What I neglected to mention in the last post was that I took that terrible bus because I was in a rush to get back to KEFRI. Leah, Pat and I were to do a tour of Mount Kenya, and I needed to make sure I was back from Mumias in time to go with them.
First things first. Leah and Pat both came over to KEFRI through the International Forestry Research Institute (IFRI). IFRI is a cooperative between universities all over the world, to gather data on global forests. There are IFRI sites in forests on every continent, where certain data are captured and tracked yearly (or according to funding) and uploaded into a massive database. IFRI has been in existence for some time and is the brain-child of Dr. Elinor Ostrom, a Nobel Prize winner and professor at IU. KEFRI collaborates with IFRI, and our assignment for the week was to head out to some of the project sites in Aberderes and around Mt. Kenya to 1) get more familiar with environmental issues in a unique part of the country and 2) to come up with some research ideas that we could work on for the rest of the summer. Since I was occupied with Mumias and the GFSI project, my job was mostly the former, leaving Pat and Leah to actually have to think.
The idea was to make a big circle around Mount Kenya, beginning west towards Naivasha and cutting through Aberderes National Park, then continuing around the north side of the mountain past Nanyuki, and then around through Meru to the northeast, before finally heading south and back to Nairobi.
We left after work on Wednesday the 22 and headed west and then north up into the Aberderes. We stopped that evening at a mountain town called Nyahururu (I dare you to pronounce it). The highland parts of Kenya, and especially this region, are well known for producing fine runners. I’m not sure if it made the news in the states, but a very famous Kenyan distance runner who won gold in the last Olympics recently jumped to his death from a condo window after his wife found him with another woman. The hotel where we stayed the first night was where he went for drinks before the night escalated. After a few drinks, we headed off to bed in anticipation of marathon day in the morning.
Mt Kenya is just east of the Aberdere mountain range, and it is the tallest peak in Kenya. It is the second highest in Africa behind Kilamanjaro. The landscape on the western side is quite lush, and green with farmland, though as you go north and east, weather patterns change and the land turns more arid. North of the mountain is actually where a large portion of wheat is grown in the country. The mountain’s feet are golden brown, and roll smoothly on and on over gentle rises, much like Kansas. Unfortunately, all of the fields were gained at the expense of the forests, and the lower reaches of the mountain suffered from pretty severe deforestation as a result of human encroachment. As a side note, much of the land around Mt Kenya is extremely cheap. It is far away from any industrial center, and the northern side is not particularly fertile. I think I was quoted 1000 for 5 acres or so? Maybe I am making that figure up but I’m not exaggerating when I say it was cheap.
Thursday we were up early, and headed north around the mountain. Though we were within viewing range, you can only see the summit early in the morning and late in the evening. Otherwise the clouds completely obscure it. We stopped at one site, which was a buzz-kill. I’m not sure what I was expecting but we just stopped the car and looked out the windows at a portion of forest by the side of the road – you could see clearly where the community had grazed their flocks and herds, and where they had not. For data gathering purposes, there are little plots scattered around major forests in key areas. Different measurements are taken, seedlings counted, and then the points are marked on GPS so the ‘plot’ can be found the next year.
On the way out to inspect some of the IFRI sites, we made a small detour to check out Thompson Falls. The river that generates the falls originates far up in the highlands of Mt. Kenya. It moves much less water these days due to deforestation. Regardless, it was still quite spectacular. After climbing down to the bottom, all I really wanted to do was jump in, but as anyone will tell you, swimming in fresh water here is risky. Among numerous other infections, people really worry about Schistomsomiasi (sp), a fluke transmitted by freshwater snails. I settled for pictures of the falls instead.
We stayed that night in Meru, which is supposed to be legendary for its beautiful women. Legend has it that when the railroad from Mombasa was being laid, it the work stalled out in Meru because the local women entranced all the workers. At any rate, we stayed at a great hotel, had some beers and then went for a meeting with our boss, who was staying nearby.
Friday morning, we got up and headed up the mountainside to another IFRI site on the mountain proper. After a bumpy drive past a British military outpost, we entered the park gate, and were at soon at a KWS ranger station. We were looking straight up the side of the mountain but the clouds were in and the peak was invisible. The land had changed from arid, dry farmland to groves of juniper and giant hardwoods. There are A LOT of elephants on Mt Kenya. We could see their manure in the road and where they had uprooted shrubs and plants and flung them about, and even the trails of crushed vegetation where they had been walking. We picked up a guide and headed up the slope to the IFRI site and soon passed stands of cedar that had been planted by KFS for reforestation purposes. The elephants had gotten into them and I was amazed at how much damage they can do. I had originally missed the elephant explanation for the destroyed timber – I thought there had been straight-line winds. An elephant will take a tree that you can barely wrap your arms around and either push it over or snap it in half. One swath of plantation literally looked like a tornado had gone through it
We kept on moving past trees the elephants had pushed into the road and made our way further back into the hills. We were in one of the small KEFRI cars – think of an old school Corolla – and with 5 people and a guide crammed into it, we were bottoming out on every raised piece of ground. We wound up in a field where we were to continue on foot. There was copious buffalo and elephant sign and you could smell that zoo scent of large herbivores. The road went straight across the field and into the trees on the other side, under which was a dense thicket. We didn’t have a gun and after a quiet discussion, we backed off and drove out. It was just too risky.
Our party headed back north to another site. The land turned much more arid as we went away from the mountain and entered a narrow finger of the national park, surrounded on two sides by villages.. The woods were dry and dusty, and people were herding cattle among the trees. Buffalo and elephant sign was abundant, especially elephant; there were many pushed over trees and piles of dung. We saw the site and took a walk through the woods. It was great to actually walk around in the forest, and the environment reminded me a bit of the dry forest you see on videos of India. There were very many varieties of medicinal trees, but the one that stays foremost in my mind was Prunus africanus. The locals use it for pretty much everything, but it contains a drug that is used globally for treating prostate cancer. Our guide, one of the other KEFRI interns, got turned around so I used my woodsman skills to find our way back out to the road. Good thing too. As we were walking up the trail, my nostrils were again assaulted by the odor of animals. We headed the opposite way, which was towards the road.
This part of the country is known for growing kat, or mira, a leaf plucked from a species of tree that when peeled and chewed acts as a stimulant. I’m not quite sure what it contains but people will tell you that it will keep you awake, and then help you satisfy your wife once you get home. The leaves are plucked early in the morning, packed and then rushed off to town to be shipped before they wilt. Driving around Meru, you see trucks filled with boxes of these leaves flying down the roads to shipping centers.
We headed over to Nanyuki to stay the night at a different hotel. It was clean, but unfortunately was party central. There was a bar upstairs that wound up pumping music till 3 a.m. I played some more pool then hit the sack.
We had finished seeing the sites we needed to see, so the driver and our fellow intern wanted to return to Nairobi for Saturday evening. Leah and I had discussed hiking Mount Kenya back in Bloomington and now was our chance.
As I mentioned earlier, Mt Kenya is the second highest peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Kilimanjaro is around 5900 meters while Mt Kenya is about 5200 meters high. Making the summit take four days, the first days hike takes you to the first basecamp. On the second day, you hike to the next basecamp and that night, you awaken at around 2 a.m. and hike the summit, arriving at sunrise. From the summit, you can see the Indian ocean, Kilimanjaro, Mt. Meru and Lake Victoria. Groups spend about 20 to 30 minutes at the top before hiking down to the first basecamp, and then out to the gate on day four.
We arrived at the Sirimon Gate outside of Meru at around 10 a.m. Our friends negotiated for a guide and after paying for entrance tickets, we hung around for a few minutes while we waited for the guide to show up. There were some really large baboons running around looking for treats. Unfortunately, we had to be at work bright and early on Monday morning, so we were only going to be able to hike to the first base camp, which is called Old Moses. Further, we weren’t particularly prepared for a strenuous hike – I even had my laptop with me in my largest backpack. My pack probably weighed 30 pounds. The park guards asked us what we were going to eat that night at the camp and we showed them the bags of peanuts and energy crackers I had picked up at the store that morning. They just laughed. However, while we were waiting to go, I took a look at the group of at least 50 British schoolchildren and parents who had done the summit the day before and were preparing to pack up and leave – there were quite a few beer bellies with knee length socks. It was at this point that I quit worrying about whether or not the hike would be too strenuous. Our guide joined us and we set off.
The trail to the first base camp is a dirt and gravel road and climbs very steadily from around 2500 meters to 3300 meters and Old Moses camp. The lower parts of the mountain are comprised of montane forest and bamboo. The trees are huge, consisting of cedar, olive, and camphor. The bamboo belt lies between the lower and upper montane forest strips and dominates all other vegetation. As we sweated our way up the trail we had to weave our way between the piles of elephant manure. You could see the trails coming out of the bamboo and the shrubs and branches they had thrown into the middle of road. Because of all the tourists, though, they are mainly nocturnal and if we were to see one, it would be in the early morning or late evening. Even knowing this, I was sure to be alert anytime we rounded a corner. There are very many elephants and very many buffalo in the forest. Luckily, we didn’t come upon either elephant or buffalo, though we spooked a troop of colobus monkeys and passed numerous buffalo wallows on the roadside. Mt. Kenya is rich in birdlife and I noticed a species of turaco gliding between the trees. These birds are bright blue, about the size of crows and they make a loud, bubbling call that is very distinctive. I had noticed them in my birdbook and had hoped to see them on the trip.
After a particularly steep section, the trees quit and we entered into the rolling, treeless, scrub environment. The wind was blowing in gusts, and setting the tan hills to waving. The sky was enormous, and as we emerged out onto the plateau, you could see for miles and miles till the rising slope disappeared up into clouds. We could see our destination, the Old Moses base camp perched atop a hill in the distance. I noticed many burned limbs and inquired with the guide. There had been a very large fire, set accidentally by beehunters several months prior, that had burned hundreds and hundreds of acres of the heather and scrub.
Five hours later, we completed the first stage of the hike and arrived at our home for the evening. This place really was a base camp. It was just a couple of buildings made of aluminum siding, a small store and a small kitchen. If you pay for it and provide food, your porters will cook dinner for you. We were the only people there so Leah and I started walking around for photo ops, of which there were no lacks. The country, even at the first base camp, is big. We had climbed to 3300 meters, which is almost 11,000 feet. I wish I knew more about the plants in this terrain – I know there is a species called Lobelia which is specialized for the environment – it looks like a big cactus, but made of fleshy leaves. At this altitude, the temperature fluctuates wildly – from summer during the day to below freezing at night. From what I understand, the fleshy outer leaves freeze during the night, but at the same time, act as insulation for the interior of the plant, and unfreeze during the day. There are also some specialized sunbirds found only in this environment. As far as mammals, leopards can be found off on some of the farther ridges, and buffalo will occasionally feed out above the tree line. The elephants stay below. Bushbuck are abundant, as are duiker. As we trekked around, we saw many large raptors. Some were certainly eagles and others were buzzards, like our red tailed hawks.
After slinging our pack down, we sat around catching our breaths on a bench inside – our guide served us chai while we sat, which was most welcome. The weather is unbelievably volatile. Within about 20 minutes we had saw sun, rain, and then pea sized hail.
As the afternoon progressed, the guide came to fetch us and we started a second, smaller hike, the destination being a meteorological station farther up the ridge. We hiked about another hour, to close to 3500 meters, winding up through the brush, sometimes more than head high, sometimes lower. It was absolutely silent except for our breathing, the scuffing of rocks, and the sounds of birds.
The sky was blue and clear all around, and the sun was starting to set. Above the tree line, the slope rose slowly and steadily for miles, all heather, low shrubs, and the strange lobelia. The landscape is disarmingly expansive. The wind had completely lain down. We were looking southwest across a wide valley, gold and shining in the sunlight, the top of which was covered in a descending ribbon of white mist. The mountain peak was farther south and swathed in cloud. As we emerged onto the top of the ridge near the weather station, we sat quietly for a few minutes and watched masses of cloud moving slowly down off the high ridges and into the valleys farther down the mountain. Before our eyes, the clouds rolled down from the high places and parted like a curtain, revealing one by one, the four peaks of Mount Kenya. It was unreal. When I say that it was silent, I mean it. We stood in the center of this epic landscape and held our breaths as we saw a piece of the world unfold in god-like movements. White curtains of clouds sank from the peaks, and visibly rolled away like a living thing to the foot of the hills away down below us. Everything was wrapped in shroud of silence. The mountain’s peak jutted up sharp and rough as broken bones from the horizon, and the sun was going down and lighting up the faces of the crags. The far away snow and ice glittered as it caught the light. After the arduous climb with all of our gear, I was absolutely euphoric.
Pat is all lit up.
Leah and I snapped A LOT of pictures that evening in the clear air. The sunset shown perfectly upon the mountain’s face and everything was lit gold. This may not be the best description, but it was the first thing I thought of when I laid eyes on Kenyaggi. Have you ever seen the old comic ‘The Death of Superman’? The villain is named Doomsday, and he looks like he is made of rocks. The craggy main peak of Mount Kenya looks exactly like his head and arms.
The light finally started to wane and the temperature began to plummet. We reluctantly left the high ridge and made our way back down into the clouds and mist to base camp. I’m not sure my feet were touching the ground. By the time we got back, other parties had made the hike from the ranger station in Meru. There were a group of Brits, a group of dental students from Norway, a few transplanted French and a pair of Israelis. Everyone huddled around the long, rough table, faces lit with head lamps, and swapped stories about the day. Pat and I snuck out a half finished bottle of Johnny Walker and had some celebration drinks while we chatted. All of the large groups had hired porters and carried food because they would be making the summit in a day and a half. Pretty soon, heaping plates of stew and salads started making their way into the dining area, which was disappointing for our trio. Our supper of energy crackers, granola and water seemed even paltrier by comparison. And it was COLD! At that altitude, it did not frost, but it was close. Long underwear and North Face jackets were the apparel of choice both inside and outside of the camp.
Knowing that the night was clear, I took my cup of dessert tea (courtesy of our guide) and walked out to take a look at the stars. Unreal. The air was crisp and cold, and so clear, and the Milky Way was strewn across the heavens. I stood outside until my hands started to hurt from the cold and I was forced to go back in. I saw one shooting star briefly streak across the sky to the west.
We all curled up in bunk beds shortly thereafter, and realized just how ill equipped we were to tackle the mountain. The sleeping bag that I brought to Africa packs into a ball that you can fit in two hands, and is only good to around 15° Celcius. Pat had something similar and Leah had to borrow blankets from the folks on staff. I slept in all of my clothes as did everyone else. A most uncomfortable night. Plus, I forgot to take my knife out of my pocket so I was continually awoken from an already fitful sleep by something digging into my hip.
The next day was less of a test. We awoke at around six, finished off the rest of the energy crackers, picked up the bags and set off back down the mountain. Everyone else was having breakfast and getting geared up for the second to last leg of the summit journey. I was very disappointed not to be able to do the same, but after the previous day and night, I knew that none of us had the proper gear to do the rest of the trip. Another time. We swung off down the trail and in no time at all, were back into the ancient juniper and hardwood forest. The elephants had been back at work the night before, and there was fresh vegetation thrown into the middle of the road, new slide marks down the steep banks, and fresh digging into the roadside. We also came upon fresh buffalo sign (which looks like nothing more than cow tracks and manure) in the middle of the road. A herd had been walking down the road during the early morning and we followed their tracks for quite a long ways. It was fresh enough that I was worried we might turn a corner of the road and find ourselves face to face with the herd! (a note to those who aren’t aware, Cape buffalo are one of the most dangerous animals in all of Africa – they can’t see very well, but their hearing and sense of smell are very keen) Instead of buffalo, we spooked the same troop of colobus monkeys that we had seen the day before, and then later, a bush buck, which ran across the road in front of us. A bush buck is a medium sized, spiral horned antelope which is commonly found in most natural forests in Kenya – they are a bit bigger than a large whitetail buck. I spotted this one at about the same time that it spotted us, and it gave us the same “Oh no!” look as a spooked whitetail before sprinting across the road and into the bamboo on the far side. Not long after, we came across a small flock of francolin, the Kenyan version of the grouse.
Three hours after leaving base camp, we arrived back at the ranger station, and hitched a ride with a KFS vehicle back into Meru. The rangers took us down to the shuttle stage and we caught the first one we could back to Nairobi. We were all of us exceptionally grimy and sweaty from the trek and the first and foremost thing on everyone’s mind was “Shower.” If you have read any of these posts, you may understand that access to running water has been something of an issue at KEFRI this summer due to construction. When we left for Mount Kenya, we had reported the problem and had been reassured that it would be resolved when we returned (this is a full week after my return from Kisumu, and two weeks since it had initially gone out). As we were riding, we all started joking that the water was definitely going to be out when we got back, all the while hoping that by joking about it, that it would be fixed. We dropped at Zambezi and walked the long, bombed-out road to the KEFRI gates. We rushed inside to the guesthouse, opened the door and went into the kitchen. I turned the knob on the sink. Nothing came out. AAAAARGHHH!!!!!
Not all was lost, though. After some heated text messages and a few calls, some workers showed up from somewhere and turned the water on for us for a few hours. Turns out, this could have been done the whole time, but no one we had talked to had actually let the construction crew know that the water was out! Live and learn!
I am currently in the lobby of the Hotel Palmers in Kisumu and catching up on the writing that I have neglected for the past few days. Tomorrow morning (Sunday), I will be picked up and taken to spend the week at Mumias Sugar Company. The goal is to try and initiate a relationship with the organization so that future generations of Masters students will be able to intern in Mumias. I am the guinea pig, so to speak, and my job will be to meet as many people in management as possible, and convince the ‘powers that be’ that all SPEA students are as smart, charming and hardworking as myself. Kidding!! But I AM supposed to schmooze and make as good of an impression as possible. With that in mind, I am also multi-tasking and doing some company research so that I will at least appear to be well informed when I get there. However, I should actually be talking about the past week in Nyanza Province, which was our destination after Nakuru.
As I have mentioned in past posts, our boss at KEFRI is interested in getting us to contribute to a reforestation project being undertaken in southwestern Kenya. The project site is near a town called Suba in a region known as the Gwassi Hills. Here are the details. A Dutch foundation is financing a project called Green Forest Social Investment (GFSI) focused on regional poverty reduction through three main approaches: 1) economic development, 2) social transformation and 3) environmental restoration. The main theme is based on promoting integration amongst the three approaches – you could call it sustainable business. The investor set up an organization in the form of an LLC, with three main divisions: 1) GFSI Limited, 2) GFSI Trust and 3) Microfinance. Limited is responsible for marketing, Trust for technical expertise and Microfinance for providing credit services. The facility houses two state-of-the-art charcoal burners, a honey-processing facility, a facility for producing biodiesel and equipment for processing aloe vera.
If you are poor and living in rural Kenya, opportunities to improve your situation are limited. Suba is exceptionally remote, and the main forms of subsistence are either farming or fishing. Enter GFSI. First of all, the organization – with the help of KEFRI - provides seeds and seedlings of indigenous trees to landowners and farmers to begin reforesting the area. As the trees grow, they are pruned by farmers, and the wood sold to GFSI where it is burned, and turned into charcoal. The product is available for sale to the local community, but is also loaded onto boats at a recently constructed landing and shipped to Kisumu for sale.
Wood assembled by species and size for carbonization - I don't recall the tonnage, but the material you see here is sufficient to run the charcoal kiln for only about a week.
Concurrently, farmers are taught how to keep bees and to build hives - GFSI lends them equipment and provides training. The key here is that the trees that have been planted are, for the most part, flowering. So as the trees grow, they are also providing the raw materials for honey, which is then sold to GFSI, which extracts it and sells it at premium prices around the country. As farmers periodically provide honey, they are essentially paying off the ‘loan’ of equipment.
Also, GFSI provides the seeds of two plants called jatropha and croton (this one is actually a tree), whose fruits are sources for producing biodiesel. As the plants grow and bear fruit, it is harvested and sold to GFSI, where it is processed locally. The ethanol is then sold in Kenya or exported.
Finally, because the land is so arid, it is ideal for growing aloe vera. You guessed it. The aloe is sold to GFSI, who process it, and sell the raw material to the larger market.
Aloe Vera being cultivated on the GFSI site.
The whole idea here is to provide opportunity to a poor, rural community that has no access to larger markets and little chance to learn new skills. Instead of providing cash like many organizations, GFSI is instead providing training and equipment with which community members can augment meager incomes derived from paltry maize crops and declining catches. The initial investment length is for five years, at the end of which the business will hopefully be self-sustaining. Of course, the business model is not-for-profit. No dividends are paid, and the investor and contributor are only trying to break even. All profits are shared with the community and as you probably gathered from above, GFSI is essentially making a market for the Gwassi community. With the exception of management, all the labor that is employed is local. Product can be loaded onto ferries at the lakeshore and cheaply shipped to the city of Kisumu for sale. The model is new, but if successful, will be replicated at other sites around the world.
The project was very well thought out. I spoke with most of the management team and I could not come up with one detail for which they had not accounted. Two and a half years into the investment term, community buy-in has been enthusiastic and honey production is expanding rapidly as more hives come on-line. The biodiesel plant, which will contribute the most to revenue, is still being built. The only snag I saw was that capacity of the charcoal burners was too great to warrant operation at the efficient level. There simply is not enough wood around the region to warrant turning on the big burner – it is not cost-effective. The organization is looking at importing other sources of fuel so that the carbonization process can resume.
My job will be to make a business plan for KEFRI, which is contributing the majority of the seeds. Basically, I will have to figure out exactly how much we have contributed and how much it cost, then forecast how much we can expect to contribute till the end of the investment term. I’m guessing that I’ll have to factor in the success rates of the different species of seed and there will probably be some form of discounting involved. Sorry, I’m just thinking on paper here. Anyway, hopefully I will be able to draw some conclusions that will be beneficial to both GFSI and KEFRI.
Now that I’ve explained the business model, I can rave about the honey. Acacia honey is fantastic. Plain and simple. The honey it makes is a dark, golden brown and I must say, it tastes pretty darn good when drizzled on toast in the morning, or even when licked off of the nearest spoon (not that I would do that). The farmers around here are also encouraged to plant large quantities of sunflowers. Not only are the oil and seeds marketable, but sunflower honey is the clearest yellow, and locally, more popular than the acacia variety. Myself, I am partial to both. Every time I think of selling organic, free trade, acacia honey from Suba, Kenya, I imagine a stampede of hippies and soccer moms rushing through the double doors of Whole Foods to get at it.
This entry is not quite in the right order for my taste. I find myself at the end of a long explanation of a social business, and I haven’t even mentioned the trek there. And for sure, it was a trek. I am guessing that the Gwassi Hills lie between 150 and 200 miles from Nakuru, where I ended the last entry. About a 3 hour trip, right? Wrong. It takes 11 hours to go from Nakuru to Gwassi in a 4x4 truck. On the downside, we were crammed into the back of a Toyota for 10 hours. On the upside, we got to see just a fantastic amount of country and we had a new driver who could both see and hear.
We left Nakuru at dawn and started heading west through Rift Valley Province. Rift Valley and the central parts of Nyanza make up the ‘bread-basket’ of Kenya, though ‘maize-basket’ might be more appropriate. The road from Nakuru to Kisumu on Lake Victoria passes through some of the richest farmland in the country. Interestingly, Rift Valley is also where the majority of the domestic tea crop is cultivated. The highway is two lanes for the entire distance to Kisumu, and passes into a series of highlands where the tea plantations are located. I had never seen a commercial tea plantation before and they are really very striking. From the road, a field of tea plants looks like one giant box hedge. The leaves are bright, young-leaf green and the shrubs are planted closely together so that the leaves and twigs intertwine solidly together at about waist-height. Workers wear canvas waders for protection, and you can see groups of them wading through the plants grabbing handfuls of leaves and stuffing them into large sacks. Although there are some small, privately owned farms, most of what we passed were large commercial operations, where the bright green tea stretched over the hills for hundreds of acres. I would have really liked to have put on a pair of the canvas pants and waded out into one of the immense fields, just to run my hands over the leaves, in the spirit of ‘Gladiator’ and the field of wheat.
This trip further solidified my impression that Kenya is mostly one big farm. We did not pass one natural forest during the whole epic journey. Though the land is green and lush, it is only a series of small, interconnected shambas, and the green is that of tall corn and waving banana leaves.
After a brief stop for tea (I was craving it for some strange reason), we arrived in Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya after Nairobi and Mombasa. As often as I have looked at a map of Kenya, for some reason I had no idea that the vast lake spread out before me was the famous Lake Victoria. I was thinking it was another Rift Valley lake like Naivasha, and because no one else was talking about it, I kept my mouth shut as well. We headed through town to a village on the shore and had the local specialty: fresh caught tilapia fried whole, with ugali and kales. True to local tradition, we ate it all with our hands. Dad, you would have been proud – I grossed out my Kenyan companions when I started crunching on the fins. However, I was myself grossed out when my boss cracked open his fish’s head.
We rushed from our greasy, though fresh, lunch to catch the ferry across to the south shore of the lake. I still had no clue which lake we were about to cross, but an explanation still had not come up in any conversation, so I maintained my peace. We waited about an hour at the landing on the lakeshore for the ferry to arrive and in the meantime, watched an African fish eagle flutter from perch to perch in the surrounding trees, and a big water monitor lizard swimming. There are no power boats on this part of Lake Victoria. The boats are home-made, and though they may have a small motor stowed somewhere, the main means of locomotion is still through large triangular sails.
Sailboats on Lake Victoria.
The ferry pulled in and we backed the truck into one of the two spaces for vehicles. The accumulated crowd boarded, the engine rumbled and the boat lurched, starting the thirty minute crossing. It was somewhat of a tight fit. The ferry is not very large and people were shoulder to shoulder around the two vehicles that fit on board. As we pulled away from the landing, I distinctly saw a hippo sink out of sight off of the right railing.
Though I still was not aware that I was taking a ferry across Lake Victoria, some discussion of the lake needs to be made. Lake Victoria is dying. Three nations claim a border along the lakeshore: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The population around the Lake is burgeoning, and it’s waters act as a waste receptacle for three different countries, municipal, industrial or otherwise. Extensive deforestation along the banks and watersheds are leading to increased silt content and suspended matter, compounded by the manure and fertilizer that most of such runoff contains. The increased nitrogen content of the water has resulted in huge problems with water hyacinth, an invasive species that is gradually taking over the water’s surface. Many of the native fish are now extinct, a result of the introduction of tilapia and Nile perch for commercial purposes (FYI, the indigenous fish in these parts are the cichlids, that we all learned about when discussing natural selection). I forget the actual statistic, but the tonnage of fish harvested and exported to Europe and Asia is just astounding. However, that number is steadily declining as fish populations are continually overharvested. In fact, fishermen have been forced to use nets with smaller and smaller mesh in order to catch anything. As you drive along the streets in Kisumu, you see baskets and baskets of minnows and fry.
The situation around Lake Victoria is an indicator of why projects like GFSI are so important. By reforesting, runoff and siltation are controlled. With different methods to obtain income, community members can pursue other means of employment, reducing pressure on fish populations. Further, with increased discretionary income, community members can afford to think about preserving their environment instead of wondering where they will find their next meal. However, any truly viable effort at restoring the Lake can only be achieved through cooperation between the countries that border it.
The landscape changes significantly once the ferry pulls into the southern dock. Whereas the Kisumu region benefits from the rain shadow cast by the Lake, Gwassi does not. Though rocky, Kisumu is decidedly green. The maize is tall and the road crossed numerous small rivers and creeks – often the piki-piki (motorcycle) drivers would park their vehicles in the shallows for a quick wash. The Gwassi region is arid. It looks a good bit like the mountains around Las Vegas and Lake Powell – high, rocky ridges covered in scrub, aloe vera and plumeria, which look like spineless suarajo cacti. The roads are all gravel and hard packed dirt. As we traced along the top of a ridge, I watched a saker falcon flying fast and stiff winged over our heads.
We were all excited when our boss informed us that our route would take us through Ruma National Park. In the 15 minutes it took to cross the park, it looked like the classic picture of African savannah that you see in magazines – tall, waving amber grass and scattered acacias with their strange flattened crowns. It was not long before we spotted a herd of giraffes through the trunks of the trees, so we unloaded briefly and snapped a few pictures. The park looks like a great place to take a tour – you are supposed to be able to see lion, hyena, leopard, giraffe (of course), and most of the common antelope. The prize though, is seeing a roan – this is one of the only places you can see them in Kenya.
After 4 hours of dirt roads and desert, we reemerged back onto the lakeshore and sunset. The ferry from Kisumu cuts across a narrow, out-flung arm of Lake Victoria, with several small islands, which was one of the reasons why I was not sure of which lake it was that we were crossing. However now that we had moved away from the narrowest portion, there was no difference between the Lake and the ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. We were looking straight west, to a perfectly flat horizon and the sun slowly dipping into the water. There were no houses or people, just our small group, the dusty road through the scrub, the Lake and the setting sun. There was no mistaking it – I was looking at Lake Victoria.
We finally turned onto a rutted road and made our way up to a set of cliffs looking over the Lake, where the project facility was located. After entering the metal gate, passing huge piles of wood stacked for charcoal and some warehouses, we emerged onto the cliff face where the staff and guesthouses were located. The place was swank. Arranged around a small bar and restaurant with a tall, thatched roof was a row of small houses with tin roofs and canvas walls, set upon individual concrete slabs. Each tent had working bathrooms, a flat screen television, and the best part – a king size four-poster bed, complete with white linen and draped in mosquito nets. The walls snapped and rustled in the breeze coming from the lake and the light from the sunset passed faintly the canvas, giving the whole structure a strange feeling of luxury. My first thought after I threw my pack on the bed and looked out the mesh door at the sunset was, “I could live here.”
That night I dined on pasta carbonara, Pat on pizza and Leah the Vegetarian on vegetables in peanut sauce, all washed down with ice cold Tuskers. It was an unbelievable feeling not to eat chicken, ugali and kales for the first time in a week. Also, they were selling glasses of Johnny Walker Red Label at the unbelievable price of 200 shillings (the exchange rate is currently about 90 KES to 1 USD)! Please leave me in this place!
It was dark by the time I walked out of the restaurant and stumbled back to the homelike interior of my tent. The stars were as bright as I have ever seen and I was looking out upon the blackness of the lake. Hundreds of tiny points of light slowly spread from shore across the darkness of the water as fishermen lit up gas lights and set their nets for the night. I unzipped the mesh front of my tent, washed my face and fell into clean sheets for the first time in a week. As I lay in the bed, surrounded by the gauze of mosquito nets and listening to the rustling of the walls, I watched the shadow of bats circling the faint luminance of the gaslight hanging just outside the entrance. I couldn’t tell you the last time I have slept so well.
Pictures soon and I hope there aren’t too many grammatical errors here – I would proof it but I am about to walk out the door and I feel the need to post! Don’t judge me if there are, they will get corrected as I reread it. Pictures soon!
