Month: August 2009

Dry Season Serengeti

Dry Season Serengeti

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I usually don’t visit the Serengeti in the dry season, but the drought in Kenya made it a practical alternative. We weren’t disappointed!

The director of the Cleveland Zoo, Steve Taylor, said at the end of our time at Ndutu Lodge in the southwest Serengeti that it was the best game viewing he’d ever had there, and one of the best first game drives.

I don’t think I can disagree. In the first two hours that the zoo group was in the bush, we saw 10 lion (7 of which were cubs, and 3 of which were eating a warthog), a mother cheetah with two three-month-olds, and the most classic leopard I remember ever seeing.

This extraordinary bang-bang-bang of the big cats just doesn’t usually happen. Only about one out of three of my safaris finds leopard at all. Part of the reason is that this is the dry season, there’s less foliage to obscure game viewing, and it’s easier for the predators to hunt.

It’s easier for the leopard and lion, because they can hang around the known water sources and wait for the animals that must ultimately come down to drink. It’s easier for the cheetah, because the grass isn’t as high and they can see so much better.

In fact, the grass was very, very low. This wasn’t a drought as is the sad situation in Kenya, but it much dryer than normal. I must admit that I was worried having been here only two months ago and having watched the steady drying up since January.

But the veld is amazingly resilient. Lake Masek was completely dry and there was only a tiny sluice of water in Lake Ndutu. But at the end of Lake Masek the swamp was pretty healthy and there were several sections of open water.

Every once in a while we could see swaths of green, and the Ndutu manager, Colin, confirmed there had been short periods of rain at unusual times. This very slight greening had provided enough fodder for the impala, which didn’t look too bad and which were having fawns.

We saw quite a few elephant, also fairly healthy looking. The Masek swamp is an important elephant corridor between Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, and we have always found transient ele there. And we saw just as many, if not more, than usual.

On the upper plains behind Lake Ndutu we saw tons of Grant’s gazelle, and that wasn’t surprising. Even as Samburu turned into a desert, we’d fine Grant’s. But with them on the high plateau were a few zebra and lots of Thomson’s Gazelle, and that was unusual for such a dry time. And finally, we encountered a dozen or so giraffe, mostly male, very large and dark. I’m not sure what this means.

Because the area of good game viewing was limited to the swamp, we kept going back there each time. But the marvelous thing about doing this is that you start to get to know the animals. Jerry Wagner was intrigued about how there seemed to be only 7 cubs on the first game drive, and then suddenly two more appeared on the next drive!

There’s never a certain answer to such wonderful mysteries, but I explained it could have been that the two had got lost, or that they had been on the kill still eating which I suspected the pride had managed not long before we arrived the first time. Or, maybe, we just didn’t see them the first time!

And everyone enjoys Ndutu Lodge, especially me. The mornings are so beautiful. And what a treat to sit down to breakfast as a 5-gallon bucket of water is poured over the bird bath drawing down at least 500 brilliantly colored Fischer’s Lovebirds.

What a way to begin!

Nairobi Landing

Nairobi Landing

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My Cleveland Zoo safari began with nine people arriving a day early and enjoying Nairobi and environs.

Nairobi’s climate this year has been strange but fortunate. While most of the rest of the country suffers from serious drought, it has rained steadily on the city for nearly 9 months. The last several months have been hardly more than drizzle, but it has brought with it a cold that would normally have been gone by the third week of July.

So it was cold and drizzly. But that didn’t stop anyone from getting right into touring.

After dinner at the excellent Tamarind seafood restaurant, the Wagners and Gilberts were joined by the Chelms and Antonaccis and Cheryl Steris the next morning on an excursion to Karen. It was a Saturday so I figured the traffic would be lighter, but I guess that’s no longer the case.

They did manage to squeeze the three attractions into a long morning: Kazuri Beads, Karen Blixen’s homestead and Giraffe Manor, but a good hunk of that morning was spent driving back and forth from the city.

In the afternoon the Kaspers and Wagners joined us all for my walking tour of Nairobi. The sun came out and we started at the Memorial to the August 7, 1998, bombing of the American embassy. I often start here because of where it’s located, rather than for what it is.

I consider the Memorial a bit too ideological. To begin with, it costs to get into the little park, albeit only Ksh 20/. If you want to use the john, that costs another Ksh 10/. The video, which costs Ksh 100/ to see, is packed with propaganda of how successful America is waging its war against terrorism. That so?

We walk from there down the government street past the Department of Education, Foreign Affairs and finally the Office of the President. This gives me the opportunity to discuss the top-heavy, convoluted and failing Kenyan government, a government which is currently stale-mated by the forced coalition that ended the violence after the last election.

But I don’t blame East Africans or East African culture as much as the failed colonial period. The British thrust a form of government on the East African countries that simply isn’t working; and the world powers entrenched corruption by vapid unaccounted “aid” as they sought favorable alliances during the Cold War.

From there we turn down towards Parliament, past the Kenyatta Memorial and then turn past the Basilica to City Hall. This gives me the opportunity to praise Kenyan youth, who I just wish would somehow own up to the fact that it is they alone who can bring Kenya out of the mess it currently finds itself. This is where the students often rioted.

We enjoyed tea at the Stanley beside the modern version of the Thorn Tree message center, and visited the Exchange Bar with its original 19th Century furnishings. This is the perfect setting to describe the era of White Mischief which defined colonial Kenya as a somewhat renegade somewhat rebel white civilization.

And the few nearby art galleries let me once again praise Kenyan youth, who in places as established as New York and Tokyo are defining contemporary art.

We walked past the city mosque, and I explained how East African societies were becoming more and more Muslim as the western world is perceived to be abandoning them.

I suppose I began my walking tours of Nairobi when it became ridiculously impossible to drive, because of the traffic. But it’s a great way for people adjusting to a new time zone to keep active and learn a lot of new stuff. It’s something I think everyone really enjoyed.

Cheap Flights

Cheap Flights

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Cheap flights should be a goal of every traveler, but we’re learning there are incredible hazards to knocking the price down too low.

My safari with the Cleveland Zoo began by sorting through the many troubles various travelers had with their flights from the U.S. into Africa. Much of what happened to a number of these 20 people has happened to many of our other travelers this season, so I though I should document the travails with some advice as to how to avoid such misery.

The first and likely most frequent problem is missing a connection. This happened to three wonderful ladies on the trip, Adela Kuc, Mary Bartos and Mercedes Lira, who the others on the trip began to call the “Newark-3″. This was a really big trip for all of them and their first time in Africa.

The missed connection resulted in a domino series of mistakes and incorrect remedies that became an outright catastrophe. They missed their connection in Newark by about 5 minutes, but they ended up missing two days on safari and were without their luggage for four days.

The Continental connection was missed because of weather, but the point here was that had they left on the previous earlier flight, they would have made their connection. That would have increased the scheduled connecting time from 1hr:50min to 5hr:50min. Understandably, that six-hour layover seems too long to most people.

But in today’s flying environment, it definitely isn’t if the only alternative is less than 3 hours. I consider this really the fault of Continental by suggesting in the first place that the shorter connecting time is just fine. It isn’t. Flights are miserably delayed, today, and whatever the airline says you need is probably only about half of what you really do.

But there’s more on this point. One of the Newark-3 wouldn’t have minded coming a bit early, except that it was more expensive. But clearly we need to realize in today’s skies that airlines never make their schedules, and the ultimate loss of two days on safari was certainly greater than the increment for the more expensive ticket.

And there’s even more to this sad story. Once the delay occurred, the presumed remedies we all expect didn’t happen.

Previous to today’s hyper-complicated airline alliance and code-share rules, if your connection was missed, it was incumbent upon the airline to do whatever was necessary to get you as quickly to your destination as possible. That meant even booking you onto a competing airline.

No longer. Depending upon the type (read: cost) of your ticket, you might be out of luck. Most CHEAP TICKETS, today, won’t allow booking across different airlines. New rules are in effect which differentiate the responsibility for missing the connection. In other words, the airline will only fault itself for its own mistakes: like mechanical connections or the pilot coming late. But if it’s weather – forget it Charlie, it’s your problem.

Two of the three ladies suffered even more egregious stress and delay, because the electronic ticketing process was faulty. Continental claimed that it couldn’t read the Kenya Airways’ proof-of-ticketing (the ladies were ticketed on Kenya Airways into Nairobi from Amsterdam) : i.e., that from Continental’s point of view, no ticket existed.

I really consider that bogus if technically true, since Continental had flown them from Cleveland to Newark on the same “faulty” ticket. Why the first flight was acceptable but the subsequent flights weren’t is close to high throne hogwash. They call it a rule.

When Continental endorsed over the remaining ticket it could read to British Airways, British Airways refused to recognize it, because Continental’s electronic rewriting process wasn’t recognized in the BA system. This meant that one of the ladies was racing back and forth in the Newark terminal carrying one airline contention to the other and … never getting out of Newark.

Whose fault was this? Continental or British Airways. I’d hang them both.

Ultimately the three ladies made it to Africa, two days late, and more than $2000 more than expected out of pocket for new hotels, new transfers and new local flights. They came in different ways, for no understandable reasons, and their luggage was delayed even longer.

It would take a Ph.D thesis to unweave the whys and wherefores of exactly what happened to them, but I think as a lesson for the future we need to understand that airlines, today, are poorly managed companies losing tons of money with very stressed employees.

Don’t buy their stock, but if you buy their tickets, follow these four rules:

(1) At big metropolitan airports like Newark, Chicago, L.A., Atlanta or New York – and probably a lot of others, too – always give yourself a minimum of 4 hours connecting time. And if your choice is only 6 or 3, take 6.

(2) If you’re on a big trip, like a safari, make sure you add at least one dead day to the beginning of your trip. This takes care of the possibility you’ll be delayed.

(3) Consider insurance more seriously than before. I know that filing for the insurance after a situation like the Newark-3 would become a nightmare in itself, since the documentation of who did what when is complicated. And to successfully invoke insurance, you’ll have to take copious notes of the struggle as it’s happening. But this will cover you for the inevitable loss.

(4) Don’t jeopardize a multi-thousand dollar trip by saving a few hundred dollars on a CHEAP TICKET that connects between too many different airlines. The more airlines in your itinerary, the more complicated it will be to sort out any problem. Code-shares are better than separate airlines, but even code-shares won’t guarantee you as quick a remedy as just sticking with one airline through the whole program. If you have to use more than one airline, you should consider overnighting at the connecting point between the two airlines.

I felt terrible for Mary, Adela and Mercedes; and terrible for Wayne and Margot Gilbert whose Continental departure from Cleveland at 8:25p one night was finally canceled altogether at 3 a.m. And for Angry and Frank Kasper who after dozens of changes on Northwest and KLM found out the day of their departure that they’d been put on separate planes to Europe!

Or for myself, who after my pilot told us cheerfully it was the 90th anniversary of American Airlines then came on the P.A. ten minutes later to apologize for an hour delay due to “paper” problems.

Paper problems?! I thought that ended when I was sent to the principal’s office for sailing paper airplanes at Mrs. Biggin’s desk!

WHICH AFRICA?

WHICH AFRICA?

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This morning the breakfast hall of the Norfolk was quite full. The hotel is being used by many attending a very large conference in Nairobi.

The buffet breakfast was robust as usual: one side table was filled with fresh cut fruits: grapefruit, watermelon, oranges, mangoes, several kinds of passion fruits, placed next to a tub of various kinds of yoghurt with attractive little bowls of almonds, walnuts, and various Indian nuts and spices.

The long 25′ buffet table began with cheeses, smoked salmon, a dozen different kinds of pastries, a dozen different kinds of breads, and cold meats. There was then the cooking station where a friendly chef whipped up any kind of omelette or pancake or waffle, and there were six kinds of syrups and heavy creams for garnish. The rest of the table was laden with hot tubs of bacon, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, several kinds of sausage, eggs benedict, the “chef’s special” and ended with a huge tub of appropriately altered “ugali” or (very delicious) corn porridge.

More than a thousand delegates were attending the World Congress of Agroforestry at the UN Headquarters in Gigiri, during which they predicted widespread famine in Africa. Today, the Kenyan Government announced up to 10,000,000 Kenyans were starving because of the drought.

It was a damn shame that I didn’t bring an umbrella, yesterday, because all morning long it rained in Nairobi. About half of all the Kenyan livestock in the country is dead because of the drought.

Many of us went for a quick swim in the Olympic-sized pool before going to work this morning. The Norfolk is my favorite hotel in Nairobi, and they heat the pool very nicely, wonderful in this cold season.

A third of Kenya’s population must now buy water to survive. Kenyans living in the city slums with a per capita of less than $300 per year must now spend $5/day for enough water to drink and cook. In the residential areas of central Nairobi, every other day is now without water.

Several of Nairobi’s popular discos – thought off limits to foreigners only a few years ago – are now popular with conference goers, tourists and foreign workers. The Simba Saloon is a popular suburban disco and Gypsy’s is very popular in the city. Every night, loud contemporary music, strobes and sometimes floor shows. Throughout most of Nairobi and the country, electricity is now turned off during the day, because of poor hydroelectric power. In many places, night rationing is beginning.

Schools can’t use computers. Refrigerators are useless. No one knows the news, because radios and televisions are quiet.

So goes the paradigm of heart-breaking Africa. Tomorrow, the first of my 22 clients arrive for a fabulous safari.

Floods Coming?

Floods Coming?

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East African governments are warning their citizens – many now in the devastation of a drought — that they should prepare for floods.

The Kenyan Meteorological Department has a mixed record of forecasting. In January, two months prior to the normal onset of the “Long Rains” in most of Kenya, it predicted they would be sparse if any. They were right. But the previous year they were very wrong when they predicted pretty normal rainfall for the “Short Rains” over most of the country.

The Tanzanian Meteorological Department is a bit better, and is expected today to issue a statement that will warn that an El Nino is expected to develop by November.

Both departments are taking their lead from a major conference that closed in Kenya, yesterday, attended by weather forecasters from 24 African countries. The “ 24th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF 24)” closed in Nairobi warning that heavy rains are coming to East Africa.

The group based its prediction on the rising temperatures of large sections of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific ocean. It also extensively used the U.S.’ National Weather Service August 6 summary of the current El Nino. That statement said that El Nino is expected to strengthen and last through the end of this year into the beginning of next year.

The U.S. report said that the Pacific ocean temperatures were ranging from ½ to 1½ degrees C above normal, especially in the eastern equatorial regions that will effect East Africa. It continued that these temperatures will continue to increase even further leading to increased rainfall in the equatorial regions.

BA BAD BA

BA BAD BA

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British Airways used to be one of the best airlines into Africa. It still is, except that you can’t get a seat in advance!

I’m not sure if it was the subway bombing of 7-7 or if it was just a technological coincidence, but that was when British Airways began to deny preassigned seating. The policy was initially to only cover economy, the great bulk of its service, but EWT’s experience is that even business and first-class travelers can’t get seats.

The policy is that 24 hours prior to departure, you can go on-line to obtain your seats. But even that doesn’t seem to work.

Twenty-four hours before my 10:20a departure from London to Nairobi, August 25, would have been any time after 4:20a in the morning my time. I was already driving to O’Hare, but my wife tried for me on-line and received the message, “Sorry, on-line check-in is not available for this flight.”

Or for any other, in our experience.

At O’Hare, my American flight to London automatically checked me into the connecting flight down to Nairobi. And gave me a random seat! American pleaded forgiveness, but they were unable to do anything about it.

Still, couldn’t get online. Called BA in the U.S. and spoke with person after person, but they insisted that because American had checked me in, American had to check me out! And American said, no, it’s BA! So I called London. London said I wasn’t checked in, and I wouldn’t be able to check in until I reached there!

So now I’m in London and go to surrender the seemingly useless boarding pass that American gave me, and the BA rep shouts, “Don’t do that!” as I begin to tear it up with vengeance. “It’s perfectly good!”

“Can I change me seat?” I asked now sheepishly.

She didn’t know. It wasn’t a yes, and it wasn’t a no, and I was in Heathrow. After a few phone calls (yes, the antiquated phone call even as she was standing in front of an IBM blue terminal), I finally got a better seat, mainly because the flight was so poorly booked.

No wonder why.

SAHARA RAIN

SAHARA RAIN

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We were 3/4 through the journey to Nairobi. I looked out my window over the Sahara Desert… and watched a thunderstorm!

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Towering storms were forcing our 777 flying at 39,000′ to take little turns around them. Every once in a while, there was a break all the way down to the floor of the western Sudan, and taking my binoculars, all I could see was sand!

There weren’t even rocks, or oases as could be seen over Libya a few hours earlier, or even hard butte as often protrude above the Sahara sand. It was just… sand! And it was raining!

The scientific community is agog with the notion that the Sahara may be regreening itself as a result of climate change. National Geographic’s July 31 article seems to have condensed and collected most of the research, but the fact is that scientists have been mulling over the notion for the last decade.

The Royal Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, the Netherlands, has been predicting a greening of the Sahara for nearly ten years. Among their projected events are “thunderstorms over the Sahara” exactly as I had seen.

But whoaa, Nelly! The above information is also being widely used by bloggers and other to support a notion that climate change ain’t all that bad.

It seems intrinsically true that any event that would give Africa more food or water is essentially a good one. But a number of researchers, including the famous Dr. Stefan Kröpelin of the University of Cologne are ardently showing us that any climate change that happens as fast as seems to be happening, now, has no precedent and might not be good.

Several years ago a few scientists suggested that the Sahara Desert formed in a very short time. Peter B. deMenocal of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory claimed that most of the Sahara could have been formed within only a few centuries.

Kröpelin’s polite but aggressive challenge in a May, 2008, article in Science suggests that the majority of the scientific community doubts that earth ever changed that quickly. Although he didn’t say so, many of us read between the lines: caution, George, any fast change isn’t necessarily good based on the historical record.

Certainly what’s happening in the populated African equatorial world, today, is not good. There has been such erratic climate over the last decade, that drought is followed by floods is followed by drought. If anything, social disruption has been the principle result.

Is this the silver lining? Or the mercury poisoning?

SEE BABY KILL

SEE BABY KILL

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The African country that most emulates the west is South Africa. See Baby walk. See Baby run. See Baby kill.

South Africa has long been an arms warehouse, and many believe it already possesses nuclear weapons technology. Its guerilla attack rifle, the NTW-20 is probably one of the most sought after insurgent weapons in the world.

Now with South Africa’s growing transparency, dark closets are being opened.

It seems the country is selling weapons to Syria, Burma, Libya, Venezuela and North Korea.

Trying to electrify the dark closet, Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier asked the country’s National Assembly, Wednesday, to debate the issue, and directly confronted the country’s Minister of Justice to reply to allegations that the “Axis of Evil” countries were being supplied with weapons. He pointed out that in some cases, this would be in violation of UN sanctions.

The South African government refused.

It’s a very touchy issue locally. Maynier is the Shadow Alliance’s Minister of Defense, a former South African “navy seal” who commanded submarines in the Angolan war. He’s no angel.

But he knows what he’s talking about. Supporters of the South African government will contend he’s just playing politics, and that were he in power, the government would likely be selling to the devil.

Either way, it’s unfortunate that the African countries we most praise and which seem to be doing best in that economically black continent are doing so at least in part by spreading death and destruction.

Note any similarities to Big Brother?

As Goes KQ

As Goes KQ

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Kenya Airways’ labor turmoil is the latest in a series of devastating economic blows to Kenya.

Everything’s back to normal at Jomo Kenyatta International airport after four days of hell. Kenya Airways’ employees struck the airline last Friday, grounding more than half the flights and sending the country’s tourist infrastructure into chaos.

It was the last thing that was needed in this miserable market right now. First there was the political turbulence of December, 2007, which has never fully been rectified. Then, the world economic downturn. Then, the drought. Now, this.

Kenyan hoteliers are incredibly depressed. I spoke with one in Kenya this morning, and she is normally an upbeat, cheerful sort, now mumbling about trying to change jobs. The strike was over by Monday afternoon, but on Monday morning major lodges in Kenya’s Maasai Mara had put out one day two-for-one offers. “Not very many takers,” I was told today.

Kenya seems to be turning into this behemoth of things past. When I reflect back as recently as 2006, the Kenya of today seems to have little that’s similar.

Kenya Airways was one of the great stars of Kenyan development. Truly in a mere ten years, it outpaced its nearest rival, Ethiopian Airlines, which has been around since 1940! Ethiopian Airlines is a great airline, with an extensive network, but never has managed any marketing. Kenya Airways trumped them, here, and by 2005, had a greater revenue stream and profit than Ethiopian.

The Economist Magazine even named Kenya Airways best business airline of Africa in 2004, a title that had been retained by South African Airways for decades. This was in part because of the airlines clever move to turn its business class (which is very nicely priced) into full flat beds, long before other airlines were considering this.

The fleet is new, full of 777s and beautiful, sharp interiors. Have you flown recently on an airline where the flight attendants regularly clean the bathrooms every two hours? Try KQ!

And the airlines astute partnerships with local carriers like PrecisionAir, and its vested part merger with KLM, secured it to both the local and world markets.

This was a short-lived strike. The unions wanted a 130% pay increase, and they settled for 20%. Even that was grand, given that the airline has laid off no staff despite drastic reductions in revenue in the last year.

Good luck KQ. We use to say in America, as goes GM so goes America. Well, as goes KQ, so goes Kenya.

Is Kenya safe enough for a Honeymoon?

Is Kenya safe enough for a Honeymoon?

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From RachDogger@

Q.    My fiancee and I want to go on safari for a honeymoon, but we’ve been told it’s not safe to visit Kenya.  The U.S. State Department shows warnings.

A.    I’ve written a lot about this, and you might want to read my blog to the left, “Is Kenya Safe?”  I think it is … safe enough.  And also keep in mind, there are many options to Kenya in Africa that will give you a fabulous honeymoon!  The short answer, though, is YES, Kenya right now is safe enough.  Now for the lengthy explanation of what that means, see my blog.

DROUGHT CRISIS

DROUGHT CRISIS

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Two years of lower than normal rains followed by a complete lack of any rain in certain East African areas has resulted in the most serious drought in a century.

Yesterday, the Kenyan cabinet in a special session mobilized its army to assist the police and civil departments with distribution of food and water. Areas north of the equator (about 40 miles north of Nairobi), including the great lakes and east from them, represent a square of devastation the likes of which we haven’t seen in a century.

The World Health Organization estimates that a third of Kenya’s 34 million people are now without enough food. The Kenyan agricultural ministry has announced that the annual grain harvest will fall short of the country’s needs by two-thirds. (Last year, Kenya exported grain.)

For tourists, it can be heart breaking for those still visiting most of Kenya’s game parks. In fact, the only game park which seems to be relatively OK is Kenya’s best park, the Maasai Mara. There is still a bit of water in the Mara River, but more importantly, there had been good rains through last week, providing the large herds of animals with grass fodder.

As I write this, though, there has not been a drop of rain in the Mara for a week. This is unusual, as the Mara is normally pretty wet right through September. But for the time being, the Mara looks OK.

And all the game parks south of the Mara, which include all of Tanzania’s parks, are also OK. They aren’t normal, as they, too, have suffered from two years of lower than normal rains, but the rain didn’t turn off completely on them as it did over north and eastern Kenya.

There have even been reports of sprinkles of rain over the southern Serengeti, not unheard of but not normal for this normally dry time. Lakes Ndutu, Masek, Eyasi and Manyara, however, are almost bone dry. The Grumeti River is dry. Only the Balaganjwe is still flowing.

The greatest tragedy is not for tourists, though, but for the local population. The Kenyan agricultural ministry estimates that already half of the hoofed stock in the country is dead. In more remote areas like Samburu and Meru, this has resulted in gun battles between clans warring over the last stock that exists. The military has actually had to intervene, in one notable case, blasting apart two warring clans on the bridge over the Ewaso Nyiro River going to Samburu.

Most of Kenya is now under a water rationing program. In many populated areas, two days of every week have no public water service.

Zinj’s Golden! Birthday?

Zinj’s Golden! Birthday?

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Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact date that Australopithecus boisei was found by Mary Leakey, but it was in July, 1959 and reported in August. Time to celebrate!

The discovery of Nutcracker Man in 1959 was the single most important paleontological discovery that jump started the science, quashed forever (except in weird and extreme circles) creationism, and paved the way for the next 50 years of jaw-dropping science.

We don’t know the exact date he was found, and like Africans everywhere he goes by a number of different names. Zinj seems to be the most used, a shortening of the initial scientific designation of Zinjanthropus boisei. “Zinj” is an Arabic contraction of “East Africa”. For most of my lifetime, though, it has been known as Australopithecus boisei.

And because Mary Leakey’s diaries and the entries in the National Museum in Nairobi differ by several days, we aren’t even absolutely sure of the exact date Zinj saw the sun for the first time in more than a million years. Possibly July 17, possibly July 25. And the actual announcement of the discovery wasn’t until August. (I read it in the “Weekly Reader” in October.) But good grief, you can’t fault a two million-year old creature for forgetting his date of discovery by a few days.

The Leakeys had excavated tirelessly Olduvai Gorge for 28 years before finding Zinj and were widely considered to be kooks. When the then Princess Elizabeth made a state visit to the colony of Kenya in 1954, Lewis Leakey was warned if he met the princess to “not say anything about that early man gibberish.”

Zinj was probably the 3rd or 4th early man skull to have been found, but the first to be reckoned as such. And shortly after the scientific community accepted its near million-year age, the other skulls that had been masquerading as chimp-like primates in South Africa were unmasked as true hominids. The science exploded.

Today we have nearly 10,000 early hominid remains and nearly 1,000 early hominid skulls or partial skulls. That’s quite a feat in less than twice the time the Leakey’s spent in finding the first!

And to think of the twists and turns in theory and application that Grandpa Darwin prepared for us, once these important pieces of evidence were unearthed! Shortly after the Zinj discovery, it was widely and near unanimously presumed by world science that hominid evolution was linear: old lemur to old ape to old chimp to old man to us.

We now understand that’s a grade schooler’s explanation of calculus. We know now there were at least 22 different kinds of early hominids. In fact, even today, there’s uncertainty where Zinj belongs. Most people think he’s an australopithecine, but there’s growing evidence to suggest he’s actually a paranthopus! Wikipedia is lobbying for that.

So happy birthday (or, rather happy unearthing?), Zinj! How amazing to see in my own lifetime your entire story from ungrave to exalted cradle of display: For today your actual self is on PUBLIC DISPLAY in the Nairobi Museum!

That gives me goose (or should I say, pterodactyl) bumps!

Hillary stirs the pot!

Hillary stirs the pot!

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Keeping political secrets in Kenya is about as successful as damming a raging river with a Maasai shuka. But did Hillary intentionally leak the culprits’ names?

Before leaving Kenya, Hillary held a number of high profile meetings with activist politicians and local leaders. She said she was going to “name and shame” the list of culprits already drawn up by the Kenyan government as responsible for the 2007 election violence.

Short of economic sanctions, this is what governments do. They start by denying entry visas to certain individuals, an executive power that really stings. High profile politicians travel to developed countries much more than you might think. Did anyone know, for instance, that Kenya’s Prime Minister and central figure in the Kenyan political miasma was in Washington recently?

But they come for other than diplomatic reasons. They bring their children to good colleges. They shop. They bank. They invest bulging pockets. They often come incognito, because these are tasks the people at home don’t want to know they have.

According to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Department, at any given time, there are “thousands” of names on lists for denied entry of this sort.

It matters little to us that some potentate who has aggrieved the U.S. ambassador in Doha can’t shop at Macy’s. But it matters a lot to the citizens of Qatar, and when it leaks out at home, it’s worse than being forced to sit on a stool in the corner with a dunce cap on.

Hillary let it be known that the Kenyan Attorney General, Amos Wako, and the head of the national police, Hussein Ali, were on the bad boys’ list.

These are two dunces who sometimes get mean. Wako has served as Attorney General for 30 years. Both hold their position, because of their centrist political power from the tribes whence they come. Removing either of them could unbuckle the complex coalitions of power that keep both the current rivals, Odinga and Kibaki, in power.

As to their actual sins, I think they’re both minor players who have basically functioned as little as possible to keep themselves in power. That’s the Kenyan way. I don’t think they masterminded violence, for example, like William Ruto, the current Agricultural Minister who should be shackled and displayed on the public square. But I think Hillary’s point is that they both hold positions that should now be used to cleanse the body politic. And they aren’t. At least not in the way she would like.

One of the reasons the Truth-and-Reconciliation Commission won’t happen, is because Wako is moving the whole process to The Hague. Another important reason is that Ali is working with Scotland Yard and the FBI more closely than he is with Kenyans. This might get out the truth more effectively, but as Hillary explained (and as most foreign leaders agree) it would be better to have a Truth-and-Reconciliation Commission in Kenya than trials in The Hague.

And as many in Kenya hope (more than believe), a Truth-and-Reconciliation Commission might be so bold as to implicate Wako and Ali by their 30 years of negligence.

But it seems that Kenyans in power believe that the further that the truth comes out from Nairobi, the better for Kenya.

Hillary’s Warning

Hillary’s Warning

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The U.S. Secretary of State is in Kenya delivering a strong message that she won’t make clear. Let me help: Kenya’s Minister of Agriculture has to go to jail.

A small consortium of western democracies joined the U.S. 18 months ago in promising more than $10 billion in reconstruction aid, as a part of Kofi Annan’s plan to reconcile the two opposing candidates in the violent December, 2007, elections. Hillary is reading the receipts to Kenya’s leaders, but between the numbers is a man called William Ruto.

Part of Annan’s plan accepted by all sides was that something akin to a Truth-and-Reconciliation Commission be set up to determine once and for all who was responsible for the violence which killed more than 1,000 people and displaced nearly 150,000.

The signed agreement required the Kenyan Attorney General to complete a study and list suspects. That secret report was completed and couldn’t be too badly corrupted, because it was completed with the active assistance of the FBI and Scotland Yard. That list has already been given to Annan. The signed agreement further gives Annan the right to take this list to the World Court at The Hague, if Kenya doesn’t adjudicate the matter itself.

And right now, it doesn’t look like Kenya will. For some good politicians in Kenya, this is as it should be, since any judicial inquiry overseen by the Kenyan politic is likely to be corrupted.

The now infamous list of the “top ten” most likely suspects, still being kept secret by Annan, has Ruto at the top of its list. Ruto is one of the most ruthless men alive. Like his Kalenjin tribal predecessors, Daniel arap Moi (the dictator for 21 years) and Nicholas Biwott (Moi’s hatchet man), Ruto comes from Eldoret. He has a militia. He is a gangster that has skimmed off food aid during a drought. And to no one in Kenya is there the least doubt that he ordered widespread ethnic killing.

What’s particularly sad for me is that he was on the “right” side, the ODM, the one that Raila Odinga led honestly and openly to the election. Ruto was instrumental in the electoral victory and not just with dishonest means, but with all the necessities for an election victory: money, mostly.

They were never good bedfellows, Odinga and Ruto. Odinga was a real moral champion, transparent, straight speaking, an underdog you could identify with. Ruto for all his life was in the shadows pulling strings, making billions, growing more powerful everyday. But in Kenya’s dire society, tribalism rules. Kalenjins and Luos, Ruto and Odinga, was a match made even stronger because “Ruto et thugs, Inc.” was a part of the dictatorial regime of Arap Moi that the current president democratically overthrew. And current President Kibaki is Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s rival and nemesis.

I believe that the violence started with no organization. It began among the poor in the slums who had voted and who had won with Odinga. And when the election was stolen from them with tactics not so dissimilar to Bush stealing power from Gore, the fires exploded.

And the police over reaction was terrible, and the police were part of the establishment, and so the inevitable counter reaction ensued. For all we know the people truly in power may have truly felt a civil war had begun. And that’s when William Ruto got out his militia, his brownshirt brigades and lashed back with a ferocity that not even the police could match.

And for his money, his power and his “defensive” reaction from the perspective of a civil war, he was awarded the Ministry of Agriculture.

And now, he is the most wanted of the secret list of most wanted men. And any tribunal, in Kenya or The Netherlands, will have to deal with that. And that – more than any other single reason – is why both President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga – the archest of rivals ever imagined – together oppose a tribunal as well as a trial in The Hague. Both are trying to sweep the matter under the rug.

Kofi Annan will not wait forever. The day will come when William Ruto’s name is postulated for infamy. And Hillary is probably trying to explain that it would be better to do it in Kenya than on the world stage.

It’s not going to be a pretty play.

PLANE CRASH

PLANE CRASH

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The Wilson airport plane crash on Saturday is no indication tourist flying is dangerous.

The pilot was killed and the three passengers were seriously injured last Saturday when a small plane of the sort which ferries tourists about Kenya crashed into an apartment building near Wilson airport.

The indications from Nairobi are that the crash was pilot error, and there have been a few other such crashes in the last decade all attributed to pilot error. Admittedly, many of the pilots flying East Africa’s small commercial aircraft are kids who can’t get jobs back at home.

There are especially many Americans, Brits, Australians and South Africans. Even before the economic downturn, the demand for new pilots was weak in the developed world. And one way to raise your name in the queue was to get as many commercial flying hours in as possible, anywhere in the world.

It’s not an unreasonable way to get experience, and while I might call them “kids”, I’ve never felt they were anything but completely safe. Many are recently discharged from armed forces.

And statistically, the average of about one small plane crash annually in East Africa is very good, given the number of flights that occur, and compared to other parts of the world. The rate, for example, is twice as good as for Alaska.

In this particular case, it appears that there was a small film crew aboard trying to get closeups from the air of the Kibera slums, which is right across the road from Wilson Airport. The plane flew too low.

Fortunately, no one on the ground was hurt.

Small aircraft are essential to operating a good safari. This particular crash was of a plane owned by the African Inland Missions (AIM), an outfit that rarely charters out to tourist groups. The main tourist group airlines: AirKenya, Safarilink and Boskovitz, have had no plane crash for more than ten years.