I’m sitting here next to the Christmas tree gazing out the window as I listen to big band music playing on the record player in the next room.  A deer just waded through the deep snow outside the window.  The deer like to come eat the scraps of birdseed from under the bird feeder.  It is a peaceful evening here in Wisconsin.  I came a couple a weeks ago from Kenya to celebrate my daughter’s graduation from University on the 17^th and stay for the holidays.  I have certainly had a white Christmas.  And a cold Christmas with below zero temperatures. A big change from my desert life in Northern Kenya, that’s for sure. 

I had a very busy October and November in Kenya with some interesting trips and a lot accomplished. The highlight of October was a visit by my daughter-in-law to the village.  We worked with the basket
weavers to get ready for taking baskets to a craft fair in Nanyuki in the shadow of Mt Kenya at the end of October.  

After the craft fair I went to Nairobi for the last week of October in which my birthday and the holiday of Diwali happened to coincide.

The fireworks over the city were fabulous.  I had picked up food poisoning at the craft fair. Uggh.  So I wasn’t feeling so well.  It cheered me up to be able to find a 7^th floor vantage point next to my apartment and see 5 or 6 firework shows at a time from all corners of Nairobi.  Amazing.  My birthday was fabulous.  My favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, an afternoon

in the spa and evening sushi and drinks on the top floor of a fancy hotel.  What a treat!

Back in the village in November I concentrated on the PEAR Innovations cybercafe project that I am working on.  The first stage is to renovate several of the business houses owned by Salato Women’s Group.  Some of the women helped me to start the process by cleaning them up to be ready for the construction of fixing them up.

By the time I left for the USA, they were starting to look very good.  There is still some work ongoing while I’m gone.  Once I’m back by the end of January, I’ll be able to start stage two of getting it into shape with desks, computers and internet connections.  Exciting. 

It was still very dry in October and November with the pasture for livestock very scarce. 

We had many very young goat kids that weren’t getting enough milk from their mothers so we supplemented extra packaged milk.  They were so cute.  Sweet little things.  Fortunately by the time I was leaving Ngurunit the beginning of December, there had been several heavy rain showers over a couple of weeks and things were getting green and pasture growing well. 

I headed to USA the beginning of December.  On the way I stopped in Amsterdam to meet up with a friend and we jumped on a train to Belgium to stay with a mutual friend there for 2 nights.  What a great time.  We went to a Christmas fair in a nearby town.  My friend’s daughter and I rode on a huge Ferris Wheel near an amazing old church.  It was so fun to see the town from a birds-eye view.  And the hot chocolate in a local pastry shop was so delicious.  Belgium chocolate is the best!!

That brings me back to today and my snowy white holiday season.  It is the end of 2022.  It has been an eventful year.  Not always easy, but always blessed.  I’m looking forward to what 2023 has in store.  As always, I will take life one day at a time.  Wishing you all a joyous New Year full of peace and beauty.  Breathe. Be.

 

 

Almost three months! How have these months flown by so fast since I last sat down to write about Life.  The end of July my daughter and I made it to the USA!  Once again, we traveled with a cat! This time with my son and daughter-in-law’s cat Flamingo (known as Flammy or Mingo by those who love him).  International flight travel with a cat was definitely interesting.  Much easier than I had expected. 
My daughter and I had him in a really cool travel bag with us in the cabin under the seat on both of our flights between Kenya and USA.  He was amazingly calm about the whole travel thing.  He did not like being carried in the bag.  That was the only

time he’d meow.  Once we put him down somewhere, he would settle and usually curl up and go to sleep.  Flamingo was a street cat in Nairobi that showed up on my daughter-in-law’s doorstep about 3 years ago.  We think he is somewhere between 5 and 8 years old.  He was ill and looked very rough when he started showing up looking for food.  One day he was let into the house and there he stayed.  Nursed back to health and pampered with love, he is such an amazing cat.  Now he has moved from Kenya to USA!  He might even get his own Instagram page.  Rags to riches in the cat world! Haha. 

Home again, home again.  Now I am back in Kenya.  Landed in Nairobi late on the 5^th October.  Hit the ground running.  Dentist on the 6^th.    Errands and catch up for PEAR Work, Rotary Club business and buying beads for the Basket weaving group over the next few days.  

Yesterday, jumped on the MAF bush plane to Korr and took the easy way home.  1 ½ hour flight instead of 9 hour drive.  Got picked up in Korr and still had an hour drive to Ngurunit.  Was funny flying up because we flew right by Ngurunit and I got some cool pictures from above.  Then 4 minutes from there to the desert airstrip.  That 4 minutes in a plane took 1 hour to drive back to home!! 

The drought in Kenya is not letting up.  Things are getting really tough for everyone – people, livestock, wildlife.  In Ngurunit the Rotary handpump well we constructed in 2019 is basically the only clean water source for community at the moment.  It is serving people and livestock.  The other government built solar pumped well seems to not be working.  Wiring issue or something.   Waiting to have that fixed can be forever!  Pasture is also getting scarce.  Our goats have just returned home from the outside grazing camp they’ve been at for months.  We can care better for them at home with supplements and such.  Praying the October rains come as hoped from next week.  If not….it will become dire indeed. 

It is good to be home again after so long in Wisconsin.  I enjoyed the sunset and moonrise last night.  The birds sung all night it was so bright.  Years ago, when my mom visited, she was amazed at the brightness of the full moon here.  She had always heard the saying “being able to read by the light of the moon” but thought it just a random idiom, not a real description.  She got a book and brought it outside one brightly lit moonlight night and was so pleased to actually be able to read by the light of the moon!  That is a treasured memory I have of her enthusiasm and adventure. 

This morning I sat with the dogs and the goats as the morning unfolded.  Such peace.  The goats are so funny.  The kids roam around like little gangs looking for trouble to get into.  They will jump on any object they find.  My goat Ruma came by to say hi and beg for the banana peels.  Her latest girl kid is growing so fast.  Only 6 months old and bigger than most of the other local does years older than her. 

Today is mostly rest day.  Then I have to jump back into the hustle and bustle of community work.  There is a big basket order underway.  I want to renovate a couple of the group houses for a planned cybercafe.  PEAR admin work has piled up.  More Rotary plans to carry out.  Amazing how busy we can make ourselves.  For today, I will sit and gaze at the beauty of this place.  Pray for rain.  Pet my dogs.  Listen to the birds singing all around.  Life is good.  Breathe. Be. Peace to you all. 

 Traveling with cats!

I just spent 9 days traveling from the village thru Maralal to Nairobi and back again for the main purpose of a need for a veterinarian and a dentist.  Over 1000 km journey for access to good medical services.  That is the nature of things in Northern Kenya.  Yes, there are government and private clinics with medical and dental services in the North.  Yes, there are veterinarians in the North.  But are they reliable?  Will they cure or make things worse?  That is always the question. I remember one “dentist” attached to the Government Sub-county hospital where we lived for a while that was notorious for pulling teeth.  That was the only treatment he gave for a tooth issue.  The worst thing was, several people died of sepsis infections from not have a clean tooth pull.  Horrible.  So, I would rather travel 520 km each way just to be sure, than use local services and have a high chance of a poor outcome.  It is expensive and time consuming.  I am lucky to have my own means of transport.  I feel so for those who have the need but not the means to travel out to get medical services, especially in emergencies.  One thing that PEAR Innovations does quite a bit is to give financial support to those seeking medical help at better facilities “down country”.  

Back to this trip.  The mission was to get my two young cats spayed and neutered and my daughter to the dentist.  As we were in the village and the cats in Maralal, we first made the 200 Km trip and stayed a night there to pick them up.  The next day, off to Nairobi, a 320 km trip, with two not very happy cats in the car.  It took them about 80 km to settle, but they eventually resigned themselves to their fate of being stuck in a noisy moving container and wedged themselves into secure sleeping positions.  One night at our Nairobi apartment and they were dropped off at the vet.  The veterinarian I use in Nairobi, St Austin’s, is very good.  It was the clinic who helped me save my dog Bruin’s life when he was ill for over 4 months from December 2021 through January 2022.  Now after finally getting good treatment since January, Bruin is fat and sassy.  The picture of health, if a bit overweight.  We are working on that!  So, the cats.  They were operated on, spent an overnight at the vet surgery and we picked them up on the 8^th.  Dentist day was on the 9^th.  We hung out in Nairobi till 12^th to let everyone recover and do various errands and other important stuff.

The main important event was the launch and opening of the Africa and Middle East Office of Too Young to Wed.  This is an organization that my Rotary Club of Maralal is partnering with on a project in Samburu called The Butterfly Project:  Empowering Girls in Northern Kenya.  We are in the proposal stage working to get funding for bringing together at-risk girls in local communities and giving them peer groups, literacy training and financial resources to enable them to have greater power over their own lives and bring more value into their families for who they are as individuals rather than just objects to be married off at too young an age when the family needs resources.  Too Young to Wed has already been working in Samburu County for many years and the work they do is impressive.  I’m excited that we are going to be working together with them in the coming months and years on this pilot project for empowerment to a greater level.  Their Nairobi launch event was fun and informative with girls from several communities coming to share their stories and songs with the guests. 

The next day after the event, we traveled with the cats back to Maralal.  The cats again were totally unhappy with the car ride, but oh were they ecstatic to get home again.  They missed being able to go outside and immediately went to reestablish their dominance of my Maralal dogs…haha. We stayed a couple nights to make sure they were settled and their incisions healing well, then off to the village again.  

The drive here on the 14^th July was fabulous.  We came by some of the more back roads through remote forest and bush.  The wildlife we saw along the way was so cool.  Grevy Zebra, Kudu, Ostriches doing the mating dance and a family of half-grown chicks.  

We also saw other cool birds like the Secretary Bird which I’ve always loved with the “punk hairdo”. Haha.  What I loved about this drive and all the wildlife sightings is that it was just our normal road home.  No National Park or special wildlife protection areas.  Just public roads and lands that are wild and free.  So many zebras and ostriches.  So many.  Like deer in Wisconsin..haha. 

Speaking of Wisconsin, we have one more week here in the village then traveling again to Nairobi.  This time to fly to USA for the end of the summer.  So much to do before I go.  Will leave it here until next time….Peace and Joy to you all!!!

 I have just come back to the village this last Thursday after 3 fabulous days at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary located in Northern Kenya not so far from my home in Ngurunit.  According to their website, Reteti is “the first community owned elephant sanctuary situated in Northern Kenya”.  The wonderful thing is that I found that this is true.  The community there is so involved in the care of their wildlife.  I was there with my daughter in order to see firsthand how conservancy and wildlife rehabilitation project can be as she may be
heading into that field of work in her future.  My husband joined us our last day there to also see this community initiative. It is sad that so many elephants are orphaned or separated from their herd due to various issues, but to see them so well cared for with the hope of returning them to the wild once they are grown is encouraging.  Many of the babies were rescued from wells that they have fallen into and their herd was unable to get them out so eventually had to leave them.  Climate change with the more frequent droughts exaggerates this issue as the water table drops and the wells get very deep. 

Sometimes a baby is orphaned after human/wildlife conflict leads to the death of the mother or the baby getting separated from the herd or injured.  

Reteti also takes in other species and while we were there had an orphaned buffalo, a gerenuk, a very tiny ostrich chick and several giraffes, big and small.  One very young giraffe had just been brought in about 4 days previously having been attacked by dogs and was less than 2 weeks old.  

She was treated and was starting to get used to her new living situation and had another young giraffe friend to hang out with who was around 1 ½ months old.   As for the elephants, at the moment there are 40 babies living there and being cared for by the community elephant keepers.  They are kept in three different groups.  The tiny under 6 month old are 8.  The middle group of around 2 to 3 years are 19.  And the bigger elephants of around 3 to almost 5 years are 13 in number.  

They are all cared for day and night with milk and supplement feedings every 3 hours.  In between feedings during the day, they are taken out to walk and graze in the bush, even the tiny ones, so they are accustomed to the environment that they will eventually be released into after the age of 5 years.  There is more detailed information on their website here, including how to “adopt an elephant” and make other donations to this amazing community effort.  https://www.reteti.org/

Other news in my life right now is an update on my children’s book publishing efforts.  It was officially published on June 21^st 2022!! Yay!!  I have several more websites that it is now available on.  Amazon (Why Hyena Limps: An Original Tale Told in the African Style https://a.co/d/7jpio7L) as well as Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-hyena-limps-laura-lemunyete/1141693279#) carry it now.

 I am still waiting on a couple other sites, such as Ingram from which libraries and bookstores do their ordering, then will really start on the marketing push.  The other day I woke up from a nap with the storyline of a second book running through my head.  Will this also come to fruition?  Only the future will tell.  Watch this space….

For today that is all.  My head and heart are still full of the animals and people from Reteti Elephant Sanctuary that I spent the last few days with.  There is so much wrong with the world, yet also so much right when one by one, we all work to show kindness and care wherever we can, each in our own space.  May we all Love what we can and show kindness to whoever and whatever we meet as we travel our paths through this world.  Peace and joy to you all till next time…

Great news to share on the status of my book.  It is ready for pre-order from the publisher!!  I am so excited to have this project in the home stretch of being completed.  I wrote the actual story years ago as a fun thing to do with the kids.  That was almost 15 years ago.  We used to sit together and draw the characters of the story as I had the idea of trying to publish it way back then.  Then, life got busy and as often happens, the creative ideas got lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life.  About 5 years ago, I found the story and the drawings cleaning out my office.  I decided it was time to try again.  I had thought I had found the way to get it done here in Kenya but so many obstacles kept getting in the way, not least of all the pandemic which changed things a lot with the publisher I was trying to go with.  I used the beginning of lockdown in 2020 to re-envision the illustrations and spent several months creating the paintings as we hid out in the village.  Haha.  Another 2 years of promises given and not kept and I decided it was time to find a new publisher.  This one is Kirk House Publishers based in Minnesota. 

This has proven to be the best decision ever and now here it is;  Why Hyena Limps.  An Original Tale told in the African Style.  The paintings are mine as well as the story.  The end has a fun facts section with my photographs of the different animals which are characters in the story.  It has been fun to put the book together with the help and advice of many friends, family members and book world professionals.  

The official publishing date is within this month of June, most likely in a couple weeks.  Of course, now the hard part begins: marketing and promotion!  I am so new to the world of publishing and being an author.  I learn something new every day.  For now I will share the link from the publisher.  The book is available for pre-order and copies will be sent out as soon as they are done.  Here is the link to the page on my book.  Orders can be made here direct from the publisher.  

https://www.kirkhousepublishers.com/product-page/why-hyena-limps-by-laura-lemunyete

Later I will be able to share more on where the book will be available and what other plans I may have for it in the various parts of the world that I live in and travel to.  It has been fun to see this story develop and finally be sent out into the world.  Thanks in advance to all who order it.  Enjoy!! 

 Ran out of power on my computer yesterday before I could post.  So today I’m at my electricity point at the Salato Tourist Camp.  We have hope of getting main electricity at our house.  Working on it.  Then we’ll be able to have a luxury like a refrigerator too.  Presently we use the freezer at the camp and pick up cold stuff and keep in a cooler at our house.  Daily cooler cold pack changes.  Also the regular device charging trips.  We have solar power at our house but only enough for lights and the occasional phone charge.  Computer power consumption is just too much for our system.  Anyway, here is my post which I wrote yesterday!  Enjoy!!

27^th May 2022

Here I am again.  After a 3 month hiatus since the last time I put thoughts into words here in this space.  My 2022 resolution to be a more regular blog writer seems to have gone for vacation, unless regular means once a quarter…hahaha.  Anyway, today is a day to write.  Not much else I feel like doing today here in Ngurunit as it is as hot as an oven here.  Thankfully, a bit more humid than usual as the area did get some heavy rains for a couple days the beginning of this month.  Was over a month late for the long rains, but at least we have gotten something.  Praying for more.  The heat of the last few days seems to be building up to more rain.  I can only hope as I sweat in the heat and stay in the shade.  We do not have the luxury of air conditioning here.  Unless, of course, I start up the car and sit inside with the air blasting for a while to cool off.  I have been known to do that in the past…haha. 

I am not sure where even to begin on what has been happening in my life and work the last 3 months.  I traveled the country (Kenya-from North to the Coast) several times and I’ve traveled the world (was in USA all of April and beginning May)!  I will start with today and go backwards.  My daughter is visiting home in Kenya during her summer break from university in Wisconsin.  She has been hanging out this morning on the verandah trying to beat the heat.  She yelled for me to come look and then pointed out a huge Monitor lizard making its way up our driveway towards us.  Wow.  Scary really.  These things are big!  It was heading towards where my goat Ruma was nursing her 1 month old kid.  We made noise and the Monitor lizard turned around and headed down towards the empty goat pens.  Probably looking for a chick dinner since we thwarted its idea of tender goat.  We’ve been having something eating our chicks, and now and then an adult chicken.  We do have wild cats around, but looking up Monitor Lizard on google, I found that they do eat meat, including birds, and the bigger ones can even eat gazelles.  Their saliva is somewhat venomous to smaller animals, including small dogs, so we were careful to keep all the dogs away from it.  The dogs did see the Monitor Lizard as it was walking into the bush, but they seemed to have some sense of danger and stayed away from it.  This lizard wasn’t the biggest I have seen here in Kenya, but definitely larger than my dog Mouse!!

Backing up a couple weeks ago saw my husband, my daughter and myself on the Kenyan coast beaches attending our District 9212 Rotary Conference just after my daughter and I got back from USA.  Fabulous trip with a full moon over the ocean, lovely resort environment and lots of fun with Rotarians from around the District and the World.  While at the coast, my daughter and I visited a primate rehabilitation center in Diani.  Colobus Conservation is a very interesting organization that works towards helping primates that get injured and orphaned along the busy road of the tourist destinations along the South Coast of Kenya.  It works with all species of primate found in the area, not just the black and white Colobus monkeys.  The day we visited we saw lots of Vervet and Sykes monkeys.  Some pens were full of orphans that are being raised until they can be returned to the wild and several wild troops of

Vervet and Sykes monkeys came by to visit them while we were there.  Fascinating to watch the interactions.  One cool innovation the center has done is construct monkey ladder bridges over the roads in the area to reduce primate injuries and deaths from being hit by cars.  This is the sort of wildlife conservation and rehabilitation work my daughter might want to get into when she finishes her degree.  The end of June, we hope to go visit an orphan elephant and wildlife rehabilitation center located on the East side of our Samburu County.     

Another step back in time into April.  I spent the month in Wisconsin.  The thing of note in terms of work that happened while I was there related to my past Peace Corps Volunteer connections.  Last year I joined the Madison chapter of the National Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Associations.  In April they had one of their bi-annual Gift Away meetings to give grants to projects from funds they raise through annual calendar sales.  This time I put in a proposal for starting a Cybercafe in Ngurunit and was granted $2500 to get it started.  So excited about this.  With network and electricity available now in Ngurunit, things are opening up and potential growing in this small remote town of Northern Kenya.  Over the next months I will be working to rehabilitate some available buildings and get a space for community to access internet services and computer skills learning opportunities.  It is located right next to the Salato Primary School so ideally located.  Watch this space….

Another important connection I made while in USA was finding a new publisher to help me get my children’s book published by June…more on that later once it is out in the world.  This has been a long time coming and I’m excited to see it finally coming into fruition.  Again, watch this space!

Last, but definitely not least, back up into March 2022 and I became the mother of a commercial pilot when my son got his Commercial Pilot License in Nairobi!! Yay!  I also became a Mother-in-Law when he got married to my now daughter-in-law!  Life is full of joys and beauty!!

With that back to front update on key points in my life and work in Northern Kenya (and the world) I will leave it here in the heat of Ngurunit.  Clouds seem to be building up, but will they produce rain and cool us off?  That is the big question I will sit and ponder now as I swelter the afternoon away as I hang out with my goat Ruma and her young doe kid (born April 21st) to keep her safe from Monitor lizards.  2022 is flying away.  5 months almost gone already.  Wow.  I plan to be back to this space sooner than this last gap.  In the meantime, enjoy life and find adventures wherever you are!  Joy and Peace to you all.  Till next time…

Wow. Over a month and a half of 2022 already gone so fast.  I may be late saying it, but Happy New Year to you all!!  Wishing you all a fabulous 2022.  So, with that out of the way, how has my 2022 started?  Nomadic chaos as usual!!  Haha! Mainly I have been traveling up and down the country for various reasons starting on the 2^nd January to get my son and his fiancée back to civilization after their stay with us over the holidays.  I was back in the village by the 4^th again only to travel to Maralal the following week for a few days before heading to Nairobi.  Definitely nomadic.   The most exciting news of that trip is that several new sections of tarmac (black top) have opened up on the Maralal to Rumruti road.  That means that there is only a very short section of road just between Kisima and Maralal (about 18 Km) remaining to be finished and we will have a continuous sealed (tarmac) road all the way from Maralal to Nairobi! A momentous event!  

While having tarmac roads makes travel easier, it is not as adventurous as the back roads can still be.  The end of January my husband, dogs and I traveled on the ultimate back road between Maralal and Ngurunit, the Milgas riverbed!  While the total distance is 50 km shorter than the normal way (150 km compared to 200 km) the time factor increased by almost 3 hours!  Getting lost a bit and having a long lunch stop added a bit of time, but also the nature of the road really slowed us down.  But the beauty!  So beautiful driving along the riverbed.  It was worth it. 

The environment in the north part of Kenya is still very very dry.  The bit of rain we got in December was not enough and everything has dried out again very quickly.  Cows are dying.  The cattle in the several herds we passed yesterday were very thin and weak.  We passed several carcasses in the riverbed.  The clouds gather and we get a sprinkle now and then but nothing more.  Praying for more rain.  We definitely need lots of rain.  After only a week in the village, we left the dogs and headed to Nariobi again.  

This time to catch a plane to the coast to visit our son who is finishing up his commercial pilot license.

3 nights in Malindi visiting beaches, going to a really amazing snake park and getting a ride by my son in his 2-seater training plane was fabulous.  Very hot on the coast with much higher humidity than the North. I enjoyed the pool at our friend’s house where we stayed, as well as soaking in the ocean every day. 

After a few days in Nairobi on the way back, we traveled up to the village home again this last Wednesday.  9 ½ hours drive to get here.  It is Saturday already and I’m still resting up from the trip.  It is very hot here and no pool to soak in. The dogs and I just sit in the shade and pant.  Walks are early morning or late evening when the sun is a bit less burning.  Hard to sleep at night with the heat. Still praying for rain.  Today there is a bit of cloud cover.  If the seasons are normal this year, rains should start by March, hopefully the beginning of the month.  Though with climate change, we have very rarely had normal seasons for very many years.  The weather is completely unpredictable now.  I remember a time when I first came to Kenya over 25 years ago when the seasons were like clockwork.  Each rainy season would start almost to the day it was expected, rain the usual amounts until it stopped at the expected time.  Pasture would grow enough to last to the next rainy season.  Everything worked.  In my first 10 years in Kenya we had one bad drought around 1999.  Then from 2006, climate went haywire.  Haven’t gone 3 years without at least one failed rain.  One year it never stopped raining and flooded everywhere, wiping out part of Ngurunit town.  Mostly it is lack of rain that brings the biggest issue.  2021 long rains failed in March to June.  Our 2021 October short rainy season was very spotty.  

Since December we have had out of season showers which have helped a bit but not really soaked the land as needed.  Pasture and water are scarce.  Mostly depending on the Rotary hand pump well for clean water.  The Samburu County bore hole well is still under construction.  The solar pump is finally being installed since yesterday.  Tanks still need to be built.  Hopes are that once done, that source of water will alleviate some of the water issues in this area.  It has been under construction since July last year…yikes!  So slow.  We might get water out of it by end of this month?  Fingers crossed. 

So, we are in Ngurunit only a few more days then back South to Nairobi again for a week or two.  Feeling a bit like a yoyo – up and down, up and down the country since the beginning of this year.  Haha.  That seems the nature of life for now.  Nomadic chaos is my call name for a reason!  Will end my babblings here for now.  Until next time….peace to you all!