had written “climb a mountain taller than you thought you could” on my Embrace Life List, a list of goals and dreams I have written down to accomplish in my brother’s memory. It was with great joy, on the brink of tears, that I checked off number 17 from the top of the mountain and raised my handwritten sign in remembrance of my brother's spirit.

I knew that it could happen, that I could fall in love in Uganda

“You are going to be my friend,” the young girl making my breakfast omelet told me with a big grin on her face.

Every day for two weeks, I stopped by the restaurant/shop that Shami’s parents own as I finished my morning run. Often, I would buy a rolex, the Ugandan version of a breakfast burrito: two eggs cooked with onions and tomato, wrapped in a chapatti (a fried tortilla).

Since coming home from boarding school in Kampala at the end of November, Shami would run out of the shop when she saw me coming to cook my rolex on her hot stone oven and talk to me about her studies, the day ahead, life. On days when there were no eggs available or I wasn’t hungry, I’d stop by just to say hello, buy a slice of bread or a water.

As time drew near for me to depart from Pader for the holidays, I told Shami I’d spend a whole day with her. At eleven years old--old enough to have responsibilities like fetching water and overseeing the shop--Shami needed special permission from her mother to spend the day out.

With her mother’s approval, our date was set.

Shami came by my house early in the morning to tell me the plan for the day: first, we would go to the photo booth in town and have several photos taken; then, she would take me to the mosque; and finally, we would return to her family’s restaurant for a lunch prepared by her mother.

“Don’t forget to wear your long blue dress!” She told me. “It will look perfect with the headscarf I will bring you!”

On our way to the photo booth, Shami spoke excitedly, asking all about my life. She asked if I am the only girl in my family, and explained that she is now; her older sister died of disease. When I explained that I too am the only girl, she responded with delight: “That’s it! We shall be sisters! You will be my older sister in America and we will be sisters forever!”

Little by litte, Shami was stealing my heart.

Shami walked proudly into the photo booth with her muzungu friend and told the shop owner with authority that we would take three photos with the Japanese garden background. We posed like models, then like sisters.

Our giddiness on the walk to the mosque made it feel like we’d skipped the whole way. Shami continued in her cheery manner and told me of her dreams: “Some day, I will be a doctor.”

“You are a very smart girl,” I told her. “You will do it. I know you will!”

“I want to help my family out of poverty, and I want to help other people too. I study very hard in school and have been number one or number two in my class every semester for the past two years!” Shami told me with pride.

My heart beat a little faster.

“Do you like to read?” I asked, hopeful.

“I love to read! I love to read about everything: history and science and even stories. I love to study science, and even though I’m not the best in mathematics, I like to do the work. I am a very hard worker. My parents like it when I am home because I work so hard in the shop, and I am like that in school as well.”

We entered the mosque and sat behind the curtain separating the women from the men. With each warm breeze, the curtain moved just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the imam and men sitting on the mats in front of us.

After prayers, I told Shami I wanted to take her shopping. I had noticed she wore the same worn school uniform most days, and I wanted her to have a new one for the coming school year and a change of clothes for Christmas.

Shami was delighted. When we arrived back to her home, her mom had prepared a huge lunch for us: pasted and non-pasted greens (boiled greens with and without peanut butter), sweet potatoes, beans, peanut butter, and water.

“Mama, mama! My sister has agreed to help me with my math!” Shami told her mother in their native Luganda. “And she wants me to go to University, all the way in America! She says if I keep working hard, I will go to Harvard some day, a university where they pay the school fees if you are poor!”

I looked at my little sister and I believed it. I believed she would become a doctor some day and that she would go to Harvard.

Shami standing behind her mother and three of her brothers

4 Chickens and a Dream

The journey to Nighty’s village began around 9am with the solicitation of drivers and fierce negotiation led by Nighty. After finally settling on a price, four adults and three children piled into a 1980s Honda Civic that appeared to be driven right out of a salvage yard.

While Nighty insisted that her village is close to Pader, the journey took over three hours. Several times, we exited the vehicle to push the mighty Civic over bumps or to pull it out of the ditches of the poorly maintained dirt road.

When we arrived at the part of the journey where we took the small car off-roading, I knew we must be close. Nighty pointed out a gathering of a few dozen huts which she explained were the remnants of an IDP camp, largely abandoned now as people have returned to their homes.

Nighty’s family lives on an isolated plot located several miles from the main road and center of Abilo Nino village. Her father, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and a slew of children live together in several bandas, subsisting off the land and selling what little crop they can to afford items like clothing and sugar.

Upon arrival, I greeted each family member in traditional Acholi style, spent a short while helping to grind jeenut paste (peanut butter), and then followed Nighty around the compound as she proudly showed off the grounds, well-tended crops, and simple bandas.

The place was beautiful, isolated and peaceful. With fields of sunflowers, high stalks of maize, goats and chickens, it seemed like an idyllic place to raise children.

“You think this is a peaceful place now, but not long ago, this very plot was taken over by the LRA,” Nighty’s uncle explained. “They used our home to cook for the militiamen, and those of us who survived the raids were driven to the camps.”

After a thorough tour of the compound, Nighty’s aged mother invited me into the women's banda. Inside, she set a woven mat upon the dirt floor and swept the ground before placing the meal she had prepared for her first ever muzungu guest: sweet potatoes, pasted malikwang and boyo (greens mixed with peanut and sunflower seed butter). The long journey left me quite hungry, and I was delighted by the vegetarian meal.

Outside, the men gathered in a circle of plastic chairs, awaiting my return. When the father of the family finally spoke, calling everyone to order, the lone English-speaking uncle translated.

“It is such a great honor to host our muzungu friend,” the father began. By three in the afternoon, when the father began his speech, the compound was teeming with nearly fifty people. Word spread quickly about the fair-skinned visitor and every clan member hurried to the compound to witness the event.

As part of a formal ceremony, each elder took a turn giving an oration. All expressed great appreciation for my visit, and then presented a unified dream, a desperate request to help their family.

“You see us before you, living very poorly, some of us with nothing to wear. We do not want your pity, your clothing, or medicine, all we want is education for our children,” one man spoke. “We will give you a plot of land, build you a home upon it, and provide you whatever you need, but our children will be nothing without an education.”

“I will marry you and care for you myself,” one of Nighty’s brothers generously offered.

Each elder echoed the same sentiment, first thanking me profusely for visiting, and then asking me to do anything I could to help their family plan for financing their children’s educations.

Nighty later explained that of her entire family, only one uncle had received an education and the rest remained illiterate. The youngest generation, mostly under six years, have little hope of going to school without a miracle. It was clear that the elders dreamed I would be part of that miracle.

After listening to each speech, I was invited to give my own. I had been moved by their appeals and wanted to communicate deep gratitude for their welcome, but I knew that I could not marry Nighty’s brother, build my home within their compound, or--most regrettably--cover the costs of educating each child on my own. It is one of the greatest disappointments of my time here, wanting to do so much, yet feeling helpless when asked to provide the assistance requested of me.

Before leaving the village, I was informed that the five homesteads had prepared gifts. Nighty took my camera as each head of household shook my hand with a wide grin and presented me with a live chicken, four in total. I am quite sure I have never held a chicken in my life, and my facial expression betrayed me as my mind wandered to thoughts about what a vegetarian would do with four chickens and how I would get them home. [The men tied the chickens’ feet and placed them in the trunk of the car for me. I squirmed every time I heard them squeal on the ride home.]

From a family with very little, I was treated with great honor. Despite my inability to make grand promises, I was embraced upon my departure and invited to visit anytime.

On the ride home, I played American music for Nighty, allowing my own mind to wander to ways I could help her family and others like hers. In time, my thoughts were interrupted as Nighty began to share with me for the first time her own war story.

As I have begun to gain the community’s trust, I have heard many stories of the war, each one equally moving. Nighty’s was no exception: the story of a young girl who ran away from the war, making it all the way to southern Uganda where she found work as a domestic servant and fish factory worker. She returned home to find that everything had changed: several family members had been killed, their homes burned, and the plot overtaken by rebels.

This is the story of the friend who gave me a soda and invited me into her hut on one of my first nights in Pader. Despite not having a clear solution for her family’s struggles, I will never forget them, their warm welcome, four chickens, or dream for their children.

Nighty's immediate family members gather for a portrait.

Giving Thanks

Even though I'm not in America, I still want to give thanks, because thanksgiving is my favorite part of Thanksgiving (it used to be turkey, but I gave that up long ago!).

There is so much I could be thankful for this year as I celebrate the holiday in a land of little, far away from my home of plenty. And yet, it's not running water, or toilets, showers, or good food that I am most grateful for; it's love.

Living in a post-conflict zone makes clear that love and kindness, even between kin, are not givens. I am full of gratitude for all of the people in my life--family and friends--who show me love through kindness, respect, and care.

Through our love for each other, we create peace on earth.

I wish you a very happy, peaceful, and love-filled Thanksgiving!