06/20/2022
It's just our second day of Safari game drive at and I've already mastered the tour guide lingo.
Over the radio, you hear tour guides from different travel companies exchanging info like "Roger, umeona kichwa?" (Roger, have you seen a head?) and someone else answers, "kuna vichwa viwili pale kwa mlima!" (there are two heads up the hill over there).
Then another says, "ukiteremka kwa mto utaona shingo kadhaa" (if you go down the stream you'll see a number of necks).
Then when you're still trying to figure out who were decapitated and why were their heads and necks left in the jungle, you hear, "mumeona ya juu leo?" (have you seen any upper ones?) and someone else interjects, (imekuwa ngumu sana kuona madoadoa ya juu wiki hii!" (it has been very hard to see the upper ones with spots this week!)
Then much later, you spot three cheetahs and immediately, your tour guide gets on the radio and goes, "kujeni pandee hii ya air balloon, kuna tatu ya chini!" (come over this side of the air balloon, there are three lower ones).
That's when you add two and two together and figure out that "za chini" (lower ones) are cheetahs and "za juu" (upper ones) are leopards.
You also discover "shingo" (neck) means giraffes. "Kichwa" (head) becomes hard to decipher so you throw in the towel and decide to ask your tour guide what "kichwa" actually means and he says confidently, "kichwa ni simba!" (head means lion!).
Here are kichwa, shingo, za juu na za chini that we managed to see at the Mara. We have had a wonderful time so far!
