When it comes to East Africa’s seasonal wildebeest migration, those who confidently predict where and when the animals will go can sometimes end up all by themselves in the wilderness while the wildebeest are elsewhere.
This just might be one of those years.
Recent reports we have received show the Mara River is swollen with too much water, for the first time in years. The river is running in rapid torrents, making what is already a dangerous crossing, incredibly more perilous. Schedule Your Tanzania & Kenya Safari Adventure.
Some thought the migration would be early this year as it was last year when the herds reached the Mara River in early June. But the abundant rains have led the herds to hesitate. This is frustrating for those who anticipated an early arrival by the mass of animals.
Now it seems the river crossings may run throughout August, lasting well into September and October. This can be good news for those who want to go on safari a bit later this year.
The largest animal migration is the world happens between Tanzania and Kenya when more than 1.5 million wildebeest, zebra and various antelopes set out in search of food. For them, it is a familiar route – moving clockwise between the countries, some 1800 miles, with predators dogging their every step.
The long thin lines begin to form on the Serengeti Plains when the short grasses are exhausted, usually in April and May. The lines snake to the horizon toward the plains and woodland of the Serengeti’s western corridor. But by the end of May, it’s time to move again. This time, they move toward the Mara Triangle. This is where the breeding happens. By July, the animals have gathered at the rain filled Mara River, the last hurdle to cross to reach the Masai Mara’s sweet, short grasses. But many will not survive this crossing. The roiling waters or the crocodiles will take them. Those that complete the crossing will remain on the Mara until October.
But with the extreme weather-related events we have been seeing lately around the globe, the old schedules may be changing in ways none of us can predict.
If you are ready for a safari, contact us for our Tanzania & Kenya Safari Adventure.
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How did they know?
On July 18, 1918, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born to a Xhosa family in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, which was part of then South Africa’s Cape Province. He was given the name of Rolihlahla, a Xhosa term that means troublemaker.
How could his family have known they were going to be raising a child to a man, who would become a superhero to millions, and cause a great deal of trouble for some along the way?
He came from a royal line. His patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was king of the Thembu people in the Transkeian Territories of today’s Eastern Cape. Mandela’s father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was a local chief and councilor to the monarch. But he grew up with his two sisters in his mother’s kraal in the village of Qunu, where he tended herds as a cattle-boy. Both his parents were illiterate, but his mother was a devout Christian, and sent him to a local Methodist school when he was about seven. Baptized a Methodist, Mandela was given the English forename of “Nelson” by his teacher. When Mandela was about nine his father came to live at the homestead where he later died.
Mandela would later state that he had inherited “his father’s proud rebelliousness and stubborn sense of fairness.”
In 1933, Mandela began his secondary education at Clarkebury Methodist High School in Engcobo, a Western-style institution that was the largest school for black Africans in Thembuland, and then went on to Healdtown, a Methodist college.
His path would lead him in and out of his Xhosa community as his world expanded to encompass college, new friends with different perspectives and law school. Mandela began studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was the only black African student and he faced racism as he had throughout his life. But he was befriended by liberal and communist European Jewish, and Indian students. He was becoming increasingly political.
From these beginnings, Mandela went on to change South Africa and the world. He was arrested and sent to prison for his beliefs, he was beaten, and he failed as many times as he succeeded. But his indominable spirit and that stubborn sense of fairness would win in the end.
We honor the 100th birthday of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who became the first black president of South Africa (1994-99), saw the end of institutionalized Apartheid in the early 1990s, and would continue to be the best kind of troublemaker, working for peace throughout the remainder of his life.
Thank you, Mr. Mandela.
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