I spent Wednesday morning at the Vetaid office in Nairobi, discussing my progress with Gabriel, and making plans for the upcoming Tanzanian part of my trip. This all took a lot longer than planned, but we were able to get away from Nairobi by about 2pm.
Mike Mike drove us in the white rhino truck, and the journey took nearly three hours...but what a journey it was! Our route took us right through the floor of the Rift Valley, and the views were absolutely amazing. We stopped at a particularly precarious viewpoint over the valley, and the sheer expanse of raw Africa was just stunning. Not long after the stop, I was thrilled to see a troop of babboons crossing the road, followed by a herd of zebras right on the track! I got excited by everything I saw, but my enthusiasm was kept in check by Saitoti who told me to relax, as this was nothing!!
We were about halfway to Narok, when we saw a sheep truck approaching us from the opposite direction. They cram the poor things in so tight, one on top of another, and this particular truck hadn't even bothered to make sure they were at least secure - if not comfortable. Just as it passed us, a sheep jumped/fell out of the moving truck, tumbling about 20 feet down onto the road. We screeched to a halt, beeping to alert the truck driver, and rushed out to the sheep. It was obviously in a lot of pain, panting and terrified, but it didn't seem to have broken any bones. Saitoti had a heated conversation in Swahili with the men from the truck, apparently threatening to sue them for lack of care for their animals, but they seemed sorry, and promised to be more careful in future.
The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful - if you can say that of numerous sightings of monkeys, gazelles, zebras, ostriches and giraffes! We arrived in Narok at about 5pm. It's a great little Maasai town; really busy and vibrant, with loud music playing everywhere, donkeys lugging carts of wood and charcoal, and cattle, sheep and goats aimlessly herding themselves around the narrow streets. There are Maasai dressed in traditional dress everywhere, with huge amounts of beaded and plate jewellery, particularly earrings. Some people dress in just jeans and T-shirts, but a distinctive Maasai sign can be spotted on most people here; from the traditional red shuka (shawl), to stretched earlobes or an absent bottom tooth, and interestingly, nearly everyone in the town carries a staff! I quickly checked into the hotel before going to Saitoti's house for dinner.
Saitoti's Wife, Everley had cooked a delicious beef stew and rice for us, which we all tucked into, whilst watching 'Mind your language' ....until the power cut out. We spent the remainder of dinner looking through all of Saitoti's photos by torchlight, and then got back to the hotel for a relatively early night. Unfortunately, it was a very restless night - my hotel is situated right next to the mosque, and there is quite a proportion of muslims in this area, and the prayer call begins at 4am and continues, to be later accompanied by numerous cockerels for the next few hours!
On Thursday, we left Narok early to head to our first farm of the day. We had 600 sheep and goats to deworm. We left the road a long time before reaching the farm, and drove for about 40 km across plains and savannahs (and I learnt the difference - plains are just flat scrubland, whereas savannahs have some trees and bushes if you were interested!). It was an extremely bumpy ride, so not ideal with a dodgy tummy, in a place where the toilets are the open plains...you can imagine my issues! There were no roads, or even tracks by this point, and it's just a case of driving in the direction of your destination, but I was still amused to hear frantic shouts of 'left' and 'right', as if there was some sort of turning we were about to miss!
We arrived at the 'farm' - it's more of a bramble enclosure. The pastoral farmers are nomadic by nature, so they don't really have a farm base, just numerous enclosures set up along their migration routes. The flock had all set out early that morning, so we went to look at the lambs and kids (which apparently I can't tell the difference between) and climbed a nearby hill while we waited for them to return. Eventually they did, and we set about the long, hard task of deworming them. There are no crushes or races here to make life easy, but luckily we had about ten Maasai adults and children to help, all of whom are extremely skilled animal handlers. Nevertheless it was hard work, and in the blistering midday heat, was very tiring. After we had finished, the children and the flock headed back off to find grazing pastures, and we were shown what I am learning to be the traditional Maasai hospitality, and were invited back for a goat stew.
Our next mission was to try and speak to a farmer who has been particularly severely affected by the recent drought, having lost over half of his cattle herd. We arrived at the place where the cattle were last seen, and found that they had migrated on. I'll be sure to remember this next time I'm moaning about not being able to find a farm in the UK - at least they stay in one place!! We were instead greeted by about thirty half dressed children, all filthy and covered in flies, but very excited to see me. They all flocked around me, pawing at me, and pulling on my clothes, watch, camera and anything else they could get their hands on. As I looked around, I realized that the horrendous stench that we had smelt as we approached the farm was dozens and dozens of rotting cattle carcasses. For those of you who have seen the Lion King, it was a bit like the scene that Simba finds when he crosses out of the pride land - it really was horrible to see the devastation of the drought. It was a shame to not be able to speak to the farmer, but hopefully he was somewhere with more pasture for his remaining animals.
From there we went to visit Saitoti's mum in a nearby village. She was absolutely lovely, and invited us in for (yet another!) delicious stew. She also insisted on dressing me in her full traditional Maasai dress, including about eighteen necklaces and beads and a headdress! It was great fun, and I was really honoured to be allowed to try it all on, as this is something usually strictly reserved for the Maasai.
By now we were a long way from Narok, and so settled in for the long drive home. I love just driving through all the plains, keeping an eye out for wildlife, watching all the pastoral farmers tending to their animals and seeing the Maasai going about their daily business.
We arrived home tired, covered in dust from the day's work, and in my case sunburnt, and just had time for a quick change before another one of Everley's delicious dinners - this time Dengu (lentil stew) and chapattis - my favourite! No powercut tonight, but hundreds more photos from Saitoti and Everley's childhoods - they were really interesting to look through.
Today, we went to another Maasai farm, this time to deworm cattle. It wasn't as hard work as yesterday as there were only 200 or so, and we had more adults helping us. It is amazing to watch how they handle their cattle. They catch them by the ears, and have a strange leather strap that somehow catches the back leg of the cows; I watched for a long time but still didn't quite figure out how it worked every time, it is obviously a carefully honed skill! The Maasai at this farm were all a lot more fierce looking, probably courtesy of the spears, bows and knives that they carried. We made short work of the deworming, and I managed to take lots of photos and video. The Maasai are generally very unwilling to be photographed, as they think that the photos will be sold, and that tourists will make money out of them, but on this farm they were very grateful for the help, and were more willing than most to pose for the camera. I was also able to interview on of the herdsmen, though they don't speak English, or even Swahili, so Saitoti translated from Maasai for us. It was a really interesting insight into the life of a Maasai pastoralist.
We were then invited to join a few of the herdsmen on a nearby hillside, to receive some roasted goat, that had been slaughtered that morning and roasted over an open fire on the hillside. This was to show appreciation for the work that we had done on the farm, and it was fun eating in the sun up on the hillside. Goat is a tough, musky tasting meat, that isn't my favourite at the best of times, and ripping shreds of tough meat from the skin and bones that it was extremely firmly attached to, whilst surrounded by the knives that had been used to slaughter it was.... 'a new experience'; as I responded when asked if I liked it!
After taking our fill of roast goat, we headed off over the plains back to Narok, where we had to see a clinical case of Trypanosomiasis in a cow - like sleeping sickness in people. Then that was us done for the day, shattered and well in need of an early night.
Today's additions to the African wildlife tally include a warthog with three little wartlets, a huge herd of giraffes, right by the farm, mongooses playing in the scrub and many impalas who kept running in front of the truck. I wonder what we'll spot tomorrow on our Masai Mara trip?!
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