Our first few weeks in Kenya

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We have been in Kenya for two weeks and have settled well. The first week was focused on preparing Dominic and Benedict for Pembroke School, including a trip to Nairobi for uniforms and the multitude of items required by two boys at boarding school.

The boys have, throughout, been remarkably mature about going to board, and I must say as the Sunday start date approached it was definitely us rather than the boys who appeared the more apprehensive with many ‘are we doing the right thing?’, ‘is Benedict too young?’ questions being asked late at night when the boys were tucked up in bed.

The ‘Big Day’ dawned and we got all their kit prepared and packed. They looked so grown up in their Pembroke uniforms, and both were so proud of themselves. We took them in, got them settled with all their kit packed away by their beds, took them for tea with the Headmaster and then, on instruction from the staff, we said our ‘goodbyes’ and slipped away. Benedict took a couple of deep breaths, Dominic was eager for the adventure ahead, we struggled to hold our composure.

Our home seemed awfully quiet that night, and the following morning, and the afternoon, and the evening, and the following day. Time crept forward and we measured it by discussing what the boys were up to (we have a copy of their daily activities timetable). Evenings were, and still are, worst. Imagining your 9 year old and 7 year old looking after themselves, brushing teeth, getting into bed without us being able to give them a good-night kiss. Cuddling up to go to sleep, Benedict clutching his animals (cuddly dog, leopard cub, lion cub and snow leopard) and Dominic without the comfort of his - he decided to leave them in England, as he undoubtably felt they would be ‘uncool’ at boarding school.

This is their ninth day, and we can go and see them tomorrow for the first time. We’ll catch them after games and before dinner, and we will have an hour or so with them. We spoke to them on the phone on Saturday, for the first time, and they both seem to be very happy, although Dominic was a little overwhelmed when we first spoke. Benedict’s teacher has already advised that he’s already been placed in the high ability group for Maths and English and he seems to be happy and hard working. We shall see Dominic’s tutors tomorrow. Benedict’s music teacher called to say that Benedict wanted to learn the drums. We are giving it the necessary thought before declining! We’ll chat with him this weekend.

Anyway, boys all happy, mum and dad a little bereft, so off to the Masai Mara for four nights to take our minds off our ‘loss’. What a lovely trip! We took Michael, our mpishi (cook) with us, got up at 5am and headed off in the darkness so we could greet the dawn on the road. We took our favourite route, travelling past Lake Elementitia, across the Rift Valley, up the Northern escarpment, through the remote ‘town’ of Mau Narok and then over the highlands towards Narok. This section, of around 100km, was a little boggy in places, and at one particularly bad point we stopped to pull a matatu (African kombi/taxi) out of the mud, where it had got pretty badly stuck. In Narok we refuelled, took on extra jerry cans of fuel and headed into the Masai reserves to the north of the Masai Mara via a Masai village called Ngoregore. We stopped approximately 3 km to the west of the Musiara Gate entrance to the Mara and arranged camping with the local Masai. We chose the most beautiful spot on the northern bank of the Mara river about 1 km west of the Musiara swamps, home to the ‘marsh pride’ of lions made famous by the ‘Big Cat Diary’ television series.
We employed two Masai. Coila Sengin (spelt phonetically I’m afraid!!) as our tracker - we last employed Coila two years ago as our askari (guard) and knew him to be warm, friendly and likeable. Robert, son of the local chief who owned the land we were camping on, was employed as the askari - a tactical decision to keep favour with his father!! Our two recruits couldn’t have been more different. Coila maintains traditional Masai dress, has pierced ears with seriously dangling ear lobes and is equipped with Masai knife and a ‘rungu’ ( a wooden stick shaped with a thick knot or ball of wood at the top with a little wooden nipple. Sole purpose is to inflict damage to someone or something’s head!). Robert on the other hand, being a chief’s son has received education. He can read and write, chooses to use an English name, dresses in western dress, complete with open-laced trainers.

We spent four glorious nights in the Mara, and whilst we missed the children hugely, both Pepe and I were able to recapture the feel of our long honeymoon trek. Once again, we were just the two of us, alone in the African wilderness, with Africans for company. Our Masai staff spoke no English, so all conversation was conducted in Kiswahili as the ‘bridging language’ that we all spoke a little of.

I won’t recount all the adventures of the trip, just a few highlights. Needless to say, the game was excellent. We saw lions with twelve cubs - the marsh pride! wonderful leopard, cheetah, hyena, elephant, wildebeest crossing the Mara river and much, much more. But the beauty of being back in the Mara on our own was being able to suck in the atmosphere, connect with the people, enjoy the breathtaking vistas and not dash round desperate to find the next exciting animal. We had game through our camp, and our choo (toilet) overlooked a pod of hippos in the river. Wonderful for us, rather alarming for the hippos I fear.

Our first highlight involved Robert, our modern Masai youth, but first a little more about Robert. He is a lovely person, but, being the son of a chief I suspect he’s had a rather pampered life to date - he’s 18 years old- and as a consequence was absolutely bone idle! He felt it was his right to spend all day sitting in one of our camping chairs, generally browsing our books (largely, I felt, to demonstrate his intellectual superiority to Coila, who can’t read. Coila, bless him, tried his best to match Robert and picked up our animal book to study it, but spent the first five minutes with it up-side-down until Pepe discreetly flipped the book round for him). At night Robert would hold station in one of our chairs, making sure he was closest to the camp fire. He spent his first night of guard duty fast asleep in his chair by the fire, and thereafter gave up any pretence of work, and as soon as the Bwana and Memsahib had retired into our tent for the night, he would retire to the tent of Michael (our mpshi) and sleep soundly and comfortably, until, hearing my morning alarm sound, he would drowsily stagger out of Michaels tent, slump into his chair sure in the belief that we thought he had guarded our camp through the night.

On the one highlight occasion, Pepe and I had gone on a game drive with Coila, leaving Michael to prepare supper and Robert to guard the camp (and to guard Michael who, being a young Luhya is not at all bush savvy ). We were only about 5km away from camp when we received a rather garbled and crackling radio call. Both Masai absolutely worshipped our radios, and if we had permitted them, they would have chatted constantly to each other over them. Coila proudly had ‘his’ fixed to his belt next to his rungu and knife, Robert and Michael jostled for use of the one left in camp.

Anyway, crackling call received, Coila asked them to repeat followed by an emphatic “Ova’ - his only English word, which he used liberally at the end of each transmission. Garbled message repeated with a mention of ‘mbogo’ (buffalo). We decided to return to camp, Coila proudly advising Robert and Michael that we were ‘returning OVA’, and off we went. Coila delighted in keeping in radio contact throughout the short return trip, and it soon became apparent that a buffalo was in our camp.

Most people have a natural fear of lions, leopards or hyenas in the camp. Pepe and I have learnt that buffalo is the one to be incredibly wary of. They are a little like an arcing light switch - you don’t know whether it will work or not. With buffalo’s you just don’t know whether they will charge or run, and given that I believe they have a minute brain, I don’t believe they do either until the point that they are either charging or running away. Anyone who’s ever faced a buffalo will know, the buffalo looks at you slowly, and then after maybe twenty seconds it reacts, and there is simply no logic to whether the reaction is a charge or a retreat.

Anyway, back to the story. Buffalo in camp, Coila on the radio, Ian driving, Pepe holding on. The radio tells us they’re up a tree. We race into camp. No buffalo - the sound of our arrival scared the beast away- but two scared boys high up a tree looking fearfully down.

As soon as we jumped out of the vehicle our brave Masai askari was down the tree. Coila, as a Masai warrior, thought the sight was hilarious. In an attempt to restore his dignity and ‘face’ Robert grabbed his bow and arrows and, at a crouch went into the bushes to slay the beast (at all times surreptitiously making sure that Coila was close behind him). He came back and reported proudly that the buffalo had gone. I asked him how he had intended to kill the buffalo with one of his arrows, which got Coila in fits again.

Within hours all the Masai in the area had heard of Robert’s tree climbing ability, and Robert lived with four days of unrelenting ribbing from us along with all the Masai. It became a standard exchange prior to going for a game drive that either Coila or I would tell Robert that he had better climb a tree because we were leaving camp! And Coila and I had long and serious discussions in front of Robert about how we could put food, water and possibly a chair in the tree to make sure Robert would be comfortable on the occasions we were away from camp for many hours.

The second highlight I wish to tell you about occurred on our last night. We’d had a wonderful day with a delightful three hour walking safari in the morning, The afternoon had been relaxed around camp - I needed to effect a temporary repair on our exhaust system which had been badly damaged over bad ground a day or so earlier - and neither Pepe or I felt in the mood for a late afternoon game drive. We sat around in camp with Michael, Coila and Robert and talked and talked. It was wonderful. Coila talked about his cows (he has eight). Robert talked about his (he has 88 plus 112 sheep). Given that a quality cow is worth around £300, Robert is a very wealthy 18 year old. His father has a herd of over 800 cows, plus many sheep and goats. We talked about the cows and how much the Masai liked their cows. Coila stated simply that he would never let anyone photograph his cows because they were too beautiful. We asked Robert if he had a name for each cow and whether he could instantly recognise each. He gave us that slightly ‘what sort of question is that?’ look and replied ‘yes, of course’ . We talked of the importance of cattle to all the Nilotic tribes, and Pepe and I recounted how the Himba of Namibia sang of their cattle and to their cattle. Coila said he sang to his. Then to the big question! I asked Coila if he liked his cows or his wife more. Instant response “n’gombe” (cows). Pepe pretended to be affronted, but in truth we knew the answer before the question was asked. The same answer would be given by all nomadic tribesmen throughout Africa.

So, lazy day, great conversation, dusk, then night, a few glasses of South African red, a delicious vegetable curry with Michael’s legendary chapati’s and we were well set for a night safari. Pepe at the wheel, Coila as navigator, me up top with Michael, with our trusty ‘leopard spotter’ million candle power torch in hand and off we went. We went through the protocol of asking Robert if he would like to climb his tree before leaving him to guard the camp.

Now, remember Coila speaks no English and just pidgen Kiswahili. Pepe limited in her Kiswahili. Add to that the fact that Coila didn’t understand his ‘kushoto’s’ (lefts) from his ‘kulia’s (rights). Michael and I sat up top, anticipating some fun in the cabin.

Coila’s directions consisted of “upande yangu” (my side) for left, “upande yako” (your side) for right and “mbele” (ahead) for straight ahead, with emphatic “pole pole’s” (slowly) and urgent “mtaro” (ditch) for any serious holes to be avoided.

“Upande yangu”, Pepe would swing the vehicle to the right. “Hapana, upande yangu, upande yangu”. Pepe would swing back to the left, and so the night commenced.

We had an enchanting time, and within a few minutes of leaving camp were sat in the midst of 12 hyenas by their den, with 3 hippos grazing directly behind the car. Masses of animals, with each herd looking like a fairy village, eyes brilliantly reflective in shades of yellows, reds and greens dependent on the animal and it’s position relative to our beam. Pepe’s driving was superb, and she later confessed that it was a result of the three glasses of South African red. At one point, we encountered an animal none of us recognised. Short legs, big bushy tail, black and it moved like stink with Pepe in hot pursuit. We followed this poor animal for ages until it finally dived down an ant bear hole (never did identify the animal although I have a suspicion that it was a large mongoose of some). Same sort of pursuit when we spotted a small cat (later identified as an African wildcat) This pursuit was far shorter, with the cat turning round and hissing at us a couple of times. It cleverly lost us by heading into rocky ground, having first scattered a large herd of Thompson’s gazelles.

A heavenly night, back to camp, excited chat around the fire then bed…. Pepe no doubt dreaming of her ‘yako’s’ and her ‘yangu’s’

And so to the final little story. We’ve always preferred camping with the tribes, and purposefully camped outside the Masai Mara park in what is generally known as ‘the reserve’. The Mara park has no fences so the movement of animals is unrestricted and the game where we camp is at least as good as in the actual park. Pepe and I discussed the differences. At first she wasn’t at all sure about the reserve, there were cattle, there were Masai manyatta’s, how could there be animals? I feel differently, I think it demonstrates how perfectly the Masai co-exist with nature. The game concentration is as good as in the park, but there are also people and cattle, the way there always has been in Masai lands. The Park is artificial. There are no people, there are no cattle there are just animals. As our days wore on, Pepe changed her view completely. On one day we had just passed a large Masai manyatta and had driven close to a large herd of cows heading back to the safety of the manyatta as day turned to dusk. Ahead, a bush area and on one side of the bushes a pride of lions and on the other a leopard with two six month old cubs. All within a square mile.

Anyway, back to the story. Camping with the Masai isn’t “westerner friendly”. There is no office to pay at, no obvious protocol other than to greet the chief, pay him some money, and pay money to the trustlands (reserve). Our previous visit had prepared us, with truck loads of Masai arriving in the dark to sit with us on our first night to negotiate our payment and the staff we would need. This takes time, and the greetings and pleasantries can take ten to fifteen minutes before you can even start the business at hand.

We thought we had organised matters on arrival, firstly by recruiting the chief’s son, and by asking when we could meet with the chief to pay him for camping on his lands. Robert confirmed that his father would come “kesho asubuhi” (tomorrow morning) so we headed off for an evening game drive leaving Robert to guard and Michael to cook.

We returned in the dark, and saw an agitated group of around 20 Masai. We parked and walked to the fire. Robert’s father, the chief was sat serenely on a camping chair whilst around us there was the sound of Masai arguing, occasionally interspersed with a couple of blows as the Masai rungu’s and knives were called into action. Michael was clearly petrified. I sat with the chief, whilst Pepe asked Michael what had been going on. Apparently, shortly after we had left for the game drive, around a hundred Masai gathered around our camp. Two factions, both after the money we would pay for camping. Both arguing that the land was theirs. Some fairly serious fighting went on in the couple of hours we were away, and indeed the fighting continued whilst I negotiated with the chief. At one stage one poor character was dragged into the bushes on the far side of our camp and we heard the ‘thump, thump’ thump’ of rungu’s falling, then all quiet. I must admit, I felt that my negotiating position was somewhat compromised by the activity and I settled rather more quickly than I would have liked, much to the satisfaction of the chief who sat through the fighting as if it were just not happening, obviously confident that his youths had settled the skirmish to his satisfaction.

I brought the matter up with Robert the next day, and told him that the Masai just couldn’t expect watalii (tourists) to stay with them if they behaved like that. Watalii just wouldn’t understand and would be really quite scared. We weren’t. We knew well enough that we were the cash cows being fought over, so we were pretty sacred!!

Robert then told us that they had recently just finished a three day ‘war’ with a tribe from Tanzania, who had crossed the border and stolen cattle. He said it was exhausting to fight for so long. I asked what weapons. Everything from knives through to guns were in play. Life in Africa is cheap. Fighting is a way of life for the Masai. They live for their cows and they live to fight. If you stay amongst them you need to accept all aspects of their culture, and not just the pretty bits.

Anyway. That’s us in Africa, settled and doing well. Africa is back in our blood and we’re determined to make the most of our time here.

Best Salaams to you all

Ian and Pepe

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