Friday, July 14, 2006

Journey day 4,5,6

Day 4

Today begins with a walk through the forest, which follows the Kenlitoto River. We walk along a dirt path that has many more baboon tracks than humans. They look like fat short human hands and funny feet with the big toe askew. I see a place in the sand that depicts a scuffle, I save the hair that has been torn out by the tormenter. I find a porcupine quill. The path empties out onto a bigger track, a main Maasai road, which as never seen a car. Cows, many cows. They stand in a wet eroded trench and lick at the earth laden with salt and mineral, eating mouthfuls. So many cows, at times the road is transformed into a long muck hole. We pass village after village. The flies are horrendous, they are different than the flies at home. They seem bolder, returning immediately after my hand swishes them away, as if they are annoyed that I even try to displace them…they OWN my face. Again I start to whine, ‘of all the places in this beautiful valley this road has got to be the worst’.
We choose an alternate route, the western ridge. We are treated to beautiful expansive views. Every rock in the Loita Hills sparkles. The grass opens to a rocky crest
along the top of the ridge they glisten in the sun, pink ones, black ones, grey ones they all look like shiny gold. Mica.
Among the boulders I notice horses droppings, it must be donkey, no horse could navigate these rocks. Hours later we come across a zebra carcass spread out under a tree, what a magnificent last view. It is cool to see a zebra hide so close, the black and white pattern is so stark, each line sharply defined.
Many livestock died this year because of the drought. Here in Kenya the rain comes at the end of March and lasts through May, it begins again in October and lasts through December. This year god forgot one season, it didn’t rain for nine months and everyone suffered. The Maasai especially, when their animals die, they suffer from malnutrition.
Even though they don’t usually eat their cows, they milk them for blood and milk. They puncture a hole in the cow’s neck vain and extract blood. The blood is added to milk in a special vessel made from a gourd and stirred it with a stick until the blood coagulates. This thick paste is their nutritional staple.
Live zebras graze on the hillside, coming to the higher ground to escape the leopards and lions that hunt near the rivers. Bushbuck and dik dik jump away at our arrival. I always see the dik dik in pairs, apparently they mate for life. A large turquoise lizard suns himself on the sparkling rocks, well he is half turquoise and half bright orange, crazy design. I deem this place ‘baboon ridge’, for all the barking and tree rustling.
Late afternoon Leyein begins to get anxious. We still have two hills to cross before the edge of the escarpment. We talk about tonight’s campsite. I find out that he is out of water, has no food and needs the shelter of his people ...and they are down there. I also find out that he has only been to the escarment one other time in his life, when he was fourteen. He and his older brother were sent to the Great Rift Valley to retrieve two bulls their father had acquired from a distant relative. That was eight years ago!
We start the descent heading towards the Endesopia River. My ankles feel weak from the long walk and heavy weight I’m carrying, my descent is slow. The thought of getting injured out here motivates extreme caution.
The flora change is dramatic. From dry thin grass to thick green jungle, now the grass over our heads and rope like vines hang down over the water. I see Colobus moneys, with their striking black and white coats, and more baboons. It is so beautiful, we walk for hours as the sun goes down.
At each river crossing… and there are many, we see butterflies. Bright yellow wings opening and shutting in a sunbeam reflecting off the muddy riverbank. The air all around me fills with soft delicate fluttering wings surrounding me with butterfly juju. Sometimes there are yellow clusters, sometimes purple or corn-blue ones, and sometimes they are all mixed together in a bouquet of fluttering color. A friend once told me that the newly hatched male butterflies come to certain mud to get the minerals they need to become potent.
I choose a camp by the river, we have agreed to camp separately. The only disturbance in the meadow grass is a set of buffalo tracks. He is walking up river, he has paused here to munch down a patch of thick meadow grass. I set up my tent on this manicured spot. Leyein rolls his eyes, “Aren’t you afraid it will come back?”
Most likely it will be different visitor if any, “no”… I feel little fear.
He builds a fire, I gather wood. Just before sunset he high tails it down the road. I love being in this wild spot alone, quiet, still. I am excited to see what comes to drink in the morning. There is a troop of colobus in the trees on the other side of the river, I can hear their peculiar noise. I sit by the fire in the still of early evening.
In Nairobi I watched an hour of “man eaters” on animal planet. I watched an African buffalo charge and gore to death some unsuspecting young lions. I make a plan, just in case. I set up the door intended for my tent mate facing a giant downed log. Now I can escape out that door and lie under the log on the opposite side. Doubt it will actually work due to the instantaneous nature of buffalo charging….. but ya never know. As I settle down for the night the sounds outside begin to change a whole new soundtrack and its getting louder and louder, especially the baboons. They bark and cough and continue a steady racket that seems to be getting closer and closer. Finally when I think they are close enough to see with my headlamp I crawl out of my tent and stoke the fire. I look around for them but see nothing… at least they are quiet. I sleep a dreamy night.


Day 5

Through the open rain flap I watch the tiniest little red hummingbird I have ever seen. At first I thought it was a flying beetle. It looks frustrated, hovering around my smelly shoes and a pair of bright blue undies hung out to dry. The morning is quiet and wet. I hear the monkeys. Their voices sound like slow motors, Tibetan monks in their deepest, lowest chant.
Leyein and Matthias, the Maasai that took him in last night, greet me and I start to pack my camp.
Matthias whistles through his teeth, clicks his tongue and repeats ‘oh mama, oh mama’ over and over. He so wants to talk with me, but alas, neither of us has made the effort to learn the other’s language. Mama is the Maasai’s title of respect for women in general, like Mr. is in the US.
‘Poli mama, poli mama’ (‘I’m sorry mama, so sorry’).
I ask Leyein what he is sorry for ‘he is sorry that you were alone last night’.
‘Please tell him I like being alone I have camped alone for many nights and I like it.’
‘…Olowotu’shaking his head.
‘What is olowotu,’ I ask?
‘He said, what about the leopard, it was headed up river towards your camp.’
Leopard? (they pronounce every letter leo-pard) I thought about the baboons, oops. Now that I think about it the scoffing I heard last night wasn’t the typical cranky baboon blabber and baboons are usually secure by nightfall like the rest of us on the general predator menu.
‘Why do the leopards make so much noise?’ ‘
‘They are looking for other leopards this time of year. If he meets another male he will fight him for his territory and if he meets a female … they will just have a good time.’ he says with I smile.
Wow, I think about all the leopard stories I have heard here. The eight year old boy who got snagged out of the Safari camp, the guy in the open-air truck that got scalped by a leaping leopard….guess I shouldn’t have gotten out of my tent last night.
We walk another15km to the edge of the escarpment. Altogether we have walked about 50km so far. The Rift Valley spreads out before us. There is a settlement just below, with an air strip. I see dust from a vehicle far across in the valley. So there is a road to lake Magadi! I had seen one on my map but it was a faint dotted line, now I know it exists and it is passable by bike. In Kenya, especially in the Maasai land I have found it hard to get accurate information about trails, track, and roads, how to get from point A to B. Besides the main public transportation road to Nairobi, which mind you hardly resembles a road, people seem to know about a ten mile radius and only guess or rely on hear say for the world beyond that. Its not like home, there are no cars…. hardly any bikes, hence no need for maps. People walk. They do not even use beasts of burden. I see woman and young girls carrying milk, honey and firewood for miles to the market. They wrap their burden in a cloth and hang it over their back with a strap around their forehead, or put it in a basket on top of their head. Many people are born live and die in that same ten mile radius.
We do a little cliffhanging hike to get a view of the waterfall, the Entosapia River doing its final plunge into the great valley. I find obsidian, black, grey and clear near the top of the falls. I add them to collection of sparkly rocks in my pocket…. Shawn’s gonna love these.
We start our long journey back. I am hungry. My diet of raw veggies and canned fish is lacking. I crave carbs. The Maasai are revolted by my consumption of fish, they would never touch the stuff, they don’t even eat chicken. Leyein says it would be like eating snakes. ‘Yea.. so?’ Apparently the snake is a fierce and powerful sacred symbol. We sit far apart until I have finished eating my dry top ramin sprinkled over tuna and wrap up the smelly can.
Because of the sight seeing detour we end up bushwhacking for a few hours. We crawl through the menacing foliage and cross the river many times. One time we surprise a pair of monitor lizards, the larger of the two being about four feet from head to tail. They are in a dark, quiet pool shaded by a canopy of green. The lizards lay on black lava rocks that rise out of one bank, bathing in a sunbeam that breaks through the leaves. Some dik dik are lying in a dusty, undercut cave on the opposite bank, their ceiling a tangle of b roots. White blossom petals fall into the still black water, it looks like a set from the ‘Legend’…. cue the unicorn.
Much later, Leyein confides how deeply frightened he was by them, it must stem from his inherent fear of crocs. He imitates the way their heads dart back and forth and the awkward jerking movement of their legs. I tell him my friend keeps one as a pet, (it is actually an iguana). She often lets it roam free throughout her house, knowing that one whack of its tail can break a human leg…another crazy image of the American woman.
We really cover ground and darkness finds us back on the banks of the Lenkutoto River.

Day 6

Leyein is a very resourceful man… and he is carrying my tent. I am tired and irritable, he is a good companion. He is always explaining things and showing me tiny details about his homeland. Like the brightly colored, extremely poisonous caterpillar that can make you sick with the slightest prick of the needle-like spikes along its back and the tree whose twigs make excellent toothbrushes with its bacteria killing abilities. He smiles a lot and feels comfortable traveling in silence. After sharing my sensitivity to over stimulation, especially at certain times during the month, he leads me through the Maasai land with little to no human contact.
He chuckles when he finds out I told the hyenas to ‘shut-up’ last night. They laugh like crazy people and cackle and hoot. I was awakened by a crash in the brush close to my tent, three of them started yucking it up. I listened to their ruckus for over two hours. I believe the tent perplexes African animals, they haven’t seen enough to figure them out. They know something yummy is inside but getting through the rip-stop material to the treat inside is like a childproof cap. Unlike our California bears they stay a respectable distance. I like that, but their continuous noise kept me awake for too long and a few shouts really did quite them down long enough for me to fall asleep.
I heard a leopard last night, actually I heard two. One was coming up river and one down. I strained my ears trying to hear what would happen when they met. I was expecting a leopard scuffle, but nothin. Must have been a girl.
I have such mixed feelings about the land I am moving through. I admire the Maasai for holding on to their rituals and customs that have evolved throughout their ancestry, and I realized their culture is still in transition, but I hate the results of their life style. To the Maasai being rich is having cows. They don’t usually eat the cows just milk them and bleed them. Their nutritional sustenance is a mixture of milk and blood, which they mix in a gourd until coagulated. The more cows the better. Western medicine has increased the life expectancy of their cows and the parks have restricted their grazing lands… the result, over grazed damaged grasslands from the Park borders on.and very few wild animals.
This morning I was so hungry and sore I didn’t think I could make it back. But here we are in Narosura eating chapatis and eggs and of course cup after cup of chai. I rest happily in my newfound home with my newfound Somalian family. I practice Swahili with the young Maasai girls they have adopted and read a book written by a Kenyan author ‘Across the Bridge’… another strange perspective of life in Kenya.

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