December thus far.

Well we have had a pretty busy and successful last couple of weeks.  We spent a good deal of time with the girls of Daraja during their last week at the school: We took part in a student/staff soccer tournament (Bennett scored a goal in his first soccer game!), we accompanied them to the nearby orphanage in Maramoja to volunteer our time in honor of World Aids Day on 1 December (the girls were amazing– a blog on this will follow shortly), and we celebrated their hard work this past year by eating popcorn and playing musical chairs.  There was an emotional sendoff on 4 December.  The girls loaded into their respective matatu, some embarking on a journey to last several days and some hiking around the corner to their nearby homes.  We look forward to welcoming them back on 8 January!

On 5 December we met with a woman we had befriended via various interactions, a local nurse who just happens to have a fifteen year old son with autism.  We met her son, and he is wonderful!  Bennett will begin working with him after the holiday, leading the in home behavioral therapy, and I will join them on social outings into the community.  He loves music, and he and Bennett bonded through that medium during their first encounter.  He was shy at first, but his curiosity was conspicuous, and by the end of our time together he was curled up next to Bennett and smiling adoringly.  The boy’s mother has done great things for the community concerning autism awareness.  She helped establish a special education school in Nanyuki and has recently put together a special education classroom in her rural hometown of Dol Dol, where there were previously no options for those with disabilities.  We look forward to doing as much as we can, sharing with the community all that we have absorbed in our combined eleven years experience.  (Expect soon a blog by Bennett on this topic.)  

Bennett and I subsequently spent some much desired time in the bush – which we have really come to consider home.  We missed our local army of birds, and especially the baboons and vervets.  I would like to take this time to say 'rest in peace' to our adopted bush cat Miguu and to “Black Cat” (the house cat).  It seems that in the past month they have disappeared, most likely being ravaged by a leopard or jackal during this time of drought and sparsity.  Miguu managed to survive in the wild since 2003, despite having awkwardly healed hind legs and hence a debilitating range of movement.  She was a warrior.   Additionally, the grey wren warbler that used to wake us up well before sunrise every morning with its alarm like chirp (an alarm without a snooze button) and incessant pecking at the window has also seemed to passed or moved on.  He will be missed.  On a positive note, we did spot our first water buffalo just across the river (an animal described by the locals as being the most dangerous here), its dark and ominous frame nimbly traversing the bush.  Although the sun obscured its facial details, you could feel its penetrating stare.  Each party anxiously awaited its counterpart’s next move.   

Bennett and I then parted ways, he heading to Uganda with a friend and I to Nairobi to meet with a locally based primatologist who transported three groups of baboons to the Laikipia Plateau twenty-four years ago, and has been observing them ever since.  We discussed my research possibilities, and we decided that I should come to visit her research site at the end of January to join her team in some ecological monitoring.  Prior to my meeting, I spent the entire week rambling up and down the streets of Nairobi.  We are now intimate friends.  While I was there, the ICC’s representative Ocampo announced the six individuals he found to be most responsible for Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, a series of horrific episodes whose effects have continued to rift this country.  Kenya is faced with a tough situation as the 2012 election approaches - unifying the nation’s 40+ tribes has proven difficult.  Consistent mismanagement by corrupt political elite (not to veil the great strides the country has made under the direction of strong and just Kenyan leaders) has been an outcome of a turbulent history of foreign control and enduring intervention.  I hope the country can achieve what so many people desire, a truly democratic and representative system.  

We are both now back at home in the bush.  Enjoying some peace and quiet, as well as some obscure animal rumblings, before heading to Daraja for Christmas and my 30^th birthday.  And then back to Nairobi to retrieve my mom and brother.  Wild times ahead!

Maria

Photos below taken by my friend Lindsay at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club Orphanage

Bennett and a Bongo

Mt. Kenya in the background.

We live on the equator.

Bennett feeding a patas monkey

Me and a patas

Me and a sykes monkey