Africa, a different world: Part 1
Growing up in Mexico, a country with its own set of struggles, I’ve always been aware of the complexities of poverty. This background led me to believe I had a good understanding of what life might be like in other developing countries. However, my journey through Kenya and Tanzania opened my eyes to a whole new world, one that was far away from my experiences and expectations. What I encountered there challenged my preconceptions and offered me a deeper understanding of the diversity and hardship of life beyond my own borders.
Salesman land
We arrived at night in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The plan was to overnight there and early in the morning go to the Safaris in the national parks. We reserved everything with an agency beforehand, so the guides were going to pick us up from the airport and stay the whole time with us until the trip was over and bring us back to the airport. Kind of babysitters.
The hotel that we stayed in Nairobi had a wall around it with a big gate to control the entrance of the cars, as if we were some important politicians. It was quite scary to see all the security measures to protect us. I know Nairobi is considered dangerous, but the walls and entrance gates for a 3-star hotel were too much for me. Fortunately, we didn’t have any safety problems during the whole trip, as the local guides were taking care of us the whole time.
The Safari was a unique experience. I managed to watch all the animals from the Lion King movie, which was my main goal. We were driving the National parks in a Van that was pimped to be able to remove the ceiling of the car so we could stand up and watch the animals without windows. It was like a convertible Van.
In the beginning, I was scared because we were reachable by the animals. A lion could easily jump and get inside from the top of the car. While driving, I noticed the animals seemed to view the safari cars as large, harmless creatures, showing little interest in us. Of course, we were keeping our distance.
While driving to the different national parks, we stopped in convenience stores to buy some snacks and refreshments. In most of the stores, the prices were not displayed. Most of the products were imported so they had barcodes, but they weren’t using them. The cashier had a calculator and summed all the prices of the products. You were basically relying on the memory and honesty of the cashier. All the products that we were buying in convenience stores seemed to be overpriced, but the overpricing was at a different level in the souvenir shops.
It’s well-known how persistent the street vendors in European cities can be, especially those in major squares like Paris or Rome. Well, we were in the place where these guys learned all the tricks. The “University” of hustlers. People who don’t accept “No” as an answer. In the souvenir shops in Kenya, there was one owner and an army of people earning money with the commission of what they sell. When you get inside a souvenir shop these people are hunting you. You show some interest in something and in less than five seconds there will be someone trying to sell it to you. I mean, that’s not bad. I understand that it’s their job and the competition is furious. The problem is how intense they can be and the overpricing of the products.
In the first souvenir shop, I was wandering around and I found a funny rock in the shape of a deformed elephant. I grabbed it to see it closely and instantly a guy arrived. He was praising the deformed elephant. Out of curiosity, I asked for the price. The seller said 30 dollars, and I couldn’t help to exclaim, ‘Really? That much?’ Honestly, 3 dollars was already overpriced for that rock. Also, dollars aren’t even their national currency, they have Kenya shilling. I left the rock on the table and kept moving, but the guy was following me and offering me a discount. He chased me to the parking lot and asked me how much I gave him for the rock. In the end, I told him that I didn’t want it and I gave him a few bucks just to leave me alone.
I don’t like to bargain too much, but to buy souvenirs was something that was needed. For these people, it is a sport. Later on, I came up with a strategy to buy things there. Every time they tell me a price, I do a counteroffer of that price with the decimal moved to the right. So if it was $30, I was offering $3. This was working pretty well because they needed to make an offer that was close to mine and with a more fair price. All the time, the final price was closer to my counteroffer than their initial price.
It is normal that in tourist destinations, tourists are considered wallets with legs. The difference here was that there were no rules or principles on how to get the money. The objective is to get as much money as possible without finishing in jail. Kind of survival mode.
Maasai life
We visited the Maasai Mara National Reserve Park where the Maasai live. The Massai is an ethnic group in Kenya and Tanzania that is well known for hunting lions and being nomads. Hunting lions is illegal now, by the way.
They have colorful clothing with red as the favored color. Fun fact, the Maasai were the inspiration for the Minning tribe in the Black Panther movie of Marvel.
The Maasai invites you to their villages to show the tourists their traditions and culture. Of course, with a USD 25 fee per person. It seemed quite pricey, but we didn’t try to bargain as we were dealing directly with Maasai people and not a third-party agency. They live in villages in the wild with not much integration with civilization. I was surprised that they spoke fluent English. Later, I found out that they speak Swahili, English, and their own dialect.
The Maasai are even less integrated than the Tarahumaras. They live in Maasai Huts, houses made of grass, twigs, cow dung, and anthill soil. The Maasai women are the ones in charge of building the houses, without help from men. Plus, the woman is also in charge of cooking, housing activities, and raising the children. Around 200 people were living in the village we visited and they said that they shared the same grandfather. It’s insane how one guy could create a whole village in a few decades. At this rate, they can become a new country and make hunting lions legal. Jokes aside, after some research, I found out that the population of Maasai is over 2 Million people and the interesting thing is that in 1989 they were less than 400 thousand people. They multiply their population by 5 in 30 years!
For the tour to their villages, the men were doing some performances of their typical dances and invited us to their houses to see them from the inside. The house that we saw had even a guest room. The women were selling craft souvenirs. The women seem to be the ones educated in math and economics. The experience of buying souvenirs with the Maasai women was way better than the other souvenir shops. It was slightly overpriced, but they were not bothering the client when they didn’t want to buy. They were not chasing you to the parking lot. “No” is “No”, they know what is consent.
In the Maasai tribes, they used to have a tradition that boys needed to leave the village and go to the wild for a couple of years to learn survival and hunting skills. Their final test was killing a lion to become a man. When I was a kid, going camping for the weekend was the ultimate wild experience. These kids used to leave their homes for years in the wilderness!
Massais aren’t killing lions anymore, or at least, they shouldn’t. But when I asked one of the Maasai about this tradition, he pointed to one guy and said: “I don’t want to be a snitch but this guy did it 3 weeks ago.”
Nowadays, boys take care of the farming animals and take them to the river so they can drink and eat. In contrast, the girls are responsible for bringing the water. Little girls were carrying 20L water containers from the nearest river, which normally it’s several kilometers away. To carry the heavy containers they put a rope from the bottom of the container and use their head and back to support it.
The gender roles looked very unfair, and also the machist culture was present. The Maasai women can’t own land or animals. When the husband dies, the custody of resources would be passed over to the elder son who will assume the full authority of the father including disciplining other siblings especially the female regardless of their age. Women were building the houses, raising the family, and being the merchants, and the men were only dancing for the tourists. The girls were carrying the heavy water for long distances and the boys were playing with the animals. In the old times, when men were hunting and boys killing lions, the roles of the gender looked more equal, even beneficial for women. But now, the world is a different place and women are the pillar of the tribes but as a subordinate.
Even in Massai culture, the women are the ones who suffer the most. On top of that, genital mutilation exists. More than 55 million girls and women alive today have been cut in Africa. It is most often carried out on girls between infancy and age 15. It is unbelievable that this still exists nowadays.
This is Africa
Going to the different national parks meant driving through the whole country. Most of the roads were unpaved and the few roads with pavement were not maintained. While driving we passed across many villages. The villages looked quite poor and underdeveloped. When the car stopped or slowed down because of a crossroad or redlight, kids approached the car asking for money, food, or anything. It was tough not being able to help them or at least give them something. We decided to buy bags of candies, so every time they got close to the car we could give them candies. I was astonished at how happy and excited they were with a small candy.
We were in a group and we had long trips by car, so we couldn’t stop in every village to give candies, so at one point every time I saw some kids I was throwing candies. On one side, I felt ashamed that I was throwing candies at kids from a car as if they didn’t deserve my time to stop the car and give the candies on their hands. But on the other hand, for the kids, getting candies was more important than any kind of offense. They live in a different world, where these preconceptions aren’t a problem at all. Their problems were that they might not have drinking water for the day, being ill and needed to walk many kilometers to find a doctor, or being attacked by a wild animal. My worries about them being offended for throwing the candies from the car looked so insignificant.
During one of our drives, our vehicle unintentionally hit a cyclist. Thankfully, the biker seemed conscious as he was swearing from a distance to our driver as the car kept going. Everyone in the car was shocked. The driver only told us “No problem, he didn’t die”. He didn’t mean it as a joke. He really believed that running over someone and killing the person would be the only thing considered as a problem. Our driver was not a bad person he was very nice, but our level of sensibility was different. This incident was a reminder of the difference in daily realities and attitudes towards safety that exist around the world.
Wrapping up Part 1 of our African adventure, it’s been quite the ride. From the intense city life in Nairobi to wild safari drives and meeting the Maasai, every bit has thrown us deeper into the mix of beauty and raw reality that is Africa. But guess what? The story doesn’t stop here. We’re diving into Part 2 with Zanzibar on the horizon — think dreamy beaches, bribing experiences, and more conversations with locals.
