My visit with Maruge Days 1 and 2

Today was my first day visiting Maruge. It is Saturday today, so he doesn't have school. Even though I left early in the morning from the US, I got to Kenya late in the night. When Maruge came to get me at the airport it was late at night, with stars twinkling in the sky. After we started walking back to his house from the airport, in the dark, there was a strange laughing noise. The noise was high pitched and sounded close. I got pretty freaked out, and Maruge assured me that we were not in danger. He said that it was a hyena making the noise, and that since there was only one of them there was nothing to worry about because there were two of us, and he had his stick. We continued walking along the road. In a few minutes the hyena left us. It was so dark and still out on the road, away from the village. I saw the stars like I have never seen them before, because there was no light from any cities blocking them out. After what seemed like a long time, but Maruge said was only 15 minutes, we got to his house. His house was round, with mud walls and a thatch roof. There were many houses in the village, but it was dark and still. Everyone was sleeping, and there were no electric lights to light up the place. It was eerily quiet, like a ghost town. I have never been in any town or city that quiet or dark. Maruge wasn't fazed by the stillness, but I was quite freaked out, because I had never experienced anything like it before. Maruge and I slept on the floor of his hut, side by side. I thought that it would be very uncomfortable, but it wasn't that bad. I slept very well after my long day on the plane. In the morning I awoke to Maruge shaking me by the shoulder. "Come outside, quickly" he urged. "There is something you might want to see". I jumped up, rushed outside with him. We walked around the back of his hut, to where we could see the open country. His hut was on the edge of the village. Walking along about 100 feet away was this creature. It looked like a huge, spotted dog. It hung its head low, but somehow didn't look like it was doing this because it was sad or ashamed. Maruge told me that it was a hyena. It was the thing that we had heard last night on the walk from the airport to his house. It was the animal that was making the laughing noise. After seeing it in the daylight, I couldn't believe that he had been so calm the night before. He told me that they usually hunt in packs, and a whole pack can kill an animal like a lion. After the hyena had gone we went back around the front of his house. It was the first time that I had seen his village in the daylight. All of the huts in the village looked like his, with mud walls and a thatch roof. The paths around the village were hard and dusty. Everywhere was dry and parched, dusty where people had walked and covered in dry, scrubby grass where people hadn't walked. I stood there in silence next to Maruge and listened to the sounds. I heard goats bleating- and shepherds shouting and singing. It was the most beautiful singing, in a language that I couldn't understand. "They are singing in Swahili" said Maruge. We remained for a few more minutes, standing in silence. A gust of wind came, whistling through the huts and rustling in the grass. "Let’s take a tour of the village," said Maruge. We walked side by side through his village. All of the mud and thatch huts looked the same to me, but he could recognize them all, and he told me who lived in them. He pointed out some of the houses where his classmates from school lived. After that we walked up the road, back towards the airport and away from the village. We stayed out on the walk for a long time, and when we started back the sun was setting. It was an amazing sunset, with a bright orange background fading into red as the sun set. At one point on the walk back there was a tree silhouetted in the sunset. When we got back to Maruge's house, he started cooking dinner. He didn't have a stove, but he cooked over an open fire. It took him a while to get the fire started, but before I knew it he had a blazing fire. He was boiling something in a pot, and frying meat in a pan. "I am making githeri and goat," he said. He explained that githeri was a mix of beans and maze and was eaten often in Kenya. After we ate dinner, we went to sleep. In Kenya, people go to sleep early because they have no electric lights, so there is nothing they can do in the dark. After my long day, I slept well. 

Here is the Hyena that we saw:

The sunset that was happening on the walk back: