Dear Friend,

I just finished Thanksgiving dinner with my family – a free-range turkey supplemented with two types of potatoes, three squashes and several carefully-prepared bean and vegetable items I’d never seen or heard of before. Add a choice of fine wines and a table full of freshly baked deserts (for just five of us!) and today I lived like a king.

But I met a king last week who didn’t live much like this at all. Truthfully he was a Masai chief, or an elder, but the point is that in his small Tanzania boma (an enclosed area where families build their homes) filled with cows and children and dung huts, he and his people wouldn’t dream of a meal so lavish.

But they did have a “Thanksgiving dinner” of sorts.

We were the second tourist visitors ever to this particular boma (or so we were told) so the chief called in all the children from the nearby grazing areas (the Masai are cattle people) and all the men within shouting distance and they hurriedly created a celebration of their own, with dancing, chanting, story-telling and a delicacy most Americans would probably avoid at all costs—a blood, milk and urine mixture stirred with a stick.

Kindly, the cows provided this item right in front of us, not by their choice.

The milk and urine were poured into a hollowed gourd and carried by a colorfully-dressed older woman while three men held the small cow (all Masai cows are small compared to the ones we’re used to) by the head while two others tied a leather strap around the cow’s neck to encourage a vein to pop out. Then other men took turns trying to shoot an arrow into the cow’s neck to get the blood to spurt out. And here’s the weird part: it took them 23 tries on two different cows to hit one in the neck…from one foot away. I was thinking, ‘I’m no warrior but I bet I could accomplish that with a toy bow and arrow from my basement in one or two attempts. Or maybe just use a knife.’ But so it was, they have their ways and who am I to question.

Anyway, in terms of a delicacy when the blood finally spurted out they mixed it into the gourd and stirred for five minutes until the woman pulled the stick out and, somehow, the mixture turned into a wad of gooey pink mush. Two young boys clamored and fought for the stick, just like my brother and I did when my mom baked a cake.

Once again, I am humbled by what I see on my travels, thankful for what I have, but also thankful that I have the opportunity to regularly witness the world.

Thanks for listening,

Ben
Founder & Director

Natural Habitat Adventures

Dear Friend,

Someone once commented to Neil Young that his songs all seemed to sound the same. He replied that “It’s all one song.”

Well, if Neil Young can admit that his music (and perhaps his life) is “all one song,” I think it’s acceptable for me to say that ours is all one planet, one ecosystem, even one back yard. Where Mr. Young’s knee bone is connected to his elbow bone, which is connected to his picking finger, which is connected to his lyrics, then, similarly, the Arctic ice floes are connected to the African savannahs, which are connected to the Patagonia Glaciers which are connected to the Panamanian Rainforest. (And all of that is connected to my knee bone.)

Unfortunately, that means that the bad things that happen to one area of the planet immediately affect another area. It’s true: remove any element of an ecosystem and you can sit and watch other elements of that and other connecting ecosystems deteriorate and fall apart. A dammed river surely affects the river’s salmon. But the depletion of salmon affects the bears, which affects the berry bushes, which affects the bird life, and so on. It truly is endless and it makes you want to throw your hands in the air in defeat. My grandfather had two words for these sort of complicated and endlessly frustrating processes: “Oiy vay!”

And here’s the crazy part: It’s pretty much my fault.

As I sit here today in the unusually cold weather (3 degrees Fahrenheit here in Boulder, Colorado), I have my gas fireplace burning strong and my home heating turned up. I look around my house and I see three lights on. Come’on, Ben! Surely I can type with just one light, especially when I consider the well-being of the salmon and the bears and the birds, right? Well, I ain’t perfect (I did just get up and turn two lights off, lower the heat and put a jacket on) and I am a bit embarrassed about slacking off in my conservation efforts lately. In fact people like me – those who are ‘in the know’ — have a greater responsibility than those who are not yet aware of the problems our planet faces. Not only is it incumbent upon us to act more responsibly in regards to the environment (after all, we’re ‘in the know’), it is incumbent upon us to educate our family and friends and neighbors.

For better or for worse, I’m afraid that it is, in fact, all one song… and one planet. Yup, and there’s a lot of work to do.

Thanks for listening!

Ben Bressler
Founder & Director
Natural Habitat Adventures