Questions and Answers

Hello, back in civilization for a bit so you can expect to see some new posts popping up over the next 4 days or so. Here’s a link to a few wildlife pictures I took in the Maasai Mara Reserve:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cstoehr/MaasaiMaraAnimals

A few of us left our camp near the Maasai Mara yesterday to head back to Nairobi to get some work done that we couldn’t do in the bush. We stayed in Narok, a town about halfway between the Mara and Nairobi last night and then drove into Nairobi today. I will be spending the next few days working on computer related issues for the Maasai Community Partnership Project and for the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition. A couple of other students will be spending their time in the Kenyan National Archives doing research on our current project, and Meitamei will be spending his time meeting with the Vice President of Kenya (yep … Meitamei is a really important guy) and working on other issues that are above my pay grade.

I’m a bit tired from all the travel so I don’t feel up to writing a detailed account of what I’ve been doing in the Mara but I’ll get to it in the next few days. In the meantime I thought I would try and answer some of the questions people have been asking in their comments and in their emails to me. So here goes:

1. Sophie asked me to put up a map showing where I have been. Here’s one I stole from http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/africa/kenya/:

Nairobi is in the bottom center of Kenya, just to the right and down from Nairobi is Amboseli National Park where I spent most of June. Maasai Mara (spelled Masai Mara on the map) is to the left of Nairobi right on the border with Tanzania. I spent most of the last two weeks camping very near to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The famous wildebeest migration happens in Serengeti National park and in the Maasai Mara. I have already witnessed the very early stages of it and it’s pretty darn cool.

I can’t really give more specifics on the locations I have been in because I just don’t have them. I’ll try and get coordinates or better reference points for a future post. Here’s a picture that should give you some idea of what life looks like from our hillside camp near the Mara:

I hope you appreciate this picture because I had to risk life and limb to get it … well sort of There is a fence made of thorny Acacia sticks around our campsite which keeps most of the wildlife out. To get the view in this picture I had to walk a short ways outside of the fence at sunset which is when many of the predators are starting to become active. Don’t worry though, I didn’t go very far from the campsite and I was definitely making sure I was aware of my surroundings and any odd noises while I was out there. I don’t think it’s actually that dangerous as long as you pay attention, the Maasai are out walking about and herding cattle all the time. However, people definitely do get killed by the wildlife. A Maasai women was killed by an elephant not far from our campsite shortly before we arrived there. In the bottom of the picture you can see two Maasai Villages (Bomas) and there are many others in close proximity to our campsite. Don’t forget that you can click on this picture or any of the other pictures on my blog to see a bigger version.

2. A number of people are wondering why I am coming home earlier than expected.

So here’s the scoop: All the students that I am traveling with fly home to Arizona on August 9th. The original (loose) plan was that I would get down to work with Meitamei on computer related issues like teaching computer skills to Maasai people, building websites for Maasai activist/environmental groups, and fixing broken computers. However, things rarely go according to plan here in Kenya and it turns out that the resources just won’t be available for me to be doing that kind of work for very long after the students depart. I should be more specific …. when I say “resources” I mostly mean Meitamei For those of you who don’t remember who Meitamei is, he is the Maasai person who is one of the leaders of our group here in Kenya. He is the head of MERC, an amazingly strong activist for the Maasai people and for the environment, as well as a very important politician. He is so incredibly busy here, I don’t know how he manages to keep up. If you’re interested you can read a short bio on Meitamei on the MCPP’s “about us” page. At this point it just wouldn’t be an effective use of Meitamei’s time to shepherd me around so I can work, and I can’t really do the work that needs to be done without him taking care of all the logistics. There are a number of other factors as well, such as lack of easy internet access near our home base in the Mara, as well as a lack of electricity there. They are hoping to have electricity and internet access in the future but it will be a while before that comes to together. So … with all these considerations in mind Mary, Meitamei, and I agreed that it just didn’t make sense for me to stay much longer than the rest of the students.

Although I am a bit sad to be coming home earlier than I expected, I am also really excited about the possibilities it opens up for me. My current plan, which is likely to change, is to hang out in Nairobi for a few days after the students leave working on computer projects for the MCPP. After that I am planning to go to the coastal city of Mombasa which is supposed to be very nice. I plan on spending my time there relaxing at a nice tourist resort enjoying all the amenities I have been missing for the past 2 months and exploring the city. Following that, I’ll hop a plane to London, hang out there for 4 or 5 days and then make my way back to Arizona. As I said, it’s all subject to change, but that’s the rough outline I have in my head right now.

3. So that leads to another question I’ve been getting from people: What am I gonna do with my life when I get back to the states?

Well, I don’t have a simple answer to that. What I do know is that I have a whole new appreciation for all kinds of things that I used to take for granted and that I am really excited to be back in the good ‘ol USA  and see my friends and family. I also am feeling re-invigorated about doing computer science and looking forward to getting back to work … one can only meander about for so long.  I am thinking I will most probably head west for a while. I’m thinking Los Angeles or San Francisco … but again don’t hold me to any of this

OK, enough for now …  I got things to do man! Non-bean-and-rice food to eat, hot showers to take, beds to sleep in, weird Ugandan soap operas to watch … so I’ll catch you later

Leaving for the Mara

We are leaving to drive to Maasai Mara in just a couple hours. We will be camping there for the next month so I will be dropping off the grid once again. I hope to be able to get to a lodge with internet access while I’m there but there aren’t any guarantees. Hopefully I’ll be able to post at least once or twice throughout the next 4 weeks though.

In other news it looks like I’ll be coming home a bit earlier than expected. I haven’t changed my flight yet but I will probably be home in late August. I would have liked to have stayed longer but the logistics aren’t going to work out for me to be here beyond that. I’ll explain more after I get my travel plans set. That’s all for now, I’ll catch you when I find a lodge with internet access near our new campsite….

A Visit to Engong’u Narok

First off I want to let you know that I have posted another gallery of pictures:
Amboseli People

http://picasaweb.google.com/cstoehr/AmboseliPeople

I have also included permanent links to my picture galleries as well as some other relevant websites on the right side of my blog …. and now for the interesting part of this post:

Mary and Meitamei, the founders of the Maasai Community Partnership Project, have been building relationships with the Maasai villages around Amboseli for many years. At this point the project is very well known and has a considerable track record for helping the Maasai people. Due to that fact our campsite had many Maasai visitors on a daily basis which presented us with an incredible opportunity to learn about Maasai culture. We got to talk with lots of different Maasai people, and because of our association with MCPP they trusted us much more than a normal tourist and were willing to discuss the many complex and personal issues facing their culture. I will share some of what I have learned about these issues in a future post, but for now I want to give a specific account of a night we spent with some of our new Maasai friends which was one of the most amazing nights we had during our time in Amboseli, and probably one of the most amazing nights of my life.
Shortly before we returned to Nairobi we had the opportunity to spend the night in a Maasai village. Just as it was beginning to get dark, around 6pm, we set off walking from our campsite led by a few Warriors from the village we were going to visit, Engong’u Narok. The wildlife begins to get quite active when the sun sets and our path to the village required us to pass thru an “elephant corridor”, which is just a term for an area that is heavily trafficked by herds of elephants in the morning and evening as they travel between their daytime and nighttime grazing areas. Due to the likelihood of having a close encounter with wildlife we had two vans driving near us for the duration of the journey so that we could quickly jump inside should we run into any aggressive animals. We saw Cape Buffalo, Wildebeest, and Zebra along the way but never needed the protection of the vans.
When we arrived at the village we were escorted inside the circular fence, made of thorny acacia bushes, that enclosed the village and led to an area where we could sit down. We were then served tea by our hosts and we spent the next hour or so just sitting around and talking with the villagers about all sorts of things. Some of us used the opportunity to get help in our efforts to learn the Maasai language, another group traded English and Maasai tongue-twisters back and forth, and yet another took turns singing songs with a group of Maasai children. As the night wore on more and more of the village began to gather close to the area we were in. I was busy singing and dancing with the children when I turned around and realized that just behind me there were easily 100 people gathered in a circle doing traditional Maasai dances. We were quickly pulled into the circle and spent the rest of the evenining singing and dancing. The night was only lit by one small lamp but it was all we needed because the group stayed very close together and every time I strayed even a few feet away I was quickly pulled back into the dance. During the course of the night I held hands with countless people, and felt numerous arms around my shoulders guiding me thru the dances. The Maasai I danced with that night had a warmth and friendliness to them unmatched in my experience.
About 12:30 AM, after many hours of dancing we were taken in small groups to various different houses to sleep. The Maasai houses we stayed in are small structures, often having 3 to 5 small rooms, and are constructed primarily from sticks and cow dung. I am about 5 feet 8 inches tall and I had to duck the entire time I was inside the house. My group consisted of myself and two other guys from our class. Once we were inside we were led to the bed, which was a structure made from animal hides on top of sticks. The three of us crawled on top of the bed and then had a brief comical discussion with the woman who was hosting us. She didn’t speak english, and our Maasai language abilities consisted primarily of Hi/How are you/Thank you/ and a few other phrases that weren’t very useful such as “Bird poop is very bad” Never the less we were able to communicate that we had everything we needed and thanked her for hosting us, and then we settled down to try and sleep. Once we turned off our flashlights it was completely black, the kind of darkness where someone can wave their hand inches in front of your face and you have no idea. The bed was a bit too small for the three of us and I didn’t bring a warm enough blanket so I didn’t sleep much, but it didn’t matter. Throughout the night I kept thinking about the fact that very few people would ever get to have an experience similar to the one I was having and how incredibly lucky I was to be there.
As the morning light started to filter in thru small openings in the house the Donkeys started braying and the Cattle, which are kept in a pen in the center of the village, started to stir and make loud noises as well. We got out of bed and were served tea by our host, she then heated some water over a small fire, which we used to wash our hands and faces. There was quite a bit of laughter throughout these activities as the language barrier once again presented us with numerous challenges. At this point it was around 6 am, I thanked our host profusely by reapeating the phrase Ashe Oling (pronounced ahh-shay Oh-ling), which is Maasai for “Thank you very much” and gesturing towards the bed, the tea, the water, and the house. She nodded her head and laughed and then I wandered out into the village.
Not long after I left the house a Maasai Warrior came up to me and asked if I wanted to help him tend to the cattle and sheep, I said yes and we headed towards the animal pens in the middle of the village. My first task was to catch a young calf which was sick and needed to be force fed some medicine. The calf seemed to know what was coming and did quite a good job of evading me. I chased it around for a few moments and then once the three Warriors who were watching me and laughing had been thoroughly entertained by my failure they helped herd the calf my way so I could get a hold of it. They had me stand over it and squeeze it between my legs as I held its head up so that they could shove a glass bottle full of a liquid made from a local plant into it’s mouth and force it to drink. Once we had successfully administered the medication to the calf we headed off towards the sheep pen. The sheep are sprayed down once a week with a liquid that keeps ticks from burrowing into their skin. I wasn’t required to do much other than make meek attempts at herding the sheep towards the Warrior who had the foot-pedal-powered spray gun. Once we were done with the sheep I wandered off to locate the rest of my classmates.
We spent the rest of the morning just milling about and talking with some of the 320 members of the village. I spent a while playing soccer with Maasai children and Warriors with a ball we had brought to give to the village, and then I wandered around and took some pictures of the various different activities others in my group were engaged in. It was a wonderful morning and although I was sad to leave the village I was thoroughly exhausted from all the dancing, lack of sleep, and focus required to interact across language barriers, so I was looking forward to getting back to camp for some much needed rest.
Unfortunately I think that this description does little justice to what the actual experience was like, I doubt I will ever be able to communicate how amazing it was. One thing I want to make sure I say is that the members of that Maasai village were incredible hosts and some of the the nicest and most inviting people I have ever been around. Although they are experiencing very hard times they eagerly shared what little they had with us and demonstrated a never-ending patience with us as we attempted to learn their dances, language, and customs.

A Few Pictures

I’m working on a lengthy blog post but I got busy today and didn’t get it finished. In the meantime I thought I would post some of my pictures. I have taken around 700 pictures so far, I was only able to post about 20 of them though. The internet connection I have access to in Nairobi is much better than the one at the lodge in Amboseli but still not very fast so it takes quite a while to upload pictures. Here is a very small sample of some of the wildlife pics I have taken so far, the pictures displayed in this album are fairly small but there is a link next to each picture which will let you download larger copies if you want:

Amboseli Wildlife

<http://picasaweb.google.com/cstoehr/AmboseliAnimals>

I stumbled across a free internet connection today which was an excellent find. The best part is that I can pick up the signal in a restaurant where I can get beer and pizza. After living without most of the amenities I am used to for the last 3 weeks, that restaurant was a truly amazing discovery. I think I was smiling ear to ear all afternoon as I munched away and caught up on all the news from the past three weeks. I’m gonna get kicked out of the building I’m in shortly, so I gotta run. Hopefully I’ll get a more in depth post up tomorrow…

Back in Nairobi

We got back into Nairobi a few hours ago. I only have a few minutes before the internet cafe I’m in closes so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to put up any details. In the meantime I just wanted to let you all know that I’m alive and well, and really really happy to have just had a meal that didn’t involve beans, rice, or potatoes. I’m off to shower and get all that Amboseli dust off of me, I’ll post pictures and stories tomorrow. I also wanted to say thanks to those who have been commenting on my posts, I enjoy reading them … makes me feel a little less like I’m half a world away from everyone I know I’ll catch you guys tomorrow

A day at Serena Lodge

Hello everyone, I had an unexpected brush with the internet today so I thought I would take the opportunity to throw up a quick post. I have been in Amboseli for just over a week now and its been pretty amazing. We are camping on the border of the park and I have my tent situated so that when I wake up each morning I look right into Amboseli. I have already seen an incredible variety and quantity of wildlife. The electric fence that separates us from the park does little to keep anything out of our campsite. The Gazelles and Impala don’t venture in but our campsite is surrounded by Hyena dens and there is an Elephant named George who likes to come into the campsite at night and look around. It certainly doesn’t help that the electric fence is very rarely turned on but it doesn’t stop George even when it is, he just shoves over one of the poles supporting the fence with his foot and then moseys on in. He only comes in late at night so I have slept through most of his visits but I occasionally wake up to the sound of the fence clanging around and then I hear him crunching away on the underbrush. Other than the Hyenas destroying my soccer ball and a water bottle during the night, and the occasional theft of food by the Vervet Monkeys the proximity to the wildlife doesn’t present much of a problem. You have to be more aware at night but as long as you shine a light around before you leave your tent the Hyenas will scatter … but when George is around you have to stay inside your tent until he moves on.

Here’s a shot taken from our campsite near Amboseli. It’s dusk so it’s hard to see it, but that’s Kilimanjaro in the background of the picture.

Amboseli has been experiencing a drought for the last year so everything is incredibly dusty, trying to keep anything clean, including the inside of your tent, is an exercise in futility. In some areas it is like walking in very dry snow, your foot will literally sink 3 or 4 inches into dust every time you take a step. I’m told that Maasai Mara won’t be nearly so dusty and I am really looking forward to that. It has been overcast almost the entire time I have been in Kenya. At first I was really annoyed by the weather but then I got a taste of what it feels like when the clouds break and now I am quite happy with the constant cloud-cover. When the skies are clear it heats up very fast, it gets to a temperature that I would normally find comfortable but it makes the tents too hot and the idea of being sweaty and dusty sounds much worse than just being dusty. As most of you know I’m not really what you would describe a an “outdoorsy kind of person” so camping under the best of conditions is a challenge for me. That being said I think I am handling things pretty well, I did laundry by hand in a bucket a couple days ago and I now have a newfound respect for washing machines.
The reason I am able to get access to the internet today is because we have come to Serena Lodge (a fancy tourist lodge) to enjoy the pool and a meal that doesn’t consist of rice and beans. I have lots more to say but I am going to spend the rest of my afternoon enjoying the amenities. I hope you are all doing well, take a shower and watch some TV for me

Bomas of Kenya

So I opted out of kissing the giraffe but lots of the other people in my group took full advantage of the opportunity. Even though I chose not to get intimate with the giraffes the park was still quite an experience. The Giraffes are very used to having people around who feed them and thus can get a bit agressive. If a giraffe isn’t being fed and doesn’t feel you are paying enough attention to it you are likely to feel an

unexpected strong smack to the head as the giraffe head-butts you. Since giraffes necks are so long they have quite a range when it comes to head-butting, so even though there is a fence seperating them from you it’s still necessary to be aware at all times. As you can imagine is a very amusing hazzard to have to deal with. After we had fed the giraffes for a while we were taken on a walking tour of the parkand got to get really close to an old male giraffe named Jock. I was quite amused that the tour guide had us all gather within just a few feet of Jock, and then he proceeded to tell us how a giraffe has the ability to kill a lion with just one kick. Luckily Jock was pretty docile and we all got out in one piece :p

Here’s a shot of some of my fellow travellers with Jock..

And here’s a link to some more info on the giraffe park:
Giraffe Center

I mentioned some interesting scaffolding on the building under construction near my hotel in my last post. I know I said that it looked a “bit iffy” in my last post but after further inspection I decided that it is quite steady, it’s just not as uniform as I am used to seeing it in the U.S. Here’s a shot of it for your viewing pleasure. You can click on shot and the shot of the giraffe to see a bigger version of either picture.

Today we visited the Bomas of Kenya, where we got to see performances of traditional dances of many of the different ethnic groups of Kenya. The dances were great but the most interesting part for me was interacting with the hundreds of school children who were their to watch the performances. All schools in Kenya require children to wear school uniforms and most of the people in attendance were very young students. The uniforms of each school are different and all are very colorful, which resulted in the auditorium being full of incredibly cute Kenyan children all dressed in a rainbow of different uniforms. It was quite a sight! At one point during the show I had moved onto the floor so that the small children behind me could see, and as I looked around I noticed that many of the children were paying more attention to me and the rest of my group than they were to the show. This was understandable since we did stand out a bit, out of what I would guess was 3 or four hundred people in the auditorium we were the only white people in view. So I sat there making eye contact and smiling at the different children who seemed so interested in me … and then at one point a young student who I would guess was about 7 or 8 years old just reached his hand out towards me. I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted so I high fived him, but afterwards he just continued to hold out his hand, so I reached out and held it and for the next few minutes we just smiled at eachother as we held hands and swung our arms to the beat of the music coming from the stage. I know it sounds sappy but in that moment I was completely overcome with emotion and on the border of tears. It was just amazing to be able to connect like that with someone who I was separted from by color, language, and culture. It is a moment I will definitely never forget!

I have only been here two full days and this already been such an incredible experience, I feel so lucky to have this opportunity. Tomorrow we leave for Amboseli National Park where we will be for the next three weeks. Once we arrive we will finally have the chance to get down to our work with the Maasai that we have been preparing for the last few monthes. I will be camping that entire time and without any access to electricity so unfortunatley this is the last post you will see from me for a while. We are returning to Nairobi around July 7th so you can expect another post some time shortly after that. In the meantime you can check out these websites for more information on the general kinds of things I will be up to:

This is a link to a website I built for the group I am travelling with that outlines the many different projects we have running with our Maasai partners:
Maasai Community Partnership Program

And here is a link to a site of one of our main partner organization:
Maasai Enviromental Resource Coalition

Well, that’s all for now, I have to go get ready to leave tomorrow. I hope you are all doing well and I’ll catch you in early July

First Day in Kenya

I have finally arrived! I left Phoenix at 7:20pm on Monday and arrived in Kenya at 9pm (11am Phoenix time) Wednesday night. After arriving at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi we drove to our hotel and went straight to bed in a nice hotel which was wonderful after sleeping on the tile floor of Heathrow airport the night before. We had a layover of almost 24 hours in London which we used to visit a museum that had many Kenyan artifacts from the period when Kenya was a British colony. After the museum we spent the afternoon lounging in a park in Russel Square. It was a beautiful day, which seemed not to match up with my understanding of what London weather was supposed to be like, but I was glad for the anomaly.  I was very excited when a pick up soccer game started in the park, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to play soccer in England so even though I was exhausted from the 10 hour flight I jumped into the game and had a blast!  I don’t have much time to write this post so here’s just a few things I have learned so far:

• British Airways still makes their flight attendants wear high heels and skirts, this is quite a change for someone who is used to the khaki shorts and sneakers worn by Southwest employees
• Alcohol is free on international flights, even if you don’t look like your anywhere close to being 21
• London is a very clean city, yet there are no trash cans anywhere. I mean it, I spent half my time in London looking for Trash cans
• The scafolding used on construction sites in Nairobi looks pretty iffy, as soon as I get the chance to upload some pictures you can see for yourself
• They don’t have bagels in England, … well I guess I can’t be 100% sure about that but I certainly couldn’t find any
• Sleeping on a tile floor in a ariport terminal that is under construction kinda sucks
• Sleeping in a nice comfy bed under a mosquito net is pretty awesome
• Power outages in malls in Nairobi aren’t all that uncommon

That’s all for now, I better get this posted before we lose power again. I’m headed to a park this afternoon where I will get to kiss a Giraffe. Not sure I actually want to kiss a Giraffe but I am assured that I will have the opportunity should I want to take advantage of it. I’ll see if I can’t get some images posted tomorrow.

Welcome

Hi everyone,

In case you haven’t heard, I’m heading off to Kenya this summer. Some of you have asked to be kept up to date on my adventures, so rather than spam all of you with big emails I thought I would just start a blog and that way you can check in on me whenever you feel like it. If you would like to receive emails letting you know when I have added new posts to my blog then click the link on the right side of this page under where it says “Subscribe to my blog”. You will be prompted to enter your email address, then you will receive an email with a link you have to click to activate your subscription. Once you click that link then you are all set and will receive notification when I put up new content.

I posted a link to a short informational video on Kenya on the right side of this page below the news feeds. You should check it out, lots of good information packed into 2 minutes of video. If you still have questions about why I would go to Kenya after watching the video …. well I suppose I’ll answer them, but the video should pretty much cover it