Traveling

26 November 2018

Traveling.  I do love traveling in all of its many forms.  I’ve gone to and come back from USA twice this year!  Planes, trains, walking, riding horse and driving.  Driving and driving.  I enjoy driving through so many landscapes, climates and places.  This year of 2018 has had so many lovey drives.  Especially the last two trips to Nairobi and back. 

18 December 2018

And that statement was as far as I got on the 26^th November blog post I was hoping to write and post before getting distracted by getting ready for my next trip the following day on the 27^th.  That trip was going to Ngurunit with my friend Sylvie and her daughters.  Another amazing trip.  We stayed 5 days in Ngurunit having a great time swimming, doing craft work and enjoying life.  Then back again to Maralal on the 2^nd December, only to be traveling again to Nairobi on the 6^th December, then Nanyuki on the 8^th and back to Maralal on the 10^th.  Crazy life really. 

I have no idea where I was going with the whole “I love traveling in all its many forms” statement, really.  I do love it, but have also realized that it can be so disruptive in many ways.  Routines out the window and even when I am in one place, it takes me days to get back into some kind of productive rhythm.  Or maybe traveling is my rhythm and routine.  Hadn’t thought of it that way really.  What I did want to write about were some of the cool things I have done or seen lately during my travels, and when I am in one place for any amount of time.  So instead of a continuous timeline of events, I will show snapshots of descriptive memory of some of the cool stuff. 

Snapshot one: Driving on the wildness road on the way to and back from Nanyuki several times.  One trip down with Sylvie and daughters, we saw so many types of wildlife it was amazing.  There was a group of giraffes in the distance all standing and gazing the same direction.  One adolescent was behind the group watching the smaller babies.  I wonder if they were watching a lion or something else dangerous?  A bit further on, we saw an albino zebra baby.  So cute.  So white with a pink nose and vague stripes barely seen.  All the other zebras were the normal regular black and white stripes type.  That day we also saw elephants, a tortoise, gazelles, many more giraffe, Grevy Zebra, with the tiny stripes and amazing ears, and a lot of what I call regular zebra, like fat donkeys with stripes.  On the way back alone along that road a few days later, I saw almost nothing.  A few baboons and birds.  Then, as I made it up the huge rocky hill, there was an Oryx.  A beautiful beast.  Majestic.  Amazing.  Straight horns touching the sky.  Boldly staring me down as I stopped to gaze in wonder. 

Snapshot two:  A craft fair in Nanyuki.  I had been in Nairobi on a Friday when I heard about it starting on Sunday.  I called the organizer and managed to get her to let me come and try to find a place to sell the baskets of Ngurunit Weaver Group.  I had thrown them into the car at the last minute as a whim, or an intuition, as I was leaving Maralal on Thursday.  I had several challenges to overcome before I could get to the fair.  One was that I was barely walking from a foot infection I had gotten a week before when in Ngurunit and stepped on a thorn.  No thorn present as far as anyone could tell, but the foot was swollen and painful.  But I am determined and after seeing another doctor in Nairobi, planned to head to Nanyuki on Saturday afternoon, pain and all.  This brought me to my second challenge, my car in the garage getting a new clutch!  The mechanic kept promising it would be done within the hour, hour after hour.  By 4 pm I just went to the garage and sat there watching them attempt to put the car back together.  First one issue, then another.  It was getting late for me to go alone in the dark on a 4-hour drive, but fortunately the mechanic also wanted to go to Nanyuki also, so we planned to go together.  And even better, he offered to drive so I could rest my foot.  Yay!  At 7 pm I was sitting in the car ready to go when a test drive produced another bad sound.  The back was jacked up, various pieces beaten and pried on, and by 8 we were off.  As we went, the clutch started to act up, but we made it to where I was staying at 11 pm.  My friend kindly came and showed me the way to her house.  Crazy drive up the mountain as I had to follow her in a car where the clutch was barely working and my foot hurt every time I had to attempt to change gear.  In the morning I woke up to go to the craft fair and couldn’t get the gear in!!  Yikes.  I sat and took a deep breath, sent up a prayer and thought about what the clutch was doing or not doing.  Inspiration hit.  I physically pulled up the clutch pedal with my hand and behold, the gear engaged and off I went.  I made it to the fair on time.  Managed to get a space and a table from the gruffly cranky but somehow kindly craft fair organizer and had a glorious day.  I sold almost every basket I had.  I met many old friends and made several new ones.  I also got several connections with new markets for the baskets.  So wonderful.  The next day, after getting the clutch adjusted and working, I was heading back to Maralal on the same wilderness road I like.  No wildlife that day, but I did act as a guide for some lost tourists.  Just after getting them to where they were going to at Ol Molo Ranch, it started to rain heavily across the Kiremon plains.  What a drive.  Mud mud mud.  I haven’t had so much fun for a long time.  I must say though that it was a bit tense as I was driving alone and had to be very careful not to get stuck.  Slip sliddin’ away.  The nearer your destination the more you’re slip sliddin’ away!!  Amazing time.  I did make it without getting stuck.  Even though my husband did call to see where I was just as I was in the middle of some of the worst mud!!  I somehow managed to answer, reassure him I was okay, and not get stuck all at the same time!  Not answering was not an option as then he would have worried more.  It is nice to be loved. 

Snapshot three: The last 1 ½ weeks I have been in Maralal trying to get my foot healed (almost there) and organize for Christmas holidays.  The kids are coming!!  One week from today and I will be picking them up from the airport at 6 in the morning and we will be going straight North to Ngurunit to touch home before Christmas day is over.  Before that, I am planning to travel to Ngurunit the end of this week to drop the dogs and all the Holiday stuff there to be ready.  So, I have been trying to finish end of year stuff before I disappear into the bush until 2019.  Accounts.  Sending basket orders.  Making weaver payment lists.  Fixing toilets.  Treating dogs.  I am so looking forward to peace, joy, family and friends over the holiday period.   

That is a quick wide view of life in some of my travels the last couple of months.  Wishing you all amazing Christmas holidays and a Happy New Year!!  See you in 2019!  Hugs to all. 

Spinning in Circles - not so bad!

I’m sitting here in Maralal.  Just sitting.  Instead of staring at the wall any longer, I’ve decided to write a bit about life at the moment.  It isn’t that I have nothing that needs doing.  It is more like the issue that I have so much I could be, and should be, doing that I am a bit overwhelmed into not being able to effectively do anything at this precise moment.  Except write, maybe.  Even that seems to be not going so well.  I am in danger of writing in circles and not actually saying anything of any interest to anyone, including myself.  Then again, life can be like that sometimes.  We find ourselves spinning in circles and making ourselves dizzy.  Though come to think about it, I have been spinning in literal circles as I have been practicing my Tibetan Rites exercise program almost every morning diligently for over a month now.  21 repetitions of 5 different exercise of which the first one is to spin in circles.  It is part of my getting and staying healthy again routine.  Eating right.  Exercising.  Reading.  Praying.  Meditating.  Walking.  Working in the yard and garden.  Listening to and playing music.  Petting the dogs.  Playing with the puppies.  Sitting with my purring cat.  Meeting with people to talk, laugh and support them in their lives and be supported in mine.  Engaging myself in the world and working on projects that will improve my life and the lives of those I touch.      

Let me focus a bit on this.  Routines are like circles.  Around and around.  Same thing over and over.  I have always had some difficulty with routine.  Being regular.  Fitting my life into a pattern.  Now, I am realizing that routines can be ever changing patterns yet still be routines.  Like a spiral.  There can be a routine to my daily motions, my comings and goings, my paperwork and projects, my travels and activities, but even if at times I feel like it is the same over and over again and I always seem to be seeing the same things, doing the same things, or staying the same, if I stop and really look at the scenery of my life, I can see that I’ve come around at a higher point than I was before, again and again.  A bit higher each time.  A spiral road around a mountain.  The different sides always have the same views, but as you go up the mountain, the views are from a higher perspective.   So it is with my life.  Without the routines, without the path, I get lost and lose track of where I am going.  Flailing through the bush with no purpose.  But going in circles, staying on routine, I am finding myself climbing to higher and more spectacular perspectives. 

Stopping to stare at walls, taking a moment to smell the flowers, pet the dogs and think about what routine to tackle next probably isn’t so bad after all.  Taking time to look at the views.  What I’m seeing at the moment is quite exciting actually.  I managed to sign the publishing contract with Story Moja last week Friday.  So now I am officially editing and preparing my book with the Story Moja editors and creative staff to be ready to publish sometime in the foreseeable, but as yet not exactly known, future.  The Rotary Global Grant Project to drill two boreholes is getting closer to implementation step by step.  Our partner is having their funding meeting this week and then get their donation to The Rotary Foundation.  Our donation from Rotary Club of Maralal is already in the account and waiting.  I have been starting to talk to our community partners and the drillers.  Hopefully we will have some on the ground movement of the project by the end of this month.  There are several basket orders in process with the Ngurunit Basket Weavers.   In addition, I’ve received some new inquiries that I am following up.  We have also managed to get our basket group registered as a cooperative society the last couple of months.  We are hoping this will help us to partner with the various County and National projects to increase our marketing strength and to access materials, like beads, cheaply and efficiently.  These are a few of the many things I am working on at the moment.  On one level it is the same old stuff, but on the other, I am seeing it from a higher and new perspective as I can reflect on my past experiences, envision new ideas and open up new horizons that enrich my life and the lives of those around.  So, now I must stop staring at the wall and go finish cooking our dinner.  One routine that if I don’t pay attention to, I will end up burning, again!!!  Enjoy the spiral of life!!         

Amazing Life These Past Months

Happy Halloween.  It is hard to believe it is the end of October 2018 already.  This year has gone so fast!  It has been months since I have posted.  I found my writings about those months that I had written while in Ngurunit a couple weeks ago.  Now I will post those words here today.  It is longer than most of my posts, but then a lot was happening in my life since I had last written.  So read and enjoy.  I will post again soon about all the exciting stuff that is going on in life and work presently as 2018 rushes to a close.  For now, here is a bit of my past months as of 18th October....

18 October 2018

October.  My favorite month of the year.  It has been one of the best months in every place I’ve lived in my life.  In the USA I love the deep autumn, Halloween and my birthday at the end of the month.  The coming winter would excite me as I love snow and everything related.  In Nepal, October was at the end of Monsoon season and one could dry out and start to breath.  The climate in the mountains cooled and many fun Nepali holidays came along.  Here in Kenya, October is the start of the short rainy season.  The long dry season of June to September comes to an end everything starts to green up in time for Christmas. Only this year, with the heavy and long rainy season stretching from April to August really, there was only about 1 month of short intense dry season in September.  Crazy weather year for sure.  Though it was drying out really fast and we have been looking for rains to come. We got our first showers of the season yesterday.  Today it is cloudy and cool.  Such a refreshing change from the first part of the week which was intense sun and so so hot.  I felt like I was melting.  Now I enjoy standing outside with the cool drops hitting down.  It isn’t much yet, but it is a start.

It has been quite the ride of life the last several months.  I feel like I have lived several lives and touched down in many different worlds. Mid-August, after a bit over two lovely months with my daughter hanging out with me here in Kenya, we traveled to the USA to prepare for the new school year starting and to meet up with my son in Wisconsin.  On the way there, Naiboku and I stopped in Washington DC for a week to visit family and friends there.  Quite a world change from Kenya!  What an amazing time we had.  Of course, we had to tour the monuments and the museums.   Which we enjoyed within the context of my daughter saying, “I don’t do past”.  Sort of an overview of everything done at top speed!  It was visiting the family and friends that took up most of our time.  From DC we took a 2 day side trip to Philadelphia to visit my Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) friend and her daughter.  We had been together in Nepal over 25 years ago and she and daughter had visited us in Kenya in 2016.  It was so good to see them in their home environment.  One exciting thing is that we got to see my past.  I discovered that the Howell Living History Farm in Titusville New Jersey, where I had done an internship 30 years ago the summer of 1988 was only a 50-minute drive away from Philadelphia.  So, on a Wednesday afternoon we all went on a road cruise into my history.  Even if Naiboku doesn’t do past, I had to show her a piece of mine.  It was so fun.  The RPCV that had started this internship over 30 years ago was still there!  I was so excited to see Pete again and how much the farm had developed as a tourist attraction for turn of the 20^th century farming.  I had gone to learn how to train oxen for plowing and such.  Pete introduced me to the farm manager who was also a RPCV.  He had been in Kenya as a volunteer the year I was at the farm as an intern in 1988!  He started the next year in 1989 at the farm and had pictures of the oxen, Lion and Giant, that I had trained the summer I was there.  They had gone on to be plowing champions.  So fun to reconnect to all that.  My formation years…Getting ready to go out into the world and become a Peace Corps Volunteer myself.  Which eventually led me on my path through Scotland where I met my husband and on to Kenya where I have made my life.  Such an amazing path. 

Anyway, from the East Coast adventure, my daughter and I flew to Wisconsin just in time for Grandpa’s 90^th birthday party.  A completely different world from DC!  The next day an old friend from Canada, Lindsay, who I had met in Maralal, Kenya way back in 2005/6, 2007 and 2008 when she would come to volunteer at the children’s home across from my house there, came to visit us for a week in Wisconsin.  We had so much fun and she was so helpful in getting Naiboku ready for her first year at university in River Falls.  The 3 of us took a Northern Wisconsin road trip to our cabin at Telemark and up to Lake Superior.  We drove through one of the worst rain storms I have ever driven through.  Awesome and scary.  We had a fascinating time along the Lake.   In Herbster, a small town on the shores of Lake Superior, we met an amazing jewelry maker that my friend, who used to live there, said I must meet.  The artist makes things from glass, pottery and stones washed up on the beach of Lake Superior and rubbed into amazing smooth shapes by the wave action.  I used to go horse camping in the area years ago with my high school friend so bought a few necklaces as mementos when I was going to see her.  The cabin at Telemark is one of my cherished childhood places.  Another place which is part of who I am and what I have become.  It was so nice to stay there a couple nights and share with my daughter.  We got back to New Richmond from the cabin just in time to pick up my son coming from his summer job in Vancouver as a YMCA camp counsellor.  The next day we all went to UW-River Falls for Naiboku’s orientation day.  Wow.  My baby is now in University.  We dropped her off at her dormitory on Saturday.  Lindsay flew home on Sunday after a morning with Loiweti and I at the Mall of America carnival rides.  Fun fun.  Monday Loiweti and I headed South to Madison to get him into his new apartment for his 3^rd year of University at UW-Madison.

I spent the week in Madison helping Loiweti get settled, meeting up with friends, going horseback riding and joining the party for my Aunt and Uncle’s 50^th wedding anniversary.  Wow.  Crazy busy fun week.  Back up to New Richmond for a few days.  Visiting Naiboku at university to make sure she was settling in well.  Delicious Mexican food goodbye meal with Mom and Dad after a tour of campus with them and Naiboku to show them where she was.  Then off to California to stay with my sister friend from high school at her house in Castro Valley and visit my niece at her new place of work in San Jose after finishing university last December in Minnesota.  Another world away from Wisconsin.  My friend and I had a few fabulous days of Champaign brunches, walks on the beach, mining town exploration adventures complete with cemeteries and covered bridges, delicious food like bacon waffles, beef roasts and Jamaican food (yum), haunted house tours, rose garden visits and hours and hours of lovely chats.  Then on to an amazingly long plane ride back to Kenya the third week of September.  Wow.  Back to the world I know. 

I’ve been back exactly one month now.  Yet it seems a year ago since USA and all those adventures.  Though it was so good to get back home again.  I arrived to the opening eyes of 7 puppies that my dog Acacia had while I was away.  3 weeks of cuteness starting to explore the world around them.  It has been a busy month.  I made a rush to the village to pay the basket weavers for the order I had shipped out the day I left in August.  Then down to Naibobi last week to explore a publishing contract!  That is my latest excitement and adventure.  I am working to publish a children’s book.  Fingers crossed on that one.  I have been in Ngurunit this week working on illustration ideas for it.  This is a long time coming as I originally wrote the story 10 years ago, but life has a way of bringing distractions.  Finally I am going forward on this.  Yay!!  While I work on the  book here, I am also getting 2 of the puppies, Aladdin and Jasmine, settled here in Ngurunit.  They will be our village dogs.  Living with the goats and staying with the watchman.  So fun to watch them grow and play.  Bruin dog loves to play with them.  He can fit one in his mouth, but is so gentle.  Uncle Bruin.  Teaching the young pups all they need to know!

So that brings me to date.  Almost.  At network tree Tuesday I got the wonderful news that our Rotary Global Grant application that we have been working on for 1 ½ years has finally been approved.  It is for drilling 2 bore hole hand pump wells.  One here in Ngurunit and one in Lare Oibor, a town near Maralal.  Once I get back to Maralal this Sunday, getting the well project started will be my priority for a while.  Along with the book.  Life is exciting!  Doors opening.  Projects beginning!  What an amazing life I have!!! 

Leaky Roof and Fun Car

We experienced a massive downpour of rain in Maralal a couple days ago.  The rain was so heavy that we had a roof disfunction and a waterfall in the living room!  Neither my daughter or I was in the living room as this event occurred, and suddenly I heard “MOM” being yelled urgently through the house.  I ran to find my daughter standing in a huge puddle placing buckets under several big streams with it raining as hard inside the house as it was outside!  Wow.  I sprang into action mopping up the water into the buckets.  We found enough basins to put under all the leaks and eventually managed to shrink the puddle to a wet smear on the floor.  We had reroofed the house last year in order to prevent this very same flooding from happening again. To no avail.  I called the roofing man whom we had paid to do said job and complained.  Within a couple hours he was there on the roof looking it over with his workman.  It had stopped raining by that time, of course.  Regardless, they said they had discovered the issue and would fix it promptly the next day.  I gave out some cash for the needed fixing materials and have not seen them again.  Uggh.  I will have to chase him down again tomorrow before we get another huge storm.  It is looking cloudy and ominous still.  Getting very cold tonight too.  Hope it doesn’t rain in the night as I don’t really want to be up mopping up indoor rainstorms in the middle of the night. 

Once blessing of all this rain is that my garden is still viable and growing well without a lot of effort.  We are planning salad for dinner tonight with fresh lettuce and herbs picked right outside our door.  I spent the evening digging and planting more seeds with my daughter.  One casualty of the leaking roof the other day was all my seed packets were on the table under the leak!  I was planning to save most of them for future months, but they got soaked.  I’ve tried to dry a few of them out but am afraid if kept, the seeds will be spoiled.  So best to plant them immediately when they are fresh.  It is lovely working in the soil and the beauty of our garden.  A wild refuge in the middle of Maralal.  We keep the yard and fence quite bushy and it has become a paradise for birds.  We have so many species.  I have even seen a pair of brown parrots from time to time.  I think they nest in the fence hedge.  It is so peaceful to sit and watch the different birds go about their life business.  The morning birdsong I wake up to is so beautiful.  A great way to start the day. 

I got a call from Mobius Motors today.  They are doing a survey of their customers as to what they think of the Mobius vehicle and the service the company gives to everyone who has purchased one.  I have been very happy with the Mobius, even with its challenges, especially after having only the Mobius to get around in for a month when the Pajero broke down.  The Mobius is a Kenyan made car with the aim to have an affordable and sturdy vehicle for Kenya tailored needs.  The companies main aim so far seems to be towards tour operators, farmers and community organizations.  We got our Mobius in 2015 as a PEAR project vehicle.  It has been useful, but it is not four-wheel drive, which can be a bit difficult on our rough roads.  But despite this, with front wheel drive, it has been surprisingly hardy and versatile for us here in Samburu.  Mobius Motors has been very good on helping us with breakdowns, servicing and improving it to be stronger and better.  I do keep telling them, as I did again today, that they must develop a four-wheel drive version.  If they do that, I will definitely look at upgrading in the future.  In June, I made two trips between Ngurunit and Nairobi with the Mobius. Over 2000 km of driving within a few weeks!  It is a fun car but with manual steering and feeling every bump, it is quite tiring to drive.  It is like being stuck in an exercise machine for hours at a time.  I have certainly gained arm and leg strength this last month!  But I was exhausted much of the time.  The other challenge with the car in Nairobi is that the sides are canvas all around with only a hard wind shield in front.  I had to be careful where I parked so as not to lose my stuff and my dog when we left the vehicle anywhere.  Canvas roll up windows are lovely in the bush, but not so much in the city!!  As my car was number 16 off the assembly line in the first batch of Mobius vehicles ever made, and the company not even 5 years old yet, I am hoping that the Mobius models will get better and better.  I am happy I went with this Kenyan company and I hope they make it as a thriving business.  Now I’m waiting for a Mobius four-wheel drive with better suspension and locking doors!!

Travel Adventures

I don’t even know where to start.  It has been months.  I don’t even remember when I last wrote about life and work in Northern Kenya.  Was it the beginning of May just before heading out on our trip to the USA to meet up with our kids?  Or was it in April?  I suppose I could look at my blog records and find out, but I won’t do that just now.  Instead I’ll free flow with whatever comes out and not worry about what was going on before.  It is exactly 2 months since Reuben and I headed out of Maralal to catch a plane to Wisconsin.  And what a 2 months it has been!!  America was fun.  Hectic as usual.  And HOT!!  I expected nice Spring weather and a cool yet sunny day for the planned high school graduation party I was putting together for my daughter at the end of May.  We arrived in Wisconsin on the 12^th May and did have nice Spring weather for about 4 days.  Then it suddenly jumped into Summer with a bang!  Hot hot hot.  Not a day where it didn’t hit at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit!!   Usually closer to 100!!  Or over!!  Yikes!  Despite the heat, we did a lot of fun things outdoors.  Walking around the family farm.  Going to Valley Fair amusement park in Minnesota. Having a garden party with lots of games and fun.  All in 90 to 110 degrees weather at the end of May.  Crazy.  The climate of the world is so messed up and unpredictable.  While we were in the USA experiencing overly hot May weather, the rains in Kenya were going crazy too!  We kept getting reports of heavy rain storms washing out more roads and flooding more towns.  We arrived as a family back in Kenya on June 2^nd.   Despite the fact that we were 12 hours later than planned due to canceled, diverted and delayed flights the whole way from Wisconsin, and none of our 7 bags arriving with us, it was good to be back in Nairobi.  We still had hard travel to get to Home to Ngurunit and split up to head North by various roads.  The way I went, with my son and a friend in the Pajero car, turned out to be quite the adventure.  First, we drove to Maralal to spend the night and make sure everything was in order from our being away for 3 weeks.  Also, we wanted to pick up our big dog Bruin to have him in Ngurunit with us.  The other team had gone the Nanyuki way to Ngurunit to bring them past the place little dog Mouse had spent the time we were away.  It was like her doggy summer camp.  My friends in Naru Moru took excellent care of her, taking her on lovely walks and swims with their other 4 dogs and sending me little video messages from her now and then.  So fun to get them.  But now I was looking forward to meeting up with her and the rest of the family in Ngurunit.  After a night in Maralal and a morning organizing, we set off for Ngurunit a bit late in the afternoon ready to get there as quickly as possible.  Only to have plans take an unexpected twist, as usual!!  We had traveled barely 20 km out of town when we came upon a huge blockage of trucks stuck in the wet, muddy road unable to get up the hill.  Many smaller cars were stuck on the edges from trying to get around the stuck trucks.  No hope of passing there anytime soon.  So back we went and to an alternative route through a town called Poro.  This proved successful if a bit stressful because while the road was clear of big trucks, it was very muddy and scary to get through.  We made it with some skillful driving by my son and continued on our way to Ngurunit.  The delay meant we got to the half way point, Baragoi, after dark about 8 pm.  On top of that, the Pajero’s clutch was starting to act up and slip now and then.  We stopped for dinner at my niece’s house and debated:  go on with a faulty clutch and hope to arrive safely in Ngurunit or stay the night in Baragoi and deal with it in the morning.  We so wanted to get home that the policy of ‘as long as the car is still moving, keep going’ won out. Off we went about 9 pm headed on to Ngurunit.  Well, we almost made it!  We passed Illaut about 11 pm, the last town before Ngurunit 18 km away.  2 km later, the Pajero could not go up the little hill out of a dry river bed crossing.  Stopped in our tracks.  Middle of the night, 15 km from home and hyenas making a racket near and far. No network.  No AAA to call for a tow truck!  Ever resourceful and never beaten, I sent my son walking back to Illaut, with our big dog Bruin for protection, to look for a motorbike.  While he was gone, a Samburu elder walked by coming from the local network tree and we happened to know each other.  With the hyenas so close, he started a watch fire and we settled in.  My son found a motorbike and driver, left the dog with us and headed off into the darkness towards Ngurunit.  We lay on the hood of the car watching the sky, enjoying the fire and chatting into the night.  About 1:30 am the rescue car arrived.  We packed it up with all the luggage and left the elder sleeping in the car.  We made it to Ngurunit from our adventure a bit after 2 am.  The next morning, the rescue car was sent back to tow the Pajero to Ngurunit and there it sat for the next month while we struggled to find the replacement clutch parts.  That month has been full of travels in our project Mobius, a Kenyan made car!!  More adventures that will await the telling another day.  For now I’ll say that yesterday my daughter and I got back from another trip to Ngurunit to fix the Pajero.  It was lovely to have the Pajero yesterday coming back as once again near Poro, we found rain, mud and stuck trucks in our path.  Another detour and another muddy hill to get up in order to make it home.  A bit of synchronicity in a way.  Though this time the clutch didn’t give out!  I would rather some new adventures than repeating an old one anytime soon!  I still have a few Mobius travels to recount…but will save them for later.  Enjoy life where ever you are and in whatever weather!!  Kenya rains still going on and on….I wonder how the Wisconsin summer is going??? Still hot?....

Happy Labor Day! May 1^st in Kenya is a holiday.  As I am in Kenya, I should spell it Labour Day.  They use the British English spelling method here with all the extra letters! 😉.  Anyway, my husband Reuben and I have been enjoying our morning sitting on the veranda in Maralal bird watching and gazing at the lush garden and knee-high grass in our yard.  The rains have been non-stop for weeks now! We were commenting on how this rainy season is like it used to be back 15 / 20 years ago.  From 2004/5 there was a marked change in the rain fall patterns and amounts almost every year since.  The rain cycle is becoming so unpredictable.  But this year, it is raining just when it ‘should’.  Though I’m not sure if in the right amount.  It just seems so much!  And the floods.  Everywhere.  The river in Ngurunit, which hasn’t flown properly for over almost two years before the rains from end of March this year, is now a raging torrent at times.  It has taken out the bottom fence of Salato Tourist Camp and even changed course one day a few weeks ago to flow through the middle of Ngurunit town.  It mostly missed houses, but a few families had a stream through their living rooms before the river went back to its normal course around the edge of town.  In Arsim the torrent of water in the local river swept away a family that we have clan connections to.  Very sad.  Many a trip has also been delayed or made very difficult by mud and high rivers in the path.  I have been very lucky on my travels the last couple of months, which have been many.  I clocked over 4000 km (around 2500 miles) in the last month and a bit.  Wow.  In all the back and forth with rainstorms, mud and flowing rivers almost every day and everywhere, I managed to mostly hit the days where there was a break and the roads had dried out or the rivers were small and easily passable.  I hear stories from other people  a day before or after my travels about being stuck in the mud all night or having to turn back because of too much water in a river.  But I’ve always make it through in good time.  So far.  The rains are not over yet.  The sun is out now.  Thunderstorm forecast for the afternoon.  Rains throughout the evening.  Electricity going off around 7 pm, just as it is getting dark.  That has been the pattern all week.  Sometimes the power comes on after a bit.  Sometimes after a whole night.  The power outages can be rather annoying when I am trying to get things done.   I have one solar light in the living room and a carry around solar lantern.  Yesterday evening my lantern was running out of charge so left me cooking in basic darkness.  Quite challenging.  Reminds me of the Dr Seuss book ‘I can read with my eyes tight shut’.  I walk around the house in darkness doing what I can.  Amazing what one can get done without actually seeing it very well.

I got back to Maralal a week ago (one day later than planned from spending a night in Nyahururu to let the road to Maralal dry out a bit) after attending this year’s Rotary District 9212 conference in Naivasha.  It was a lovely time of fellowship, learning and fun.  I do enjoy the Rotary world of people dedicated to making the world a better place.  And having a lot of fun while doing it!  Next year the conference is on the Kenyan coast again – North Beach of Mombasa.  That will be fun.  Reuben and I are already signed up.  About the only thing I can plan so far ahead for.  Usually I just wake up in the morning and figure out what is happening that day.  At most, a week advance planning might happen.  Mainly because I have learned that in my life here, the only firm plan that I can have is that the plans WILL change.  Repeatedly.  So I remain flexible and take life as it comes.  Though one plan we have had for a while is quickly coming upon us.  And this one better not change!!  I will forge deep rivers and pull my car single handedly out of the mud to make sure this plan goes ahead!  Reuben and I are heading to the USA from the 11^th of this month to meet up with our kids and family/friends in Wisconsin!!  Yay!!  So excited.  It has been 9 months since I dropped Loiweti and Naiboku off in their various Wisconsin schools last year and while we have communicated a lot (technology and social media is amazing), it will be so wonderful to see them face to face again!!  And Naiboku is turning 18 on the 18^th May and graduating from high school the week after!  Wow.  I will be the mother of two adults now!  Time does fly!    A quote from my grandmother, which my mother now uses a lot and is so true; “I don’t mind getting older, but how can I have such old children?!!” So, I am getting older, but still get surprised by how grown up my children have become.  It will also be good to see everybody else that we can while in the USA.  Trips there are always busy and chaotic but full of fun and laughter.  We will be back in Kenya in June with the kids to keep us company for some time.  By then, rains should be settled down and travel a little less fraught with challenges.  But one can never be sure if things go as planned as we go about life in a place of unpredictable weather, bad roads, far distances and spotty communications.  Life in Kenya is an adventure and I love it.  Remember, the only firm plan that I ever have is that plans will change….   

Sounds of Ngurunit - found piece to post

Found the below on my computer today.  Never posted.  I have been traveling around and around Kenya the last several months with little time to stop and think.  So now finally stopping to think today and the rest of this next week I have in Maralal.  Enjoy the read.  It gives me such a feeling of the peace I feel in Ngurunit.  Imagine and let the peace soak in a bit…

23 March 2018

Sitting in the Ngurunit moonlight listening to the sounds of life moving through the night.  The soft clunking sound of the wooden camel bells on a herd of camels walking by sounding like a gurgling brook.  The shrill maaa of a newborn goat looking for its mother.  Off in the distance, camel calves bawling for their months to come home from grazing.  A bark of a dark warning something in the night to come no closer to the homestead.  The singing of the goat shepherd girl as she moves around settling the goats for the night.  The crickets’ song rhythmic as a background to the stars twinkling overhead.  The moon is almost half and so bright already it is casting strong shadows.  Peace settles in as everything settles down for the night.  The fire is flickering, casting a protection from the hyenas and leopards who would love a bite of goat for their dinner.  I get startled as Bruce Bruin the Almighty springs to action with his deep throated bark at some imagined threat.  Mouse right there with him shrilly telling the world that she is a force to reckon with.  It doesn’t matter to her that she is barely half a foot high and barely 15 pounds.  In her mind she is as tall, heavy and as fierce as Bruin who is well over 100 pounds and can rest his head on the kitchen table with no problem.  Off they go again barking at the sound of the gate opening and closing as the night watchman moves around.  The night sounds start to quiet as the world goes to sleep.  Another day past with its routines and ways.  Here in Ngurunit today, the women received their ration of porridge flour for feeding their children.  I picked up the second half of the basket order to register tomorrow.  It is due in Nairobi for shipping the first week of April.  I had paid for the first half of the order on Thursday.  Pay day is always such a good day at the basket weavers plot. I’ll be able to bring the second part of the payment in April.  By then, we are hoping to have another order to fill also.  And a new basket buyer contact for general baskets!  The business seems to be growing.  Now I just have to work at growing my business skills and capacity with it. 

The Milgas Adventure..

Okay, I am finally sitting down to finish and post my promised story of a Milgas Adventure!  In mid-February, my husband Reuben and I headed to Ngurunit for the weekend to see our village home and do a bit of work here and there as we went.  The decision to use the Milgas riverbed route was made.  The Milgas river is a wide sandy riverbed that passes between two mountain ranges in Samburu; The Ndotos and the Matthews.  When it is raining, it is filled with water, dangerous and impassable.  When it is dry, it is as good as a wide-open freeway.  That way can be a lot smoother and faster than bumping up the rocky way through Baragoi.  When all goes well.  That is the key statement here.  On this trip, even though it was very dry in February, all did not go well.  And yet in the end, it did.  Life is funny that way.  We get into trouble and struggle and struggle, but at the end of it all, we find that the so-called trouble led us right to the place we needed to be.  That was the case with our experience on this Milgas river trip. One of Reuben’s current projects with his government job is providing camels for pastoralist families Samburu County.  To this end, a group of camels was being trekked in February towards the different distribution points in Samburu North.  One purpose of deciding on the Milgas route was to see if we could intercept them on the way and see how they were doing.  The first part of the journey, about 2 hours, went well, up over a mountain to get to the Milgas, then driving through the riverbed with no problem to a point adjacent to a town called Latakweny.  We had not found the camels, so we just decided to carry on to Ngurunit.  From this point, one has a choice on the way to Ngurunit.  To get out onto a regular road or to keep driving in the river bed.  As the road is rocky and round-about, the decision was made to continue in the river.  Challenging choice, it turns out.  As I said, the climate was very dry in February.  So dry that the continuing section of the river had very heavy, very deep sand.  Too dry.  We managed to go for only about 1 kilometer when the car bogged down in this sand.  With only 3 of us in the vehicle, it was a stomach dropping moment.  Oh no!  How do we get out??!!  With no choice but to try pushing, the struggle began.  Reuben drove while I and the driver pushed.  And pushed.  And pushed.   The car broke free of the clinging deep sand and charged forward to a harder bit where Reuben stopped to let us catch up to the vehicle and climb in.  We continued.  Only for a kilometer or so and the deep sand sucked in the vehicle and we bogged down again, unable to move forward.  Again we pushed.  And pushed.  And pushed.  Free again.  Continue.  Bogged down again.  And the cycle repeated. Over several times till I lost count.  Finally, we who were pushing started to lose strength.  The sand seemed deeper.  The car sinking deeper.  No forward movement.  The light was going as the sun started dropping towards the horizon.  Despair that we would get out of the mess we were in started to grow.  The thought of giving up for the night, starting a fire and hunkering down for a night stuck in the Milgas started to cross our minds.  Though thoughts of elephants and hyenas circling us all night kept us looking for options.  That is when the Samburu warrior walked by.  Saved.  We asked him if he had friends nearby to help push.  Yes, they would be by presently.  We asked if there was a way out of the river onto a firm road.  Yes, look over there on the other bank of the river, between those bushes, a way out with a road straight to Latakweny.  Joy.  We had a chance of actually getting out of the wide river with the dragging sand and finding safe haven for the night, even if we were backtracking a bit.  Of course, it still took a mighty effort of pushing and pushing and pushing, even with 6 guys helping, to get the car moving forward onto firmer ground so Reuben could then race across the river and get out at the place we were shown.  On that last effort, I found myself face down in the middle of the riverbed with sand everywhere one could imagine from the hard push and the spinning wheels as the car broke free and dashed away.  I followed more slowly by foot across the riverbed with the warriors and driver, wiping grit from my teeth, weary from the fight with nature that we had been having for several hours.  As I walked, the sun was setting and nature forgave me for thinking I could conquer the mighty Milgas that day.  Red streaks blazed across the sky behind beautiful waving palm trees in a dazzling sunset, filling me with peace.  It seemed to be saying to me, it is okay you didn’t get to where you are going, look at the beauty of where you are!  The funny thing is, that when we did get to Latakweny to stay the night instead of trying to continue to Ngurunit in the dark, it turned out that this was exactly where we needed to be.  Reuben’s office colleagues found him as they were passing by and were able to give him good news about the camels. We had just missed them earlier in the day.  We also found friends and a comfortable place to sleep which we appreciated so much.  We were being taken care of by the Universe.  The next morning, we continued our travel to Ngurunit, this time using a road, which had its own challenges, but more passable than the riverbed way.  All worked out as it needed to.  As it always does for me in my life of adventure, working and living here in Northern Kenya.           

Here I Am..

Here I am.  Almost 2 weeks after I mentioned on a Facebook post that I would write about our adventure trip to Ngurunit and back.  Since then life has had some other surprises too.  It was school midterm break time from February 24^th to March 3^rd.  So I suddenly had 4 students arriving at the house for a place to stay and assistance to get home for a few days to pick up important papers.  The Form 2 students were required out of the blue to provide their parent’s ID numbers and original results slips.  This is easier said than done for kids who live 200 km away from their Maralal schools in places with few transport options.  But as always, we managed to send on their journey the 3 kids that needed to make the dash home and back during the break.  I had plans for a quick trip to Nakuru so I decided to take the 4^th student, my niece Rameli, along with me to see the big city!  That turned into a quick dash too, leaving on a Monday at 1 pm and being back to Maralal by 8:00 pm the Tuesday the next day.  In between we traveled the 4 hours down to my friend Anne’s house in Gilgil for Monday night.  Had dinner out with her and her son so we could meet a couple Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Gilgil.  Woke early on Tuesday morning to head for Nakuru to drop off my dog Acacia at the vet, Dr Cran, for spaying.  Rushed into town to do errands and shopping before a Rotary Club of Nakuru meeting at 12:30 for lunch.  I got a call from Dr Cran at 10:30 to inform me that my dog was actually expecting puppies so wondered how to proceed.  I made the decision to let nature take its course, but please hold on to her in his kennel until after the meeting.  Attended an amazing rotary meeting handing out certificates of participation to their many Rotary Community Corps, some of whom I had met last August.  Had a nice lunch.  Then the rush to finish up shopping, pick up the dog and head back to Maralal by a reasonable hour!  Exciting but exhausting trip.  Through all this, Rameli followed me around wide-eyed at all the hustle and bustle of a big city of more noise, people, pollution and traffic than she had ever imagined possible!  It is good that we got back to Maralal quickly because by the next day, the whole student crew had returned, with a few additions, back to Maralal to organize for going back to their studies this last weekend.  This involved several days of shopping, hair styling trips to beauty parlors, watching tv for entertainment and catching up on sleep.  Acacia is back in her place with the other dogs the same as she was when we left.  Definitely starting to look more expectant every day.  It is a mystery.  We thought we were so careful during her first heat cycle in December.  It appeared to be over by the beginning of January, but apparently not as the estimate is that she conceived sometime in the middle of that month, thus puppies expected to arrive within the next couple of weeks.  We never noticed her leave the compound.  No intact male dog came in.  It will be interesting to see what the pups look like.  After she has them and the challenge to find good homes has been accomplished, I will try the spaying trip again.  I’ll count this one as a practice run.  It did go better than I had expected it to.  Acacia has never been trained to leash and she has ridden in the car only a couple times around town.  She is about 10 months old and very sweet, but a little wild.  I took Mouse along with us to help keep Acacia calm, which helped.  Though a couple times they had a little control tiff.  This is my bed.  This is my car.  This is my human.  But overall they get along well.  Acacia wasn’t so sure about the leash.  But it helped to see Mouse on one and with a tug here and there, she would follow along and not fight it too much.  A quick learner.  Riding in the car was no problem at all.  Acacia just lay in her bed sleeping most of the way with Mouse sleeping on the seat beside her.  It surprised me how calm she was. 

Wow, here I am having written a lot about nothing really and never did get to the Ngurunit trip adventure we had in the middle of February.  I don’t want to go on too long so will end here with another promise to tell the story on my next blog.  This time I will try to not let time pass by so fast.  I will make another excuse as to why so distracted from writing because it is a happy one.  It started raining heavily last week here in Maralal! Yay!! I have heard it is all over the country, including in Ngurunit!!  That is so wonderful as water was becoming very scarce.  The side effects of this rain are several.  One is that power has been off about 50% or more of the day almost every day since.  That really disrupts work requiring electric powered equipment.  No power at the moment so trying to finish and post this before computer battery runs out.  I fortunately have a solar phone charger so will be able to get a hotspot for internet.  The other side effect is flooding.  Nairobi inundated.  Pictures of submerged cars fill my social media.  I had a challenge last week even crossing the small rivers between my office and home!!  The old adage of flood or famine is playing out.  Such is life.  But water is life, so we will just have to deal with the difficulties.  My garden is thriving.  That makes me happy!!  Time to go.  I will have to be patient until the power comes on again for another quick battery charge before disappearing during the next rain storm.  The fickleness of technology.  Incredibly useful when working well.  Incredibly frustrating when something not right.  Until next time:  May your lights stay on and your feet be dry….

Peace in the Garden.

All is at peace in the world.  At least in my garden.  Just in from evening of watering, weeding and picking fresh stuff to eat.  After my gardening was done, as I headed into the house, I saw the old duck just hanging out by the door.  The chickens are contained in a wire pen, but the old duck has the freedom of the yard.  He is the last one of a batch of ducks I got over 10 years ago.  We decided to just let them be ornamental fowl, along with our turkeys, as we weren’t having much luck with them reproducing.  The ducks have died of old age one by one till just this old guy is left.  The turkeys are also gone now so only the one old duck.  He likes to hang out in back near the kitchen door and old dog Seal.  They seem quite the companions.  Anyway, he looked a little bored and sad, so I decided to liven up his life a bit with some old buggy cereal I had found in the cupboard.  I had to lock up the dogs first because naughty Acacia, the puppy, likes to eat old cereal too and doesn’t give the old duck a chance!  So often a simple idea quickly gets complicated, but if one sticks with it, little joys can appear.  After getting everything situated, including filling up a dish with water to help get the dry cereal down, I threw a bunch of cereal near the duck.  Boy did he enjoy that!  A couple bites of cereal and a few swallows of water.  A couple bites of cereal and a few swallows of water.  Repeat.  Mouse came out to see what the excitement was about as she had managed to not be locked up with the other dogs.  She came to sit on my lap as I sat on the rock wall, watching with me as the duck enjoyed himself with his special meal.  The funniest thing was that I noticed that as he took water in his beak to mix with the cereal, he did this funny little beak shake and vibrated his throat in a way which reminded me exactly of my Dad when he is getting a good taste of something.  My Dad likes to move his mouth and tongue in a certain way to get a good first taste of some new food on all his taste buds which makes his chin and neck vibrate just the way the old duck was doing with the cereal and water mixture.  What an observation.  Two food connoisseurs, one humankind, one birdkind, making sure they get the most out of their dining adventures, being mirror images of one another!  Imagine that!  It was so peaceful sitting in my garden with my fellow creatures around me, the sun setting and birds singing and twittering as they start to settle for the night.  Joy deep in the soul. 

Repeating Cycles...

3 months since my last post and I could almost use the same title of Rain, Garden and Baskets.  Though this time the news about the rain would be that we have had almost no rain since November.   The situation is dire concerning availability of water in many places, especially Ngurunit.  While there over the December holidays, finding clean water was a challenge.  Since then, the situation has not improved.  Women wait hours at the open wells in the dry river bed that are getting deeper and deeper by the day as men dig down looking for enough water to give to their livestock.  Only after they are done do the women get a chance at the muddy dredges.  Reuben and I are heading to Ngurunit tomorrow and plan to take a water truck with us to help alleviate the strain a bit for the community in finding water by trucking it in from further sources.  This will only be a very temporary boost.  We are still working on getting a long-term solution in the form of more borehole water wells.  We are also waiting for the rains in March.  Praying that they come on time.  Here in Maralal, the situation isn’t much better. Our main advantage here is, that if lucky, one can get hold of a water truck every few weeks to come fill the tanks as the piped water comes only once a week for a few hours, and even that doesn’t always happen.  So, water can be available, but quite expensive. 

The garden, despite the fact of almost no rain since planting and using the bare minimum of watering to keep things alive due to expense and scarcity, has done better than I hoped for.  At least the herb and leaf lettuce garden.  It has the advantage of being in a shady place with the perfect soil for water retention.  I have been having beautiful salads here in Maralal for the first time in years, actually.  My past gardening attempts often ended in nothing edible.  But this time, my green thumb seems to be working better!  Sunday, I finished drying and packing several jars of some lovely herbs: mint, sage, marjoram and thyme.  I still have a lot of fresh herbs growing well in the garden too, mixed in with lots of lovely baby leaf lettuce.  Yum.  Though in terms of the garden, not all is success.  The main garden area has suffered greatly from lack of water and infestations of bugs.  I might get some potatoes eventually, as well as onions and garlic.  But not much else of what I planted, including several other types of lettuce, cauliflower and beets.  I’ll be lucky to salvage any of that.  Oh well.  I will take what I can get and enjoy at least a bit of fresh produce from my own efforts. 

Now to the baskets.  The November 2017 order got delivered in good time.  As well as another December 2017 order we received from The Basket Room. Now with a good start to 2018, we already have another order from Swahili-Imports that the weavers are working on.  On my trip to Ngurunit tomorrow, I will be taking more beads for finishing the baskets by mid-March.  I also have 3 other leads on new markets I have gotten since January.  I’m so excited to see if I can secure any of these.  Another big improvement on the basket venture is our new access database that was put together by my brilliant new friend, Esther, who I met in December.  She came to Ngurunit with me over the holiday, attached to PEAR as an intern, to help with the basket inventory system and getting the group computer up and running.  I am amazed at her computer proficiency.  I am continually amazed at the millennial generation’s way of having technology be more of an extension of themselves, rather than something that is simply used, the way I do it.  So many of them have some sort of innate intuition of how to get technology to do the things they want them to do.  Quickly and easily.  Esther would show me the database and start to hit buttons so fast and move things around in ways that I would never have thought of.  My head would spin.  Despite that, I have started to figure things out and have a better handle on basket stock than I have for a long time.  Though I am happy Esther is only a phone call away when I hit any glitches!!      

So, the beginning of 2018 seems much like the end of 2017.  Life goes on.  Struggles and joys.  Successes and failures.  The repeating cycles of day to day, month to month.  I do have some exciting ideas and plans for 2018.  I will see how they unfold.  Maybe my next post will have something amazing and new to report!!  Happy New Year!! (better late than never 😊 !!).