Posts
For six days now, I have been out of Africa.
Little things have been the weirdest adjustments. Like the fact that I can no longer tell time or direction by the movements of the sun, which rose and set almost exactly due east and due west, at 6am and 6pm. I don't fall asleep to the sounds of bugs, but rather the sounds of cars. The obnoxious hooting of morning doves, their frantic flapping as they land on their perch under the outdoor portion of the overhang of our banda, no longer wakes me up in the morning. And I'm no longer greeted by Kilimanjaro as I walk to the choo or the chumba.
At first, the feelings of being out of Africa were omnipresent. I didn't particularly care about exploring the European cities which I was visiting--they couldn't compare to the open, painfully dry rangelands of the Maasai group ranches. What did it matter if I spoke with the local people or not, they couldn't possibly be as interesting or funny or engaging as the friends I made in Kenya. But now, even with the help of pictures and videos and voice recordings, it already seems like that existence is slipping away, becoming an old and particularly vivid dream.
As I settle back into being in cities, the fact that I once had to check for snakes in my bed before getting in, the fact that I slept under a mosquito net, the fact that I never wore skirts above my knees, that all feels as if it is becoming forgotten.
It is not that if I try to recall, I cannot, it is just that those instincts that I developed over the course of my months in Kenya, are slowly fading. Once again, I pull back my blankets and get under the covers without looking. It was always going to happen, and I expected it, but still the expectation cannot completely erase the sense of loss as I stand so close to the experience of it all.
Even as these small habits fade, these constant reminders of where I have been and what I have learned, there is a part of me that knows that what I did in Kenya will never really leave me. I know that the simple whiff of an old, familiar smell can send me reeling back to the time that I lived among the Maasai in the arid and semi arid rangelands of Eastern Africa. I know that if I ever go back, it will not matter how many years have gone by, that the friends I made there will still be my friends. And, perhaps most importantly, I know that Africa, Kenya, the Maasai, will always travel with me, because no matter how much the details may fade, the whole of the experience never will.
Hakuna matata. It means no worries.
(Come on, haven't you ever seen the Lion King?)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Atasha enkai te Amboseli pi
We had our last game drive today. We went to Amboseli one last time, and sadly, it was not much greener than when we had left it at the height of the dry season. There really has not been that much rain yet, and at this point, probably won't be enough to end the drought before the end of the long rains season in mid-May. Dead, rotting carcasses lay everywhere within the park, pelts resting on bones with decomposing guts to the side, the occasional dismembered leg lying asunder.
But to be out in the open, among the life, and death, of the savanna, was a welcome change to the past couple days of data analysis and paper writing for DR. We saw elephants and Grants gazelle and Tommies and black-backed jackals and hipppos and buffalos and reedbuck and impala, and it felt like I was seeing it all again for the first time.
As we drove around for the hours before lunch, we could see ominous sky surrounding us, and it was weird to know that the dark, almost black clouds were pouring out rain all around, and yet within our wide circle it was dry. In New York, the rain is either on you or it's not, but you certainly can't see it from afar, you certainly can't see it coming. And come it did.
I could see it approach from my spot on Observation Hill, where we had lunch. I did not get back to the cars in time to avoid getting wet, but I was enjoying to much watching the approach to care too much. And it just fascinates me how the water pools on the surface of the ground, yet still a few inches below the dirt is still just dust, so that if the rain is really hard and really good, it kicks up an organ-red cloud of dust as it falls. And with the windows to the cars closed to avoid the water, the smell of the dust within is strong, and I realized today that I will miss it.
Atasha engai te Amboseli pi: roughly translated from the kimaasai, it means, "Much rain has come from God to Amboseli."
But to be out in the open, among the life, and death, of the savanna, was a welcome change to the past couple days of data analysis and paper writing for DR. We saw elephants and Grants gazelle and Tommies and black-backed jackals and hipppos and buffalos and reedbuck and impala, and it felt like I was seeing it all again for the first time.
As we drove around for the hours before lunch, we could see ominous sky surrounding us, and it was weird to know that the dark, almost black clouds were pouring out rain all around, and yet within our wide circle it was dry. In New York, the rain is either on you or it's not, but you certainly can't see it from afar, you certainly can't see it coming. And come it did.
I could see it approach from my spot on Observation Hill, where we had lunch. I did not get back to the cars in time to avoid getting wet, but I was enjoying to much watching the approach to care too much. And it just fascinates me how the water pools on the surface of the ground, yet still a few inches below the dirt is still just dust, so that if the rain is really hard and really good, it kicks up an organ-red cloud of dust as it falls. And with the windows to the cars closed to avoid the water, the smell of the dust within is strong, and I realized today that I will miss it.
Atasha engai te Amboseli pi: roughly translated from the kimaasai, it means, "Much rain has come from God to Amboseli."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dreaming
"All I wanted to do now was to get back to Africa. We had not left it yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already." -Ernest Hemingway
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Corruption Junction, What's Your Function?
While Kenya is seriously lacking in rain right now, it is certainly not lacking in corruption (or dead cow carcasses everywhere).
We spent this entire morning and afternoon interviewing group ranch and government officials about cultural manyattas in Loitokitok Town. Our first three interviews were with group ranch officials, with whom we spoke about the way the manyattas work, from the management structure to how they earn money to whether they preserve the culture or not, and about the new association (kikundi) that they are forming to regulate the manyattas in the Amboseli region.
It is just so sad to see how tourists are completely duped in all senses of the word when they visit these manyattas. When we went to one earlier in the semester they told us that Maasai do not use any modern technologies whatsoever, explaining that every morning they make a fire for the entire manyatta to use by rubbing sticks together to ignite it since they do not even use matches. They told us how all Maasai are polygamous, and that the only things that their diet consists of is a mixture of cow's milk and blood. These were all versions of the truth, but really failed to capture how the modern culture is changing and adapting to development and contact with the West.
I don't know a single Maasai who only eats cow's milk and blood, and in fact, blood is only really drunk during ceremonies. Also, because of Christianity, many Maasai men are giving up polygamy. But funniest of all is that Kenneth, my tour guide through the manyatta when we went as a group for class two months ago acted as my translator when we did our first day of interviews, and every so often an interview would be interrupted by the sounds of his American pop ring tone on his cell phone. So much for no matches.
But no matter how disturbing this fudging of the truth was, it was nothing compared to the corruption involved in all levels of this business. Firstly, the thing that our study has focused on a lot is the fact that tour drivers take 97% of the entry fee that the tourists pay to the manyatta. They get away with this because of the fact that pretty much the only way for the manyattas to get tourists in the first place is through the drivers, and at least if tourists are there they can still manage to make money by selling their goods to them.
In speaking to the three group ranch officials, they really delved into these issues with the tour drivers, which is one of their chief concerns with the cultural manyattas. Then, we spoke with a fourth official about how people register manyattas. The conservation at first was very technical about that process of registration, but then from him we finally received a truthful answer: HIV/AIDS and prostitution are problems in the manyattas.
All other officials we had spoken to, from the management committees of the manyattas themselves to the group ranch officials had said that they had addressed the problem of HIV/AIDS through education and that prostitution was not an issue because all men came to the manyattas with their wives--and yet, in interviews with manyatta members we found that many of them had their family living outside of the manyattas to take care of their livestock or shambas (farms). While the education programs had certainly helped to alleviate the severity of the problem (one manyatta was completely wiped out by AIDS), this official informed us sexual promiscuity and spread of STDs is still a problem.
And he went further. He explained how all of the corruption among manyatta committees in taking larger shares of communal money for themselves stems from the corruption of the group ranch officials themselves, in other words, the very three officials with whom we had just spoken. He explained how group ranch officials ensured close relationships with manyatta management, and how money from the manyattas went into election campaigns for group ranch officials. We sat there and listened, questioned, fascinated at what was actually going on, outraged at how many lies we had been told.
After this last man left, we sat around exclaiming about the corruption in this country, something we had always heard about, but which we had never personally experienced in this way. Our teacher came in after he had seen this man off, and entered our conversation. He told us that this in fact was the man he had mentioned before to us who gave out multiple registration permits to the manyattas, because he made more money that way. He told us that the real reason that this official was against the formation of a manyatta association was because he would lose personal power, and his system of corrupt actions would crumble.
The spit just hit the fan.
We spent this entire morning and afternoon interviewing group ranch and government officials about cultural manyattas in Loitokitok Town. Our first three interviews were with group ranch officials, with whom we spoke about the way the manyattas work, from the management structure to how they earn money to whether they preserve the culture or not, and about the new association (kikundi) that they are forming to regulate the manyattas in the Amboseli region.
It is just so sad to see how tourists are completely duped in all senses of the word when they visit these manyattas. When we went to one earlier in the semester they told us that Maasai do not use any modern technologies whatsoever, explaining that every morning they make a fire for the entire manyatta to use by rubbing sticks together to ignite it since they do not even use matches. They told us how all Maasai are polygamous, and that the only things that their diet consists of is a mixture of cow's milk and blood. These were all versions of the truth, but really failed to capture how the modern culture is changing and adapting to development and contact with the West.
I don't know a single Maasai who only eats cow's milk and blood, and in fact, blood is only really drunk during ceremonies. Also, because of Christianity, many Maasai men are giving up polygamy. But funniest of all is that Kenneth, my tour guide through the manyatta when we went as a group for class two months ago acted as my translator when we did our first day of interviews, and every so often an interview would be interrupted by the sounds of his American pop ring tone on his cell phone. So much for no matches.
But no matter how disturbing this fudging of the truth was, it was nothing compared to the corruption involved in all levels of this business. Firstly, the thing that our study has focused on a lot is the fact that tour drivers take 97% of the entry fee that the tourists pay to the manyatta. They get away with this because of the fact that pretty much the only way for the manyattas to get tourists in the first place is through the drivers, and at least if tourists are there they can still manage to make money by selling their goods to them.
In speaking to the three group ranch officials, they really delved into these issues with the tour drivers, which is one of their chief concerns with the cultural manyattas. Then, we spoke with a fourth official about how people register manyattas. The conservation at first was very technical about that process of registration, but then from him we finally received a truthful answer: HIV/AIDS and prostitution are problems in the manyattas.
All other officials we had spoken to, from the management committees of the manyattas themselves to the group ranch officials had said that they had addressed the problem of HIV/AIDS through education and that prostitution was not an issue because all men came to the manyattas with their wives--and yet, in interviews with manyatta members we found that many of them had their family living outside of the manyattas to take care of their livestock or shambas (farms). While the education programs had certainly helped to alleviate the severity of the problem (one manyatta was completely wiped out by AIDS), this official informed us sexual promiscuity and spread of STDs is still a problem.
And he went further. He explained how all of the corruption among manyatta committees in taking larger shares of communal money for themselves stems from the corruption of the group ranch officials themselves, in other words, the very three officials with whom we had just spoken. He explained how group ranch officials ensured close relationships with manyatta management, and how money from the manyattas went into election campaigns for group ranch officials. We sat there and listened, questioned, fascinated at what was actually going on, outraged at how many lies we had been told.
After this last man left, we sat around exclaiming about the corruption in this country, something we had always heard about, but which we had never personally experienced in this way. Our teacher came in after he had seen this man off, and entered our conversation. He told us that this in fact was the man he had mentioned before to us who gave out multiple registration permits to the manyattas, because he made more money that way. He told us that the real reason that this official was against the formation of a manyatta association was because he would lose personal power, and his system of corrupt actions would crumble.
The spit just hit the fan.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
DR
It's directed research time at the center. This means that for ten days, we are out in the field collecting data, which in my case means interviewing about ten people per day about conservation issues and Maasai cultural manyattas. It is just amazing because we basically walk around all different areas in the Maasai group ranches of southern Kenya talking to people in their homes or bomas, out in agricultural fields, or just under trees in the dry, hot rangelands.
One of the coolest interviews that I've had came when we were walking in Mbirikani Group Ranch from one boma towards a clump of trees just visible over a hill with no other development in sight. It was about lunch time and we were planning on going over to those trees to eat our packed lunch, but as we were walking, two Maasai men in their traditional blue and red shukas came walking over to us from a laundry washing area (i.e. a hole in a water pipeline had led to a small patch of green grass among the barren, dead, dry, and dying rangelands in this time of drought; people were taking advantage of the water as a place in which to wash their clothes).
Anyway, the elder of the two, a man over fifty and a Maasai senior elder, after conversing with our guide and translator led us over a sparse, low-hanging tree to let us interview him. In the heat of the day, he crouched low to avoid the pointy branches, and half knelt, half sat while leaning against the trunk of the tree throughout the entire interview. It was a position in which I have seen many Maasai men sitting as they converse and meet with each other under the slight shade of the twiggy trees, and I couldn't believe that now I was a part of one such gathering. He was the first man whom I had interviewed in the past three days who was not a Christian, and practiced no form of modern religion. It was just so cool!
One of the coolest interviews that I've had came when we were walking in Mbirikani Group Ranch from one boma towards a clump of trees just visible over a hill with no other development in sight. It was about lunch time and we were planning on going over to those trees to eat our packed lunch, but as we were walking, two Maasai men in their traditional blue and red shukas came walking over to us from a laundry washing area (i.e. a hole in a water pipeline had led to a small patch of green grass among the barren, dead, dry, and dying rangelands in this time of drought; people were taking advantage of the water as a place in which to wash their clothes).
Anyway, the elder of the two, a man over fifty and a Maasai senior elder, after conversing with our guide and translator led us over a sparse, low-hanging tree to let us interview him. In the heat of the day, he crouched low to avoid the pointy branches, and half knelt, half sat while leaning against the trunk of the tree throughout the entire interview. It was a position in which I have seen many Maasai men sitting as they converse and meet with each other under the slight shade of the twiggy trees, and I couldn't believe that now I was a part of one such gathering. He was the first man whom I had interviewed in the past three days who was not a Christian, and practiced no form of modern religion. It was just so cool!
Monday, April 6, 2009
There and Back Again
I'm back in Kimana. The past two weeks seem like an eon ago already. While the Nairobi Park Site was similar in many ways to our Kimana site--we still had bandas, the chumba, the garage, etc--it had a completely different feel. For one thing, ants were EVERYWHERE, crawling onto food plates, into bags, over everything. For another, I fell asleep to the sounds of hyenas laughing outside of our fence (did I mention that it is an electric fence because of the threats from carnivores like hyenas and lions?). And the ground wasn't covered in so many thorns that they got stuck in my feet when I walked around in flip-flops. And we had access to the most amazing soccer field.
It was outside of our camp atop a nearby hill that got my heart racing climbing to the top of it, scrambling over rocks and through acacia trees. From it, we had the most open, 360 degree view of everything around us, from the rangelands stretching out through Nairobi National Park to Nairobi City itself to the Ngong Hills. We would go up there and start a game, and local guys would almost miraculously appear to play with us (all of whom were incredibly fast and pretty much better than all of us wazungu). We ran, ran to our fullest extent on that field, in that open space, over scanty grass littered with small rocks and animal dung, and it was just the best times I've had playing soccer. We played as the sun set behind those Ngong Hills where Karen Blixen once lived, as the sky turned from blue to yellow to golden to a silky, dusky blue-grey. We played until it was just about time for dinner at seven, and left before it was completely dark, before the predators would become a serious threat to us.
We had a four-day expedition to Lake Nakuru National Park. I saw flamingos! They are gorgeous, and it was refreshing to see pink, this new color to me from what I have seen so far in nature. On our first full day there, we went on three game drives, once at 6am, once at 11am, and once at 4pm, and each time that lake with its flamingos looked different, each time appearing, if possible, more spectacular than the last. In the gentle tones of the morning light the flamingos appeared as a soft pink band stretching along the rim of the lake, turning a darker, stronger hue under a more brilliant blue in the blazing mid-day sun, and finally popping out vividly against the grey atmosphere of the cloudy afternoon.
On April Fool's Day, as I walked outside to clean my dishes, I heard that there were lions feeding outside of the fence which enclosed us. I saw Daniel jumping into one of the Land Cruisers and turning it around to leave through the gate; I knew that he was going to see them, and I had to be in that car. I motioned at him to slow down and jumped in dirty dishes in hand, pajamas still on, contacts not in, no camera, no binoculars, no nothing. The car had barely slowed down and stopped before myself and four others had jumped in, ready to go.
We drove, scanning the landscape. Something shadowy appeared in the grass before us, seeming too small from afar to be that for which we were looking. But as we approached, it was that indeed: two female, sub-adult lions, feasting on a waterbuck.
The lionesses took turns tearing away at the carcass, one lying in the grass watching as the other ate. I could see the legs of the waterbuck move with the force of the lions ripping away at the tender flesh. I could make out faint spots on their bellies, remnants of their youth that had yet to fade away in adulthood. I gazed in wonder as I watched these amazingly powerful bodies walk--they exhibit raw power.
Watching them, I understood why people refer to lions, the simba, as the king of the savannah. They are beauty and power perfectly matched into one dangerous yet endearing animal. It was a phenomenal morning, made all the sweeter by the fact that the cry "lion" was not in fact some elaborate April Fool's Day plan concocted by the staff.
But that wasn't it: we saw white and the much more reclusive black rhinos. We hiked through a gorge in Hell's Gate National Park that required bracing myself with my hands on one boulder and feet on another to make it through a narrow pass over a hot spring. We visited an elephant orphanage where I got to touch baby elephants and a baby black rhino. We went to a giraffe center where I fed a giraffe and others kissed them (I did not really want to swap spit with them, and let me tell you, there kisses were slobbery). I ate my first ostrich burger, and an hour later tried riding one (it's something I do not need to do again).
It was a full two weeks, but I am glad to be back in Kimana. As we drove back, my heart warmed as we entered again the Maasai group ranches, as I saw Maasai men in shukas wandering solitarily through the rangelands, as the people we passed opened up the most marvelous smiles in greeting and waved to us as children ran after our cars. I like this more rural country, even with its unpaved roads. I missed the hot days and nights, the baboons right in our backyard.
It feels good to be back here for our final month.
It was outside of our camp atop a nearby hill that got my heart racing climbing to the top of it, scrambling over rocks and through acacia trees. From it, we had the most open, 360 degree view of everything around us, from the rangelands stretching out through Nairobi National Park to Nairobi City itself to the Ngong Hills. We would go up there and start a game, and local guys would almost miraculously appear to play with us (all of whom were incredibly fast and pretty much better than all of us wazungu). We ran, ran to our fullest extent on that field, in that open space, over scanty grass littered with small rocks and animal dung, and it was just the best times I've had playing soccer. We played as the sun set behind those Ngong Hills where Karen Blixen once lived, as the sky turned from blue to yellow to golden to a silky, dusky blue-grey. We played until it was just about time for dinner at seven, and left before it was completely dark, before the predators would become a serious threat to us.
We had a four-day expedition to Lake Nakuru National Park. I saw flamingos! They are gorgeous, and it was refreshing to see pink, this new color to me from what I have seen so far in nature. On our first full day there, we went on three game drives, once at 6am, once at 11am, and once at 4pm, and each time that lake with its flamingos looked different, each time appearing, if possible, more spectacular than the last. In the gentle tones of the morning light the flamingos appeared as a soft pink band stretching along the rim of the lake, turning a darker, stronger hue under a more brilliant blue in the blazing mid-day sun, and finally popping out vividly against the grey atmosphere of the cloudy afternoon.
On April Fool's Day, as I walked outside to clean my dishes, I heard that there were lions feeding outside of the fence which enclosed us. I saw Daniel jumping into one of the Land Cruisers and turning it around to leave through the gate; I knew that he was going to see them, and I had to be in that car. I motioned at him to slow down and jumped in dirty dishes in hand, pajamas still on, contacts not in, no camera, no binoculars, no nothing. The car had barely slowed down and stopped before myself and four others had jumped in, ready to go.
We drove, scanning the landscape. Something shadowy appeared in the grass before us, seeming too small from afar to be that for which we were looking. But as we approached, it was that indeed: two female, sub-adult lions, feasting on a waterbuck.
The lionesses took turns tearing away at the carcass, one lying in the grass watching as the other ate. I could see the legs of the waterbuck move with the force of the lions ripping away at the tender flesh. I could make out faint spots on their bellies, remnants of their youth that had yet to fade away in adulthood. I gazed in wonder as I watched these amazingly powerful bodies walk--they exhibit raw power.
Watching them, I understood why people refer to lions, the simba, as the king of the savannah. They are beauty and power perfectly matched into one dangerous yet endearing animal. It was a phenomenal morning, made all the sweeter by the fact that the cry "lion" was not in fact some elaborate April Fool's Day plan concocted by the staff.
But that wasn't it: we saw white and the much more reclusive black rhinos. We hiked through a gorge in Hell's Gate National Park that required bracing myself with my hands on one boulder and feet on another to make it through a narrow pass over a hot spring. We visited an elephant orphanage where I got to touch baby elephants and a baby black rhino. We went to a giraffe center where I fed a giraffe and others kissed them (I did not really want to swap spit with them, and let me tell you, there kisses were slobbery). I ate my first ostrich burger, and an hour later tried riding one (it's something I do not need to do again).
It was a full two weeks, but I am glad to be back in Kimana. As we drove back, my heart warmed as we entered again the Maasai group ranches, as I saw Maasai men in shukas wandering solitarily through the rangelands, as the people we passed opened up the most marvelous smiles in greeting and waved to us as children ran after our cars. I like this more rural country, even with its unpaved roads. I missed the hot days and nights, the baboons right in our backyard.
It feels good to be back here for our final month.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Follow the red dirt road
Tomorrow we leave to go to our Nairobi camp site for a two week stay. The trip will take about eight hours driving in our Cruisers over the wonderful bumpy and dusty roads of Kenya (when we drove for five hours from the Nairobi airport to here, I arrived with a solid layer of dust coating me and all of my stuff). It will be quite the adventure.
For the past two weeks here at KBC, not a whole lot has happened, as we just finished all of our exams (four total) today, so most of the time was spent studying and turning in about five assignments before then. We did go to help build desks for a local primary school, and we did have one field expedition where we went around to farmers and asked them about human-wildlife conflict, but other than that it's just sort of been hanging out at camp.
The daily schedule is pretty simple. Get up for breakfast at 7:30 (or if you have cook crew, then you're up at 6:30 to prepare breakfast for everyone else--I'm on Luo i.e. Team Obama!), classes start at 8 and run until noon with a half hour break in between. After a two hour break, classes start back up at 2pm, and tend to run until anywhere from 3:30 to 5:30pm (and we don't really have weekends, but rather one randomly selected day off a week, which is when we take the opportunity to go do stuff like going to Loitokitok to see an HIV/AIDS VCT). After classes finish, we'll lounge around a bit, working or just hanging out, basically waiting until the sun gets lower and the day cools off, so that we can go into our fields and play soccer or volleyball. By sundown we're showering, and then it's time for dinner at seven.
One cool thing that we did get to do was go to watch the Liverpool-Manchester United soccer game in Kimana town in this little tiny wood building on our way back from building desks. The room was jammed packed with about eighty men (the females from our group were the only women) in relative darkness staring at a tiny TV as beams of sun streamed through the cracks in the woodwork.
It was an intense atmosphere. As Liverpool pulled ahead in the game, the entire room would literally erupt at each successive goal. This would be followed by shouting at from the guys in the back of the room to the guys in the front of the room to sit down so that they could see the replay. This is the way that soccer is meant to be enjoyed.
Anyway, I've still got to pack for tomorrow as we're leaving at seven (6am wake up--woo hoo!). However, I feel that I should warn you that I will be without internet access for these next two weeks, so I regret to inform you that you will have to wait a while for new posts. I have an elephant orphanage, an ostrich farm, Nakuru National Park, Hellsgate National Park, and Nairobi National Park all in the future. It's going to be wild.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)