Neufeld family visit

Christmas holiday brought our long-anticipated visit by the Neufeld side of the family - Doug's parents and one sister.  We're so fortunate to have family that like to travel and so make the long trip to come see us!  We had two wonderful weeks away from our work, showing them Kenya.

We started with a few days showing them around Nairobi, of course including the elephant orphanage where we renewed our "sponsorship" of an elephant (Joto, this time).

At the beautiful gardens of Matbronze we were treated with a bunch of turacos playing in the trees.  Only found in Africa, they have spectacular colors (for the science nerds - they have unique copper-based pigments that make them one of the only birds that have truly green pigments).  We're constantly amazed by the variety of birds we see here.

Always coming up with a new idea, Alex got the notion to take a blacklight along when we went to visit some national parks.  At our stay in the Amboseli guesthouse, he was searching for scorpions, which are known to glow under a blacklight.  I was skeptical that he'd find any, but he quickly found dozens around the yard!  They're nearly invisible without the blacklight, but they're there, so guess we'll think about that next time we camp!

We had several days to comb through Amboseli Natl Park, which is known for its abundance of wildlife.  Although at the base of Kilimanjaro, the mountain was cloudy the whole time so we missed a good view of it.  But we saw lots of animals, including lions.

Amboseli is known for its elephants - lots of them!  Being just after the wet season, there were lots of young ones.

The Graber Neufeld family is always seeking out new birds and mammals for our list of animals seen in Africa.  Our Neufeld visitors gamely played along with the searches!  Amboseli had beautiful swamps with birds like this Black-winged Stilt. 

Lots of elephants, here groups of them passing across the big swamps and grasslands.  We had some enchating times of sitting in the evening sun watching the elephants roam across the landscape.

White-faced Whistling Ducks

Eastern Chanting Goshawk, we had some great raptor sightings on this trip.

First sighting for a klipspringer as we drove across the Shetani ("devil") lavaflow entering Tsavo West Natl Park.  Like mountain goats, they bounded quickly and effortlessly across the rocks.

Tsavo West has thousands of elephants in its dense bush (hence a hotspot for poaching), and is known for "red elephants".  They're red from the soil that covers them.  We ran across one group squabbling on the road, pretty impressive to watch them locking tusks and pushing each other about.  We kept our distance from those.

Spotting one of the African "little five" in the park, a leopard tortoise.  (Big five being the big animals that people usually want to see like lions, leopards, rhinos, buffalo; little five are animals like elephant shrew, rhinoceros beetle, etc)  

The MCC cruiser properly showing the results of driving days on dirt and mud roads.  Dad was riding shotgun and only gave a yelp of alarm at one point (!), descending down some rocks.  

The KWS guesthouse at Tsavo West was amazing.  Originally the senior wardens house built in 1938, it is perched on a small hill overlooking miles of savanna, hills, and its own watering holes where we enjoyed lots of animals.  Beautiful place just to hang out.

Alex loves sleeping in but wanted up early each morning to see the animals.  The morning after he stayed up until midnight watching elephants etc at our waterhole, coffee could not counter the effects of being a teenager.

Tsavo West roads, here waiting for giraffes to pass.

Another new find, the Lesser Kudu

At one of the cinder cones in the park, some of us climbed to the top while others wait down at the cruiser.

Nearby Chyulu Hills are recently formed volcanic features highly permeable, and thus provide a water source for Mzima Springs in the park.  A small tank allows us to see the fish in the springs.

The last night it finally clears enough to catch a glimpse of Kili just beyond Chyulu Hills.  We had many wonderful hours marveling at our private view of the African landscape!

Then to the coast, here the sunrise at Watamu near the town of Malindi,

A marine national park preserves some of the mangrove forests.  Alex saw his opportunity to grow yet another interesting plant, and was able to get some mangrove seeds from a local community group.

Near our beach lodgings was Gede ruins, the largest Swahili ruins along this section of the coast. 

The ruins were very interesting, even if limited in size.  Most African cultures in Kenya have not left behind many ruins, so it was interesting for us to see some cultural sites from some 600 years ago.

Another Graber Neufeld pilgrimage was had as we searched for the Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew in Arabuko-Sokoke Natl Park, an area of preserved coastal forest.  We saw lots, which was thrilling!   

The elephant shrews are almost impossible to photograph as the rapidly dash about, so we make due with a picture of the mammal guidebook entry.  They're hard describe, just imagine something out of Dr. Seuss.  The Golden-rumped is only found in this forest.

Part of a day in Malindi took us to a pillar erected by Vasco de Gama in the late 1400's (actually this replacement is from the 1600's after the original was destroyed).  Through a complicated series of interactions with Swahili towns on the coast, he found those at Malindi the most friendly and so "honored them" with the marker.

Back in Nairobi on the last day we end the trip with the trip to the tea farm in the highlands.  Here Fiona describes the process of plucking leaves.  Then after a stop to look over the rift valley, we headed back for a few hours until they went to the airport to head home.

Alex's mangrove farm on our back porch, a la instructions from the internet!

November 2016

Thanksgiving at the MCC office!  We had the joy of sharing the tradition with several of our Kenyan staff colleagues, and other ex-pat MCCers here.  The turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing tasted great, 

Carving up the turkey

And the post-turkey, "I ate too much" dinner stupor

Alex is our horticulturalist.  Absent a garden to work in, he's adapted with a wonderful window garden.

The first rains of the season brought out the local chameleons.  This one became a short-term pet before being released back into our loquat tree. 

A Saturday jaunt out to Maasai-land on the floor of the rift valley is a different environment than the highlands around Nairobi.  Among the dryland vegetation was this strange plant.  Spiny, as is usual for most plants here, but with an odd big bulbous trunk.

Rains bring out the leaves in the acacias.

We visited Olorgosaillie, a prehistoric site in the rift valley that is one of the most important excavations for human origins.  Mary Leakey was one of the first to excavate, finding it to be a "factory" of stone tools, shown here scattered about the ground.  Although less famous than Olduvai in Tanzania, it has equal importance for prehistoric finds, being the largest stone tool find in the world.  

Stone axes, and some animal bones also at the site.  It's fascinating to be living in the area so famous for human origins.

Landscape in the rift valley

Out in Machakos the rainy season is full swing, and has transformed the area into a verdant landscape.  So different from a month ago when everything was brown.

Talking to a farmer about the results of a bacteria test we did on his drinking water (taken straight from a scoop hole in the nearby sand dam).  An enthusiastic and inquisitive person, he seems on board to start treating his water.

Remarkably after visiting so many dams, it was only on one of the last ones where we finally managed to get the truck stuck in some soft sand.  Rescued by UDO staff with some timbers, we got out pretty easily then.

Most maize is just coming up, like the fields in the background.  One farmer used a pump to irrigate early from a sand dam.  His maize is well ahead, so that he can harvest and sell while the price is still high, making more profit.

The primary activity now is weeding, almost all by hand (and usually by women).  Lots of work, one report I saw estimated one woman would take some 80 hours of work to weed a 1 hectare field.

October 2016

Some pictures from our October...

Rosslyn had cross-country this year, so Evan and Alex both ran.  Unfortunately there were not enough teams around for many meets, so Evan (shown here) had two meets and Alex only one.  Oh well, they still enjoyed it the short time it lasted.

Alex running the high school 5km route

Our friends, Bruce Buckwalter and Rose Shank (and 3 or their sons), were in from Ethiopia so we met them one Saturday night at a camping area along the shore of Lake Naivasha.  The hippos were a highlight, here watching one in the papyrus. 

The campsite was a beautiful area along the lake, very relaxing. :

Mostly the hippos are out at night, here one is outside the camp electric fence.  We had fun in the evening watching the night guard play cat and mouse with the hippos trying to sneak around the fence.  All night we could hear them bellowing outside. 

Morning breakfast brought a food option that Alex hadn't considered before - ice cream on pancakes!  As can be seen, he responded favorably.

We stopped by the Sanctuary Ranch after breakfast to hang out with their wildlife for a while.  Lots of baby animals.

There are no predators or otherwise particularly dangerous animals there, so you can walk among the giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, etc.  It's a beautiful yellow acacia forest in the area, which is one of our favorite trees here.

We continue to enjoy all the birds that frequent our feeders.  Bronze mannakins are some of the common ones.

I've spent a lot of time out evaluating sand dams the last few months, so more pictures from the many dams and communities that I've been to:

Staple foods in the Ukambani region are maize, beans and green grams (a lentil-like food)

Kids watching the activities at one of the dams.  Having a mzungu (white person) show up at the dams usually creates some discussion and attention, often with surprising results.  For instance, the community at one dam thought I'd come to dig up the mythical treasure of mercury that was purportedly buried in the river during the colonial period.

There are lots of baobabs, and we often pick up some fruit to munch while in the field.  The inside of the fruit pod has black seeds coated in a white powdery substance.  The powder traditionally is used to make a smoothie-like drink high in calcium, vitamin C and various other things.

Kitui is very dry at the end of the dry season, but acacias and baobab (shown here) sense that the rains are coming (hopefully), and so start to leaf out some.

We visited various colonial era dams in Kitui, often with interesting designs.  Here a small colonial dam is on the right (Ben, SASOL staff, sitting on it), which collects water that runs off the rock and gully.  There was originally a pipe connected to it that ran water down to communities.  Since then, a missionary couple sponsored a larger dam (not shown), which collects water during the rainy season and provides piped water to schools etc.  This dam was in some hills sticking up out of the savanna which have a protected (sort of) forest.  There are still springs and small valleys with perennial streams, showing the value of protecting the forests.

One dam was just inside Tsavo East National Park.  We hiked up along a cliffside and into the park (right side of the fence road).

The dam inside Tsavo.  This one had elephant dung on it, which was a first for us!

We stopped by a school project in Kitui South.  The sign on the tree states Kenyan school policy, which is that the kids are to only speak English and Kiswahili in school.  They aren't allowed to speak their "mother tongue", which in Kitui is kikamba.

Water is very scarce and low now during the dry season, and some drastic measures are taken to get water.  We saw many deep wells, such as this one that was around 20 feet deep, which somebody (usually a woman in the community) must climb down into in order to fill jerry cans of water.  The cans are pulled up out of the well.  Often a knotted rope is present for the woman to then climb out of the hole.

This was the oldest dam we found, built in the 1920's.  An elderly man in the community tells stories of what he knew of its construction.  Under threat of penalty under the colonial "Chief Act", community members were required to trek around 15 days roundtrip to the railway head at Kibwezi to carry cement to the dam.  Women and children carried the cement, while men "protected them from the man-eaters (lions)"

Kitui is one of the areas under drought.  A borehole at one area shows the value of water under such situations - several hundred households and their livestock depend on this source.  Some donkeys were looking emaciated in this region, so things are tough at the moment.  There used to be springs in this area, but the forest was cut down and turned to fields, many of which have severely eroded such as this one.  Most of the springs then dried up.  Everybody is hoping the rains arrive soon...

Donkeys are everywhere to carry water.  MCC Kenya staff person James Kanyari is my good companion on these trips to Machakos and Kitui, he always helps me interpret what's going on at the sites.

Traditional thatch and mud huts are used in the far regions that we've been visiting.