In mid-August my family and I had the incredible opportunity to visit Eastern Tanzania in Africa for 12 days.  The Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Arusha, plus perfect weather, wonderful guides and world-class lodging.  We were not roughing it.  We saw just about every African animal you could mention - and usually from 10 to 15 feet away. We saw a "live kill" - 10 female lions bringing down a 700 pound galloping Cape Buffalo, a 15 minute ordeal.  Two giant male lions waiting on the sidelines. "The males let the females do the hard work, and then eat when they feel like it," our guide informed us.  We visited a Maasai school (where some of the children walk 4 1/2 hours -one way! to attend) and an outlying Maasai village, led by their 74 year old chief, who intoduced us to a few of his 14 wives (youngest was 13) and bragged about his 48 children.  My mother was the driving force behind the event: there were 18 of us on the trip.  It was fantastic, memorable, inspiring, and certainly educational - a once in a lifetime happening. 

Today, we got to relive some of the adventure. My friend Nancy is the volunteer host of the after school "Geography Club" at our local elementary school - Meriwether Lewis, and she invited my husband (Mike) and I to share our adventure with the class.  That was today - and it was a blast.  We showed the kids pictures, maps, a few of the carvings, sculpture and jewelry we brought home.  And we had an African animal quiz.  The students were very enthusiastic and their knowledge impressive.  Here is a quick quiz for you: What colors are a zebra's stripes?  And what are they good for? The answer is the stripes are white - zebras are dark colored.  And the vertical stripes help camouflage them in high grass.  But, you might ask, wouldn't a lion (their chief predator) see the contrasting black & white against green grass?  Ah hah - lions are color blind!