Archive for May, 2010
On Safari: Fabulous Aberdare!
The Aberdare has always been a favorite park of mine, and today it lived up to my highest expectations. Day 2 of the Cronan Family Safari: we left Nairobi early, around 730a, because I wanted to get to one of the waterfalls at the top of the park for lunch. The new Thika road helps, [...]
A Lovely May Safari
Posted by jimheck in Nairobi, OnSafari, Planning Travel on May 30, 2010
My Cronan Family Safari began on a brilliantly beautiful Sunday in Nairobi. Father John (Cronan) had called my wife, Kathleen, while I was on the Great Migration Safari in March, and the vagaries of my own schedules, his as a very active scientist, and his children and sigoths meant that we had to “Do It!” [...]
The Life Spill in East Africa
I have little doubt that the Gulf Oil Spill may become the most catastrophic environmental disaster of my life. I hope it will focus your attitudes towards the Third World. Caution: I don’t expect to get oil on my hands, or for my livelihood or retirement to be profoundly changed. Nevertheless, I know it will [...]
Kenya Looking Good!
I hadn’t expected to return to Nairobi so soon, but if I hadn’t, the radical change in the city would have gone unnoticed by me. Things are really, at long last, back to normal. And normal is good. There are a lot of sarcastic cliches about hindsight, but in this case it’s a perfect lense [...]
Kenya New Nigeria?
Posted by jimheck in Uncategorized on May 26, 2010
It’s serious: lots of oil and a new scramble for (east) Africa. We’ve known for about a month that China had found serious oil and gas reserves in northern Kenya. And we’ve known for about that same amount of time China had found new oil reserves in Uganda. And we’ve presumed for wont of anything [...]
Ducky Judges Quack
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Politics on May 25, 2010
Here’s one for the books. Yesterday, a panel of 3 Kenyan judges said the proposed judicial system in the proposed new constitution is unconstitutional! Wait, wait, don’t tell me. There isn’t a constitution , yet, because it’s being voted on August 4, so how can something that isn’t, not be? This is incredibly embarrassing to [...]
The Crocodile Attack Alarm
Posted by jimheck in Animal Attacks, Politics on May 24, 2010
This weekend officials on Kenya’s coast warned of increasing crocodile attacks on local residents. Nonsense. If the reports of increased lion and crocodile attacks in Kenya are true, why are they not true in neighboring Uganda and Tanzania? Do those animals not have visas? Like the incorrectly reported increase in lion attacks made last week [...]
Lions going extinct? Or Maasai?
Posted by jimheck in Animal Attacks, Big Game, Community Based Tourism, Mara, Safari Lodges on May 21, 2010
Richard Leakey’s excellent wildlife consortium, Wildlife Direct, said today that “Kenya’s lions are on the brink of extinction.” Exaggeration or real warning? Probably both. The organization’s warning followed an incident in late April where three lions were poisoned in Lemek, a private wildlife conservancy north of Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara game reserve. Wildlife officials arrested [...]
No to short Ndutu from Dar
From Lee Chalfant, dougandlee@hotmail.com: Q. Jambo Jim! A Tanzanian friend here in Seattle, Zainab will be visiting relatives in ar es Salaam in June. She and her husband want to take their two children to the Serengeti for just 2-3 days. The children are in elementary school. I sent her info on Ndutu Lodge. Do [...]
Kenya ‘Gets it’ too
Posted by jimheck in Planning Travel, Politics, Safety on May 19, 2010
The Times Square Bomber says his radical Muslim cleric “gets it.” So does Kenya. NPR reported this morning that Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, attributed his radicalization to Abdullah Al-Faisal, a convicted felon in the UK who Kenya recently deported to Jamaica. I wrote earlier about the Al-Faisal controversy in Kenya and how Kenya [...]
(Student) Election Violence in Kenya
Nairobi students riot over … elections? And the man “solving” the situation is the one who caused the last election riots? Wait, wait! The elections aren’t until the end of 2012, right? And the national referendum for a constitution isn’t for a few more months, right? What elections are we talking about? The election for [...]
The Flame Tree Road
Posted by jimheck in Culture, Economy, Planning Travel on May 17, 2010
Three years ago China started building roads all over Kenya, including an 8-line highway between Thika and Nairobi. It’s now 30 miles of 12 lanes! (Stop! Yes, the Kenyan wilderness away from Nairobi is still beautiful and healthy. You still will find lions in the Kenyan wilderness. Not to worry, there.) In the few short [...]
SOUTH AFRICA WILD COAST
Ryan McCasky wrote: Q. What do you know about south africa? worth seeing? I’m interested in Port Elizabeth up the coast to Durban. I heard there are quaint towns up the coast and that the area has the best of both worlds of Africa… coast, beautiful beaches on one side, and huge game reserves and [...]
EVAPORIZE Goma!
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, War on May 14, 2010
A large midweek wedding celebration dominated the eastern Congo town of Goma, this week, for the first time in decades. Is the war over, or just getting ready to start, again? We’ll have to go to our PlayStation3 to find out. I have a mixture of distant nostalgia and abject fear when I remember my [...]
Rats to those Mines!
Posted by jimheck in War, Wildlife Management on May 13, 2010
An important electricity line has just been laid in western Mozambique, crucial to the development of Mozambique’s big new Limpopo National Park. Thanks to. Rats. Yes that’s right. Installation had been stalled because of the huge numbers of land mines that remained in the area from the civil war. Land mines are a problem throughout [...]