Written by:
Kathleen Godfrey, Anna Leitch, Hannah Siden, Lindsay Potts, and Lesley Williamson
On Saturday, January 17th, we left Nairobi and headed to Nguruman. As we descended into the Great Rift Valley, the climate changed drastically. We got off the bus at Lale’Enok Resource Centre and were immediately engulfed by a wall of heat. During the day everyone breaks for a few hours after lunch because it is simply too hot to do anything else. The plant life was also a huge change. Nguruman is in an arid environment so the plants are adapted to living with limited water. There were lots of acacia trees and small shrubs. The grass was very sparse and brown as the area has been going through a drought recently. It was important to remember that water is at a premium in this dry area. One other thing that we couldn’t ignore was the dust! Everything we owned was covered in a layer or reddish-brown dirt. And while we often found the dust and heat hard to deal with, we did so many amazing things while we were here!
The next day, it was still night when we met up with Guy, a local researcher. At 4:30am, we piled into the safari cruisers, cameras clutched in our hands as beams from spotlights cut into the darkness. Our first morning out of urban Kenya and we were already on a lion hunt. Lion research and conservation is one of the main projects at Lale’Enok of which Guy has been directing since 2009. We cruised through a shrubby forest, frequently intercepted by bat-eared foxes, zebras, gazelles, and a genet before the trees opened up to an expansive grassland. A dim dawn dusted the sky as the walls of the rift valley escarpment rose up around us. On the lead cruiser, Guy whipped out a radio antennae, which began beeping a reply from a nearby radio collar. We were close. We hadn’t gone much further than a couple meters before Guy casually pointed to four figures emerging from a bush: Nasha and her three cubs! We were ecstatic! We silently followed the family as they retreated into the thicket to spend the day sleeping and digesting the wildebeest, whose carcass we discovered under a bush. We returned to camp feeling tired, dirty, and happy.
In Nguruman we appreciated the opportunity to interact with the locals. Lale’Enok is owned by a women’s group of over 200 individuals. The group provides education scholarships for local girls, options for alternative income, and also acts as a support system. The women demonstrated their milk preparation process for us, which involves mixing cow’s milk with fig tree bark and water. This is given to infants as a supplement to breast milk when women are working during the day. We talked with these women about Maasai life and how it is changing. Education is increasingly valued, creating more stress for women who no longer have their children available to help with daily chores. As well, there is an increasing need for alternative sources of income in addition to cattle herding. Many women now also own shambas (small farms) or sell beadwork. The women emphasized the democratic and inclusive nature of their group. Men were also present in smaller numbers at the meeting, as sources of support, and would provide alternate perspectives if asked. Some women commented on our program’s imbalance of women to men, and we began a discussion on feminism in Kenya versus Canada. They mentioned that in the future they would like to have equal opportunity to ask CFSIA students questions about life in Canada – a great idea for next year’s program! We were also able to benefit from attending the local market (run by the women’s group), and decked ourselves out in beautiful Maasai jewelry and fabrics (or in the boys’ cases – machetes…). We are grateful to the women for being so open and welcoming.
On our last evening in Nguruman, we were fortunate enough to be invited to join a Maasai pastoralist and his herd of cattle on their walk home. John Kamanga, a local community leader, accompanied us and explained the logistics of the Maasai herding system along the way (i.e. the only items a herder needs is a stick to smack the lagging cows and 2-liter jug of water to last all day). For the most part, much like the cattle, the students of CFSIA 2015 were wandering aimlessly – left, right, backwards – in a very general forward direction. With Dave, one of our program staff, taking up the rear, there was a distinct feeling that we too were being herded to a final destination. Well, we did end up inside the pen with the cows, bulls, and calves, so that’s not totally inaccurate. We got to wander around the boma, and a few of us were lucky enough to be shown into a typical home – a short, woven, hut-esque building with cow dung reinforcements to keep the wind out – and even got to milk a goat. It is always a privilege to be welcomed into a person’s home, and this was no exception. Everyone was so warm and our group discussion afterwards was light-hearted and filled with laughter; supposedly Julie’s dowry is of approximately 40 cows! We left the homestead just before the sun went down, with words of thanks trailing behind us. After three jam-packed days in Nguruman, this was definitely a great way to say goodbye. Next stop: Lake Naivasha!
Canadian Field Studies in Africa - 2015 Edition 
what an interssting set of experiences!
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