watoto

Thirteen teen-age girls and their mothers were sitting in wooden desks that lined the sides of the room. They were dressed in traditional attire although I counted at least three pairs of pink crocks under the table. We were invited to a workshop on women’s rights at one of the primary schools in Shompole. Three of the thirteen girls sitting in front of us would be the first in this community to go to secondary school, high-school. We came with Njeri, a woman from Kenya Wildlife Services, who stood up in her full camouflage uniform and told the girls that women could do anything that men could do, and sometimes, even better. All true – she embellished my job description a bit though. She left out the whole girlfriend of a lion researcher and just told them that I studied lions. A white lie I suppose – the truth probably wouldn’t have been that impressive. Maybe the lie wasn’t even that impressive though because when she asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, the list of intense careers ranged from surgeons, not just doctors, surgeons, to a pilot. Apparently my fake title and Njeri’s real life military-like uniform didn’t sway anyone’s opinion because protecting and/or studying the wildlife was not on anyone’s A-list. The primary objective of the meeting was to think of ways to convince the fathers that having an educated daughter was something to be proud of. As of now, getting the dowry of livestock when your daughter is married is what brings pride to a man. At Nixon’s wedding, with all of its contemporary ways, like equal consent in marriage, he still traditionally paid a dowry for his wife. 6 cows was a going rate he said. And if you brought the man a bad cow you had to go and bring him another. And you were not allowed to take back the rejected one! He had his cows thoroughly inspected for quality before he gave them away.
Education seemed to be the theme of the last two weeks. Paul went to another meeting in another community where some of his cameras have been getting broken to gain access to the batteries inside. Since they are motion-censored cameras, when you walk up to them with the intension of breaking them, with any luck you will move in the process and they will then take your picture. So armed with two color printed photos of the two culprits, Paul had a meeting with the leaders in the area to see what to do about the boys. One boy attended the meeting and just sat quietly in the corner under a tree. The discussion went on in Maasai within earshot of the boy and when it was over they came over to Paul and said, “Now what we want to do is cane them.” Paul’s eyes got as big as they possibly could as he tried to express that this was not what he had in mind. The leaders wanted to take this boy and go to the school where the other boy was and beat them both in front of all the other students so that everyone would learn from the experience. An efficient method I’m sure, but instead they held another meeting with men, women, and children from the area where the vandals struck. Paul sat back while the leaders explained the research and how it benefited the community through employment and information sharing. They then surprised Paul by really stressing that the researchers were invited guests so by hurting their project you are insulting the community as a whole. In the end, no one got caned.
Well we’ve driven to the edge of the rainbow. There were zebra and buffalo already feasting on the pot of gold when we arrived. At the time, it symbolized the great things that were to come since Dave Christianson had arrived, another researcher formally from Montana State. He must have been destined for more of a survivor man sort of trip though because instead of collaring a bunch of animals while he was here we were outsmarted by a hyena that strung us along on a five-day chase. Things went down hill at breakfast one morning when Dave said; “I can’t imagine a bad day in Africa.” So we haven’t gotten any more collars out plus the animals are now striking back. I was sitting on the roof of the truck doing transects, counting animals, and all of the sudden I felt a big pat on the back. I hadn’t particularly done anything great so I looked at Dave to ask why I was receiving this praise. Before I could say anything, he instead turned to me and asked, “Did that bird just hit you?”