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

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

23 October 2016

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

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

Though a bit late as it is February already, I will say Happy New Year!!  And it is a happy 2015 so far with January starting off at high speed!  Though, to get into 2015 we actually were moving quite slow on 31st December 2014 when traveling from Ngurunit to Maralal in our Land Cruiser with kids, dogs, visitor Rupi Mangat (Travel writer for Saturday Nation - Kenyan Newspaper) and myself.  Our goal was to reach Maralal by 7 pm so could join Reuben for some New Year parties and attend the re-opening of the Maralal Safari Lodge.  We had left Ngurunit late morning and leaving Baragoi about 5 pm we were on track to make it in time.  Then, about 25 Km into our 100 Km journey, the car started developing some gear problems.  The car was still moving forward so we continued on with hopes it would last the next 75 Km to Maralal.  After about 20 more Km, just outside of Marti, it started to overheat.  We made it into town and while checking water and radiator issues, a church bus tour pulled up to assist us.  With assurances they would assist us on the road, we decided to press on towards Maralal and our New Year parties!   It was still only around 6 pm and with normal travel time from Marti to Maralal being 1 1/2 hours at most, we felt sure we could make it.  That decision led to a challenging travel adventure.  Not only was the gear system giving problem, and the radiator starting to give up, the alternator stopped working as well so no battery charge.  We had to keep stopping to fill the radiator with water and make sure we stopped on a hill because the second I took my foot off the gas pedal, the engine died.  Then after filling the radiator, kids had to push the car to get it started again.  We were stranded several times without enough water or not enough pushing power.  Each time, providently, a vehicle would appear with kind people to either give out water or help to push start.  One time the kids had to walk a 1/2 km to a stream to fetch more water as we had to stop on the closest hill for the easy push start!  This mode of travel meant that the next 20 km took over 4 hours!  So at 10:30 pm we had arrived in the town of Morijo in dire-straights.  The radiator had given up completely so that as fast as water was added, it poured out onto the ground.  We still had 35 Km ahead of us, the first 10 up a very big hill.  This is when we met a pick-up truck full of soldiers heading to Maralal for leave.  They were kind enough to help us get the car to the Catholic Mission station to park in a safe place and offer to carry us, dogs and all, to Maralal.  We gratefully accepted this kind offer and leaving the Land Cruiser behind, piled into the back of the pick-up.  45 bumpy minutes later we arrived safe at our Maralal home.  We were too late and too tired to attend any New Year parties, but we did arrive at the house about 1/2 an hour before midnight.  So we started a fire in the fire place, got out some drinks and were in time to toast in the New Year 2015 and give hugs all around and congratulations on surviving the challenges of travel in Northern Kenya.  We also gave thanks for all the kind people that had a part in getting us home.  Then off to bed for a well-deserved sleep!

Was lost...now is found again!

What to say!  It has been almost 2 years since posting.  I am trying again.  I will cite technical ignorance as I actually lost this blog and could not figure out how to access it again.  Though this is only part of the reason as I only tried to look for it again earlier this year (2014) and decided it had flown into the void as I could not find it.  But find it I have now!!  So the reason it took me so long to look for it again was sheer craziness of life in 2013.   While life and work in PEAR Innovations continued along as usual, personal life got crazy with a bid by my husband to get into the Government of Kenya as the new constitution started on its way to implementation last year.  First with vying for an elected position in Samburu County, which was a good but hectic experience and while not successful in terms of being elected, was successful from a life experience point of view.  Then the push came to go the working route by looking for a position in the newly forming Samburu County government structures in order to be a positive influence on the formation of policy and forwarding the development programs of the Samburu County people.  This proved a long campaign that was finally successful in June 2014 with my husband being appointed as the Chief Officer (CO) for Samburu County Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.  A great step into achieving a place in having a wider impact for the positive development of this Sector for the pastoralists of our County, which has always been the vision and mission of PEAR Innovations. 


As to my work with PEAR Innovations, the last years while we were struggling with all of the above as a family, I continued also pushing along the projects of PEAR Innovations.  The main activities were around the PILP Heifer Project and the Ngurunit Basket Weavers.  These two areas kept me very occupied on the ground with trainings, monitoring activities, changeovers in staff, marketing activities and a lot of traveling up and down the country, as well as to the USA the end of 2013.  One exciting development is the formation of PEAR Kenya in the USA as a registered 501 3C organization to help PEAR Innovations for activities and fund raising in USA to provide greater assistance for our communities here in Kenya. 


So anyway, now I am back.  I hope not to lose this blog again!:-).  Also, watch for a PEAR Innovations and/or Ngurunit Basket Weavers website that we hope to develop before the end of this year.  Though already in October 2014, the year is going fast.  Time seems to be speeding up so I will concentrate on posting again soon!  Thanks to you who encouraged me the end of 2012 when I attempted to restart blogging for PEAR.  Sorry it stalled, but now keep your fingers crossed that this restart of the restart will take off without a glitch again!!  Till next time....

Hello!  My see again soon of last post seems to have taken a bit longer than anticipated!!  It is fast approaching the end of 2012.  Christmas is past and New Years is just about to happen.  I have been spending the last few weeks in our home of Ngurunit, a beautiful place at the base of the Ndoto Mountains along the border of Samburu and Marsabit Counties in Northern Kenya.  This year there is plenty of rain in the area and the land is green and the rivers running.  We have been having a lot of fun swimming and splashing around in the water with kids and dogs.  Our new puppy loves the water, as long as it isn't too deep!!  I hosted a lot of visitors last week in Ngurunit for a "End of the World" party!  Such fun!!  Seems the world didn't end so we now go on with normal life.  One part of normal life here is that yesterday husband Reuben and I drove over 80 km (about 50 miles) to South Horr to get network just so we could make a few phone calls and check emails.  Today we will return to Ngurunit to spend the New Year with kids and dogs, family and friends.  So just this quick note to everyone to say Happy New Year and talk to you again in 2013!!!