Safari Day 3 part 1

Day 3 started much the same as Day 2, only substitute Waffles for Pancakes. Again, a familiar taste that I was very welcome to see. We hit the road early again, around 8 a.m. Our first destination was an actual Masai village. We got there around 9:30 am. For a small fee, we were allowed to tour the village, see some traditional dancing, their housing, their livestock, and even sit on their school for the youngest children.

I had mixed feelings about this experience. On one hand, it was an excellent cultural opportunity to view the Masai, in one of the natural villages, see their houses and how they still live to this day, etc. It was very impressive, and I left with a profound respect in their ability to maintain such religious and cultural practices in a rapidly modernizing Northern Tanzania, as cities like Mwanza, Arusha, and Kilimanjaro continue to expand due to tourism and industry.

On the other hand, it bothered me deeply that I was there. I view this sort of interaction in a "schrodinger's Cat" kind of light. For those who are far removed from basic chemistry, "Schrodinger's Cat" is a bit of a thought experiment we are told as freshman in college, an analogy to allow us to better understand the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The essentials of it as as follows: It is impossible, at any particular time to know exactly where or how fast a particle is moving, we can only estimate. We can attempt to measure the location of the particle, but the closer we try to getting an exact location, the more likely we are to move the particle in our attempts to measure it- Where do cats come in? Well Shroedinger came up with a similar example involving his beloved cat. Imagine we had a box on the ground and in it was a cat. Also inside the box was a radioactive isotope, that may or may not have killed the cat. We can postulate by looking around the outisde fo the box or listening to the box to see if the cat is alive, but actually opening the box will trigger a massive release of isotope, assuredly killing the poor Kitteh. So we can only ever estimate whether the Kitteh is actually still purring inside.

By visiting the Masai in such an intimate manner, I really got to see their culture and learn a great deal. But how much of their culture is actually intact, if they are constantly receiving renumeration feom groups of mzunugus coming out of Ngorongoro. How much of their local economy is now dependent on such tours as opposed to herding cattle? How much of their real culture is still in existence, and how much of it has become some Colonial Williamsburg re-enactment?

I guess it is impossible to tell. BUt I do feel a profound sadness that these visits may be eroding into the very culture they intend to portray, much to the chagrin of the elders in these villages, I am sure.

Coming up next on Frank's Safari: Olduvai Gorge, Mary leakey, and the birthplace of mankind.