Singing Wells
In the seemingly barren “NFD” (Northern Frontier District) the only source of water for most of the year is from wells dug deep in sandy riverbeds. The wells have to be deep enough to reach an “aqui-fer” strata. That may be fifty feet (6 bailers) down.
Each bailer perched on a log embedded in the shaft wall. The water is passed upward in leather buckets, bailer to bailer. It is very hard work. But the tediousness is offset by the bailers’ sing-ing/chanting odes to the stock they are watering. Hence the title “Singing Wells.”
It is a moving combination of survival strategy and deep feel-ings of emotional attachment.
The setting evokes biblical scenes. At times I “saw” Abraham waiting his turn.
Reteti Elephant Sanctuary
Near Sarara Camp, and importantly related to it, is Reteti Ele-phant Sanctuary.
Reteti is a very unique venture in elephant conservation.
Orphan elephant babies are brought to a shelter for food and the companionship of other elephant orphans. They are not penned in, but the lure of regular milk brings them in twice or thrice a day. At night they voluntarily crowd together in a carnivore-proof enclosure. By day, as they grow older they roam farther and farther from the base.
Also as they grow older they begin to form up as “family,” drawn together by natural elephant instinct. The expectation is that this hybrid family will, still as a family, launch out into the bush on its own and eventually replicate.
There is some statistical support for the hope that the elephant population is stabilizing in the NFD. Retei is bold, novel and crucial.
The periodic feeding is as hilarious to behold as is the baby ele-phant scene in Arusha in the film “Hatari.”
“Reteti” derives from the root Maa word for helpfulness. When we were kids at Lasit we once surreptitiously watched the Maasai convened around a sacred Oreteti tree ceremonially imploring god for help in childbearing.
www.reteti.org
Slice of Kenya
Today we traversed what might be thought of as a slice through a multi-layered cake. We left the semi-desert of the “NFD,” climbed to the semi-alpine shoulder of Mount Kenya, dropped down onto the floor of the “Great Rift Valley” and then ascended the western scarp of the Rift to Njoro. Here we are reveling in the past.
We are B&B guests in the cottage of Beryl Markham, author of “West with the Night.”
The current owner is Andrew Nightingale, a third or fourth generation Kenya “settler” and a cousin of friend Dan Etherington. So, we've had a great “natter” with him. Tomorrow we will take a walk to check out the horses (Beryl Markham had been a very successful trainer of racehorses) and Kenana Knitters.
Tomorrow to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Female Writers from Kenya
En route from Samburuland to Kisumu on Lake Victoria we night-stopped at Njoro near Nakuru. We stayed in the house of Beryl Markham, author of West with the Night.
This recounted her pioneering solo flying East-to-West across the Atlantic. Markham enlarged her personal legend by successes in producing race-winning horses.
Another female Kenya-based writer was Karen Blixen author of Out of Africa. I myself prefer Markham's writing to Blixen's.
Wangare Mathai was a Kenyan trained biologist whose passion-ate public activism for conservation earned her a Nobel Prize, the first ever for an African woman. Her books on the subject earned her a wide readership.