KENYA

In Central Africa sits Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, the source of the water that forms the Nile River. Clustered around this enormous lake are four nations: Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya.Tanzania and Kenya share a common border in an area famously known as the Serengeti Plain. In July and August, the grass is exhausted in the southern part of the Plain, the part located in Tanzania. Thus the animals who have been feeding there now migrate north to Kenya. Millions of Wildebeest make this migration, along with Zebra (and numerous predators who prefer to eat the zebra and wildebeest rather than grass). We flew from Entebbe, Uganda to Nairobi, the capitol of Kenya. Transferring from the International Airport to a smaller, regional airport, we pushed and pulled ourselves into a single engine, four seater plane, and headed out for the bush camp we would occupy while in Kenya.Flying at no time above 6000 feet, most of the time much lower, we watched as hundreds and hundreds of miles passed beneath us. Most of the land was parched and absent vegetation, but where there was water, green spread out as far as the moisture permitted. Then more parched land.The bush camp is located on the Maasai Mara preserve, part of the great Serengeti system.We had three, especially noteworthy experiences while in the Mara:1) Many of the Maasai, world renown warriors, are nomadic, traveling with their tents, families and animal herds, following the food supply. Many, however, have set up permanent villages, and preserve the same lifestyle in all other respects. They build their homes inside a ring of sticks around their village, bringing their animals inside the ring at night to protect them from predators. This is successful to a degree, but loss of animals is a regular event.