A hard, hard, hard, hard life

We went to the Maasai Mara last weekend, which is a large national park in on the border of Kenya and Tanzania. There is an annual migration of over a million gnu. They usually reach the mara this month. To keep tourists going to Tanzania, they light big fires on their side of the border that delay the animals from migrating. Regardless, we still saw a lot of buffalo, gazelle, impala, topi, giraffe, elephants and lions.


At night we were sitting around a fire with one of the Maasai warriors. We had been joking with Marta throughout the trip that we were going to trade her with the Maasai and get some cattle as a dowry. (Actually, one person told us Marta's dowry would be worth three cattle, two goats, and a sheep. Bilha was worth a large pot of honey.) Bilha translated our proposition to the Maasai for us and he simply shook his head.

"Marry a white woman? That's a hard, hard, hard, hard life. I would have to go to America and then who would take care of my cows? Besides, she would have to get circumsized."

Ouch.