nne

Planted safely back in the wilderness, I’ve been briefly introduced to bush politics. We went to Paul’s yearly research meeting with the leaders of the community; the chief – appointed by the government, the chairman - elected by the people of the group ranch, and the various researchers and research assistants in the area. The meeting was conducted in Maasai and English, though word for word translation didn’t match up to me. The leaders would talk amongst themselves for several minutes and the version we got sounded more like Tyson verses Spinks 1988. There are two group ranches that Paul does research in and he has a research assistant from both communities. Each group ranch also has a conservation area with no bomas – houses – and that is only used for grazing during times of drought. Our camp is in Okiramatian’s group ranch (the north) and Shompole’s group ranch is to the south. Shompole also has a lodge, for those that can afford its fees, in their conservation area and it is marketed as a place where your encounters will only be of the local variety. So its proprietor doesn’t like the researchers much and thinks they are getting in the way of this egotistical dream. While the community may not agree with this sentiment, the money the lodge brings in is hard to ignore and this man has earned himself the title, a complicated friend. I think the meeting lasted about three hours and I was introduced at the end along with an ACC – African Conservation Centre - intern, Rebecca, who will be staying with us for the next five months. It was clearly annunciated that neither she nor I had our own research agenda so there would be no talk of us sneaking into this system without paying for the privilege of being here. After my introduction one of the community leaders joked, “so I heard she is studying giraffes.” We’ve actually been seeing a lot of giraffes lately, but I try not to look at them too closely.
The hyenas are another story. We’ve been seeing them, but they tend to stay just out of reach. We followed a group for five hours the other night and just when we inched up close enough to dart, she stood up, yawned, and walked further away. Our last two attempts have ended at five in the morning and I got us stuck in the dirt twice. It’s sort of like driving in snow; since it hasn’t rained in awhile (circa April 2008), some stretches of the road are just inches of dry and dusty soil. As if to give us a consolation gift, we found one of the den’s last night and saw a mother pick up a pretty new cub. This saved her from our further advances.
Paul had two blackboards locally made with some money that was raised for the schools. We delivered them to one of the nursery schools nearby - a one-room school -house of 26 students, 8 of them boys. The teacher said that the boys pushed for this school so they could hang out with all of the ladies. When we arrived, the children danced and sang us a welcome song. If I ever find a fast internet connection, I’ll post the video of the dance because it was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Some of the parents came too and I received a pair of Maasai earrings as a thank you gift. The mama first tried to give them to Rebecca, but she doesn’t have pierced ears. Paul whispered to me that I should just say my ears are pierced and accept the gift. Luckily, while my ears are irritated by metal and I don’t wear earrings anymore, they are indeed pierced because when I made this confirmation she didn’t just hand me the ear rings, but proceeded to stick them in my ears herself. What a terrible mess that little white lie would have gotten me into. After Rebecca and I had received our jeweled gifts another one of the mamas looked down at the necklaces she was wearing and must have thought, what the hell, this one looks masculine enough, and with that, Paul received a gift too. At the end, the school chairman got up and thanked us in Maasai; the translation I found most amusing. In the true spirit of human discontentment he said, “ just like we say to God when he has brought us rain, Thank you God for your gift, but now, what else can you do for us.”

tatu

We went to a circumcision ceremony for Michael’s son. We arrived more on the ceremony side of things, the boy who got circumcised was already resting in one of the mud and stick huts, trying to forget the morning’s pain no doubt. His father was distinguishable amongst the crowd wearing a blue shuka (wrap) and his head was cleanly shaven and painted red with ochre. He wasn’t allowed to leave the premises so we were escorted in and out through a liaison. We happened to be hosting the veterinarian who is assisting Paul with his project at the time. His friend came down with him and she and I were asked to join the mama’s as they danced into the boma (house) bearing gifts. The dancing consisted of a head and shoulder shake to flash the various beads you were wearing around your neck. The minute we joined the procession though, we heard laughter coming from the group of boys wearing black shukas behind us and we felt to vulnerable to do much shaking and resorted to good old fashion walking, smiling brightly whenever one of the other women would look back at us to see what we were doing. Being city folk, our guests were just as foreign to this Maasai tradition as we were and once inside, we walked around with our appointed tour guide and he explained it all - who was who, what colors and beads meant what. The boys that were wearing the black shuka’s were newly circumcised and they were there to dance and chant in support of the new recruit. Traditionally, these boys will now spend two years out in the bush becoming men, but I think this varies today depending on whether or not they are in school.
Now we are on Nairobi time though. Movies and sushi – a little boutique restaurant where the water was so cold it hurt our teeth. I even discovered my sweatshirt again. We are refueling on food and well… fuel, and gathering some supplies to make camp more accommodating. We are taking it upon ourselves to build a charcoal fridge. It won’t give us ice, but we have aspirations of having a cool soda once and awhile and maybe eating fresh fruit and vegetables on days three and four instead of just one and two. Milk and eggs are magic here. That’s the most I can make of it. Their shelf life does not require refrigeration. A certain type of milk anyway, called Long Life, has been boiled into oblivion and comes in a juice carton that stays fresh until you open it. Eggs aren’t refrigerated either. Not even in Nairobi. They are fresher they say. The only difference that I can see is that they have a thicker skin that makes it really hard to puncture without puncturing the yolk as well. We picked up this book called the Wilderness Guardian that teaches you how to do everything from constructing a sand filter for our water supply to building a bridge. We’ll see how the charcoal fridge goes first and then assess the need and or ability to tackle such a thing as a bridge. Nairobi is bittersweet – the travel is exhausting, but the amenities are forgiving. I’ve learned how to drive in the bush, manual stick shift from the American passenger seat, but I refuse to attempt it in the city. Perhaps if I had grown up in England the chaotic system of round abouts would make sense, but there are no rules and aggressiveness is a must. There is no turn to wait for. The task has no end and eventually you just have to go and hope that nobody hits you. The police don’t come equipped with cars here and every so often there is a nail bar in the middle of the street that you have to weave around so when you slow down they can look into your car and see if they need to stop you. They are at the mercy of you actually pulling over, although there will be another cop down the road waiting for you if you don’t. Speed bumps are in surplus as well, though they don’t feel the need to paint them any differently so every once in awhile we get a jolting announcement of their presence.
Anyway, I hope you are all well. We have been getting pieces of American news lately and it’s always interesting to hear it from the BBC’s perspective. We found out that Joe the Plumber was reporting from the Gaza Strip and that Blagojevich compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela - always a pleasure.

If you like these stories, get ready for paulsjokesfromthebush.blogspot.com – it’s not up and running yet, but he has a lot of one liners that haven’t made it into the blog yet so he’s thinking of starting his own.