Ish Ish

I have discovered that there is a Stop N Shop in Arisha Tanzania. Not our East Coast favorite, but nonetheless. I have a bit more time now, but the blog will still be a little scattered. Here is a list of all of the animals I have seen thus far on my safari adventure- Giraffe (Rothschild and Maasai), Whildebeast (lots of em- they look like old men with beer bellies), Zebra (natures mystery to me- how do they hide from pretadors?), Thompsons Gazelle, Baboons (broke into camp and ate all our mayo and bananas), Impala, Guineafowl (my personal fav), Duiker, Duik-duik, Topi, Ostrich, Lion (oh yeah, male, female, teenagers, babies, eating a Wildebeast, sleeping, hunting, the works), Ostrich, Eland, Warthog, Genet (look it up- its basically a big cat), Hartbeast, Vulture, Water Buffalo (peered at us all night long during the night of the baboon fiasco), bat-eared dog, Eagle, Defassa Waterbuck, Heron, Elephant (see Lion above- minus the Wildebeast part, and hunting, unless you call tree munching as hunting), Vervet Monkey (super cute- hang babies under their bellies when they run, but are sneaky- have lost multiple bananas and cookies), Egyptian Goose ( like pigeons here- beautiful), Cheetah (no, it wasnt running, but rolling in the dirt like a house cat), hippo, White and Black Rhino (yet they are both black in color, hmm), Jackal, umm, and tons of birds. Go look up the Superb Starling. Our tour guides dumped us with a smaller tour where we were broken up to drive in swift little land rovers over the Ngorongoro Crater and the famous Serengeti. They butt up against each other, so you literally just leave one and enter another. There are 14000 sq kilometers to be had in the Serengeti. We didnt see it all. Its big and dry and flat and mysterious. You are certain that you will arrive at that pile of rocks over there sooner or later, but it takes days. Its a wonder we see animals at all there. Our drivers name was Simba. That is all to report on that anomaly. I saw someone who was wearing a Jamaica Plains shirt. We had a nice little excited moment talking about the homeland, since I am the only American in the group, as usual. There are Saudis, Irish, British, Spanish, French, and Aussies. And little ol' me. I get picked on a bunch. There is a really popular song here right now, and its all about Barack Obama. His face is plastered all over Kenya, its hugely comical. We are camping every night, and waking up before sunrise everyday, so, yes Megan, I did get to see a sunrise. On our way back to Arusha today SImba stopped and we bought some red bananas which are special to the area. Smaller than ours, and much sweeter. The meat is even a bit pink. Mohammed is teaching me Arabic, and Joseph is teaching me Swahili. Wanna little lesson? A habari yasibohi ( this is phonetic people) - Good morning in Swahili. Zubda- butter in Arabic. Ok, thats it for now. Ive got serious camera envy. There are people here with insane cameras, and although mine works just fine, they can get close to things I cant see easily. Note to mom- the Spanairds tell me that a car jack in Spanish is gato. Strange. There are these blue sheets that are hanging all over the Ngorongoro, and apparently they are drench in insecticide for the Tsetse, who are attracted to the dark blue, but the male ostriches legs turn pink when he sees a lady he likes. Just a little color observation. I need to go, but Ill check in when I arrive in Dar Es Salaam in two days, or in Zanzibar in three. Please continue to leave comments people! I thrive off of them.