Girls and Girls

We recently took on an interesting challenge; to take 15 girls from a private girls’ school in Hampshire to meet 15 girls their own age in Maasaini. The English girls had climbed Kili and prior to leaving the UK, had raised funds to give to the local school to help complete classrooms for the students, who currently come to school in stages throughout the day. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet people from a very different culture but the challenge was to make the experience as real as possible rather than just another tourist activity.

Such things cannot just be done at anyone’s whim and this trip took several meetings with all the right people to organise properly and appropriately.

The Village Elders

So finally we set out early on a Monday morning heading up and over the hills with a short stop to take in the view right across the land they would be crossing to the ‘bush,’ where they would meet 18 or so esiangikis of the same age. The four car cavalcade wound down the hair pin bends to the bottom of the escarpment and out across the dry landscape, sending a rising cloud of dust into the clear air. In the distance were tall brown spirals of dust devils with the broad dark base of distant mountains as a backdrop.

Miles and miles of bush....and dust....

 
When we arrived at the village school the students stood around in simple dark blue uniforms and watched as the English girls climbed out of the minibuses in long multicoloured dresses with their bags and bottles of water. A shy meeting between the two took place at a ‘safe’ distance while they checked each other out.

 From the school we drove on to the meeting place all packed together in the pick up climbing up through deep korongos (dry river beds) in low ratio to the delight of the students. As we came through the trees to the camp, there was a choir of esiangikis dressed in all their finery singing a welcome in Kimaasai to all the girls. As each dismounted and walked into the smiling crowd they were greeted by an esiangiki who took off her bead necklace and put it around each girl’s neck and then they all began clapping and swaying to the song, a group of delighted western girls being welcomed by a group of delighted Maasai girls.

Hello!

 We had to stop the singing as the food was ready and the Maasai , who love to sing, could have gone on through the night! We were standing in the shade of thorn trees that provided a canopy of shade but many of the branches were quite low and several girls’ long hair kept getting caught in the thorns on the lower branches. It was interesting to see the looks of amazement on the Maasai faces - they were fascinated to have such real live examples of Europeans to study – and with such interesting hair.

The village chairman and secretary were there in their best suits, sitting dignified on the bench with the school teachers, and in groups around were various morani and some of the husbands of the esiangikis. Passing in and out of the crowd were inquisitive herd boys attending sheep and goats coming down to be watered.

Everyone was fed and had a cup of sweet chai (tea), and then we started our cultural exchange. Each side asked a question in turn - each group had been preparing what they would like to know. The Maasai went first with the question ...

 ‘Amongst us, boys are circumcised with a knife and girls are circumcised with a razorblade, what do you use?’ There was a pause as the western girls listened intently to the translation. The men standing around were smiling knowing what the question was. As the interpreter finished there was a synchronised gasp as 15 faces looked up in horror and shook their heads.

 ‘We don’t do that,’ they said and all the men laughed. The difference was emphatic and dramatic and other questions naturally followed ... The historic traditions of the Maasai culture and the journey of these girls within that culture was explained. Questions followed about boys and husbands, followed by more about babies and marriage arrangements.

Question time

It was a privilege to be there as an observer and a delight to see girls of the same age meeting each other - 15 well educated and privileged girls with diverse aspirations and 15 or so esiangikis, most of them married and some with babies, all on a different cultural journey through life, but with the shared basic interest of finding good life partners and having families.

 The two groups worked in similar ways with their quieter members not saying much but listening with interest whilst the more engaged and voluble members carried the conversation.

At the end the English girls stood up and gave a hearty rendition of a school song as well as another sung in a round with a finale of their favourite pop song, all of which was loudly appreciated by the Maasai. The journey home was quieter as tired girls pondered the day’s events. Everything had been said and now it was time to commit it all to memory and experience. Despite the huge cultural differences, they were all just teenage girls underneath.

The End of an Era

We parted company with our Land Rover last week, the old 110 that has been in the family for 20 years. Not just a Land Rover, but a ‘true friend’ as one member of the family put it. Twenty years ago, it was our pride and joy as it came to us brand new – our first ever, and still only, brand new vehicle. At that time it was a pick up with the logo of our landscaping company proudly emblazoned across the back.



Six years later, the body was changed to accommodate our family, and it was rolled onto a ship and off again in Dar es Salaam. I still remember it arriving in our compound in Arusha and how we all threw ourselves at it and into it because it was ‘family’ from home and we were all desperately home sick back then.



Since then it has been looked after with tender loving care as it has covered over 250,000 miles on pot holed tarmac, on dust roads and on no roads at all.



Despite needing some new body parts over the years and the driver sometimes needing a quick kip along the way, the 110 has never failed us.



It has crossed dry river beds, and not such dry ones. On one particular night, we were stuck the wrong side of a flash flood while our unsuspecting children slept at home alone on the other side. We paused, prayed, clutched the steering wheel, one of us closed our eyes and the other put his foot down. The water surged over the bonnet, blocking out the head lights and one of us screamed as the back wheels lost traction and the car slewed downstream but we made it and left the foaming torrent behind us.

During El Nino in 1997, it pulled a Toyota Land Cruiser attached to a Hiace mini bus up the Rift Valley Escarpment road, whilst loaded up with four adults, five children and all our camping gear. (Why didn’t we take a picture of THAT?) On another day we came upon about 10 safari vehicles completely stuck in the mud with their tourists still on board or standing around playing frisby. We revved up, put our foot down and roared into the grassy bog, skidding and sliding, but moving slowly forwards to shouts and cheers from the frustrated onlookers. Just as we were losing momentum the front tyres touched the hard shoulder and we made it onto dry land.

There was a time when the doors took on a mind of their own (actually MOST of the time) and I was driving round a roundabout with my shopping on the front seat. The passenger door flew open, I clutched the steering wheel with one hand, the shopping with the other and negotiated the roundabout shouting as I went ‘Get out of the way, get out of the way!’ As we towed it away last week, both the back doors flew open and banged shut again in rhythm with every bump. I smiled all the way.

It once had a baby born in the back seat and then sadly it carried its little body home from the hospital to be buried 6 months later. We nearly had our ear drums burst one day when we carried 18 Maasai women (plus 6 children) ALL singing at the top of their voices in ear-piercing female falsetto.



We vied to ride on the roof rack where we worked our way through our entire repertoire of songs with the wind in our hair, the sun burning our faces and arms and marvelled at the privilege of living in such a wide open, beautiful land.

In fact, it was always more fun sitting ON it rather than IN it, especially when looking for the right way to go.



Our three children learnt to drive in it and then slept in it as we drove down to Victoria Falls and back while we slept on the roof. And that was just one of many fun adventures.



It took us to our ‘country cottage’ for weekends.



It provided hours and hours of ‘boy’ fun and a very good grounding in mechanics and off road driving.



Yesssss.....



Mmmm, flat as a.........and I wonder if I remembered to pack the jack?



And there was never a dull moment anywhere... but there was always a way out. Life with a Land rover is one big initiative test!



Once in the bush ‘somewhere,’ the rubber bushes on the rear shock absorbers had worn out and metal was pounding against metal on every bump. We stopped a bewildered goat herd and bought his tire sandals off him for a VERY good price, which we turned into new bushes (they actually lasted a couple of years). I wish I could have been there when he explained to his parents why he had come home barefoot!

The electrics failed as it got dark one evening when we were still 300 miles from home with not a hill or even faint rise in sight. We found an anthill and reversed up it as far as we could, rigged up a net and slept on the roof. Amazingly, in the morning, it fired up as we rolled off to the flat.



One late night, it even drove us home from Nairobi (a five hour drive) on a nearly empty tank and prayer because we had run out of money.

And our visitors loved it too.



Most of the time.......................



Hopefully, all salvageable parts will 'live' on and on and on, as only Land Rovers can, for many years to come elsewhere.

Lost

Saigare was not at home. I half expected him not to be. It was late in the afternoon and his boma (group of family huts) was our last stop before heading home. I leaned on the bonnet of the Landrover and looked out over the dried up soda lake. He would definitely have to move again when the rains came as this would all be swamp. It was dry and dusty and even now I could only just make out the very top of Ol Donyo Lengai (Maasai Holy Mountain) in the distance as a huge dust cloud had been whipped up by the wind and was advancing like a curtain across the mountains in the distance.



I could feel a fresh breeze in my face so we turned around and headed off into the scrub. I was the only Mzungu (European) in the group with Maiko and Lekoko, both Maasai, and Geti, a Mwaarusha. We had had a long day distributing food and I was hoping to find the track that would lead us safely back to the tarmac road. Somehow, in my mind I had an idea that it would all be quite straightforward and simple. I was looking forward to being back with Lisa, anticipating telling her of the day’s events and all the people we had met.

I began to get annoyed when I couldn’t find the track nor could I recognise the korongos (gorges) we were crossing. The sun had lost its strength by now and was heading for the horizon and I knew it would be a whole new world out there in the dark. Despite my anxiety Maiko was cheerful and had already worked out how we could spend the night in the back of the pickup. Maasai are quite used to sharing a bed with their own age set but I was thinking that I’d rather drive all night!

I took out my new GPS and looked up the tracks that I had stored . It was blank, not a single track. I then realised that I must have deleted the whole memory when I thought I was deleting a single track. Now I was not only anxious but really annoyed, partly for the inconvenience but also for the loss of the log of a long and strenuous track that had disappeared into the ether. I decided never to rely on modern technology.



I decided to follow the advice of those ‘what-to-do-when you’re-lost’ books and ‘traverse the terrain’ hoping to cross a track, any track would do. When we arrived at the top of a hill that I thought I knew, I found I was in fact looking across a huge gorge straight at the very hill I should have been on. Now I was dismayed and disorientated and the sun was minutes away from the horizon.



Someone saw a herd of cattle behind us so we turned hoping to get some local advice but we came again to the edge of an enormous gorge. Everyone got out and wandered down to the bottom to see if there was any way across. I sat in the Landrover and tried to ring Lisa but there was no signal. We obviously weren’t going to be getting back in good time. My hopes of a light supper and an evening with my wife were fading and I was more than a little irritated. I asked God for ‘just a track,’ thinking that our problems would be solved once we were on the right path as all tracks eventually lead to the main road.

I picked my way rather bolshily amongst black volcanic boulders, anticipating a struggle to cross the gorge but as we crested the opposite bank I was surprised at how easy it had been. I presumed God might want thanking for that, but we were still a long way from home so said nothing.

The herd of cows turned out to be a flock of goats and sheep and were standing outside a boma being milked. I anticipated coming across a simple lad with a scraggy herd, madly driving them home before dark but instead we were greeted by a short weather beaten man whose wives and small children slowly emerged from their huts shy and smiling. The older boys greeted me in Swahili but the women only spoke Maa. He said he would show us a track that was not far from the boma and we gave him some of the remaining food we had to distribute. The women laughed in delight that food had come to them all the way out there, free and in the dark! I was glad that we could help them and relieved that we had found some reliable advice. I noted the man’s name in my GPS tracklog, so that I could visit him again (hopefully).



His sons ran ahead in the headlights, barely discernable in the dark and I tried to follow all the gesticulated instructions. However we arrived at a small gorge that was impassable with huge boulders strewn inconveniently all over the place. The man and his sons then rushed about in the dark finding another way across. Maiko commented on how bright the boys were, how they had understood the problem and immediately worked out another solution. I sat quietly repenting of my assumptions and thanked God for the track and that we were now ‘on our way.’



We wound our way upwards in the dark, weaving this way and then that. The track was so unclear that I wondered how they had made it in the first place. What a contrast between Roman and African ways – one militaristic and straightforward, the other social and circuitous.

I was trying to plot where we were in my mind as we were in total darkness now. When we came to a fork in the track the popular vote was to go right. However, after a while I stopped and turned off all the lights. It looked like we were heading around the back of the only visible landmark which was the looming mass of Lepurko mountain straight ahead of us. So we retraced our tracks and headed off to the left. It was an old track that was very overgrown with Acacia scrub and took us away from the mountain. This fact worried me as by my reckoning we should have been amongst tall acacias on flat ground and skirting around the mountain.

Maiko kept reassuring us that he was born in a boma just over the hill and knew the area well. So we drove on. We could see torch lights shining on the dark mountainside behind us and wondered if we were being ‘advised’ or were they cattle herders just going home late? There definitely should have been a hunter’s camp on a ridge to our left at some point. When we stopped again and switched off the lights we couldn’t hear any sound and the only torches were from a boma a long way off. We were miles from anywhere and totally lost.

‘Barabara’ is an odd sounding word. It is Swahili for road and when the ‘barabara’ suddenly dived into another gorge and didn’t come out I was convinced that we should turn back and take the right fork. We retraced our tracks again and all I could hear was people muttering about the ‘barabara;’ with a barabara here and a barabara there, old Makofia lost his way, aiyee, aiyee, oh I think I’m going mad! I shook my head to concentrate on the faint tracks in the light ahead of me.

This time the track took us winding round and up and down until it finally came onto a bit that I thought I recognised. Hopes were up until it then went up hill sharply and divided into two, which totally exasperated me. We took the left hand one and followed it round a large tree and there in the headlights was a neat little footpath. We had driven straight into the hunter’s camp and had arrived in ‘reception!’ There was a stunned silence as everyone recalibrated their mental map of where we were.

Several men came out of the darkness with powerful torches bearing spears and interviewed us. Yes they had been shining a torch at us earlier on knowing we were heading up a blind ‘barabara’. Happily they recognised me and gave us instructions for the right road and we were on our way again. We were all tired and I was frustrated so when we took another wrong turn there was a tense debate. It was implied that I hadn’t understood the man’s Swahili instructions. ‘But,’ I said, ‘two lefts don’t make a right. We went wrong on the first track and took a left and then we should have taken a right turn to get back onto the original track. Now we have taken another left so we are doubly wrong.’ There was a moment’s silence and then they were amazed at how stupid the young man had been in telling us to go left. I smiled at the deft avoidance of loss of face. This time we were on the right barabara and I recognised it.



There was phone signal and the distant glow of civilisation over the horizon. I told Lisa that we would be a little late as we had got lost but now we were on our way. She said she might be up when I got back. Well thank you, I thought to myself, you have no idea where we have been…but then I don’t think anyone else had either, except maybe a few bemused locals who had been watching our headlights erratically traversing the bush for the past few hours.

Back to the Beginning

Graham recently had a fantastic opportunity to take farmers into the forest and show them how God farms. Teaching conservation agriculture has been a bit of an uphill struggle because it is labour intensive. Had we come in with brand new shiny tractors, implying status and development, we may have had a large following in no time at all. But no tillage and covering everything with a mulch just doesn’t seem attractive to a lot of people; maybe because it looks untidy.

The day started with just two people, who are learning how to teach it and are very inspired, and one other who came along out of curiosity.

Graham continues the story...

As we drove down through the fields we picked up a couple of other farmers who left their work, intrigued by our trip. Were we really heading to the forest for some teaching on how to grow maize?

The track led through banana plantations and small fields of vegetables and maize and then we passed a bare, newly ploughed field and came to the edge of the forest. The huge trees seemed so tall all of a sudden and the shade swallowed us into its cool and peaceful interior where we stopped in a small open area.

I gathered everyone around and started by pointing out how productive and lush this forest was when the land beyond was so dry. Long lean trunks soared up into the upper canopy 60-70 feet above us supported by the upper branches which were festooned with creepers swinging down to the shrubby undergrowth and ending up rooted amongst the scattered seedlings and annuals on the forest floor at our feet.

I invited them to notice how untidy the area was. There were fallen trees, rotting logs and a carpet of twigs and debris from above. We walked under the canopy of a leafy shrub and squatted down and scraped away the dry surface mulch. The debris was dark and shapeless as it began to be broken down. The soil was friable and beautifully light. It was dark and slightly moist with the scent of humus. When we dug down a little further we uncovered slender white root filaments of things growing in amongst the rotting leaf litter and small bugs. I suggested they push their fingers in and see how far they could penetrate the soil and then asked them if they would like to have soil like this in their fields.



In the past people would cut down the trees, clear the undergrowth and grow three good years of maize before they had used up all the fertility. Then they would leave the land and move on. In the next ten years or so it would all slowly grow back, without their help, and gradually regain its former fine structure and fertility. But now, the soil is worked and worked and turned over until every last bit of natural goodness is used up.

Another interesting thing was that there were no erosion channels here and the water in the streams that flowed through this forest was relatively clear. In contrast the channels between their fields were filled with muddy brown water showing that erosion was taking place.

We moved out from under the covering of the forest into the glare of the midday sun and walked across the ploughed field. The bare earth was light in colour and scorching hot with a caked surface from where the last rain had fallen onto it. The clods that the plough had turned up were as hard as bricks and there was a flush of weeds pushing up through the cracks in the surface. There was little moisture in the surface layer and no evidence of any insect life. The field sloped gently down to the edge of the forest where a large area of silt had been transported. When we walked across towards the centre we came across a newly formed erosion channel, a few feet in depth revealing a scattering of stones and rocks.

The contrast was stark and needed little reinforcing. It was obvious to all that God was the better farmer and when we went into the classroom, understanding was already dawning.



This man has recently learnt the conservation method by following Graham for several weeks and was teaching here for the first time. He will take it to other areas where he is working and is already a strong and inspired advocate.