East Africa: Kenya

February 5-15, 2006

Visiting and living in Enoosean Village

Almost every day during our two weeks in Enoosaen we were invited to someone’s house. We went to John Marunga’s, Joshua’s, Janet and Julius’, Susan’s (Julius’s mother), Simon and Rebecca, Matthew’s, Peter’s, Rosalie’s, Sereya, Kokoo and Elijah’s, Jane Chacha’s, and brother of Ole Ronkei’s houses.

Going to Joshua’s house:

After our first day of work, we went to Joshua’s and had porridge made out of maize (corn). It was the best porridge I have ever had. We met his kids and wife, and mom gave her a kilo of sugar and a kilo of tea. Mom comforted Joshua’s youngest son because he fell. We said thank you and good-bye and then left to relax at home.

Going to John Marunga’s house:

After another day at work, we went over to John Marunga’s home. When we got there we sat under the trees and had a soda and talked about the water project. When we were done talking to john and the other committee members, John came up with a goat as a gift to us and so we named him Marunga after John Marunga. Mom gave John’s wife a kilo of sugar and kilo of tea. We said thank you and good-bye and said, “See you tomorrow at the spring!”

Janet and Julius’ house:

We went over to Janet’s and Julius’s house at 2:00 p.m.. When we got there Janet had been waiting for us since 1:00. We sat down at the table and then we realized that Janet had made us lunch so we felt really bad that we were late. Then Julius’s mother Susan came in. We had eggs and bread and soda. Little Jim was home because he was sick so he ate too. When we were eating, little Jim would stick out his hand to ask for more bread. I would give him a piece and he would stuff it into his mouth and then drink some soda. Then mom asked what Jims name was so Janet said “Jim Julius something” but Susan kept saying, “Jim Julius something Naiyoma” and emphasizing “Naiyoma” very adamantly and we all laughed hard. Janet kept giving us more and more soda and peter and I both said it was the most soda we had ever had! We gave Janet the sugar and tea and then went over to Susan’s house.

Susan’s home:

Susan lived on the same property as Janet so it was close. When we got there she showed us the maize she was drying and then we went into the house and on the walls were pictures of Wilson. Wilson is Susan’s son who went to the university of Oregon and then went to Stanford medical school. So she had pictures of Wilson running the Butte to Butte run in Eugene and then had some from Stanford and some of the graduation that she went to at Stanford. We couldn’t stay long because we had to go to Simon and Rebecca’s house.

Volunteering at the water project

When I was a baby, we lived at Westmoreland Family housing and our next door neighbor was Morompi Ole Ronkei, who is from Enoosaen village in Kenya and is the only person from there to get a PhD (in political science from the University of Oregon).       He gave us a contact in the village and his name is Julius and he took us around the village when we were there. He also helped another boy from Enoosaen, Wilson, Julius’ brother, who is going to Stanford Medical School. Ole Ronkei is highly respected in the village. Since we were going to Kenya on our trip, he invited us to stay in his house since he and his family are now living in Colorado. He told us that there was a water project going on in his village and we decided we wanted to help the Enoosaen village get water.

The Enoosaen Water Project started in 2001 in the Masai village of Enoosaen, 50 km from Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Jim Bryson, from the Eugene Rotary Club, funded phase one of the project. The people in the village go to kiosks to get drinking water from natural springs in the earth. They finished phase one in 2003 and that gave drinking water to 4,000 people in the village but during drought, the kiosk in the center of town dries out. Now with phase 2, the project we worked on, there will be water even during a drought. The phase two springs are 2 km from the center of town. The people that started the water project have different jobs—the chairman is Sammy, the communications director is Julius, the treasurer is Joshua, and the secretary is Steven. Joshua and Julius worked almost every day at the project while we were there and the whole community pitches in to help too.

Every morning from Monday through Friday we walked 2 km to the site where we worked on the project. We would walk up and down the hills and then downhill for the last stretch into the riparian zone where the springs were. The first day the forest was thick and we had to wait for tools. Many people came to help and the clearing went fast with their machetes. Within an hour, the area was cleared out and we had found five springs. After we chopped all the bushes, branches and vines out of the way, we had to get all the debris into piles so that we could start leveling the ground. When we stopped for the day, Julius told us that the next day we would be leveling ground.

On the second day, Julius told us we would be taking the big tree in the middle down and starting to level the earth. When we arrived, there were four people working on the tree and we started removing the top layer of sod and rocks (the rocks would be later crushed to make the cement wall to protect the springs). When the tree finally came down, everyone clapped. Then we started taking out and leveling the earth. We were half-way done with the sod when we finished our work that day. We knew tomorrow would be a hard day of work, continuing to clear.

On the third day, I helped Grandma clear out all the debris inside and around the springs and the rocks from the stream bed. Two kids helped Grandma carry the rocks to the pile and we had cleared out one stream by the end of the day, which was a good accomplishment!

On the fourth day, we moved large rocks into pile so that they could be crushed the following week. We moved over 100 rocks some of them big, some of them small. The big ones were hard to carry but they made our muscles stronger. At the end of the day, we only had a couple more mounds of dirt left to level. But on Friday, I was unlucky because I was sick and couldn’t go to the project, which bummed me out.

I learned that water is life in the Enoosaen village, even though we have unlimited water in the U.S.A. In Kenya, we saw cows dying and heard that people were dying because of the drought and not having enough water and food. By our helping to volunteer, hopefully in two years, Enoosaen will never run out of water and there were always be enough water for everybody in the village. We also learned how to uncover a spring and build pipes through to carry the water to the village. To do this, the ground has to be even or the water will not flow through.

I really enjoyed the volunteering because not only did we help the village, we made good friends in the people that we worked with every day and will always remember what we did there and the friends we made.

February 11, 2006: My 12^th birthday: Dead Goat Walking

Throughout our visit in Enoosaen, we had been telling people that my birthday was going to be on Saturday, February 11. The first time we talked to Julius he said that, for special occasions, Masai slaughter a goat and dress in Masai clothes. So when my birthday was three days away, the water project committee said they would donate a goat. When they brought the goat on the day of the my birthday, they decided that the goat they brought was too small so they went to the goat shed of the Ole Ronkei family and found another, bigger goat and brought it under a tree. Joshua slit the goat’s neck with his knife to kill him and then hung the goat from a tree and started skinning it. Dad, Peter, and I watched the whole time. When Joshua and Julius were done skinning the goat, they started cutting the meat into little pieces and then Joshua cut a hole in the goat’s ear and hung the head on a string from the tree. While they were cutting the meat, they used every part of the goat. The belly was given to Kokoo, Ole Ronkei’s mother, for her to use in a soup. Even the head was taken to be used for some sort of soup. Then everyone started showing up so Peter and I started giving out sodas for every one. Mom and Dad gave me a traditional Masai cloak and 2 bead necklaces and Jonathan gave me a bracelet that had my name on it and the Kenyan flag and Janet gave me a bracelet and 2 beads, Simon gave me a rosary, Sereya gave me bracelet and Kokoo gave me a beaded gourd for holding milk. Then we all gathered under a tree and everyone got to say something. My friends wished me a happy birthday and thanked our family for helping with the water project. Joseph, the catechist at Enoosaen Catholic Church, did a special blessing for me and gave me a Maasai name, Lekishon, which means promise of blessing. Because Joseph gave me this name, he became my Maasai godfather. Since everyone didn’t know English, Jonathan, who had just been accepted to the University of West Alabama, translated. At the end, I spoke and thanked everyone for coming and for the gifts they gave me and for making my birthday so special. In the middle of this sharing, we stopped to eat our feast of goat, cabbage, potatoes and rice. We ate and finished our comments and then we had cake which said: “Asante, Paul, miaka kumi mbili, February 11. Ashe, en gai,” which literally translated means, “Thank you, Paul, for 12 years this February 11.(in Ki-Swahili) Thank you, God! (in Maasai).”  The cake was served differently than the way we do it in America. First someone fed me a piece and then I went around to everyone and gave each person a piece. When we were done with the cake we thanked everybody and said good-bye to everyone and then started cleaning up. When we got to the kitchen, it was spotless and we figured out that Sereya and Janet had cleaned up. When we finished cleaning up, we were all tired and relaxed for the rest of the day.

February 5, 2006

On our first day in Enoosaen, we went to the Enoosaen Catholic Church. At the beginning of the mass, we were surprised when a large group of children danced in and were followed by the pastors. That same group danced throughout the mass. The mass went from 10 a.m. to noon which is longer than our masses at home but this mass was a lot more active. After mass we talked to the pastors and then went to the Sunday market. We got lots of veggies and then went to talk to the committee of the water project. They told us about the water project and we asked some questions. At the end of the meeting, we decided to start our work on the water project the next morning.

February 2-4, 2006

Mugged and jacked in Nairobi

Peter and I started out the day by sleeping in and not eating breakfast at Flora Hostel. When we woke up, mom took us over to the Youth Travelers Hostel so we could eat breakfast and go to the Internet. We ordered breakfast but it took a long time so we started to work on our math homework. When the food finally came, we ate. When Mom went to pay, she went to get her wallet and it wasn’t there and she said, “My wallet has been stolen.” There were two people working on a laptop and they said, “No way, we’ve been here the whole time.” Then Mom discovered that our passports had been stolen as well. We knew we had to cancel our credit cards and call the U.S. embassy so we headed back to Flora Hostel. We were walking back and mom says, “Well, I guess that Nairobi has earned its reputation as “Nai-robbery!” We bought a calling card and were trying to cancel the credit cards but we were having a hard time getting through so we called our friends at Game Drive Safari who told us to come to their office to make the phone calls. We cancelled the cards and ordered new ones from their office. We also went to the police and got an abstract that said that our passports and credits cards were stolen. We knew we couldn’t go to Uganda because we didn’t have passports and we were told it would take 13 days to get new ones. We started talking about what we were going to do now. We started thinking and thought may be we could go to Enoosaen. We all agreed and the next day we packed up and went to the village. When we got to Kisi, we were met by a friend of Ole Ronkei’s and his name was Julius. Since we hadn’t eaten all day, we ate at a restaurant and caught a matatu to the village.

January 26-February 1, 2006

Seven Day Safari in Kenya (animals in the order we saw them):

*List of animals spotted**:

1^st day: Samburu National Park

Ostrich

Von der Decken hornbill

Red-billed hornbill

Gerenuks (long-necked antelope)

Kirk’s dik dik (tiny antelope)

Giraffe, reticulated

African elephant

African buffalo

Mother lion and 2 cubs

2^nd day: Samburu/Buffalo Springs National Parks

Hadada ibis

Helmeted guinea fowl

Dik dik

Giraffe

Mother lion and 2 cubs (again)

Buffalo (up close this time)

Red-billed hornbill

Leopard

Dik dik

Herd of impalas (antelopes)

Oryx (antelopes)

Grant’s gazelles

Pride of 10 lions

Grevy’s zebra

Dik dik

Grant’s gazelle, oryxes, gerenuks, and impala

Herd of oryx with babies

Unstriped ground squirrel

Butler eagle

Mongoose, white-tailed

Black-backed jackal

Impala

Water buck

Lone female lion

Mother lion with 2 cubs (again!)

Superb starling

White-headed buffalo weaver

Ring-necked doves

Elephant shrew

Vervet monkeys

Olive baboons

Common agamas (lizard)

Ostrich, 2 males

Impalas

Oryxes

Harrier hawk

Mongooses, white-tailed

Grevy’s zebra

Water buck (big deer)

1 zebra

Grant’s gazelle

Gerenuks

Crocodile

Herd of zebras

Cheetahs, male and female

Thomson’s gazelles (the prey)

Vulturine guinea fowl

Black plover

Marabou stork

About 25 elephants

3^rd day: Buffalo Springs and Lake Nakuru National Parks

Dik dik

Grant’s gazelle

Herd of giraffes

Gerenuks

1 cheetah

Herd of zebras

4 elephants

Nakuru National Park (same day)

White stork

Grey-crowned crane

Wahlberg’s eagle

Marabou storks

White pelican

Sacred ibis

Yellow-billed stork

Zebras, plains (wider stripes)

Thomson’s gazelle

Wart hogs

Buffalo

Flamingo, greater and lesser

White rhinoceros (5)

Buffalo

Zebras

Thomson’s gazelles

Zebras

Olive baboons

Rothschild’s giraffe

Fish eagle

Wart hogs

Buffalo

Zebras

Impala

4^th day: on the way to Masai Mara

Secretary bird

Zebra, plains

Masai giraffe

Topis (large antelope)

Marabou stork

Gazelles, Thomson’s

Impalas

5^th day: Masai Mara

Wildebeest

Impalas

Zebra

Secretary bird

Harrier eagle

Topi

Thomson’s gazelle

Masai giraffe

Cheetah eating Thomson’s gazelle

Female lion, injured

Ground hornbill

Secretary bird

Herd of Zebras

Hartebeests (antelopes)

Wart hogs

Hartebeests

Lilac-breasted roller

Zebra

Wildebeest

Hartebeest

Buffalo

Eland (largest antelope)

Ostrich, male and female

Buffalo

Red-billed oxpecker

Ruppell’s vulture

Thousands of buffalos

2 giraffes

Topis

28 ostriches

Masked weaver

Hippopotamuses

Crocodile

Cheetah on top of grassy mound

Thomson’s gazelle

African elephant

1 giraffe

4 ostriches

Wildebeest-zebra-eland

Topis

10 Masai giraffe

12 elephants

1 lion

Herd of elephants

2 lions

Kori bustard

Goshawk

2 juvenile lions, 1 mother lion, 2 2-month-old cubs, and 1 male lion with a huge mane

1 black rhinoceros

3 yellow-billed oxpeckers

Elephants, baby and mama

6^th day: Masai Mara

5 black-backed jackals

Wildebeest

Crested plover

3 cheetahs (2 2-year-old cubs and a mom, who played with our lens cap that my father accidentally dropped)

Thomson’s gazelles mating

Wildebeest

Zebra

Giraffe

Wildebeest

Zebra-wildebeest-impala

Egyptian geese

Hippopotamus

Marabou stork

Bush buck

Zebra

Buffalo

Wart hogs

3 buffalo (one had a spear in his head)

4 giraffes (2 babies, 2 mothers)

Zebra

2 ostriches

Buffaloes

Baboons

Elephants

4 male lions

White-headed vulture

Black-backed vulture

Elephants (4, plus a baby)

Reed buck

Buzzard

7^th day: Masai Mara to Nairobi

Giraffe

Elephant

Zebra

Hartebeest

Jackals

Thomson’s gazelle

Topis

Wildebeest

Zebras

Tawny eagle

Bat-eared fox

Highlights of the Safari

Samburu National Park

My story of the baby lion!

We drove around a corner and bam! there was a baby lion sitting like Kale staring straight at us. I felt like getting out and petting him because he looked very fuzzy and huggable. His eyes were black and he had fuzzy golden hair and short ears and he was very interested in us like we were in him.  He sat there staring at us and I felt like I wasn’t in a van because we were so close to him—only a couple feet away!  I named him “my fuzzy little friend.” Soon he got up to play with his brother and I noticed that we had something in common—a brother! So we watched them play for a long time, frolicking through the bushes and climbing some small trees, getting ready to go hunting one day. It was getting dark so we had to leave but we hoped to see them the next day!  

A leopard, lions and a zebra!

We only spent 1 full day in Samburu but we still saw a ton of wildlife. In the morning, we saw a herd of giraffes, lions, a leopard, buffalo, lots of antelope and gazelles and oryxes. The really cool sighting was the leopard—in part because I spotted it and it was in a very cool spot. We were about to turn on another road when I saw something moving in a dead tree and I knew at once that it was a leopard so we turned back and started watching the leopard. It was lying in a tree trying to go to sleep but it couldn’t because there were 15 mini-vans trying to see it! Finally it got annoyed with us and walked down the tree about a meter away from Peter and me. Two mini-vans started following it but we let it go because it was probably trying to get some sleep. So we went on. Later on, we found a pride of 10 lions, no males. It was in an area covered in bushes so it was hard to find them but when we did, they all started coming out. The first one that Dad saw was lying near a bush. It was sleeping but we woke it up so it got up and started moving. When it got up, about 10 other lions started walking across the road. It was like a parade of lions going across the road! Then we went out and started search for more of them. We found some under a tree sleeping so we left them alone and moved on. About a minute away from the lions, I spotted something in the distance. I didn’t know what it was so I pointed it out to our driver, Sampuli, and he said it was a Grevy’s zebra! We were all so excited to see our first zebra. We turned off the road and started heading toward it. When we got there, it had just taken a dust bath so it was a little red but you could still see the black and white stripes of the zebra. We stayed there a long time because we were really interested in it. But then it started to get hot so we went back to eat lunch and wait until it cooled down a little bit.  

Cheetahs on the prowl

In the afternoon we were off to a different place in the park. We saw a herd of oryx and gazelles and antelope but then Sampuli started going fast and we asked why and he said that there were cheetahs ahead and there they were, lying in the shade! When we came, they stood up and started walking to a dead log to look for prey for the night and on the horizon were some Thomson’s gazelles. So they started making their way over, walking into the breeze. When they were in sight of the Thomson’s gazelles, they crawled along the ground. One stayed back and the other went to get the kill. While the cheetahs were crouching still like a log, one gazelle went away from the herd and lay under a tree because it was tired, and my mother’s comment was, “What’s that stupid gazelle doing, just lying under the tree while the cheetahs are there.” Peter and I said, “Mom, he obviously doesn’t know that the cheetahs are there!” When the cheetah was about 50 meters away, it got up but didn’t go and while it was up, the gazelle that was under the tree saw it and warned the others so the cheetah had to find another dinner. Well, I guess the “stupid gazelle” under the tree was the hero of the day!

Nakuru National Park

When we were watching the flamingos at the lake, I was looking through my binoculars at the plains because the plains were scattered with animals. I saw something very big and grey and I knew they were rhinos. So I told our driver and he took us over there and sure enough, there were 5 white rhinos (2 mothers and 3 babies), zebras, and buffalo. The mothers are so big—they weigh about 1 or 2 tons. We sat in the van and watched them chew on grass and the two babies play. The other baby was asleep in the grass but woke up because of the disturbance of the other two playing and joined in the fun! I got some good footage. Sampuli said we should move on so we did. About a kilometer away were two more rhinos and they were much closer so we got better footage and photos. We moved on to the observatory on the hill. There were so many cars going up and down and every time one would pass us, dust would go in through the windows and the van would be filled with a cloud of dust. When we got to the top, we parked with many other mini vans. We got out and looked down and there was a lot of pink from the flamingos and black dots from the herds of buffalos and two small dots which were the rhinos. We went on a walk at the top of the ridge and saw baboons along the way. Peter was very interested in rock climbing on the ridge and mom was very scared and kept saying, “Peter, don’t go so close, you might fall!”

Masai Mara National Park

Day 1

When we went in the morning we were on top alert. We saw two vans in the bushes and we knew something was there. Sampuli went over there and sitting under a bush was a cheetah and a Thomson’s gazelle as its prey. We were so excited but it wasn’t eating it. So we watched it for a long time. Then she stood up and started eating from the butt and you could hear her teeth crunching through the bones and eating all the flesh. She went fast through the body and then got to the stomach. Sampuli pointed out that there was a vulture circling the cheetah and its prey and that means that that vulture is calling the other vultures so that they can take over the kill. We stayed for a little bit longer but then Sampuli said we should get going. When we were long 100 meters away, we saw another minivan in the bushes and we went over there to see what they were seeing. Under a bush was a female lion and it was injured. It had two puncture wounds, probably from a male antelope’s horn when she was on the hunt. We said prayers for her to get better and left her to heal in peace. When we got to the main road, we saw three ground hornbills but kept moving toward the Mara River. On our way, we saw hartebeests, elands, and thousands of buffalo. After the buffalo we saw and clump of something and when we got closer we saw that they were many ostriches—we counted a family of 28. We finally got to the Mara River and crossed the border to Tanzania without paying! We went with a guide to see the hippos and crocodiles. First we saw the hippos. Some were lounging in the sun and others in the river playing. Then we went on to see the crocodile and we finally found him but we didn’t see the body, just the head. We walked back to the van and went to eat our picnic lunch. We crossed the border to Trans Mara. We weren’t supposed to go there but we could eat there. We had our lunch and went back through the border. All of a sudden Sampuli turned around and we went through the border again. When we had gone a little ways, we looked to the left and about 30 gazelles were looking one way so we went off the road and went the way they were looking and we saw something. Sampuli went towards it and it was a cheetah. It was on top of a mound looking for prey. We got so close that we were only a meter away and then Sampuli said we had to go because there was a ranger coming and we weren’t supposed to be there. So we went zooming down the road and got back to Masai Mara in time and started heading back. Every where we looked, we saw wildebeest because they were confused because of the drought. When we were heading back, we saw 12 huge bodies and knew that they were elephants. So we went over and there were 2 babies and we watched them take a bath. We started moving on and Mom thought that she saw something so we went back and there was a lion but Sampuli said, ”I think we should go because we have a flat tire.” So, we all said, “Yes, go.” When we fixed the tire Sampuli said we are going to find a black rhino and when we were looking for the black rhino we saw and big clump and so we went over and there were two juvenile lions, 1 mother lion, and 2 2-month-old cubs. The 2 cubs were playing and they were so small. Then we went over to where the male was and this male had a HUGE mane and we were all happy to see a male lion. We were still searching for the black rhino and then we saw another clump and Sampuli said that that was were the rhino was so we started going towards the vans and then I saw it and pointed it out too the rest of the family and then it went into the bushes and so Sampuli went to the other side of the bushes and then it came out and so we watched it eat grass and then it went back in to the bushes and we left and went back to the camp site.

Day 2

Cheetah and the lens cap

We went in the morning and I wasn’t feeling good so I was sitting down and then dad said, “Cheetah!” So I stood up and there under a tree were three cheetah, two babies and a mom. The two babies were two-years-old and about the size of Kale. When we drove up, the mom looked at us with her tear drop lines and red eyes. We sat there for a long time and then suddenly dad says, “S**t!” and we watch his lens cap hit the ground and roll to the cheetahs. Immediately, the little ones got up and started batting it with their paws and chasing after it like Kale does. The two cubs loved it! Then we saw Sampuli waving a pillow and one of the cubs was interested in it but the other stayed with the lens cap. What Sampuli was trying to do was make the cheetah jump on the hood of the car. When the cubs sat down, Sampuli threw the pillow and it got stuck in a tree so we drove up and mom got the pillow and Sampuli got the lens cap and then he threw the pillow again but the cheetahs didn’t want to play so we got the pillow and left!

We went on and saw buffalos, antelope, and ostriches and then mom said “come on Sampuli I thing it’s time for a male lion!” Then we saw a herd of elephants and well we were watching them Sampuli said “There is a male lion ahead!” all of us were so surprised how fast he found one. When we got over to the male lion there were two one under a bush and another in the open. The one in the open was 13 years old and had a huge mane and the one under a tree. We watched the one with the big mane for a long time but then Sampuli said that we should try to find the mother because we knew it had to be around the area. While we were searching for the mother, we found another male but not the mother. So we kept going to try to find the mother. Again we saw another male and kept going. Further down the road we saw a herd of elephants. Sampuli tried to get us a closer look at the elephants. A mother with a very small baby came out of the bushes and we got a great view of her and the baby because it went right past us and we got really good photos. Sampuli saw some rangers following us so we had to speed up so we wouldn’t get fined. At that time it was time for us to return to camp. When we went back to town, we ate some of Mosamba’s good food and went to bed.

Day 3

We went into the park for morning game drive. We searched for a group of lions in the bush but we never did find them. We kept moving on because we didn’t have much time. On the way we saw two bat-eared foxes. We went up on the ridge and Sampuli let us get out of the van even though it was illegal and Mom planted her peace seed in a termite mound. When we were done, we went back to camp, packed all of our stuff and left. It was a long journey back to Nairobi but when we got there, we said goodbye to Sampuli and Mosamba and hoped that when we went back to Nairobi, we would see them and their families again.

January 24, 2006: WHOLE DAY IN NAIROBI

Today we are looking for were we went to go on safari so we went over to game drive. Dad did all the talking so peter and I worked on other stuff and but sometimes (every minute) peter would attack me so it was hard to do work. When dad was done we went back to the hotel to research more and tell the rest about what we talked about.  

January 23, 2005: HALF DAY IN NAIROBI