Today I have been back in Maralal for 3 days.  My daughter and I, with two of our dogs – tiny Mouse and huge Bruce Bruin the Almighty – traveled back from Ngurunit on Monday and since then I have been trying to adjust to the drastic change between the two places.  Ngurunit hot, Maralal cold.  Ngurunit peaceful, beautiful and clean, Maralal noisy, full of people and cars and lots of garbage – though it does have its own weird charm and beauty, if one looks hard.  Ngurunit a place of hanging out and doing creative projects, Maralal where I am supposed to be productive and get lots of ‘office work’ done which just translates to lots of paperwork.  Ngurunit where one drives 6 km to get network under a certain tree thus having a choice to know what is going on in the rest of the world or just live unconnected, Maralal where network is constant and everywhere and the world hits you in the face where ever you turn and the emails and notifications are endless and compelling.  So different, yet only 200 km apart.  Anyway, I was just reading from my notebook of writings, which hasn’t been touched since last week due to too many distractions here, and wanted to share my last entry from November 29^th.  Makes me want to get back to Ngurunit as fast as I can.  Here it is:

29 November 2016

“The experiences made me who I am but who I am also made the experiences”.  Thought of early morning as I listen to the birds wake up in Ngurunit and greet the sunrise while I meditate on just being.  It rushed in on a wave of joy of being alive and knowing God as I do.  We are all wrapped up in life and life is all wrapped up in us.  It cannot be separated.  How we take it all, everything that comes at us, is hinged to how we are made, and that is God.  The weaving in the womb.  The knowing us as we are knitted together.  The essence of our soul.  What is our base belief – the thing that holds us together and makes us tick.  That is the key to our perception of everything else that comes into or out of our lives.  That basic “being”. 

Of course, it all gets complicated by the interactions of all the other “beings” around us – all those people that come into our lives (or out of) and bring with them their own set of what holds them together and makes them tick.  But it always holds true that who I am makes the experience.  How I take it- how I perceive it – how I react to it.  The rainy day can be a joy or an annoyance.  The trouble can be a lesson or a trial.  The person met can be loved or hated. 

The beauty of this day is unfolding around me.  Sun coming up has put pink hews in the sky.  Mt Poi has a thick cloud hat on.  Clouds in the east like a huge angel fish.  Birds singing.  Goats making a racket in the river bed.  Foxy, the neighbor dog, has come to visit.  Bruin is trying to play with her.  Everything is damp from the bit of rain yesterday afternoon.  Praying for a lot more rain.  All the water tanks mostly empty.  We could really use a few heavy showers to fill them.  Another day has started.  I greet it with joy. 

Rain.  Such an important thing.  In a semi-arid land, even a bit less, or a messed up timing, can mean life and death to the pastoralist communities living in Samburu.  When I was last in Ngurunit the end of October, the rains were late.  Food for the livestock was down to a bare minimum.  Some hope was still alive with the signs of rain starting to show; acacia trees putting out buds, clouds gathering on the hills, a feel of heaviness to the air, intense heat starting to build up.  Since coming back to Maralal, we have been praying for rains to start in earnest.  Even here, where rain is usually more plentiful and on time, there have been only sprinkles.  Until yesterday when it seems that the short rains are finally upon us.   We have had a couple days of showers now. And intense cold.  Though still no heavy downpours that will completely wash away our fears of impending drought.  Drought is what the forecasts say.  No significant rains expected until October 2017 the learned meteorologists report.  These few showers may just be teasing us.  Tomorrow, my daughter and I are headed to Ngurunit.  We have heard of a few showers there too.  Hopefully it is warmer than Maralal.  Wetter too.  Though I don’t expect it.  The rains were actually too good from May through August this year.  It is like the normal dry season didn’t really start the end of June, but the beginning of September.  The cycles are all messed up.  It makes me sick to listen to the news from USA about all the detractors of climate change.  We are living the climate change.  Have been since 2005/6.  Since then, there hasn’t been 3 consecutive years where at least one rainy season didn’t fail.   Just as livestock starts to revive from a rain short period, which can take over a year, another one fails.  Our last really severe drought was 2009/10, but there have been several ‘extended’ dry seasons since where not quite enough pasture was grown due to rain failure.  Our cattle haven’t been back to Ngurunit for over 2 years as the warriors have had to travel several hundreds of kilometers looking for enough pasture.  The camels and goats get by near home, but just barely.  What will come of the pastoralist lifestyle if climate change continues unchecked?  What we are doing now is working hard to adapt and adjust. PEAR has been doing things for years to sort out some of the issues related to climate change.  Introducing and promoting camels and alternative livestock, developing new water sources, improving education so that kids can grow up with the tools needed to drive positive change and bringing communities together on environmental rehabilitation and conservation.  Some things have worked well, some have had astounding challenges.  I will not give up.  My big push at the moment is to discover new activities and measures can help face this challenge of changing rain patterns, enhancing and improving pastoral lives along the way.   Where will this journey take me?.....

Tomorrow, Thursday the 3^rd November, I am heading down to Nairobi in order to pick up my daughter from her Secondary School which closes on Friday the 4^th November for the students in Form 1 through Form 3.  Form 4 students will remain behind to start their all important KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) exams on November 7th.  This one exam that makes or breaks their future after high school.  The KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) exams are finishing tomorrow.  This is the exam that determines if and where students can continue on to secondary school.  I had lunch with a friend today whose daughter is taking these exams.  She was very nervous, though also excited, to know how her daughter has done.  The whole of primary school is geared towards getting a good score on the KCPE and the whole of secondary school is geared towards getting a good score on the KCSE.  To the detriment of a wider experience of life while in school, I feel.  It also leads to an extremely controlled curriculum in the Kenya school systems that doesn’t take into consideration the diversity of cultures and life experiences in this county.  Or the diversity of individual students and their needs.  This has bothered me for years.  I have looked at ways a number of times on how to improve the system.  Here in Samburu, how we could promote the students the best pastoralists ever.  Make education real life learning, not just pounding everyone into the same mold and hope for the best.  The frustration is that I haven’t been able to get people away from the rout learning everyone is convinced is required to simply do well on the exams.  Lots of ideas, little practical application as yet.  Still trying.  Never give up.  That is my mode of operation!

23 October 2016

Here I am again, though not typing live in terms of on the web directly, but rather sitting in Ngurunit far from web connections and putting down my thoughts of the last couple weeks so that I can post as soon as I am back in Maralal and connected to the world.  Which is funny really when you think about the modern idea of being connected as being able to access internet and all the various things that entails.  In actuality, I always feel more connected to life when I am here in Ngurunit.  The real nitty gritty of living.  Meeting people and animals face to face.  Not just cute videos on Facebook.  Talking to the basket weavers as I distribute the latest payment for sales in Nairobi.  Watching the school kids sing at the class eight party and prayer day as they prepare for the upcoming exams next week.  Hauling stones with my neighbor for the renovation of my house.  Watching my dogs trying to catch the lizards that scramble away into the rock pile or the squirrels that run into their holes.  Laughing as Bruce Bruin the Almighty (Bruin or Bruce for short..) tries clumsily to dig them out while my little dog, Mouse, stands by barking commands like a supervisor on a construction contract.  One can tell, I guess, that I am not one of the ‘millennium generation’ by the fact that I don’t feel compelled to video and photograph all of these interactions to post somewhere where everyone can see my life unfold one frame at a time.  Not that I don’t take photographs.  According to my friends and family members, I take entirely too many pictures, but so few of them end up for public consumption.  On some levels, I am trying to change that.  Social media is the new communication and development without publication (advertisement??...) will never make the big statements in the world that are needed for advancement and expansion of world good!  That is the message I have been getting lately from so many places.  It seems nothing matters if it isn’t recorded somewhere on a website or Facebook or Twitter or any number of the other places the world can see it at a click of a button.  Thinking about all this is getting me down somehow.  I need to go really connect with life again for a while before I go on with this line of thinking.  I am going to go carry some water and bake some bread….

Commitment....that is what I realize I am going to need to make this blog a regular thing.  4 posts in as many years is not a blog make....so I am going to work hard to change that.  I am going to do this because I have decided that it is important to have this space to talk about life and development in Northern Kenya.  And not just Northern Kenya, but in the world as a whole.  Life is so connected on so many levels now that it is important to glean as much information as one can from corners of the world and subjects of all matters that we never thought mattered before.  Maybe before so much that wasn't right at our fingertips or right outside our front (and back) doors didn't matter because it had no real direct impact on us.  But now is not before, it is now.  Now, what I do or say or make here in Maralal, Samburu County, Northern Kenya can affect a person's life instantly on the other side of the world, not just my next door neighbor.   What is dumped in an ocean can have direct impact on my climate here in the desert.  What we eat can make a difference.  What we think can make a difference.  What we do and buy can make a difference.  For better or worse.  Not just to ourselves and those we live next to, but to every single being on this planet.  So, with this post, I am making a commitment to sharing experiences, insights and ideas through this page on a regular basis.  I won't make any promises yet on what 'regular' means.  Definitely will try for a lot more than once or twice a year!!  :-).   Not less than once a month.   Maybe more.  I will take the opportunity whenever it presents itself to add a post of whatever happens in my life and organizational experiences, monumental or mundane, which might add to the understanding of the connections of this world for the benefit of us all.  That I do promise!