Safaris, Cognitive Dissonance, and Halloween

I'm happy to be back in Zanzibar, relaxing here for a leisurely week of vacation. I have quite a backlog of stories to share from our travels through northern Tanzania...

I think you could say I had a not-quite-typical safari experience. Not in terms of what happened (we weren't caught in any wildebeest stampedes or chased by lions), but in terms of my reaction to the whole experience. Our first safari excursion was in Lake Manyara National Park. I was excited as we climbed into the sand-colored land cruisers, sticking my head out of the open roof, eager as everyone else was, to see me some wildlife! As our guide drove us through the park, we stopped to gawk at baboons and warthogs, taking pictures and adding names to the lists of animals we'd spotted.

And then I got to thinking. The whole thing felt like a videogame. There was a sense of competition: How many of the "big five" will we see? OUR truck saw a rhino! My thinking turned to a sense of confusion. And then utter despair. By the time we stopped the trucks for class I was beside myself. I bawled in the bathroom. I felt overwhelmed. Cognitive dissonance. I felt like an invader. There I was, in Tanzania, driving through the savannah in a gas-guzzling, erosion-exacerbating, rut-creating land cruiser. I was just as bad as those stupid french tourists we had seen- with their head to toe safari getups and super-zoom lenses. They would go back to their fancy hotels and take long showers (despite the terrible drought), return to France, and share their safari stories like they were valuable trading cards at snooty dinner parties. I couldn't bear the thought of being one of them, of exploiting nature for my entertainment.

After the breakdown, I sought out my ecology professor for guidance. She helped me to realize how powerful and valuable the experience that I had was. How I could harness this feeling of distress; channel my anger into change for good. I had been dreading going on any more safari outings after that, but I realized that being miserable as some attempt at protest helped nothing. So I decided to be present, to recognize the beauty of the nature around me, and learn as much as I could.

This approach served me well in the following two days on safari in Ngorongoro Crater, where we celebrated halloween! I threw some underwear over my leggings, cut eye-holes in my head band for a mask, and donned my kanga as a cape, and-presto change-o!- I was a superhero.