Safari Part 4.5

During the middle of the day most animals sleep so we went to explore a Masai village. As we pulled up to the village Joshua told us that two Masai were attacked the night before by a lion, they killed it but one of them had to be taken to the hospital. Imagine for a moment living in a place where lions roam free, and that on an every day walk in your neighborhood at anytime you could be attacked by a 400 pound carnivore. We would see Masai people walking freely about the inside of the Masai Mara reserve, and lions aren't really even the worst case scenario there.

Our visit to the Masai village was interesting. We didn't take many pictures of the Masai out of the villages because we were trying to be respectful of their wishes. So in order to take some pictures of them we paid $20USD to enter a special village, witness traditional dances, and take as many pictures as we wanted. The thing is, it felt a little bit like Disney-Masai town to me. I think they built the area to keep tourists out of their space, this way they could control the images that people capture. Which is fine. It just didn't feel very real, and I know authenticity of any kind is a construct but I just felt silly wandering around the fake village. They made us all wear the giant lion-mane hat and then they danced around us singing and I'm not good in situations like that. I'm not a joiner, I'm a watch and mock-er! The dances were cool, and the songs were beautiful. As we were being included people kept asking us our names and introducing themselves, which we learned later is a part of the hard sell. After the tour we were taken outside to the market, where people were shouting out our names and trying to get us to buy things. The money from the market, and the admissions to the village go to the maintenance of schools, and clinics.
Its funny, I like traveling, I just don't like being a tourist. I think there is a difference, tourists pay lots of money for strange experiences like visiting fake villages and paying money to have a lion mane hat plunked on their head. Travelers go to places and try to get a sense of the place, learn the language, meet people and form friendships. Perhaps the distinction is as phony as the village, who knows...