Eating Raw Goat Liver

Every single day we spent with the Maasai was filled with treks through the wilderness surrounding the small village and usually a little elephant tour. These were excursions to the river during the evening time when the big herds of up to 50 elephants started to cross the river.

We slept in the little mud house of Joseph, Phillips uncle, during our stay and at night we could hear the roaring of the lions in the distance. Frequently the dogs started barking when leopards got too close to the fence of the village which also shook us out of our sleep. However after the first night our days were filled with enough physical exercise to cause our eyes to close once falling into the narrow bed and only to open again when one of us fell out of it or when the rooster sang its morning song.

The first morning we woke up to the rooster and went outside just to see the sun rise over the beautiful hills that surrounded the vast lands of the Maasai tribes. As we went out we saw the elder of the village, Joseph's father, look into the distance. Felix and I walked to him and we too started looking.

"Ah look man I can see something, you know it's got big horns and these stripes on it's side." Felix said to me while staring into the distance.

"Oh yes I can see them too now, I think they might be Kudu's. ...oh look just above them on the hill, there are elephants. I think it's a small herd I can count about 15 of them from here." I replied in awe of what we were witnessing before breakfast had even started. Anywho, we continued enjoying the animals presence for a little longer until Joseph came out of his hut and after briefly looking at the animals in the distance informs us that the breakfast tea and chapati were now prepared. We hurried in and following a quick meal they equipped us with some wooden clubs made out of hard Acacia and Baobab wood and themselves with some spears just in case we would run into any trouble on the way.

We embarked on a little 3h trip up a hill on which you were able to get phone reception, not that phone reception was the purpose of this trip but it was one of its benefits as Phillip had some important calls to make. We clambered after Josephs fast paced steps and go for a little walk along the ridge of the hill while Phillip is doing his business. The view of the surrounding area was just stunning and I had never in my life been able to look so far into the distance, the landscape seemed endless and the only thing deterring us from seeing as far as we could possibly imagine was the fog which took over and transformed whatever was beyond our sight into a white soup. On the way down we nourished our hungry bodies with little berries that grew on the trees. They had a sweet taste and lovely nutty flavour however there were not many of them and just as I ate some of the last ones I had collected I heard the screeching of monkeys.

"Look guys, a monkey herd." Phillip pointed out and in that moment the herd seemed to have been disturbed by something, probably us, and started running away from the hill and towards the river.

"What a sight man, let's go in that direction too!" Felix responded. We got to the bottom of the hill at this point and Joseph took the lead again. He walked towards a tree which appeared to be different to the other surrounding this area and cut of a couple of the branches with his spear.

"Chew them, they are used as toothbrushes around here. Their fibres grow in a particular way so they are very good for cleaning your teeth." Phillip translated what Joseph said in maasai as he passed us the little sticks that he had prepared for us. So we all started chewing on the wood and continued to follow Joseph down to the river for a little wash after the sweaty and dusty walk up the hill.

"Ok guys, we can walk back to the village now and relax for a bit, lunch will be ready quite soon." Phillip informed us and we started drying ourselves off with the shukas that we were given by Joseph in the morning to wear for the trip.

On arrival back in the village we managed to have a little time for ourselves and I had wanted to say hello to the children whom Felix had bought some sweets for. As we walked towards them they seemed incredibly nervous but one after the other they ran towards us and bowed their heads to us. This is a sign of respect which children and woman do when greeting men. In response to this greeting you touch the top of their head and this is what we did. However one of the children, the youngest of the bunch, didn't run up at all but instead started crying and running to his mother as if the devil was chasing him.

"He has never seen a white person before, so don't feel guilty. You're just a little bit of a shock to him." Phillip explained to us as he sat on a branch of a big Acacia tree. At this point the wife of Joseph came out of her hut and brought a big pot of rice with potatoes and some other vegetables which we shoveled into our hungry mouths.

"Ok guys, it's time to get ready again. We'll walk to the river now and see if we can see any elephants crossing." Phillip told us after we had rested and digested the tasty meal for a bit. We stood up from under the shade of the Acacia tree, put our shukas on and followed Joseph out of the gate through which we had entered the village the night before. We got to the empty river bed in which I had experienced such a tense moment not long ago but no elephants were to be seen and the only thing we found were the needles of a porcupine and a group of young Maasai warriors playing a traditional game of darts. The game works like this, you sit in a circle around a small heap of sand or dirt in which you place the tip of a plant which has got a very hard and sharp tip, like a dart. Using some more of these natural 'darts' one now tries to hit the one stuck in the centre. It was more difficult than it sounds and I was atrocious at it. Nevertheless we got to try on some of their traditional attire and talked to them a little bit (in sign language). We headed back as the sun started setting and reached the thorny fence of the village just as the darkness really started creeping in. As we walked towards the hut I could make out a dog playing with a goats head, as if it was a football. I was already looking forward to dinner. I realised that evening how great it is not to have any sort of electricity, it helped me so much in falling asleep and waking up at a natural time.

The following day we again went for a long walk, this time we followed the empty river bed to it's origin which usually is a waterfall but during this time of year is without water and hence is just a beautiful location surrounded by high cliffs and rocks. For lunch we witnessed the goat whose head the dog had played with being skinned and cut up. During this process they also prepared a little fire to roast it on. One of the elders that was present used his hand to search within the body of the goat that he had sliced up and came out with a blood covered hand and something. He was holding a very dark red object in his hand, he took out a little knife and cut it into two pieces and handed the pieces to Felix and me. It was still warm as I held it in my hands and the smell of goat filled the interior of the small and smokey mud hut. We both shoved the entire piece into our mouths and started chewing the soft object. Imagine the smell of a goat, now that a thousand times stronger and not being a smell but a taste. That was basically what it was like eating raw goat liver. The men inside the hut laughed at our grimaced faces as the two of us swallowed the organ. This test/ordeal was followed by another walk along the river and this time we did get lucky and managed to observe 50-60 elephants wading through the river and stamping through the landscape. I'll leave you with that image as all we did for the rest of our time was similar to what I have described above.