6/21 ( The Hunt)

This morning I got up at 6am! Even though I went to bed somewhat early I felt like I had not gotten any sleep. The short story about my night is that I hallucinated for about 2 hours. It was not a fun night. Today was extremely unique because we were going to hunting with the Hadzabe tribe. I was pumped to see a kill because the whole time we have been on this trip I had not seen a kill. Today was my lucky day. We practiced shooting arrows with the hunters before we went on our hunt. Trying to pull back the string on the bow was extremely tough, but Bailey and I ended up being the best shots out of everyone in the group. Going to camp every summer sure paid off! The Hunt was so much fun even though they killed two Bushbabies (Africa squirrels) and a Monkey. However, that is their way of life and that’s how they survive. The hunt was intense and it even got to me a little bit. I felt bad for Christina because she got pretty upset after the first Bushbaby was killed. I don’t blame her one bit because seeing them take so much time to kill this one little animal was heart wrenching. After the hunters killed the monkey they built a fire and threw the monkey on the fire still alive. It was definitely something you don’t see everyday. Well just to make it more interesting, the eldest man ate the brain of the monkey and they offered each of us a small bite of white monkey meat. We all ate it and just for the record; monkey meat tastes like chewy, gamey chicken. All of us had a hard time looking at meat that night at the dinner table.

The rest of the day consisted of meeting a blacksmith and his family of the Datoga tribe. The blacksmith made eating utensils, jewelry, and spears for hunting. He even made Meryl a spoon that day. You could tell that they lived a lot better than the Hadzabe tribe because they had actual clothes and jewelry on. The next family we visited was also a part of the Datoga tribe, but they just lived a little differently than the blacksmith’s family. They lived in strong huts made out of mud and stick and had a fence that surrounded their houses. The man of this family had 3 wives and at least 5 children. They seemed to live a little better because they had more jewelry, more wives, and better housing. Oh, and right as we were leaving we asked the man if he was going to have anymore wives and his response was that we could leave Mi’chel and Christina with him. I will take that as a Yes! It was a very long day, but I am glad we did it because now I can say I ate monkey! I hope I get better sleep tonight.