Leah’s Travel Page

Hi all,

I arrived back in Nairobi two days ago after our 16 days of relative isolation throughout southern Kenya. It was a totally FANTASTIC time…but nonetheless, it’s good to be back in a place where you can buy laundry detergent and chocolate bars again. (Side note: the chocolate you buy in Kenya is not as sweet as the stuff back home, because it has some quality that makes it less likely to melt…however, when you’re in the middle of 40-degree weather, no chocolate has a prayer.)

The one thing that I was sad I missed was the Olympics…we were literally out of touch the ENTIRE time. The one time I was able to buy a newspaper was the day after the first Men’s hockey games…which Canada won, so naturally I had visions of gold in my head for the entire remainder of the time! Ahem…not so much. But I’m soooo excited that we did so well in everything else, in terms of medal counts and everything (especially the Newfoundland men’s curling gold…awesome!). Wish I could have been watching! But anyways, enough about the Olympics. Most people we ran into had no idea what hockey is, let alone snow-boarding, let ALONE…bobsled?? Try explaining THAT one to someone in broken Swahili!

So I guess the last time I updated was just before we left Mbita. Our next destination was the Maasai Mara Nature Reserve, which is in the Kenyan extension of the Serengeti plains. We were tenting in a campground adjacent to the park, and at night could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing (creepiest sound ever, by the way). We did several game drives during our 4 days there…The first day we went into the park, and saw hardly any animals, just some ungulates and zebra and hyenas (which, jaded as we are, are now old news…we wanted some lions!). Apparently, because of the massive drought that’s going on here, the wildlife migration patterns are all messed up. There are also lots of Maasai cattle herders that have had to move their livestock into the park to graze (illegally) because there is simply no grass anywhere in the country. So the next few times we took Maasai guides with us, and they new where the wildlife was outside the reserve…Within about 15 minutes, we found two female lions and 8 cubs, chilling out in the evening sun…The cubs were adorable, and started nursing and pouncing on each other, it was amazing. Then the next morning we went out and saw about four more prides all chowing down on some wildebeest breakfast. We also saw tons more giraffe and elephants and other animals… the Maasai guides even took us off the trucks to get down really close to hippos in a river (they warned us that if we saw air bubbles really close to us, to throw a rock at it so the hippos wouldn’t come up too close!). We also got to visit our first of many Maasai villages, numerous clinics and primary schools.

After the Mara, we headed to Lake Naivasha, which is one of the big Rift Valley lakes. Being the big geology nerd that I am, it was so amazing to spend the next few weeks travelling through the Rift Valley, with all its crazy escarpments and extinct volcanoes and geologic formations. At Naivasha, our campsite was right on the Lake, so we had to watch out at night that hippos didn’t come up on shore, and then we’d wake up in the morning with GIANT marabou storks looking into our tents. Naivasha is a huge horticultural area, so we visited some of the massive flower farms in the area…if you buy a dozen roses anywhere in Europe, odds are they come from Naivasha. At this site, it was actually pretty cold…we’d wake up in the morning and could see our breath. But that didn’t last too long as soon as we moved on south of Nairobi.

Once we left Naivasha, we headed to another ICIPE camp at Nguruman, which is just east of Magadi. We stopped in Magadi on the way, because they are a huge salt-production centre (and since I think salt is just about the most interesting thing ever, I was pretty excited to tour it…although maybe I was the only one!). The area around Magadi is INSANELY hot…I’ve never been in such a barren, boiling wasteland in all my life. The word “hell” was uttered by many a student while we were there. Then we moved on to Nguruman, which was marginally less hot and WAY off the beaten track. Not to much wildlife here…except a few scorpions (no one got bitten though) and the giant ant infestation that I woke up to one morning in my tent (I went on a massive DEET massacre and showed them who was boss). We also got to visit a Maasai primary boarding school (which is important, because many Maasai children have to be absent from school when their parents move with the cattle, so a boarding school is a great asset). They put on an amazing cultural show for them, and then they creamed us at a game of soccer (5-1 for them). While we were in Nguruman, we also got to visit a bunch of local farms, where we got to see their irrigation practices in action – they used the water at the top of the Nguruman escarpment, and then divert it with furrows to individual farms. Each farmer can use the water one day a week, and they manually go through and divert the water through their crops by creating little mud dams at each plot…Okay, so maybe that’s not the best description ever, but it was pretty cool for me to see since I think irrigation is just about as interesting as salt production!
Okay, well I have more to write about Nguruman and after, but there’s a huge lineup of people waiting, so I’ll complete my update later whenever I can get on. Generally, it’s been amazing. The only ailments I’ve had are that my gluten allergy has re-emerged after a 3-year hiatus, and I had this weird growth on my face which we thought might be an insect burrowing into my cheek (which we all kind of wanted it to be, so then it would sprout wings and fly out of my face), but it turned out to just be a giant festering bite. Other than that, I’m all good.

Make sure to keep me posted on events now that the NHL is back on, and of course any other non-European sport updates!

The sun sets so fast here. You can notice that the sunset is imminent, and by the time you’ve rummaged around in your bag to get your camera, it has already sunk below the crest of the hill. That’s the equator for you.

An African town at night is completely different from during the day… it’s like another world entirely. That’s one thing I’ve missed out on by travelling with a relatively organised group as I have been. In the evenings, we go back to our research station and socialize only with ourselves.

Yesterday a small group of us visited an HIV/AIDS orphanage, on Rusinga Island, just outside of Mbita. We’re currently located in Suba District, one of the poorest in the country. In 2000, the infant mortality rate was 606 out of every 1000 children under the age of one, which is truly astronomical (in the past five years, it’s gone down to 147 per 1000 through aggressive malaria awareness campaigns). This is also the district with the highest AIDS prevalence: 42%. And Rusinga Island is the highest of any community, with a prevalence of over 50% (with a population of only about 200,000 to start with). So the orphanage was something to behold. There were I think over 250 children there, several of whom were HIV+ and all of whom had lost their parents to AIDS. It was sad to see. The women running the facility made small handicrafts to sell and support the facility. I bought a really beautiful tie-dyed fabric – it cost 500 shillings, which is less than 10 dollars, and you know that will go a long way in that community.

None of us wanted to leave, so it was dark as we were driving into Mbita. It was so different than it was during the day. Everyone was gathered into those storefronts that had electricity, watching the Africa Cup on tiny television sets, braiding each other’s hair, socializing with friends. People set up fires outside, which they’d sit around, cooking and talking. It was a very surreal experience. There was an air of calm and serenity, but with a bustle of life and activity below the surface. Like a summer night camping with friends, in a way. I guess that since the sun always goes down so early, you use the evenings as a time to be with family and friends. Hopefully I’ll get to experience more of that once I leave the big group.

Today’s the first day of our next class…it’s kind of weird that I already have three credits behind me. In a few days, I’ll be leaving for the Maasai Mara for 16 days, and I’ll probably be out of touch again for a while. That should be incredible…My prof is apparently something like the world’s leading expert on the Maasai, so he’s got lots of connections there. We even get the chance to do a homestay in a rural Maasai village for a few nights. It should be amazing.