Unusual

So far we’ve had so so luck with our guides. We find it funny that many of them have biblical names. Like Godfrey, Moses, Balthazar, Abraham, Godson…. Which is interesting, because not all East Africans have biblical names. There are a lot of Williams’, Jeffreys’, and so on.

Perhaps we were unrealistic, but we assumed (see what happens when you make assumptions?) our guides would be more forthcoming with information. It seems to be a big deal for them to share with us what we are doing, where we are going, how long it will take. And when we ask they sometimes give us completely misleading information! Moses (our Ugandan guide) was very bad in this respect. One time he told us driving from A to B would take 3 or 4 hours; 5 maximum. It took us close to 8!

No doubt, since there are always two sides to a coin, the guide see us as annoying ungrateful, spoiled Americans who don’t tip enough and ask too many questions. Though this is likely also a caricature. My best guess is that they can’t imagine why we want to know so many things when we clearly forget a lot of what they tell us. And they might consider us asking questions as us questioning their ability. So though we try to reach across a high cultural, educational, and financial gap, we can’t see the world from the other’s perspective.

My advise to those interested in a safari, is to spend a lot of time planning it and learning about what you want to see, where, etc. Learn the habits of the animals, learn about the country, and anything else you want to know before you come. We didn’t have a lot of time to plan the trip, and so were delinquent in this respect. We would have gotten a lot more out of the trip by doing more research before heading out. And I’m mostly to blame for this. Debby spent a lot of the time in Paris researching.

R