Pictures from Kampala

The Taxi park in Kampala's center. This is what the Bus Rapid Transit system hopes to solve.


Another view of the taxi park. It is a pretty wild place!

Jinja

I write to you from the front porch 9f the First African Bicycle Information Organization (FABIO), the organization that I am working with for my month-long Independent Study. Life in Jinja has been pretty cool; living next to the shore of Lake Victoria and the Source of the Nile has provided an incredible backdrop to day to day life. The city is the second largest in Uganda (after Kampala) although, it has a distinctly small-town feel compared to the capital city. There are no stop lights, little crime, and few cars. In fact, I would say that Jinja reminds me a lot of Burlington, VT, with one main streets, lots of shops and restaurants, a lake in the background, with green hills in the distance. There are many young people here working on many different types of projects which has made for an incredible learning experience thus far. Aside from learning through working for FABIO, I have spoken to a lot of people who have been working here for many months or years, who have taught me a lot about working full time in a place like Jinja.

Yesterday, I visited Kampala in preparation for a research project I am assisting FABIO with. At first, as I walked through the city's central business district, I though Kampala seemed like Nairobi. After ten minutes of walking however, I realized how different it was. Thousands of pedestrians, motorcyclists, cars, taxis, and private and commercial vehicles competed for a road designed to hold two lanes of traffic moving at a slow pace. I witnessed so many near-accidents that I lost count, even though I only watched this particular intersection for less than ten minutes. Then there was the central taxi park; this is where Kampala's fleet of taxis, which are called matatus in Kenya, idle until they are filled with passengers for their next trip. I counted about four hundred of them in a space the size of a soccer field, though I think there were probably more. The trip was pretty eye-opening, and made me realize why the work FABIO is doing is so important.

Pictures to come soon, I promise!

Mt. Kilimanjaro early in the morning, after a fresh dusting of snow.

A male lion in Amboseli, spotted during one of our game drives. The water in the background is a natural spring that is fed by runoff and glacial melt from Kili.

A herd of elephants in Amboseli. Aside from the area next to the springs, this region is very dry (only 300-400mm rain a year) and completely overgrazed.

Doing our best to be tourists.

Vultures picking at one of the many carcasses that were scattered across the park.

Salesh (right), a very cool Maasai who works at the center that we stayed at, and a very knowledgeable person about what is happenning in the area, in terms of human and wildlife conflict. On this day, we walked around to five farms and conducted interviews with farmers about their livelihoods and what they think will happen in the future concerning development and the subdivision of lands.


Getting ready for bed inside the boma we stayed in during the Maasai homestay. The bed was constucted of a stretched cowhide and reeds for cushioning.


Max, also getting ready for bed. We shared the cowhide, which is traditional for men of the same age

The boma, with Kilimanjaro in the background.

Our Maasai host, preparing to take gathered firewood back to the boma.

Pictures of the last five weeks

Our translator and assistant Denis (left) seated with Max, my homestay partner, and a baby goat inside the manyatta that we stayed at.


My Maasai homestay host preparing to help me make a bracelet.

My homestay host, with her mother and child.

The path that lead to the beach, from our house in Watamu.

Bob, Harry, and Zena catching some rays next to the azure water of the Indian Ocean.

Urban Life, The Maasai and Amboseli, and the Coast

Wow, it has been a long time since I last posted, but it is only becuase I have been extraordinarily busy, not because I don't care.

To give a breif recap of the past weeks:

Around mid-September, after our trip to Tanzania, the group split up into pairs and spent three weeks living in Nairobi with a host family. We all comunted from our houses each day to the United Kenya Club to take classes, but also had a lot of free time to explore the city, talk to people, and get involved in things that were happening while we were there. I lived with Tony and Katheke Mbithi in an apartment that was closest in proximity of all the students' families to the city center. This was great becuase I was actually able to walk to and from class everyday, and I had access to a nearby coffee shop where I could work on papers or read. Tony is a private contractor who mostly has been working on roads, and industrial buidlings. His wife, Katheke, is a breast cancer survivor who is working with a breast cancer survivors NGO. She was very active during the homestay and was always coordinating and planning events around Africa. Both Tony and Katheke lived in the US for eleven years, and they did an incredible job of educating me about the ins and outs of Nairobi, the government, and in helping me make comparisons between the US and Kenya.

After a short weekend back at the compound that was spent slaving over research papers, we headed out, safari-style (think Land Crusiers) to a Maasai-owned center near Amboseli National Park. During this component, we spent time learning about the struggle and the competition for resources between people and wildlife, and the inadequate mangagement of this area by the government. We learned about mismanagement of wildlife in Amboseli, and the Kenya Wildlife Service's reluctance to properly control animal population becuase of the high revenues brought by tourists. Amboseli is known well for its tremendous elephant population (there are over 1300 elephants). The park, however, can only support about a third of this number, and due to current overpopulation, there is a significant amount of habitat being put at risk.

During the latter section of the Amboseli component, we redirceted our attention towards the problems that people are encountering on a more regular basis. Due to the serious and prolonged drought in the area, and the growing amount of land being used for agriculture, Maasai pastoralists are facing serious challenges. We were fortunate enough to be hosted by Maasai families for one night during our trip, where we asked a lot of questions about how their lives are changing, and what they see in their future. The family that I lived with was very optimistic about persevering through whatever hardships they may encounter, but they did say that this period has been the hardest time they can remember. In fact, during our week in Amboseli many people, including many of the families that students stayed with, recieved food aid from the World Food Programme. It was definitely one of the harshest environments I could imagine living in, and I deeply respect the Maasai people's ability to live there.

Immediately after returning to the compound, I set out with seven other people to fly to Mombasa for Mid-Semester break. We spent one night and the next morning in Mombasa, exploring Fort Jesus, Old Town, and riding around the city in Tuk-Tuks (three wheeled taxi things) before catching a matatu up to Watamu, a seaside community located about 100km north of Mombasa. We spent four days in Watamu, in a private house that nine students and I (other people met us the day after we left Nairobi) rented out. We lived only eight minutes, by foot, from probably the most pristine, beautiful beach that I have ever been on. We were able to swim without fear of sharks becuase the beach is protected by a large reef. The lagoon side of the reef is actually a designated and protected Marine Reserve, which we explored via snorkling on our second day on Watamu. It was an awesome experience, and we were pretty upset when the day came to return to Nairobi's smoggy and crowded environs.

Here are some pictures from all of these travels; I tried to balance things out. Hope this message finds everyone in good health and high spirits. I miss you all!

Lots of New Pictures!!!

FYI: The following pictures are out of chronological order, for some reason.



Rift Valley Music Festival at Fisherman's Camp, Lake Naivasha. Pretty cool, and supposed to get bigger, and better. Maybe a trip next year?


Me, Zena and Bob tired and dirty after our day-long hike. The Yaeda valley is at our backs.



Bob looking our over the Yaeda Valley. One of the most incredible views I have ever seen.

Target practice with a Hadza bow and arrow. I have a lot of respect for these hunters after trying to hit a cardboard box 40 feet away (I missed every time by feet while they peppered the box without much apparent effort).

Hunting just after dawn with two Hadzabe. We saw two giraffe, an eland, many impala and dik dik, leopard prints and many types of birds and small rodents, but unfortunately, we returned to camp empty-handed.

Annie, Zena and Lindsay watching the sun set over the Rift Valley escarpment after a day-long hike across the Yaeda valley. This picture was taken at our second camp, which also had a nice big rock to hang out on (as seen here), but with an even more incredible view.


Arturs hiking across the very hot and dry Yaeda valley floor. This picture was taken moments before a herd of twelve Impala ran across our path (I was too slow to get a good picture).

Moschi, one of the Hadzabe's best hunters, making arrowheads from steel nails by cold-hammering.

Lamik ascends a Baobab tree in search of honey, Hazda-style, by hammering in wooden pegs. These tree-ladders are remade each time because the pegs rot rather quickly.

Making arrows with Moschi (left) and another Hadza at our first camp. Five Hadza men can make about 30 arrows in a two-hour sitting. Some arrows have sharpened wood points to use on small game and birds, while other arrows have a variety of shaped metal tips for larger game. Some arrowheads are covered with a poison made from a tree, which are used to hunt big game, such as Eland, and Giraffe.

Pictures!

Hiking in the Yaeda valley with the Hazabe, looking for honey and tubers. Even though the valley is particulalry dry this year, and many of the neighboring pastoralist and agricultural peoples are now relying on external aid, the Hadzabe have not had any troubles in maintaing their food security. Becuase of a naturally low population density, and a knowleged of the local environment's food resources, the Hadzabe are able to keep themselves sufficently nourished in a sustainable manner that does not deplete the valley's natural resources. In fact, unlike all other people in the surrounding area, the Hadzabe have never experienced famine.


Harry, Bob, and Mike resting with a Hadza man who is preparing his morning cigarette. The Hadzabe smoked a lot of tobacco, which our guides brought as a gift to each community we visited.



Sunrise over the Yaeda valley. In an effort to experience the Hadzabe lifestyle as fully as possible our group spent the night sleeping on top of a large, elevated expanse of rock.

En route to the Yaeda valley from Mbulu. While the roads were incredibly rough, the Dorobo drivers had no trouble maneuvering the comany's World War II-Era Mercedes Unimogs around the Tanzanian steppe.

Dan, here is your Defender pic...note the Zebra's in the background.

Harry and Bob standing at the rim of the Mt. Longonot Crater.

Mutana! (Greetings from Hadzabe)

It has been a while since the last post, and so much has happened! I'll give a brief overview here because I think the pictures give a pretty good job of showing how incredible the last few weeks have been.

After one week of class at the United Kenya Club, we spent a weekend climbing Mt. Longonot, a 9,700 ft. volcano, and listening to live music at the Rift Valley Music Festival, which took place at Fisherman's Camp, Lake Naivasha. The hike was pretty amazing; we saw steam rising out of the still-active crater, and on the way down from the mountain, we saw giraffe, cape buffalo, and impala stampeding away from us. After lunch, we drove about an hour and a half to Lake Naivasha to see the Rift Valley Music Festival sessions; a preview of a three-day music festival which will take place over Easter weekend. The show we saw was a little underwhelming, with only four small bands, and a small crowd of about 200 people. It was still nice to see live music, and the few people that we met at the festival were excited to meet and talk with us. The following morning, we went on a short guided boat ride to view a few members of Lake Naivasha's infamous hippo population. The hippos were napping and staying cool when we saw them, but still looked much bigger and more intimidating than i was expecting.

After our second week of classes, we embarked on an eight hour bus ride to the Yaeda valley in Tanzania to visit and learn from a hunter-gatherer people, the Hadzabe. The Hadzabe have lived in the area in and surrounding the Yaeda valley for at least 24,000 years. Archaeologists have found evidence of a hunter-gatherer group living in the same area dating back 130,000 years, though no evidence links this older group of people directly to the Hadzabe. While they still practice a subsistence based economy, the Hadzabe are by no means "stuck in the past" or "primitive." In fact, I found myself in awe of how progressive, open, and free the Hadzabe lifestyle was. People are free to leave and return to the group at will, marry whenever and whomever they please, and have access to essentially any material goods and amenities such as standardized, government funded schools and healthcare clinics. The Hadzabe, however, have chosen to continue their semi-nomadic way of life rather than follow the Tanzanian government's wishes to "develop," modernize, and pursue a sedentary, agriculturally based lifetstyle. One of the main purposes of this trip was to learn about the pressure that the Hadzabe are feeling from the government, tourism, and other groups of people such as the Tatoga and Iraqw pastoralists. The Hadzabe are losing their land relatively quickly because of these pressures, but because of the egalitarian, non-confrontational nature of Hadza culture, they have not been able to stand up for themselves very well. Several NGO's are currently working with the Hadzabe in an effort to stop the loss of land, and educate them in dealing with the Tanzanian government. This trip may turn out to be the highlight of this semester.

We will being our three-week long urban homestay tomorrow, and I will have more regular access to the internet (hopefully(, so look for another post soon. The rains seem to have begun (lots of thunder and heavy rain last night), which is very exciting. Hope all is well with everyone!

Classes, Hiking Mt. Longonot

We are now in our second week of elective classes at the United Kenya Club in Nairobi. Each student gets to choose two classes from a total of four offered to complete their schedule, along with Swahili and the core course which every student has to take. I am taking Biodiversity and Conservation in East Africa, and Health Healing and Sickness in Kenya. So far both classes have been a little slow, but we have only been reading introductory and general information about each subject.

This weekend, our group drove about two hours west to Mt. Longonot, an active volcano which last erupted in the 1600's. The hike was very beautiful, with views in the crater floor, which apparently has a healthy leopard population, and views out to the surrounding arid lands. We could just make out the Western rim of the Rift Valley in the distance, along with the shoreline of Lake Nakuru. The most exciting part of the hike turned out to be the walk down. We saw a herd of Cape Buffalo stampede away from a herd of stampeding giraffes, who were scared into flight by a group of off-trail tourists (you guessed it: Americans...but not from our group). It was a pretty cool sight, and our first glimpse of Kenyan megafauna. We also saw a couple gazelles, but they were very far away from us and hard to make out.

Currently, our group is preparing to travel to Tanzania to visit and learn about the Hadza, one of the last remaing hunter-gatherer groups in the region. We will be there for a week, camping and travelling around the area.

More pictures to come soon!

More 'togs

Hannah with a chameleon at Kembu Campsite in Njoro. We spent one night here after our rural homestay. This area is famous for chameleons and drunk British people. A very cool place.
My homestay family, along with assorted cousins. My brother is kneeling on the lower far left, my mother is standing on the upper far left, my father is on the upper far right.

Photogs

My homestay father at the entrance to his home.
The river, two minutes by foot from my house. The Unilever tea estate can be seen on the right side of the river. Women are washing their clothes on the river plain beside the river.
My brother, in the foreground, plucks tea and listens to music (note the radio placed on the gunny sack next to him). My father plucks tea in the background.

At Long Last!

The internet connection seems to have improved over the past week, so hopefully, I can cover some ground here and catch everyone up to speed.

I arrived in Nairobi two weeks ago with my friend Katrina, a day ahead of the rest of the group. We spent that night with a friend of Katrina's mom, a National Geographic filmmaker named Kire, who was an incredible person and host. We are hoping to screen one of her films here at the compound; keep your fingers crossed. She showed us around the area, a suburb of Nairobi called Karen (named after the author of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen, who was the first white person to settle this area) before dropping us off at the St. Lawrence compound. The next five days were spent adjusting to the high altitude/recovering from jetlag/and becoming acquainted with the surroundings. Our compound is a five-acre plot, with dorms, a kitchen, a classroom/computer lab, and several faculty/staff houses. It is a walled-in area, protected 24 hours a day, seven days a weeks by professional guards (every house in the area has a similar set up), which took a little getting used to. During these five days, we also took Swahili, and went on short trips to different parts of Nairobi and Karen.

After the orientation period, we embarked on our Rural Homestay component. First, we drove to Kericho, the largest town in the Western Rift Valley Province, where the majority of Kenya's (East Africa's also?) tea is grown. We toured the James Finlay tea estate to get an idea of how large-scale tea farming works. IT was pretty impressive: 14,000 workers, 4 enormous factories, and 15,000 hectares of tea fields. We spent that first night at the Kericho Tea Hotel, where we learned about Kipsigis culture and prepared for the next week of immersion.

The following morning each student was dropped off at their respective homes in the area. My family lived in a area about 20 minutes away from Kericho. My homestay fathers name was Joseph Talam. He used to be a primary school teacher, but now is retired. My homestay mothers name was Emily, and my brothers name was Peter. My given name was Kipkoech, meaning "born in the morning." Upon my arrival, I was greeted by a small crowd. I soon learned that Kipsigis social networks are tightly interwoven, so, while I was staying with a family of only three people, I often felt like I was part of a family of about fifty people.

During this week, I ate. A lot. Meals seemed to be one of the most celebrated times of the day. Typically I ate about five meals each day: breakfast around 8, porridge around 10, lunch around 2, tea and "bitings" around 5 and dinner around 8. Lunch and dinner were usually comprised of stewed meat, stewed vegetables such as kale, spinach, or similar indigenous plants, chapati (sort of like Indian naan), rice, and the staple of each meal, Ugali, a mixture of corn flour, dark wheat flour, and water. I can honestly say that over the course of the week, I was never hungry.

While my family insisted that I could help them as much as I wanted to in their farm work or tea-plucking, the majority of each day was usually spent taking me to relatives. I met four uncles, five village elders, two aunts, and innumerable cousins and friends of the family. Everyone was very friendly, and extremely curious about my life. Popular questions were, "how does this climate compare to yours?" "What is your country's cash crop?" "How many cows do you have?" and my favorite "Will you tell Mr. Obama that I say hi?" Most people spoke a bit of English, and I got by with the little Kipsigis that I learned, so I actually didn't feel too hampered by the language barrier. Still, it is nice to be back among peers, preparing for classes this week.

Here are some pictures of the last few days.

Not in Kenya

I have just started packing. More to come when I am actually in Kenya.