Hello again! This is Hannah Twedt the social work major. But I decided that social work is not what I am going to do, and I am moving to Africa to become a Safari driver because the animals and beauty here are so awesome! Plus I love animals; it has been hard to keep my excitement in when I've seen different animals! I wish I could become a driver, but unfortunately I cannot. So I will stick with social work!
Today was another awesome day, like every other day. We got up at the ungodly hour of 5:15, ate breakfast and headed out in to the Bushmen lived. Our first drive was about an hour long ride to the first group of Bushmen. They were nomads that moved with the animals and they spoke with a click language. We walked up and they lived in a HUGE boboa tree. This tree at least 10 or more grown men linked together to be able to reach around it. The inside was howled out and they were cooking on the inside. We helped them make fire by rubbing sticks together. Then they then took us on to a hunt. The night before they had shot a dik dik antelope, which is the smallest type of antelope there is. We were amazed because they tracked the dik dik from out in the middle of nowhere by used hoof prints and a blood trail that none of us saw when they pointed it out. They gutted it right there made a fire and had a nomad BBQ, they ate everything—the heart, liver, intestines, bladder I mean everything! Then they took the rest of the meat to the women who were going to cook it up. This is why people get worms! We went back to their camp and they had us shoot bow and arrows that they made out of sticks and the dik dik tendons. It was super fun, we all felt like Robinhood. After wards we made our way to another group of people who were shepherds and farmers. We helped the women grind corn, and went and saw the men black smith. For them having nothing it was very impressive. They even used their feet to forage things! It was really interesting to see how little they have but they get the same results as someone with the technology would.
We headed back to our lodge ate lunch and headed out to the elephant cave. We got to the mouth of the park and headed on to our hike to the cave. It was beautiful. We hiked up a small mountain that had trees and fauna that reminded me of a giant rain forest. The trail that we walked on was the path that the elephants and the water buffalo take to get to the cave. So we had to be really careful of elephant poo! We purposely went at that time of the day so that we didn't meet any elephants along the way or we would have been trampled. At one point we could see across a valley that was covered in coffee bean fields. We made it to the elephant cave well, it used to be a cave. But because of the heavy rain fall this year the cave "caved in." So it looked more like a giant mud slide. The elephants and other animals go there to get the special minerals that lie in rock. There were tons of baboons that were licking the rocks to get the minerals. They were so funny, especially the babies. They played together and would tumble down the hill and run back up, and roll back down. It was entertaining! We then hiked to a water fall. We were at the top of it, so we could not really see it that well. But it was still beautiful; it was a two part waterfall. The top was about 40 meters tall and the second layer of waterfall was only 20 meters tall. All the same God made some really beautiful places on this earth and Tanzania is one of them. I have been blessed so much by all of these wonderful ladies and the Tanzania people. I will never forget them and the memories that I have made and the lessons that I have learned. I will see you Tuesday everyone!
