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…