Tanzania the Beautiful

So far, I have blogged about the dramatic, smack-you-in-the-face differences in life here. All of that is related to Tanzania being on the low end of the wealth spectrum. (The rankings that I looked at used GDP as the measure. I suspect that GDP doesn't capture the woman sitting at the side of the road on a blanket selling tomatoes.) That is what you initially see so dramatically.  Under that veneer is another kind of wealth. Tanzania is wealthy in the beauty of the land and the beauty of the people.

Taking pictures of the people is complicated for multiple reasons (and no, they don't think taking their picture captures their soul) so I have a lot of animal pictures. Here are photos from my recent family reunion.  By happy circumstance, 5 of the 6 siblings were in Tanzania at the same time minus the post-operative one. One of our excursions was to Ngorongoro Crater National Park. We stayed in a luxury tent site where you sit around the campfire pictured here and tell about the last year The tents are these huge arrangements with king-sized beds. It's the dry season so the grass is brown except near water. While most herds are species specific, the wildebeest and zebra hang out together due to their symbiotic sensory relationship. The zebra have sharp eyes and act as the watchdogs, err, watchzebra. Cheetah are fast enough to easily catch a zebra or wildebeest, but once they catch one, they aren't big enough to take down anything older than a young calf. Cheetah are not into catch and release so they hunt gazelle and impala which are more bite-sized for them.  But we digress.  The zebra are on the lookout for African lion, King of the Jungle that doesn't actually live in the jungle. What wildebeest bring to the pairing isn't sight or brains (The guide characterized them as "no-brains.").  They do have a keen sense of smell and can lead the herd to where the water is.

A combination of instinct and the faint smell of distant water lead 1 1/2 - 2 million wildebeest and around 1/2 million zebra and other animals including carnivores on a 1,800 mile circuit from the southern Serengeti to southern Kenya and back.  The big pack is up north now so what we see in the crater are the nonmigrating wildebeest hanging out there - kind of like Americans retiring and moving to Florida.

Next time, the people.