ascension day - wicked! so much to try to record. am feeling well, however, instead of diarrhoea, i'm now constipated....
after leaving samburu serena lodge, we went back to archer's post to pick up revd gabriel so that he could take us to a couple of villages on the way to isiolo, where we would spend the night. the first village was very close to archer's post, and was called the nachami wowen group. they herd goats, but also make money from tourists. so to visit the village costs 1000 shillings/person. they put on an official greeting ceremony, just like the one they did at the confirmation service on monday, then invited us into the village, where they did some more songs.
then the young man who was, or seemed to be, the head man for the day (his name was peter), showed us how to make fire using 2 sticks and dried donkey dung for tinder. when i asked him what the wood was, he said the bottom stick is from the root of the aguida tree, and the vertical stick is from the branch of the same tree. then he asked me if i wanted to buy them, so i bargained with him and settled on 600 shillings. i reckoned josiah would be pleased with them and be able to take them with him. i also bought a necklace for zoe.
they are a christian tribe, but they practice polygamy and male and female circumcision. this is part of their culture, and not something they will give up. when we spoke to revd gabriel about it, he said there are some things you've just got to accept as cultural and work around them. makes for some interesting reflections around cultural issues, particularly in the light of the gay rights issue we're faced with here.
after leaving the nachami, we visited the turkana people, who are nomads, and also christians. they are completely different from the people of the samburu district. revd gabriel is half turkana and half samburu. from there we moved on to isiolo, where we were to spend the night. on the way, one of our tyres blew out as a sharp stone ripped it apart. when we got to isiolo ccs (christian community services), we had lunch and got into our rooms.
after a short break, we went out to visit some schools: the school for deaf children, the school for partially and completely blind children, and a community hostel for abandoned children. all were fabulous and gave us a warm welcome.
the ccs station is set up as a multi-disciplinary environment. it has an agri-vet dispensary for animal welfare, a small clinic for people, a laboratory, a computer suite for training, a warehouse for storing maize, and a model farm for experimenting with new dry-land farming techniques. the farming is very difficult as it relies on rain, and up until a couple of months ago, it hadn't rained a drop for 3 years! then they had some heavy rains, but after a couple of weeks of heat and wind, the moisture had evaporated.
its a very harsh environment!
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