Lake Nakuru National Park - Day Two

Day two at Lake Nakuru (day one is below, keep scrolling down!) - and we got up in the dark, to catch the animals' morning rituals. We slowed down a little too close to a baby buffalo at one point, and mum chased us away ...

We had been driving for maybe three hours, and were keeping quiet as we crept through some acacia forest when Heather spotted the leopard above, not six feet from us. Trying to get a better photo, we made soft noises to get it to turn its head towards us, but it just got up, stretched, and strolled disdainfully across the road in front of the car, and off into the bush.

At about eleven we took a turn up a hill to a viewpoint - later, on the way to pick up our bags from the Youth Hostel, a baboon family gave us a last display.

Lake Nakuru National Park - Day One

Rebecca, Naomy, Lani and the globe-trotting four spent a night in Lake Nakuru - safaris are not so expensive if you can use your hosts car; the national parks are very cheap for Kenyans (if they can get there, and get around); and it turns out to be a pretty great activity for people with mobility impairments. There are lots of photos below, and quite a few of them are worth clicking on to see the big version. Sorry!

We'd had an early start and a long drive, so we slept for an hour before heading out to see the wildlife. True to the promise of our welcoming monkey, the place was heaving with beasts: it's a much smaller park than Tsavo East, the animals are much closer, and the vegetation was drier and easier to see through.

In the middle of Lake Nakuru National Park is ... a lake! Full of soda, you wouldn't want to swim or even paddle in it - but many flamingos do.

After this, we completed our first circuit of the lake in the increasing gloom before going to bed, dusty but happy.

Kisumu Impala Sanctuary Photos

We visited the impala sanctuary sometime between Christmas and Lani's arrival on the 7th January. Here are some photos. As usual, if you rest your mouse on one, the caption will appear; while if you want to see a big version just click on the photo you want to enlarge: a new window should open with a big pic in it.

Lani & Naomy's Hair Torture

Here's the first photo-catch-up-blog - just a couple of snaps of Lani and Naomy getting their hair done. This took a mere eleven hours, which both bore pretty amazingly stoically.

- Mark

Comments appreciated

Hi all.

We are now on our last week in Kenya and our last few days in Western - boo hoo! As usual we have the combination of sadness at leaving and excitement and trepidation at moving on to a new country.

However the reason for this blog is a much more serious one! I don't think that our watchers and supporters are playing an active enough part in this blog. We spend hours writing, photographing, manipulating photos and generally working hard to make sure that you are all kept up to date - ok it may be boring at times and you may feel that we are getting a much better deal out of being here able to write it than you are being there able to read it (and we can't argue with that!) but PLEASE write some comments! Anything small, inane, stupid, funny, serious, argumentative, contraversial, friendly or jolly - we do miss you all you know and we love to have comments to what we've written. Its also really interesting to us to find out who is actually reading this blog - so if you've been a silent reader - let us know.

If people comment more it may also encourage the children to blog more often - so even if only in the interests of boosting their educational opportunities, get those fingers tapping on the keyboard. It's really simple - just hit the "comment" at bottom of this (or any other) blog, when it goes to comments go to bottom of the page, hit 'post comment', from there just hit "or post anonomously" but don't forget to put your name at the bottom of the comment so that we know who you are! and type away in the box - when you've finished just hit "post comment"- its really that simple and it'd make our day! Thanks in anticipation- Heather

Emhaya Group of Disabled People

[For a longer article Lani wrote about this visit, look here (Word document) or here (PDF document) - she won 1000 US dollars for the Emuhaya group with this from Backpack Nation!]

Emhaya Group of Disabled People are the group whose harambee Heather, Mark, Melissa and Rosa went to before Christmas (pictures here!). We were due to meet the group after their monthly meeting, as Naomy had agreed. I wanted to meet them, but didn’t know what it was going to be like: this was a grassroots group of disabled people and I wanted to ask them about what their lives were like and find out more about the organization. We got to the meeting place and were told that they had only just started their meeting - that’s African time for you!

We were greeted like royalty, everyone seemed so happy to see us! There were lots of people, about 40 - I was expecting about 15! After we were greeted and prayers were said (there seemed to be a lot of religion involved which was strange for me) I sat in front of the group and asked them what it was like being disabled in Kenya. After a while I realized that I had opened the flood gates and that I could learn a lot from them.

Disabled people all over the world get a raw deal compared to the rest of the population in the country they live in. Here in Kenya, where there is so much poverty, disabled people’s lives are harsh. People began to tell me how they often couldn’t get out of their houses, particularly when the rains come - this meeting was the tip of the iceberg, there were countless more people who just couldn’t get here. One women told me how her son couldn’t do anything for himself and she didn’t know what to do anymore.

Many impairments are caused by poverty and their effects are obviously exascerbated by poverty - sickness that could be prevented, poor living conditions and malnutrition. Because of the extent of poverty here, and maybe also because of other beliefs, many people think that if you have a disabled child it is an act of witchcraft and is something to be ashamed of, this makes it even harder and people who try and challenge the situation are really up against it. Many of the people in the group didn’t know that disabled people could be white! I think for that reason alone it was good for me to be there.

One young women told me when I asked what difference being part of Emhaya had made to her life, she said that before Emhaya Group she had felt very ashamed of being disabled and had felt very alone, she said that the group had given her confidence in herself and her abilities, and she was now proud of who she was!

They all said they wanted me to stay and help with the group's development, later we joked about them offering cows for me! I was tempted to stay and work for Naomy for a while as she starts to set up her organisation and I could do some work with Emhaya as well, but I can’t change my ticket…! One thing about being white here is that where ever you go people want you to solve all their problems and, I’m sorry, but I can’t - not single handedly anyway. Being here and going to that meeting has made me think about HOW IMPORANT it is for disabled people to fight together internationally against oppression and poverty.

- Lani

The Safari Park

We went to Lake Nakuru National Park, it was heavy!! We saw Rhinos (a baby one!!), Giraffes, Zebra, Gazelle, Flamingos, Warthog, n we had a Buffalo charge us, and we saw a Leopard well close, also we saw a Lioness but not so close!! LOL!

We all got very dusty hair, especially me and mum cause we had our heads out the roof/boot windows!! We stayed the night in the hostel place in the park. I got a spider on my bed!! HA!! We had to wake-up at 6 am two days in a row!!! I was VERY sleepy afterwards, but it was worth it!! We had a wonderful time, melissa was very scared!!

Well can't think of anything else to say so I will go.

luv ya

rosa - xxx

On Safari

Just a quick blog about Nakuru National Park. I think Mark is going to try to get pictures up on Friday and he can add to it then.

We went to the park for 24 hours, it is a huge flamingo filled lake, surrounded by forest, savana and other animal friendly parts. It's not a huge park like Tsavo was so as soon as we arrived we were greeted by vervet monkeys, zebra, impala, water buck, buffalo etc. It was really exciting as we were staying inside the park in a bandas (traditional African huts). As well as being famous for its flamingos (and 400-500 other recorded bird species) Nakuru is a rhino sanctuary with some 50 black rhino and 13 very rare white rhino, which were reintroduced in Kenya having been poached out of existance. Nakuru is also home to the rare Rothschild giraffe.

Well we saw so much, many rhino - one mother and baby came wandering around by the car - what amazing funny creatures they are! We also saw giraffes, baboons, warthogs and many types of antelope or and a vulture, thousands of flamingos, pelicans and loads of other birds. One highlight for me was on the first evening, as the sun was going down we spotted a Spotted hyena - it was on the lake shore and we saw it from quite a distance, they have a very distinctive sillouette. We drove around to where it was and intersected it on it's way. We stopped the car about 10 metres away from it and it just sat down and looked at us. We sat and looked at it for a while and when we finally drove off it got up and carried on its way - our first mammal predator! The next day we were determined to see lions and we drove a long way around the park, almost oblivious to the amazing scenery around us - but unfortunately other than an unconfirmed lion that we think we saw through the binoculars but was too far away to be certain, the lions weren't playing. We were heading back when I suddenly spotted a leopard in a tree right by us (about 5 metres away and at eye level). We stopped the car and tried to stop Melissa shrieking to shut the windows. The leopard just looked at us and eventually got up and wandered across the road right in front of us. We were all very excited and jubilant as a leopard is not that easy to find and it was so beautiful.

We had such a great time and it was well worth doing although we were very tired by the time we had got up very early Sunday morning (after an eventful night - see Melissa's blog) to drive 4 hours there, up early Monday morning to go driving around the park and then a four hour drive home again. Still haven't seen lions or hippos - might have to go to Nairobi national park on our way out of Kenya - if we have any money left by then!!!

- Heather

A visitor in the middle of the night

Last Saturday we went to sleep early, because we were going to get up 6am to go to lake Nakuru - so we were going to be tired, so we all went to sleep. Next thing I heard was knocking at our gate: I got scared, but then I heard Naomy on the phone talking to someone. I could still hear the knockin at the gate, and the next thing I heard was Naomy shouting 'Heather, Heather' - but Heather was asleep and was not replying so I shouted "yes Naomy?." She asked me if I heard the knocking, and I said yes: she said it might be someone trying to break in, so she phoned the police.

Then Heather woke up and called Paulo, and he said that the person had been calling 'Paulo,' but he was too scared to go and look! So eventually he went to have a look to find out that it was not a thief, it was Livingstone, Naomy's sister's son. He came at 1am trying to get in, and he was drunk - so just before the police came we had to get Livingston into the outside shed to sleep because Naomy did not want him to be shot by the police. When the police came they had to lie so that if there was a real problem in the future, the police would still come.

So that's what happened.

- Melissa

More from Melissa and Rosa

We just took the dogs to the vets. On the way Jesse was sick - but it was OK cos Sunny ate it. Now we're sitting waiting for Heather and Paulo to come out of the vets where the dogeedoos are getting their injections against diseases - though not rabies, because they're too young yet. And as of yet they're not getting neutered either. You'd have thought it would take five minutes but it's taking so long that we're bored enough to dictate a blog to Mark

Bananas grow in our garden. The headrests on Naomy's car click forward wierdly. All the goats we see seem to be pregnant, even the ones with babies already - why is that??

What have we done so far?

We had a big argument the other day - well, not that big - about water and how we get it. Now we're using less water - about 2-3 litres each to wash in, which ain't that much by the way! We're looking forward to having showers you can leave running on you in Mumbai - it's so nice to waste water!

Looking forward to seeing people we know in Thailand - Diane, Seamus and Jo. It's nice having Lani here - we're making plans for her marriage, so we get lots of cows as dowry!!

Well, the dogs are back from the vet, so we're off to the supermarket and the internet cafe in the car. Our puppies are nice and funny, and they like to try to tear each other's throats out! [Heather adds:And my new African dress has got lots of little bite holes in it, because I wear it in the morning when they're most excited to see me...]

- Rosa, Melissa [and Heather], typed by Mark

Water, and Life

Gmail has gone really slow today, or I'd have sent some more personal emails today - here's extracts from some I did send recently:

It's lovely having Lani here - we've been having good conversations with her and Naomy about Naomy's plans for transforming the lives of disabled women in Africa (! a small job - I've been typing up her business plan in this internet joint) and Lani adds very good perspective to this. The lack of water is adding perspective to all of us westerners - we drove down to the water-getting place a couple of times and got up to 300 litres in containers in the car per journey, but Naomy has no spare resources to fix the car if anything really bad happens to it (like sliding off a very bumby and step dirt track while laden down with barrels of water ...), and it's absolutely crucial to her mobility, so that's stopped now.

This was not without some confusion and (temporary) bad feeling as we Westerners poured scorn on Naomy's suggestion that Rebecca, Paulo and Susan (who has with us before Xmas, and has just returned) should go and collect it on their heads in 20 litre jerry cans like everyone else has to. It took us quite a while to get into our thick heads that suggesting the car should be used to save us from either having not much water or else having to witness the amount of sheer hard work that goes on in the developing world was equivalent to insisting Lani let us use her wheelchair to transport building materials: we just saw Rebecca with sore shoulders and assumed we understood the situation well enough to try and bully Naomy into running her household "better" (by our assumptions). By the time we'd figured this out we'd already all done a pretty good job of demonstrating First Worlder arrogance - probably not for the first time, but more obviously (to us) than usual!

We've apologised, Naomy has forgiven us, and we're getting good at using the pit latrine (save Lani - she flushes with saved shower water), and 'showering' with a jug in about two litres of water each! No problem for hardy campers like us - but a swimming pool/bath/ocean will be greatly appreciated when we next get to one!

[Earlier:]It has been great to be mostly in one place over the last few weeks - and we have another two and a helf weeks here, staying in the Western Kenyan countryside, on the equator, but not too hot as we're 1500m above sea-level. Lani, our eldest just arrived, and I think we'll be spending some of the next fortnight assisting in planning the future of disability activism in two continents (Naomy, our host, is a disability development worker wanting to establish a new NGO and consultancy in Kenya - Lani's not long finished her Peace Studies degree and is wondering about getting more involved in disability politics and development, as she ponders her next career moves after four months internship at Oxfam) - so it's a bit like being back at work doing community development really, with better weather, shorter hours, but no pay...

We're slowly beginning to try and pin down our own direction/s for the next few years, also. Travelling certainly gives you a picture of how many, many ways people make their living and live their lives, and our travels have so far included at least three serious offers to go into one kind of international business or other (one probably not worth the risk, one possibly not ethically attractive, and one interesting but probably not particularly lucrative), a number of places we'd like to visit again and one or two we can imagine spending long periods of time in (Bangalore's my favourite so far - though anywhere with genuine Chinese food comes a close second). Certainly, if I could find work on my return that would pay for, or even include, a round-the-world ticket every couple of years, that would be very attractive, at this point.

There is also room to think more widely, and time to think more slowly than is usually the case at home: Heather and I have been telling each other our "impossible dreams" over the holiday period, and are beginning to try to figure out how to lose the "im" from them. At the moment we may need to find a way that a smallholding and H's puppy breeding will pay for my return ticket to Mars, as I'm not yet sure how I'm going to get my dream job as Chief Clown for the European Space Agency: but we have some months to try and put flesh on those bones yet ...

The girls have to pick their school options for years ten and eleven before we leave Kenya: this has led both to some good conversations with them about their future hopes and dreams and to them asking for more maths homework (!!)

So, that's a snapshot from Kenya: Thailand awaits in a couple of weeks, and it sounds like we may be able to combine some volunteering to help out somewhere with something tsunami-related (rebuilding something? cleaning something up?), with spending our tourist Baht in some beautiful places that don't face the Andaman Sea. Both of which will be further grist to the life-planning mill, no doubt.

We've a trip to Nakuru National Park, some more business-planning and some other trips planned before then - I hope all your January's are as interestingly busy (!)

Have a great 2005,

- Mark

Going to get water

Yesterday we had a bit of a problem, there was no water coming out of the taps, and the water in the taps comes out rarely, so when the water comes we fill the big tanks up. Here there had been no water for a week, so everything was empty. So I went with Naomy, Rebecca, Esther, and Paulo to get the water, (that's where lots of people go if they don't get water out of there taps or have ran out of water).

So on the way there (we drove) we had to go up these roads which I don't think that cars are supposed to go down there, but we did . We also had to turn around in the tightest space ever, it felt like the car was going to tip over but it did not, luckily. Then when we finally turned around, we got out and Naomy stayed in the car, but the rest of us went.

We had to walk down a little hill and there was loads of people there, going to get water: old people, young people, all sorts. Finally we got to the place where they were getting the water from - it was like three wells full of water,but you didn't have to pump the water, there was a man there who went in the well and got it out for you.

Then it was a bit of a push to get water because everyone wants it but then it started to rain, so people were going under a little house which was there, and standing under little bits of aluminium which was sticking out the outside of the house, to keep you dry. Me and Rebecca and Esther went there to keep dry too, but Paulo stayed out to get the water so he got well wet.

Then when Paulo had filled up all the tanks, Paulo and another man carried the tank to the car. We had to pay them some money (but only 20 bob) to the man for helping. Then finally we went home. They went and done it all again but I did not, I was too tired from carrying the water in the house.

Hope you liked the blog

Melissa xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kimosi Girls High School

Anne goes to a boarding school (like most Kenyan high school attenders), its a girls school, the school year started on Wednesday, we dropped Anne off and had a look around the school. At school they do all their lessons in English apart from their Kiswahili and French lessons. But out of lessons the girls mostly speak Sheng, the Young People’s Language of Kenya, a mixture of Kiswahili and English - like English slang new words and expressions are added all the time. (Also they tend to speak their tribal/ethnic language at home making it that most of them speak at least 4 languages fluently, counting Sheng as a language in its own right.)

The uniforms aren't all that nice, in fact they are horrid!!! They have to wear a SKIRT!! I mean i don't mind skirts but having to wear one for the whole of the three months, or however long they are at school???

From what Anne has said, the food ain't too appetising either!!! Black tea every morning, maize and beans every lunch, and Ugali (maize stodge) and Sukumawiki (traditional greens) every dinner: oh, and they get rice and beans on Saturdays instead of maize!! Also, did I mention that they put liquid paraffin in the beans to stop the girls from smelling!! lol

They have to buy their own bed-sheets and, wait for it, MATTRESSES!!!! Also the mattresses can't be too thick, because the school wants them to wake up at five in the morning!! And they don't get to bed until eleven at night!!! Harsh or what?

Mum was talking to some teachers and they said that she should leave me and Mo behind for a week or two!! Mum thought Mo might be able to hack it, but I would run away!! Too right I would!!!

Oh, and they check the girls bags before they go in on the first day!! They are only allowed to take 5 chapattis!! How random!!

Who wants us to get you a place at the school? lol

luv rosa xxx

Money for Matatus - a business idea

Well we've just spent a morning looking at Matatus. Matatus are the minibuses that are the 'public'means of transport in Kenya - all privately owned. Naomy wants to become a matatu owner and we got some advice from some other owner friends of hers. They are really encouraging her to go for it as they say that its a really good business and will give her a decent income whilst she sets up her disablity consultantcy. Anyway we have looked at all of the facts and figues and she wants to go for it. One problem though is capital. The HP price for a Matatu is at an interest rate of 25% (almost 10,000 pounds instead of 8,000 pounds). We are not really in a position at the moment to get a loan at a decent interest rate because we are not in work. Anyone got any spare cash or any ideas for borrowing it at a better rate of interest? - we reckon that it would take a maximum of two years to pay it back (and that includes making a good income out of it in the meantime), one year if not much is taken. Let us know and help if you can- Heather

Impala Sanctuary Chat

hey peepz!!! we went to an impala santuary the other day!! we saw umm... impalas!! (LOL) oh and we saw some dog things, and a hyena and a panther!!! was horrid!! the panther, hyena and dog things were all cooped up and pacing around!!! did not like that bit!!!!!

luv ya

rosa

xxx

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Hey grrrlgeeniuz,

did you like anything about it at all? Just in the interests of balanced reporting?

Mr MintonHead

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yes i sed it was nice dint i

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umm, nope

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oh well add it in

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Rosa thought the impala sanctuary was nice.

New photos galore

Well, there are lots more photos and a few more words up - if you click the December link in the Archives section (should be on the right!) you'll get all the December posts on one page, and can scroll through at your leisure. As an added bonus, here are photos of the views just around where we stay, a picture of fruitsellers in Kisumu, and the man who sold us the puppies with his other wife (we photographed him with the first wife when we visited the puppies: second wife was jealous, so we got to snap her when we went to collect them!)

- Mark

A very long way from the sea

Happy New Year to you all! We really will try and get a whole load more photos up on here by Tuesday - it would be worth clicking the December archive link once we've done that, and having a check through the last thhree weeks or so.

We're 1000km inland, 1500m above sea level and a good few hundred metres above the placid Lake Victoria. There are very few Kenyan tourists (ever) in Thailand, Indonesia or Sri Lanka. One Kenyan died in the tsunami (at Watamu, the town on the coast where we'd stayed), and the tidal wave was the front page story for one, maybe two days in the national papers here - since then it hasn't been off page 12 (World News), but it hasn't reached the front page again.

From the little bits of the BBC World Service, CNN and UK news websites that we come across, and from personal contact with people at home, I think you have much more saturation coverage. It's odd to witness this from afar: from here it's a big tragedy and a very unusual geological event - but boring old avoidable starvation, AIDS and water-borne diseases still kill a lot more 'over this side' (as the Kenyans say). Not to mention wars...

- Mark