The weather in the Maasai plains of Northern Tanzania is much cooler this time than any other time I’ve been. The landscape is also much greener (apparently I’ve come just at the end of the rainy season), and for once I can see crops and loads and loads of white flowers growing, rather than the dry land I’m used to. I felt it right to share this relatively green side of the Maasai plains, as most of our photos show only dry, red earth. Head of our local partner organisation, Osidai tells us the locals all hate the flowers as they grow in the grazing land for their cattle, stopping the traditional grasses from growing, and leaving the cattle with nothing to eat. They are pretty though, and driving across the plains, it is like a real sea of flowers.
Not only are there white flowers, but also a number of sunflowers! Apparently, as well as harvesting them as a crop for the seeds, they also plant them at the borders of other food crops, as the animals don’t eat sunflowers, and it helps stop the animals from going further and destroying their other crops. Simple fences were also erected around fields with a single piece of string with lots of piece of cloth tied on, intended to scare animals away. This is the first trip I’ve seen so many farming fields full of crops!
