Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
I] cll-I< 11 e S S malnourished bellies. One child pulls behind him a little truck made of a precious plastic bottle. Blue lids make tires held in with sticks, with an open top for mini passengers. Some children have sun-rays cut into their chests, encircling small nipples. When ill, the healer of the village makes neat incisions with a sharp knife and tobacco is applied to the open wounds. Old and young sport red mohawks, bare feet and dry, cracked skin. As we start to leave, one of the villagers comes up and in broken English asks for pen and paper. He scrawls a list of things he would like sent to him: shoes, a watch, a big backpack. Bleached bones, skeletons, crocodile skulls and teeth line the water's edge of Lake Turkana. Quartz shines from the dark rocks, while bright pink flamingos stand tall in the lapping shores like delicate flowers in a hostile world. We set up camp in a small dusty area near the lake. Also known as the Jade Sea, the turquoise waters shine brightly in contrast to the shattered lava beds lining the water's edge. Black volcanic rock dots the land and aside from the few villagers, there is no one and nothing. The nights are long and hot. A cacophony of sounds fills the darkness. Hundreds of squabbling Colobus monkeys and baboons are doing battle just outside our thin tent. Crickets and cicadas cheer them on from the bushes. Our sleeping mats are dirty and sticky with sweat. Huge dung beetles move under the tent, under our sleeping bodies, moving our feet with their tanklike backs. Another creature chirps by our heads. I think it is a scorpion. \~'hclt AI"e \~'e Ilnin~J Out Everything we think we know, everything we think to be our reality, is shot down I-Iel"e??? and challenged over and over again. Everyday we come up with new reasons for the absurd, and each day these new ideas seem wrong. Everything around us is alien; all people, all ideas, all ways of thinking don't seem to make any sense at all. The only constant, the only truth-unless one goes completely mad-lies in the self and in our own perception at any given moment. That in itself is empowering. Suddenly we don't have to justify what we think is right anymore. It becomes a necessity in order to get by on a day-ta-day basis. We learn to listen to our own gut and question our intentions every moment. --------..,~==~----------~--==~ --------- crawl across our lips, our hands, and end their lives in our tea. No \~'cltel" 01", \~'cll1( \~'ith IUle There is nothing like a bit of deprivation to lighten the soul and cause great appreciation at the slightest convenience. The latest and greatest bit o~ suffering is to walk through Maasai Land in northern Tanzania with the formidable Maasai. It is one thing to visit a village, yet another to live in one and walk the path of a warrior. With two grumpy pack donkeys, a silent Maasai warrior as guide and a young translator, we wander out into lion-infested land for five days of cieprivation. Setting out on an unknown trip, we are lucky to be invited into a booma-a circular compound surrounded by thick thorn bush to keep out the lions-as we have n0 weapons to protect ourselves against the many wandering beasts. The people of the village rarely see "white-skinned" people, and the chief is delighted to have visit0rs to show off to his people. We are soon circled around a fly-covered cow skin, drinking muddy medicinal tea and discussing politics, computers, cows, religion and our "tribe" back home. The chief is eager to share his views on how the government is fencing in their grazing land, land that has been passed down from generation to generation, and is the lifeblood of the wandering Maasai. We listen quietly as flies We see a young boy digging in the sand of a dried-up riverbed, looking for water to give to his panting goats. We walk on, sweaty and exhausted. The warriors pass us each a walking stick, a gesture that laughs at our tired legs and sympathizes with our exhaustion, coaxing us along the hot desert floor. We are out of water. We have not even washed our hands for two days and we drank our last drop a few hours ago. Polliwogs lie gasping in the bottom of our canteen. We stop to rest in the shade of a thorny acacia near a dried-up creek. We imagine the water that once passed through it. "There is water just over here," one of them says. We wander up over a few boulders to gaze down into a bug-infested, muddy, slimy patch of liquid. c1l1c1 then the ~Jc1l"clen of eclen t ..... necl into hell We want out I Give us space from this helll Let us walk away from all this TANZANIA TANZANIA TANZANIA TANZANIA TANZANIA TANZANIA TANZANIA TAN-