Trekking In the Himalayas

Merry Christmas, and all that!


Quite a different one for us this year, celebrating on Christmas eve to keep the German kids happy, but it was still nice, although slightly lacking in "festive feel", particularly as it was sunny!

The weekend before christmas Mrs Grasshopper and I returned to Mcleod Ganj, a small village just north of Dharamsala, home to His Holyness the Dala Lama, and the Tibeten goverment in exile. As you journey along the 35km road from camp, and up a few hundred meters, you can see the change in the people, the clothing, the dress and features. Traditional northern India seems to melt into Tibet, with a surprising nepalese influence.

Our trip there the previous weekend, after a heart-stopping bus ride along the mountain roads, was to chill out and practice being a couple again. We got a hotel room with a private bathroom, balcony, and found some bars and resturants that both sold meat and were prepared to sell alcohol to Mrs Grasshopper. The vegetarian hindu diet has been really healthy, if a little flatulent, but we were both missing a beer with our curry (women are not permitted to buy alcohol in the rural community were are living in).

Our nice little hotel room with a balcony overlooking the valley was 300 rupees per night, including a heater. Two 650ml bottles of Kingfisher strong also costs 300 rupees...

This weekend however we were driven to Mcleod by Mohan, one of the project executives here at the Idex camp, as we were trekking up the mountain overlooking Dharamsala. Our first night we went out with our room-mate Bethany, who was to be trekking with us, and Greg, an 18 year old public schoolboy, doggedly pursuing his passions of theology, philosophy and Bethany, (a futile pursuit which is often cringworthy if humorous, maybe due to his boarding-school inflicted inexperiance, and his sense of humor failure).

We went to a place Mrs Grasshopper and I found called Excite, a bizare blend of western style nightclub, resturaunt and bar, but with a unique Indian/Tibeten feel. Lots of neon lights, white table cloths and a tape player blaring a mix-match of Steps, Britany Spears, The Eagles and 50 Cent through large speakers. It is so cheesy its actually kind of cool! Before 8pm there is only ever 3 other people in, but after 8 the music somehow gets louder, and the tables and dancefloor are suddenly packed with young and beautiful Tibetens, drinking, smoking and laughing.

The previous friday Mrs G and I were chugging on our Kingfishers after a meal of Tibeten momo's and chilli sauce, when the oldest swinger in town approached. Long black hair swept back into a poytail, and with the characteristic trendy clothing and genuine smile, he leans over to me and shouts over the blaring music "Hello! Want some coke? Ganja? Ecstacy? any thing else you like- I can get, what you want?"

I notice he's proffering a white bag towards me, a trippy pick-and-mix just visible through the open top.

"Nah mate, I'm fine, cheers" I reply, shaking my head, a bit taken aback.

"No problem!" he gives me a big grin, pats my shoulder and dances away, slack jaw and wide eyes suggesting he enjoys his products. 10 mins later he's back, "Can I just leave this here?"- before I can reply, he dumps his bag of drugs at our table and bounces like Zebiddy through the dancefloor crowd.

Shit- I look at Mrs Grasshopper, and we make ready to leave. Thankfully he's back just as Mrs G and I start getting up, giving a thumbs up and mega-grin to me while grabbing the bag and disappearing towards the toilets.

This friday however was a lot more subdued, and knowing we were starting our trek at 7am the following day, we were early to bed, only having a few drinks with our momos and pakoras.

The next morning we were up, rucksacks packed, guides met, Mohan met, and walking up the steepest hill I've ever known by 7.15am.

I swear, it must have been nearly verticle! After 5 mins I had stripped down to my t-shirt, my lungs were burning, legs wobbling and sweat stinging my eyes. We were still getting over bad colds I though to myself. But I looked at our guide Aziz, and noticed he was lighting a cigarette with bored indifference, breathing just fine. Mohan was similerly unaffected, and he gave me a smile as I dripped beside him. I looked behind me and was somewhat relieved to see Mrs Grasshopper and Bethany were also red-faced and wheezing, bent double due to the gradient and magnified weight of our rucksacks. 10 mins later, I looked back to see Bethany turn around and start making down the hill, and I hung back for Mrs G to catch up.

"It's just the two of us" she pants.

"Umf" I manage by way of reply.

An hour later we were wrapped up again in our fleeces, sipping hot chai (Indian Tea) at a mountainside rest point while our breakfast was cooked. Ive noticed so far that in India, dogs are everywhere, both pets and strays, and the mountainside was no exception. A small teddybear-like puppy was the object of our affections through our breakfast of cheese omlette and Roti.

Filled up, we set off, finding we had recovered from the sharp shock of the start and were now enjoying the clean ice-crisp air, taking a brisk but comfortable pace through the changing scenery. Half an hour or so after the cafe, we were joined by a sand-coloured dog, with a pretty bear-like face and sharp foxy snout. I think we passed his owner on the way up, and although "Doggy" (as Mohan imaginativly named him) kept an eye down the path, he walked all the way up the mountain with us. He was great company too, regularly amusing us with a "mad-moment" whenever we reached a snow-covered area under the trees. We threw snowballs at him, which he caught in his mouth or deftly dodged, barking and charging at us, sometimes scaring us by running just inches away from the precipice at the side of the path. We also threw snowballs at each other, fooling around while scrambling up the snow-covered trail.

By the time we reached the final chai-stop, we were often knee-deep in snow. I was glad of it at first, cooling my hot aching feet through the thick leather of my "technical" hiking boots. However, the snow soon started to work it's way down the tops of my boots, soaking my thick socks and freezing my feet. I suddenly understood why the bloke who sold me the boots said "breathability is bollocks, most of the time".

The banter and messing about with the dog soon stopped as we focused on the trail, which had increased in intensity and was virtually invisible under thick snow-drifts. When we weren't slogging knee-deep in ice-topped snow between huge boulders, we were gingerly edging forwards and up, inches from the sheer drop into the valley below. The views, though stunning, made me dizzy, and I started to really worry about Mrs Grashopper, who was complaining of dizzyness, and had developed a nervous jerkyness to her movements as she made her way up.

As we stopped for a breather after a particularly hair-raising section, I asked Mohan how much further to the rest house, where we would be staying that night.

He wobbled his head from side to side in the typical indian fashion. "10 mins"

And it was! The camp area was a wide open area, petering out to a sharp ridge on the southern tip, with three wood and polythene shacks supplying chai, food, and water, and two wooden "houses" on stone foundations.

The views into the valley were amazing- it felt like we were on top of the world itself. In the far distance was a constant smear of light, which Aziz informed us was a masive lake in Punjab, reflecting the afternoon sun.

One thing I have noticed in here in India is how much the men play. Be it volleyball, cricket, badminton, or even cards, there seems a sense of fun which is not as apparent in the english culture. So it was natural, despite being physically shattered, to have a mass snowball fight, playing with Doggy, and laughing till tears came at Mohan and Aziz wrestling and falling over in the snow. We eaten a simple meal of rice and chickpea dal, and settled down in dry socks on the snow-cleared concerete in front of the resthouse. We were all soon snoozing, with the warm sun heating our dark clothes and drying our boots.

There were no toilet or running water facuilities at the top, and I felt my stomach "chunder" as I drifted off to sleep. But I figured I would be fine, there is huge space and only a few of us, so easy enough to go behind a rock to "lighten the load" when neccessary.
I woke up to Doggy licking my face. I pushed him away, groaning at the smell of his breath, and he patiently settled down tight next to me. I looked up, absently stroking Doggy's soft fur, and realised we had company- 45 other trekkers, all settled down around us. No toilet, freezing cold, loads of people and gleaming white snow. Great.

We went for a further walk along the southern ridge, Doggy chasing his shadow in the snow. The view was breathtaking. Mountains, rivers and lakes rolled out below us for 100s of miles, tinted blue under a thin blanket of whispy cloud. As the sun dipped to the western horizon, the world around us turned electric pink.

Shortly after a rapid sunset where the sun appeared to sink into the ground, dinner was provided by the shack furthest from the house. We could see the yellow-red flames of a fire as we approached, and as I ducked into the tiny shack, my eyes stung sharply with the smoke. The inside was a low-ceilinged, dark, smoky grotto filled with bottles of water, chocolate and ciggerettes. A low shelf covered in blankets provided seating for us. I hurriedly sat down in the corner, instantly relieved of the woodsmoke clouding the ceiling, and Mrs G sat tight beside me. The other chaps sat to my left, and tightly packed, with the fire-box close in front, I felt my toes start to thaw. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark gloom, I noticed there was a tiny cooking area just off to one side, where a tall, by local sizes, man was hunched over a cooking pot. I also noticed a western woman in Indian clothes holding a gangly puppy, sat on the floor next to my wife. Music played from a battered old radio, surprisingly modern western music from a Pakistani station adding a strange twist to the atmosphere.

There we warmed up, played with the puppy and eaten a filling dinner of hot spicy dal and sticky, heavy rice. The girl spoke german to her puppy, who delighted in chewing our fingers, english to us, and hindi to the bloke cooking, who I assumed to be her indian boyfriend, judging by their mannerisms and behaviour. Beedies (an indian ready-made, tobacco-leaf wrapped roll-up ciggerete, which are surprisingly smooth to smoke) were passed round, after which we made our way back to our shared room at the resthouse. Our breath was really fogging, and I noticed the snow had frozen, now offering easy passage where before we had been falling into it knee-deep.
Wearing two jumpers, thermal underwear, micro-fleece, trousers, hat and settled in sleepingbags, Mrs Grasshopper and I snuggled down on a thin floor covering. We soon fell into a hot, fitfull sleep, listening to Mohan and Aziz fart, mumble and snore 'till morning.

The morning we left was bright and surprisingly warm, making the snow slowly recede from the rocks, where we ate a bowl of hot spicy noodles and watched Doggy play with the puppy from the night before.
The descent was just as treacherous in the icy stages as the ascent, but soon the trail eased, allowing a fast yomp that quickly took us back to Mcleod Ganj by early afternoon. We said our goodbyes to Aziz in the main square, and after a beer and a plate of pakoras, I was able to buy a few christmas presents for Mrs Grasshopper. I knew from the shopkeepers expression that I smelt bad, real bad, having sweat so much and not washed, and I looked awful, sun-burnt, muddy and unshaven. But it was worth it, the best time in India so far.

Living and working

The camp already had 10 other volunteers living there, whom we met the night after our arrival, as they were on an excursion to Amritsar.
The camp itself comprises of three bedrooms, with a lad from Denmark in one, and two girls from Germany and Switzerland in the other. Mrs Grasshopper and I took the third room, with a 17 year-old girl from Glastonbury we met up with our first morning in Delhi (despite a 9 year age difference, she's became one of our good mates, sharing in Mrs Grasshoppers love of all things "hippy").

The bedrooms, like the 2 bathrooms, open onto the recreation room, a large open room covered in a carpet of foam mattresses. The shelves are lined with bookcases, stuffed with teaching books, materials, boardgames and travel books. There is also a TV, DVD player and 2 computers that provide Internet access most of the time.
The camp also has an outside row of toilets, Indian-style washrooms, and a dining room. At 2,400 meters above sea-level and in the height of the Indian winter, it's cold here. REAL cold sometimes, and there is only one heater in the recreation room, so meal-times and comfort-breaks are usually hurried affairs after sun-down!

We are by far the oldest here, with some of the volunteers coming straight from school, fully paid-up and funded by their affluent parents. So we feel a little out of place, and having booked this course from "gap-year for grown-ups", we were not really prepared for the youth-camp environment. It has seemingly condescending rules posted on walls ("clean-up day" Wednesdays, lights out at 11, tell a project executive if your not eating etc) and we have had to do simple jobs like cleaning the bathroom and toilets, as the other volunteers seemingly have not the whole time they had been there (by god did they need cleaning!).
Differences aside, they are nice enough, even some do ask us to wake them up in the morning, and one complains about public-school prefects and the "unfairness" of wearing a school uniform.

On our first morning we were shown around the different work placements. It was a jeep ride "death-race" zig-zagging up and down the mountain roads, making hairpin turns above sheer drops, crossing bridges over rocky-rivers, and speeding through streets filled with cows, people and rickshaws (amazingly never actually hitting any- occasionally just brushing them), with the horn constantly blaring, mixing a funky tune over the bollywood music that always blares from the jeeps tape-deck.

Mrs Grasshopper and I both chosen to work at the school for mentally challenged children in the mornings, and assist at the Orphanage in the afternoons. Both work placements were at the same site, run by the Rotary club some 30 minutes deathrace from our accommodation.

Working hours were nothing like we expected from the information we were given, only leaving camp at 10am, arriving about 10.30, and leaving at 12, to arrive back at camp for 12.30. The afternoons were also short, leaving camp at 4pm, arriving about4.30, only to leave again just after 5pm. Most afternoons the kids at the orphanage were doing school exams, or it was raining so we couldn't go (wtf?!), so I only actually spent two afternoons there.
1.5 hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon was, somewhat, erm... disappointing?

The work itself though wasn't.

The first day we were introduced to the children we would be teaching for the next three weeks. The headteacher, a small attractive lady who was responsible for the 30 children and three teachers at the school, introduced herself to me, asked what I was doing in the uk, and then called one lad over. "Here is the boy you will be teaching. He is very slow, he does not like women, and he can be quite violent sometimes. But if you show him love, he will slowly respond I think".
Aged 15, stocky, with thick arms and muscular shoulders, my new mate Anuj stared at me. He looked very unimpressed with his new mentor as I smiled idiotically and chirped "namaste!". And prayed to god he would never get violent with me.

The headteacher explained she wanted me to teach him to count 1-10, write his name, and teach him fruit in english.

As it happened, Anuj never got violent with me. I soon found he needed to learn how to count 1-10 in hindi first, and that achieved, he slowly started in english. Sometimes he would lose interest, giving me a death-look before standing up and walking off. Others he would ignore the teaching aids I had bought or made, steadfastly shaking his head and complaining about the cold in Hindi.
But as one week became two, his indifferent ambling in my direction when I would first arrive became an excited walk, while flashing a sun-beam smile at me as we found somewhere to sit. Sometimes in would be in a classroom, others outside if the sun was out. I don't think I taught him much, sometimes he would recognise numbers, others not one, sometimes he would write his name, other times miss letters out.
But whenever the headteacher asked if I was making progress I would say yes, simply because he was starting to want to learn. He preferred counting, his favorite number being 3, and if he rolled a three on the dice, or got a number 3 flash-card, he would bounce with excitement and give me high-5's, keeping hold of my hand and smiling.
At 11.30 we would go to playtime in the yard. Come our final week I was giving him piggy-backs to the yard, I choking and heaving under his weight, and him screaming with excitement and happiness. He even started playing games, starting with simple catch and progressing to bowling in cricket.

Unfortunately, our time was cut short. Despite being told we would be working over christmas, we were told at the end of our second week, that there would be no more schooling. Just like in the UK, they close over christmas, only no-one told us that- in fact the opposite.

Anuj was absent on my final day at the school, and as I played with Sagar, a tiny little deaf boy who we all fell in love with, I really hoped he would get another volunteer. Looking at his work book, it appeared the only proper schooling he ever got was us volunteers. Quite strange, in a school with so many teachers, but then, that is why we were there.

India

We left Nairobi after a mooch around the public parks with Alice and Shirley (who had returned from climbing Mt Kenya they day before), arriving in Dubai around midnight. Our flight was at 5am, so that's when I posted most of my previous blog entries, after something to eat and a quick shop for essentials- hence the poor quality of writing. I uploaded some pictures from my camera-phone, but they took so long that I ran out of time.

We arrived in Delhi around mid-day, having had no sleep for about 30 hours and the worst breakfast in the world (it takes a very special airline to cock-up an omelet ready-meal!).
Just before meeting our Delhi contact at arrivals, Mrs Grasshopper and I cashed some travellers cheques. As I distributed my rupees into different pockets and money belt, I noticed Mrs G's money belt was outside her trousers, just visible below her t-shirt.
"Aren't you going to tuck that in?" I ask
"I'm not sure it's appropriate for me to be messing with the front of my trousers in public" she says.
"Fair enough", and I think nothing more of it.
We meet our contact, who escorts us through the busy airport carpark to a battered taxi, and we set of for the hotel.

Now, if I thought the traffic in Nairobi (and Kenya in general) was crazy, Delhi is off the scale! It was like the rules of the road, or even human self preservation, had been entirely replaced by hitting the horn.

Give way? Nah, just hit the horn and go! Check mirror, signal, then change lane? Nope again- hit the horn and go! Traffic stopped? Hit the horn and make a space!
Words cannot describe the traffic and road use. The road markings are never used, ever, and although India theoretically drives on the left, in reality it simply doesn't matter as long as your moving forwards. If in doubt-hit the horn!.
We got to a hotel, possibly the worst I've known , and the rudest porter in the world took my bags up to my room (despite my forceful protests). While scowling and shaking his hand at me for a tip, Mrs Grasshopper goes a peculiar colour.
"Grasshopper- my money belt has gone."
"Huh?"
"It's not there".
The porter was no help until I gave him some rupees, and only then we were able to run downstairs, checking the lobby, street, taxi, lift... before realising realised her money belt was definitely gone, containing among other things, her credit cards and all our travellers cheques.

After frantic (and expensive) phone calls to home and AmEx (who by the way, are amazing at being completely F--king useless), and we were on the craziest rickshaw trip into the city center, in an attempt to find the AmEx office and a police station (a police report was needed to replace the travellers cheques), and somewhere to buy some jeans.

Our rickshaw driver was reserved by Delhi standards, only putting us in fear for our lives a few times. However, he was insistent on dropping us off at 5 different spice, silk, tea and "tourist-gift" shops, despite clear instructions of where we actually wanted to go.

Thankfully we were prepared for this, but upon stopping outside yet another Indian silk shop, I was starting to get irritated.
"Police station, PLEASE" I ask
"I take you to place better than police station, they find anything you lost"
"No. Police station."
"You sure?"
"YES. POLICE STATION!"

The police report was nothing, what-so-ever, like what actually happened. However, upon explaining to the sub-inspector what Mrs G and I do in the UK, at least we got the report for free like it should be (and I made a new best friend out of the Inspector, who took our photos, gave me his mobile number and asked me to contact him when we are back in Delhi for a night out "without the wife-much better he he he"!). It was actually really interesting to be shown round the nick, and we were treated like honoured guests with tea and lots of laughing and chatting, although a correct report would still have been nice.

That night we ate chicken biriyani in our hotel room (the traditional way- using hands and not knife and fork- we're quite good at this now after Kenya), and done our best to keep the porter from constantly barging into our room unannounced and for no real reason. He was blatantly trying his best to get un-warranted tips, or a shot of Mrs G's tits, both of which I strongly objected to.

The next morning we travelled to the Idex office via a 6 hour bus to Jaipur (the organisation we are working for). For the next four days we were given lessons on Hindi (which was amusing-languages were never my strong point), Indian cultural issues, religion, and the situation for women in Indian society.

At night we stayed at an Indian families house, where our hostess Anju cooked the most amazing Indian food we've ever tasted. One afternoon we seen a bollywood movie, which was a fantastic experience, in the cities oldest, grandest cinema. Another afternoon we went shopping around the old town, buying Mrs Grasshopper some Indian clothes for working in, and I got a pair of genuine Levi's for about 13 quid. I don't envy Mrs G wearing those clothes- we are both still freezing cold after the heat of Kenya, and it's only going to get worse higher up in the mountains!

One morning we visited the Amber fort which was brilliant. We gave the elephant rides a miss though, after seeing such beautiful beasts in the wild, it was sickening to see them now a captured tourist attraction, de-tusked and forced to walk constantly up and down the hill.

Beautiful palace though.

Eventually our time in Jaipur was over, and we had the unusual experience of an overnight sleeper-train to Himichal Pradesh, kipping down on bunk-beds to hushed hindi, snoring and other peoples cabbage arse.

Then finally a 4 hour crazy, bald-tyred jeep ride up the mountains to our camp in Palampur...

Out of Africa

So our time in the birthplace of humanity come to a close.

The long drive back was heart-breaking for both Mrs G and myself. We had a goodbye meal with the other volunteers, then mopped about in Nairobi for a couple of days, where I tried to write this up as best I could.
However, I don't think I could really explain what it's been like. It has been life changing. There is so many things that happened, so much I've learnt. I cant wait to return to Africa.
Living in the bush was amazing, hearing the wildlife walk right up to your tent, seeing elephants playing, sparring, sleeping, just feet away from you, zebras in the road, scorpions in your boots (maybe not a good one) and snakes in the trees.
But what has affected me most is the people. I have met some amazing people, and learnt about some amazing cultures. My outlook on life has certainly changed, from seeing both the amazing and the awful things.

Anyway, my flights due, I'd best be off.

Next post from India.

Davids Story

We were on the afternoon drive when David turned around to talk. A highly intelligent and respected man, we immediately turned to listened to him.

"I had a very strange day yesterday" he said, conversationally.
"I was walking back to camp from the village, when I seen a boy by the road. He was just just kneeling there, with his face to the ground curled up. I called to him to get up, but no, he ignored me. He must have been say, 10 years old, and very stubborn!"
At this he grinned.
"But I was concerned for him, breathing all the dust into his lungs. So I walked all the way to a women from the village, and asked her if she knew the boy's mother, but she says no! She knows nothing of this boy. So I walk and walk to the other village, and ask them all there. They tell me nothing. So I think he is naughty or very angry maybe with his mother and he is lying there in protest. So I walk back to take him a biscuit I had bought. I wanted to give it to him, to give him strength so he can walk home. When I reach him, I reach down to put the biscuit in his hand, but no.
He was dead.
He maybe died some hours before."

David looks down for a moment, silent, rocking with the motion of the vehicle. Some of us make shocked noises, but none of us know quite what to say.
"Is there not some authority or something they should contact?" I start, regretting it immediately.
"No. No authority. He will be collected after dark and then thrown into the bushes. The hyenas will clean him up. It is their way."

We were silent for a while, all of us thinking of the small boy, curled up alone on the dusty flat lands by the road.

I heard the hyenas that night. Whether they found the boy, I could not tell.

If they do not take him, the family will believe it is because the boy was full of evil.

So I guess I hope the hyenas did.

Amboseli

Unfortunately we had to leave Rombo for Amboseli. Part 2 of our work was recording the elephant movements, numbers and group make-up in the migration corridors from Mt Kilimanjaro to Amboseli national park. We would be staying at the Masai community campsite on the edge of the park, and due to the distance involved, driving off-road both morning and night. On these drives we would literally drive anywhere, over mini-trees and bushes, and once got stuck in a warthog hole.

It took a few hours driving in our beloved KSM (which had returned with Simba a week previous) to our new camp. The green acacia-bush filled hilly landscape of Romba changed to flat-very flat- dust and rocks. Often Simba has to stop the car completely, as the dust rose up into an opaque yellow-brown cloud making seeing more than an inch mast the window impossible. A few moments and the wind (which was ever present there) would sweep it away. On one such moment, the wind cleared the impenetrable dust-cloud, to reveal maybe 500 elephants strolling just meters past the front of our vehicle. That was our introduction to Amboseli!

It was a nice place, we seen lots of animals, and recorded literally 1oo's of elephants, and had a drive through the park itself to get a picture of the ever elusive lion. The camp was ok, running water and a bar nearby, but the same cess-pit toilet arrangement (I was starting to find the short whistle and "flump" of a number 2 quite satisfying), and the tents were raised on platforms along with the usual thatched over-roof. Bit too commercial and touristy compared to our 'home' in the wilds of Rombo, but good none-the-less.

The best and worst thing about the camp however was the back-faced vervet monkeys. They were up to all sorts, and Kimani, having lost his sugar-bowl once to a particularly brave raiding party, had even brought a catapult to fire warning shots when they came too close. They knew his face, and would scatter whenever he appeared out of the cooking hut, despite ignoring the rest of us.

I caught one of them trying to make-off with our tea-bags. Another tried to take off with my t-shirt that was drying outside my tent. Thankfully he dropped it, probably while laughing at me legging it towards him, shouting obscenities with my sun-burnt face and un-fastened boots trying to trip me up.
I was putting all my wet clothes into my tent, only tom come out to find he'd jumped onto the line and nicked my clothes peg. I threw a stone at him, which he easily dodged, and ran to the other side of my tent. I followed, throwing, shouting, running, over again until I was fit to collapse, panting and burning in the mid-day sun. I was starting to think he was playing with me, so stopped chasing and just watched him. True enough, he eventually stopped chewing the peg and watching me and ran over to Reece's tent, where he chewed one of the guy-ropes to make the tent partially collapse.
Another one had torn a hole in the bottom of our tent trying to get in. Thankfully I caught him in the act before he managed to get in, and fixed the hole with safety pins. So he came back and crapped on our door-step in protest.

Still, they were cute.

The Masai Village and Dance

The Masai village, which was our neighboring camp was a warrior village. As young boys, those chosen as suitable would be sent from their home villages to the warrior village, to learn how to be a Moran and undertake exercises such as going into the bush and living on your own for a bit on just cows milk/blood and meat, avoiding elephants, buffalo, and other animals dangerous to health. Bloody hard lads you might say.

There is so much to explain about the Masai people that I could not explain it here- an internet search would be better anyway if your interested. However, having worked with these amazing people, or rather for them by doing the conservation work, we were all very grateful to have the opportunity to visit the nearby village one afternoon, escorted by James.

As we approached, the women were dancing and singing, adorned in jewellery and brightly coloured Shuka some with children on their backs. As they danced and sang towards us, and greeted each of us volunteers individually. Welcome over, we were free to sit with the wives to talk (well, I didn't being a bloke), and go inside their dung and ash build houses).

I struggled to fit inside the narrow passageway onto the hut, all of which were uniform in size and arranged in a protective circle. Inside was a simple bed of dried animal skin on branches, a small fireplace in the center of the room, and a spare "bed". And that was it. I asked James why the houses were so small, and the answers simple- the Masai only tend to sleep in the hut, and do not share their beds with their married partners. (Sex is strictly for procreation, not recreation, apparently).



The children in the camp played a game of hide and seek, diving in and out of the houses, peeking and waving at us before running into another house while we sat with the elder Masai woman, who had an impressive ability to spit a good six feet away without breaking sentence.

James informed me that all the men were collecting relief food some miles away, so would visit us later. I asked why, and he informed me the rains have not come. As a result, there is no food for the cows, so the village may move again, having already been here for 12 years, a reasonably long time in Masai terms.

In the center of the village were circular areas marked by thick acacia-bush fences, used to keep out animals around most villages and camps we had seen . The centre of one was raised, by maybe 2 feet higher than the ground outside ring, and perfectly level.

"What are they?" I asked David.

"Pens, for the animals when they come back to the village" he replies.

"OK, so why is the centre of that one 2 foot high?"

"12 years of goat poo-poo!" he says with a grin.

Que photos of all the group, for no other reason that it was 2 foot of animal shit behind us.

When we had all exhausted our questions we returned to our camp.

Days later, the men had returned, this time coming to our camp to display their traditional singing and dancing.

As they approached, they were already singing, every man having his own vocal part in the group, like a very bassy "Mmmm-Mmmm", "Umpi-Umpi" and such like sounds, with a higher pitched soloist giving it the vocal. The women followed, chiming-in a high-pitched chorus-response to the males verses. All of them approached us, and we welcomed them as they did to us. I could smell man-tea (or a similar preparation) on all the man as they walked past, no doubt to fuel their dancing.

The men danced first, jumping higher and higher before landing with a thump that you could feel through the ground. They jumped high-real high! A particularly high jump would be congratulated with a clash of their sticks, much like blokes in a pub may clink beer-classes. Then it was the women's turn, which was a kind of up-and-down rhythmic shimmy, which custom dictates has to please their watching husband, or there would be "trouble"...

The Masai were a very impressive people, and the village at Rombo was amazing. In Amboseli, we found the Masai forever chasing the tourist shilling, sometimes outright begging. However, these Masai, so removed from the tourist trail shown little interest in material gain. It made me think long and hard about the positive and negative effects of tourism.

The Birthday Treat

By then end of one week, it was Reeces 18th birthday.
Seeing as we were in the middle of the African bush, presents were a little hard to come by, and after much secret deliberation, and further discussion with David, our project leader, it would appear the normal (and only) gift available would be a goat, bought from the local Masai tribe.
Now this seemed a good idea, especially as Reece was really struggling with the almost total vegetarian food in the bush. James and David negotiated a price, and we all chipped in. When the Masai brought the goat, who was calmly munching the bushes seemingly un-concerned with his imminent fate, it was time to tell Reece.

Somehow, it was decided I should break the news of his birthday gift. I got off my chair in front of my tent and approached Reece, who was sitting on his own little porch, i-pod on.
Shirley looked at me, motioning a "go on", and Reece sat up, removing his i-pod.
"Whats up?" he says.
I take a deep breath, thinking of how I can best I can describe our gift, which was contentedly munching the grass round the tree behind me.
Decision made, I start:
"Well mate, as it's your birthday... we bought you a goat to be slaughtered for you. It's over there if you wanna watch..."
A split second of silence, while Shirley and Mrs G shot me a ray-gun look, and Reece responded:
"NO!"
Pause. Shake of Head. "Nah, I ain't eating it. No way".

Pretty sure my pathetic half-brick sensitivity skills were no longer needed, I retreated back to my chair. Shirley took over, and calmly explained the economic benefits buying the goat has for the Masai community, the naturalness of it all, and the fact it is a cultural thing here, a once in a lifetime thing.
Reece, being the top lad he is, quickly reasoned with things and cracked on.

The slaughter itself was very quick, the only time the goat was unhappy was being held on his back, but then David quickly stepped on it's throat and drew his razor-sharp knife from one side of it's neck to the other. A single twitch and it was over.
The Masai party who had brought the goat quickly collected the blood to be mixed with milk later, leaving only a single blood-mark to indicate the slaughter had took place there.
Then they quickly and expertly skinned the goat using the knives that were always on their belts. Legs were broken and removed, stomach and intestines quickly spirited away for their tea preparations, and the ribs, legs, and all other meat-areas put on sticks for cooking round the campfire later. Reece, thankfully, was interested, posing for photographs and taking it in the cultural context we were now living in. He later conceded it was a good idea after all, much to our relief!

That night, the meat was on sticks stuck into the ground, slow-roasting next to the hot coals of the campfire.
We all cracked open beers, and Kimani, dressed in traditional chefs coat for this celebration, prepared the meat as it was cooked, removing the best cuts of meat and serving it to us with his special "Kimani BBQ sauce".

We drank beers and ate goat-meat until we were fit to burst, before settling around the roaring campfire, the sky alive with diamond-sharp stars, and the sound of zebra, hyena and elephants just about carrying on the wind.