In Maralal again!

Wow!  It has been another epic journey.  Filled with so much more excitement and adventure than originally planned. No big car problems this time, other than the annoying beeping of my back door warning light for hundreds of kilometers.  I finally got that fixed in Nairobi on Monday so it was blessedly silent on my return to Maralal yesterday (Wednesday).  What made the trip epic was all the things done, places gone and people met.  So Wonderful!!!  I and basket group manager Kalindi managed to pick up Leslie, Goodie and Camilla in Korr last Friday with no issue other than being very hot.  We returned to my home in Ngurunit for lunch, making our game plan and getting everyone settled into their rooms.  Then to the Ngurunit Basket Weaver’s community design house to meet with the 11 master weavers and 2 managers Friday afternoon as a sort of pre-meeting before getting together with all the members on Saturday.  As usual, plans changed.  One manager, Lilian, had a sick child and had to rush her to Marsabit town, 156 km away north, to go to the big hospital.  The Ngurunit clinic just couldn’t handle it.  So that left us with Kalindi, which was also fine.  Then, only 5 of the 11 master weavers showed up eventually due to the advent of a food relief truck on Friday afternoon which took everyone’s attention away from the long-term livelihood activities.  When one’s family is hungry, it is hard to look far ahead and the immediate hand to mouth solution takes priority.  With the drought going on, many development activities are going by the wayside for the moment, even in the big government programs.  Now that drought disaster has been declared, most resources go now to the immediate relief activities and good long term plans are left hanging.   This has a huge negative effect on development programs everywhere.  I feel there needs to be a duel focus.  Yes, immediate relief is important, but it should go hand in hand with long term goals of making sustainable solutions to deal with the next emergency within the framework of the development activities focusing around economic and food security initiatives.  Anyway, even with half the expectant participants, we made a really good start on the goals of the visit which were focused around looking at how to improve design, increase marketing and production options and look at how to sell more baskets so keep the weavers busy all the time.  In other words, increase their economic opportunities which does lead to food security and improved livelihoods even at times such as now in a bad drought. 

Having made the plans for Saturday’s meeting and being assured of a large turnout despite the drought issues, we drove over to the Salato Camp to have a beer and relax a bit before going home.  As we were sitting there enjoying the peace, a Land Cruiser of Spanish tour guides on vacation drove in out of the blue.  The driver John, a Kenyan tour operator, had seen the camp before and decided to come there to support community instead of going to the privately owned camp across the way.  It was a brilliant piece of networking in process.  My dog Mouse greeting these new visitors enthusiastically as we welcomed them to the camp.  Marandi, the camp manager, is still learning the ropes and this was his first big foreign group.  I saw he had a bit of a ‘deer in the headlights’ look as he showed the visitors to their rooms so I offered to send over my maid and friend Nankaya to help as she had done a lot of work at the camp in the past.  My visitors and I, having invited the Spanish group to come see our basket weaving work in the morning, headed home to rest and make dinner.  As Nankaya had gone to help at the camp, we all pitched in to cook and then enjoyed it outside under the stars.  Ngurunit, no matter how dry, is always beautiful. 

The next day, Saturday, was a joy to me.  Despite their difficulties of finding water and food at the moment, so many ladies came to meet Leslie, Camilla and Goodie.  It was a wonderful meeting with lots of ideas shared and discussed.  Orders made and plans developed.  The Spanish group came over and everyone sang and danced together for a while before tea and snacks.  I made some good connections that day for connecting to the Spanish tourism market for future visits to Ngurunit and Salato Camp.  Ngurunit Basket Weaver’s group also has some new inspiration, goals and understanding as to how to increase their market too.  I learned so much for the three powerhouse business women that were working with us.  So Amazing!!  Reuben showed up from Maralal on Saturday evening just a bit after we were back from the day of working with the weavers.  So another lovely evening of dinner and wine under the stars, also with our new Spanish friends who came over from the camp for a visit.  Then Sunday my visitors, mouse and I jumped into the car and headed for Nairobi.  In Nanyuki 4 hours later we stopped for lunch with a friend in the craft marketing business, Sarah.  It was so good to reconnect with her again.  Networking is life here in Kenya.  We headed to Nairobi about 3 in the afternoon expecting to arrive around 6.  Actually we did arrive at that time just approaching Nairobi when we were caught up in a huge traffic jam caused by an accident.  Two hours to creep along for 5 km.  I finally got everyone dropped off and to where I was staying at my friend Candace’s house at 8:30.  12 hours travel door to door – Ngurunit to Nairobi.  But if one takes off the 3 hour lunch and 2 hours traffic jam, then it only took 7 hours driving time.  Amazing.  I was now in Nairobi and the epic journey not over.  The next half, with more wonderful places and people will have to wait for the next post…….to be continued....