A NEWSLETTER FROM Pryority Travel

Two of the Maasai chief's sons met us at the edge of their village in Amboseli. Late afternoon, hot breeze coming off the savannah, dust covering everything we owned. This wasn't my typical meeting at a Starbucks.

 

Our tour started with them showing us how they make fire with two pieces of wood they'd just found on the ground. No matches. No lighter. Smoke, then flame, in under two minutes. (We've all tried this at summer camp. It does not work as easily as you think).

 

After that display of Maasai Magic, we toured the nursery where they grow acacia seedlings, the same kind we'd planted that morning alongside Maasai women in a reforestation enclosure nearby. That small impact that we created had me feeling proud, emotional, and already connected to people with lives so different from our own. We had just started to learn about how they constructed their village to keep lions out when the other villagers started to gather around us…

Back in May I told you about the Kenya playlist I was building. Afrobeat, traditional recordings, Amapiano, Mara soundscapes. I wrote that no matter how good my speakers were, nothing could prepare me for the real thing. I'd like to formally confirm: nothing prepared me for the real thing.

 

Maasai ceremonial music uses no instruments. Just voice, breath, and rhythm. From ten feet away you don't exactly hear it. It's loud, it surrounds you, it comes up through the ground and lands in the middle of your chest. I've been a drummer my whole life, and you feel this deep in your heart like a pulsing kick drum.

 

They pulled the kids into the dance with them, and my eyes bursted with happy tears. I stayed in the back with the camera and cried. I'd love to tell you it was one dignified tear. It was not, and I didn't care one bit.

 

Later that day, we settled back into our rooms at Elephant Gorge Camp. They have screens up near the roof, so the savannah soundtrack is piped in all night. One night I listened to something big pad past the room. Some kind of cat was all I could tell. At breakfast the staff mentioned, very casually, that lions and hyenas had moved through camp overnight. The next night I heard rustling, grabbed the flashlight and found an elephant standing outside our window.  The music continued.

Kenya wasn't done singing, either. That night after dinner, the entire staff came out of the kitchen with a cake, celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary in a massive congo line of voices and.  Singing Jambo Bwana and dancing around our table. That song has been stuck in my head for three weeks and I have not fought that earworm one bit.

So here's the field report I promised you: Kenya does not sound like the playlist. It is something you feel. My kids will be telling the story of that dance for the rest of their lives, and I got to stand there and take it all in.  

 

 

I'll be remembering this one for ever.

P.S. We arrived at the village marketplace with exactly $21 in cash between the four of us. Three hand-carved souvenirs later, we were broke. Bring more cash than we did. Some negotiations you actually want to lose.

A FEW DETOURS WORTH TAKING

Ian exceeded all of our expectations in planning this event from start to finish. He created an experience filled with memories we will cherish forever, and we all agreed it will remain one of the most special highlights of our lives.

LR | ICELAND

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