“Karibu Sana – a very warm welcome to your new home,” is how we were consistently greeted throughout Tanzania. The people of Tanzania are warm, friendly and have a genuine spirit of hospitality. They actually say, “hakuna matata”. It’s the friendliest and most easygoing place we’ve been so far.

There is a natural camaraderie in the way our safari guide Raphael traded greetings with the other guides and tribesman. In the national game parks, employees and guides stay in dormitories, so they get to know each other like family.

We visited a Maasai village where they danced and sang for us. Despite access to modern conveniences, they still live in mud huts, wear traditional bright red blankets and carry spears and machetes. The boys thought that was cool. Instead of going to school, their children start tending goats and cows from a very young age.

In the evenings, warriors armed with spears escorted us from the main hotel lodge to our cabins because, you know, the man-eating carnivores roam free. We’re slow, easy prey and apparently there was an incident with a cape buffalo last year.

In contrast to the bright colors of the Maasai, the European safari guests wear the prescribed khaki pants that zipper into shorts, tan shirts, and wide brimmed hats. Some even wear those vests with all the pockets. How pale, dull and monotonous we all look in comparison to the colorful surroundings.

Polygamy is fairly common in Tanzania among the Muslims and some of the tribes. I’m not sure why this bothers me, why I’m being such a prude. Almost all of the other male mammals on safari mate with multiple partners. Our Maasai walking guide Lengai told us he currently had just the one wife, but added with a wink, maybe more later. No wonder the men are so happy here.