A couple of things about the drug culture here in Kenya that I have noticed. There is this shrub called Miraa, which is considered an illegal narcotic in the US. Miraa is a plant that is grown in a remote area to the North-east of Mount Kenya. This is because of the area’s very specific environment, elevation, rainfall and such. After the twigs are cut from the plant it is wrapped up in banana leaves and is immediately, and hastily transported to wherever it is eventually sold. Such haste is necessary due to the shrub drying up and becoming useless within 48 hours of it being cut. Charles warned us that if we see a truck carrying banana leaves surrounded by white plastic in its bed, tearing up the road, to stay clear. He told us that they would blow any checkpoint and ignore any authority that attempted to pull them over, all to keep their product as fresh as possible.

            The drug itself contains an alkaloid that is a distant relative to amphetamine. It is orally chewed for hours producing a feeling of alertness far superior to caffeine; it creates a desire to converse rapidly and extensively, and also eliminates any desire or need for food. For these reasons the matatu or bus drivers, chew this product and run all night and day at great speeds and even greater carelessness. Some say that many wrecks occur due to strung out matatu drivers. The other day Maria and I were at a restaurant at one of the finer hotels in the area and I noticed a sign that said, “No chewing of miraa”.  Stores simply display a banana leaf hung up to indicate that they sell the product. If miraa is used daily and long-term, it can lead to an addiction. Miraa is not illegal in Kenya.

            Another drug issue, which I have noticed, seems to occur with the extremely impoverished youth seen on the streets. I have seen kids (ages anywhere from seven to fifteen) with these little bottles filled with a viscous, yellowish-white fluid that are suspended from a string around their necks or hidden in jacket sleeves. The kids will raise the bottle up intermittently and huff the fluid.  They will look stoned. We saw a kid working at a gas station, maybe ten years old, cleaning the ground with a broom in front of his adult coworkers, bottle around his neck and high as they come. This guy Sean that we met, who has been working in the area for many months, told us that the bottles are full of a toxic glue and he estimates that 90% of the kids you see on the streets, during the day and not in school, huff it. I told a youth with a glue bottle in his hand to “lay off the glue”; he laughed at me and asked for money. 

Bennett

A vision of our temporary home.

Outside view of the bathroom.

A better inside view of the latrine. 

The manure of champions.

Elephant feces gathered from the yard for a good cause.

If we haven't yet convinced you to visit us....

Lettuce and kale.

The shower. 

And then there was light. 

Our new house guest.

The True Size of Africa

Just thought I would pass along this great visual that my cousin Vaughn passed on to me.  Enjoy!

A foreign influence.

Thanks to Debi we were able to identify the husk-enshrouded fruits that we have been munching on.  Tomatillos! Physalis sp.  Not sure why the conspicuous husk did not trigger any memories – perhaps we didn’t expect to find a Latin American plant growing in our African yard (even though we encounter introduced plants on a daily basis  - best example being the prolific bougainvillea). 

Anyway, the fruits are ripening.  Tonight we will have a salsa verde to accompany our version of gallo pinto!  And our homegrown chilies will provide the necessary heat.  

Well, we just finished dinner.  The salsa verde was a bust! In fact, pretty much inedible.  Perhaps this particular species produces an unusually tart and also sweet fruit, or perhaps I used too many.  When Bennett tried some he exclaimed, "You wouldn't be happy if you got a lot of that in your mouth."  Anybody with a good salsa verde recipe or knowledge of the tomatillo please pass it along!

 I put the whole bowl full in one saucepan - perhaps not a good idea...

Well, they are aesthetically pleasing, and actually very good raw... 

Our first real rain!

Shortly after dropping our friend Debi off at the Daraja Academy, we turned around and began our two-hour trek into the bush. With Bennett now being an expert driver of a stick shift vehicle, I decided that it was my turn to refine my talents.  So, I took over the wheel.  A few minutes into our trip, it began to rain.  The rain soon turned into a sheeted downpour, and the clouds boiled over and obscured any view of distinguishing landmarks.  We had mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety.  The land and animals are in great need of rain, yet we wished to instead be enjoying the rainfall from a comfortable position on our veranda - instead of zigzagging across eroded roads disappearing quickly beneath flowing water.  On several occasions we were skimming across pond-like entities, and often delicately maneuvering the car so as to not dip into the trenches that were becoming increasingly steeper on either side of the vehicle.  Bennett took over when he exclaimed that I had made a “bad choice” (or maybe it was “bad choices” :), which I really think was the lesser of two evils.  The car became wedged in between two banks when I attempted to avoid plummeting into a ditch, while the rear end of adopted the behavior of a severed fishtail.  Thankfully the four-wheel drive was in good working order, and Bennett resumed the battle to keep the fish tail under control.  At one point we barely escaped careening into a passing Land Rover.  The driver smiled sympathetically.  Bennett and the vehicle continued to do a great job, and although we spun out a couple of times, and unknowingly took the wrong course through the middle of private land (the worst part being our detour past a small lake of water, all the while balancing the car on a tight rope of concrete land, avoiding engaging the car in a swim), we were making good time and avoiding disaster.  Using my GPS we were able to track back to the main roadway without having to make a u-turn, which would have meant again testing our talents against the tight rope.  Then, just about 8 miles from home, the car called it quits.  We came to a sputtering stop next to a group of baboons, all of which huddled miserably beneath whistling thorn acacia (and not receiving much cover from the sparse branches).  Sharing in a mutual despair, we exchanged glances owning our inevitable prolonged discomfort.  Bennett and I prepared to sleep in the car.  Of course we were not too thoroughly prepared.  Us in flip lops, summer clothing, no rain jackets, no flashlights, a phone receiving almost no reception.  But we did have a baguette of bread and some mozzarella cheese, a sleeping bag, some rum and juice, and my computer along with a few pirated DVDs we bought in town for a dollar a piece.  We prepared to keep warm, fill our bellies, and be somewhat entertained. 

Fortunately, Bennett found a small snippet of satellite reception.  Balancing an umbrella and crouching within a thicket to avoid enticing the lightning, he was able to get in touch with Charles (currently visiting family in Nyahururu), who in turn was able to call the conservancy's head of security.  Lakrende and Richard came to our rescue and after tying a rope to both their and our vehicles, we were able to jumpstart the fatigued vehicle.  They insisted on guiding us home.  We asked them what we could offer them in return for their help – money, anything.  They modestly replied that they did not require any compensation.  I gave them KSh 1,000 each ($25.00 total).  An equivalent service would have cost hundreds dollars in the U.S.  These guys just wanted to help out, no strings attached.  I hope we can return the favor in the future.

Unfortunately our niche within the Plateau did not receive much rain – only about 8 mm – but the neighboring downpour is just a vision of much more to come.  We look forward to enjoying it from the veranda :)        

Maria

Photos!

Ring-necked dove

Masked weaver

Monitor lizard

View of Mt. Kenya from our yard

Vulture 

Rock Hyrax

In the field

Black-backed jackal

More on elephants and an experience in car shopping

Another exciting encounter with elephants the other day…. We were on our way to town, driving in Charles’ tiny Japanese Subaru when we came across a family of elephants.  The juvenile darted in front of the car as we came to a slow stop, and then the presumed and overly protective mother began to rear back and forth, not more than a few feet in front of the vehicle.  She waved her great trunk up and down and her entire body swayed rhythmically.  We now have experienced the shocking first glimpse of a female elephant’s giant breasts – an experience incomparably described by Robert Sapolsky in A Primate’s Memoir.  We thought a charge was imminent, but she showed us mercy and moved on.  Funny the feeling such an instance provoked.  At first I felt an instant pang of fear, which soon dissipated and was replaced by awe and paralysis.  So magnificent, so humbling a 6,000 pound beast can be!

Well, we had our first experience with our new ride.  A 2000-something Land Rover.  A Defender.  It is forest green with a white roof.  She has a row of back seats and then a large trunk area that houses sub-woofers (apparently the vehicle was government owned previously – hence the affordable presence of unnecessarily large electronics – so big that you might guess the car was once the star of that MTV show Pimp My Ride).  She is in very good condition and well worth the maximum we allotted for a car budget.  Still overcoming the hurdles of foreign banking – but we project she will be in our possession by next week.

The car inspection was interesting and consisted of a rigorous examination of the vehicle.  We drove the car around town – even through the muddy remnants of the local car wash (which really just consists of several guys standing in a dirt patch on the side of the road with an endlessly running hose).  The car was tested through the sticky gorges, moved forward and reversed repeatedly, to prove its durability in the face of adversity.  Come rainy season, we will certainly use the 4-wheel drive.  Then the car received a car wash to show how beautiful it can be when squeaky-clean.  We then drove the car to the local gas station and pulled her into the garage area.  Bennett, Charles, our car-dealer-middle-man Kennedy, the sellers, the guy who worked at the garage, and I all walked down the stairs and took a look at her from below.  We then backed her out and half the town came to inspect and offer their opinion.  Luckily Charles is a trained mechanic and knows what the heck he is looking at.  And now, with Bennett as his apprentice, we can depend on being pretty self-sufficient when it comes to the basic operation of the car and minor repairs.  Bennett’s driving lessons amongst the herds of temperamental elephants and twitchy impala have also proven him an adept driver.  

We later made an official agreement (one based on word and a hand shake) that we would take the car and they would take care of it while we dealt with procuring the money.  All discussions were made while sitting in the parked Land Rover, in the middle of a bustling market filled with hundreds of staring eyes, during the apex of the suns ascent, all sweating profusely and exhausted.  We decided to celebrate by treating ourselves to the local favorite of nyama choma – roasted goat meat (goat being preferred) that is accompanied by your choice of chapati (a delicious fry bread) or ugali (a mushy corn meal type dish I think mostly useful for it additional calories and its ability to soak up the juices, taking on the flavor of the main dish), and some sautéed kale.  When ordering nyama choma, you approach the counter and the chef pulls out a representative hunk of goat leg.  The customer then examines it for quality and I guess for its fat and meat content, and then chooses how much they think they can eat.  Everybody take a seat and then your waiter brings over the boned meat on a platter and carves the whole of it in front of you.  All is scooped up and eaten with your hands – a heaping piece of goat, a sprinkle of tomato and onion garnish, and a torn piece of chapati.  I really enjoyed my kale, chapati, and ugali mish mash.  No sliver of meat is left unattended.  Traditionally the waiter then comes and pours hot water over your hands in order to degrease your fingers. 

Tomorrow we are making the trek into town to replenish our stock of vegetables, make some check marks next to our ever-increasing list of things to do, and perhaps even to get some work done :)

 More pictures to come within the next couple of days!

Maria

Photos!

Had to sacrifice some quality, by resizing them, in order to get them to upload.  But, enjoy anyway!