Forest High

Forest High

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The Aberdare Forest is the perfect way to begin an exciting safari. There is a lot of game and beautiful scenery.

Most visitors to the Aberdare National Park travel only to one of the famous tree hotels, which we did on our second night. But our entire first day was spent deep in the park all the way up to the spectacular Karura waterfalls.

The Aberdare is a huge park, stretching almost 100 miles from Thomson’s Falls (Nyauhuru) in the north to east of Naivasha in the south. About 50 miles of east-west tracks link the west side with the east side, and the habitats traveled over this route are astounding.

We didn’t traverse the park, but rather entered from the east at around 7000′ through the Moi Nyayo Tea Estate into the middle forests just below the bamboo line. There was a lot of evidence of elephant, but we saw none.

We climbed through the bamboo forests, which were horribly dry and brittle, and encountered our first family of elephant at around 9,000′. The family of eight individuals was literally encased in white flowering bush shrubs that must have hidden a small marsh.

We continued onto the moorland bumping into Jackson’s francolin all along the way, but it was very dry and we didn’t see the mountain reedbuck as we usually do. Instead, we encountered bushbuck above 10,000′ which is rather odd. Once again, I think the unusual weather is contributing to the unusual animal situations we’re finding.

Near the top of the road, though, rain had fallen and it was quite green and lush. So the waterfalls were lovely, and it is a welcome half-hour trek from the carpark to where several viewing stands have been constructed. On the way back we had our box lunch.

The kids were much more adventuresome with our lunch than their parents! I showed everyone how to bite off the top of a passion fruit and suck in the seedy fruit, and India fell in love with the taste. She began trading parts of her lunch for fruit from others.

Ada remarked on how beautiful the park was, and that’s half the reason for the day’s outing. Peter said it was the most beautiful place he had ever been. It was a bonus when we descended into the heavy forests near the park’s edge and began seeing great game. We encountered several elephant families, a lot of buffalo, and more bushbuck and baboon.

But the highlight of the whole day was seeing several families of colobus monkey. The first sight of a colobus brought screeches of delight from Emma and Phoebe. Phoebe immediately pronounced the monkey the best animal in the world! They are truly striking, thick black coats covered with a long white manes. Their very long, bushy white tails fly among the forest as they leap from tree to tree.

We got to The Ark tree hotel just as a number of elephant arrived. After Zanzy got his requisite tea down, we went immediately to the bottom turret and watched fabulous elephant encounters as multiple families came to dig for salt.

Later, in fact, more than 30 elephant congregated on the salt lick at the same time, with remarkable behaviors as certain families met or remet others. There were very young babies, and the mothers combined to try to keep all the males away.

Until super-Ele arrived! One of the largest male elephants I’ve ever seen, he must certainly have approached six tons and stood 11-12′. The females didn’t try to move him out of the salt lick, and he went politely among the different families introducing himself to the special delight of the youngsters.

The day ended after dinner with giant forest hog and hyaena. Everyone left their buzzers on, which awakens you to anything special, but the day had been so exciting, not a soul stirred the whole night long!

Driving on Safari

Driving on Safari

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A flying safari with no overland experience isn’t a good enough travel experience.

It’s become more and more popular, today, to fly from game lodge to game lodge in Africa and avoid the sometimes trying overland travel through Africa’s deteriorating cities and towns over some of its horrendous roads. That’s just as bad an idea as sending a kid from boarding school to boarding school, and moving up from suburb to glen to city skyscraper. You can move through life without ever knowing how most people live.

We’re all members of the Family Man on planet earth, and I think it extremely important to at the very least have a glimpse of how most of the world lives. One of the best ways to do this on safari is to drive – at least partially – from place to place.

In Kenya that’s an enormous challenge, since the country’s roads are in such poor condition. I thought it particularly funny this week that following the government’s announced budget where the ministers of various departments were told they could no longer have SUVs, but would have to use more fuel efficient, smaller cars, that there was an outcry from many of them. Some complained that it was beneath them to drive cars that “teenagers drive” while one minister in the government said in absolute irony that a small car wouldn’t do well, “because Kenya’s roads are so bad.”

My family safari began overland. I make a point to leave Nairobi only on Saturday or Sunday, when the traffic is only mildly chaotic. We traveled north past another slum, past the main city prison and then past the huge sports stadium on the outskirts of the city, which not even the poorest Kenyan resents having been built.

It takes a terribly long time to reach anything approaching “country.” Those who had read the book or seen the movie, Flame Trees of Thika, are startled when I tell them we’re approaching this supposedly idyllic country town. All the way to Thika is now urban and slum sprawl.

But shortly thereafter the highlands do present a picture of real beauty. Fortunately, this area has received a decent rainfall. The majority of Kenya hasn’t, but the central highlands look good. The banana and paw-paw trees, the blooming red flame trees and oodles of bougainvillea splashed on hills cut by running streams is a picture to remember.

This was Saturday, the biggest day for the Karatina Kikuyu open-air market. Everyday the market is incredibly colorful, run mostly by big Kikuyu women dressed to the nines, in colorful big poko-dot dresses selling as many varieties and colors of beans as the poko-dots on their dresses. There are stacks of custard apples, oranges, apples, figs, passion fruit. I bought everyone fresh slices of new pineapple that were delicious!

The market has a very small curio section that is mostly Kikuyu baskets often purchased by people in the highlands. They are gorgeous, and Ada, Joannie and a few others bought up the most beautiful ones. Whitney wanted one of the beautifully beaded belts made here, but unfortunately according to the wonderful lady who made it, he had eaten too much and she had none that would fit. She told him to change his diet to lemons and come back when he had shrunk enough!

Interaction with locals, wherever you travel, is an essential ingredient for understanding where you are. Without it, you simply carry your TV screen around the world. The Karatina market was a wonderful way to do this, but even just gazing out the window passing the confusions and blisters of a poorly emerging nation helps, too.

Global warming has given Kenya a patchwork of drought. From Nairobi to Karatina, the country was beautifully green as it should be after the Long Rains. But north of Karatina, including the Aberdare where we ended the day, is suffering a serious drought.

The dedicated staff of the Aberdare Country Club made it wonderful even in the midst of a drought. After we checked into this historic manor, some of the group walked with a guide through the backlands of the estate where there were many giraffe, waterbuck, warthog and impala. The lush grounds of the estate with its endless bougainvillea and mature flowering bushes was still good enough for a variety of beautiful sunbirds.

But even in this most protected of animal habitats I could see distress, particularly among the waterbuck, the first to suffer. It’s now been almost a year since they’ve seen rain.

Kids on Safari

Kids on Safari

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Children will make just as big an effort to get on safari as adults!

Traditionally, American family safaris operate almost exclusively within the summer school vacation window, July and August. I try to push mine a bit earlier, since the game is better and the veld not quite as dusty and dry.

The Addington family really pushed themselves to meet this opportunity. Nicholas and Phoebe, 9 and 7 years old, with little sister Jane (4 yo) and Mom and Dad left school Thursday afternoon on its last day and a few hours later were on a plane from New York to London, and arrived Nairobi Saturday night!

The teenager triplets, Alex, India and Ellery (16 yo), and their little sister Emma (9 yo), crammed all their finals at school into one day (it was usually three), so they could be in Nairobi Thursday night to be able to sightsee in Nairobi, Friday.

We spent all of Friday touring Nairobi and environs. My Nairobi entry activities are all optional, because some people really need to wind down. So Saturday was split in two: morning and afternoon sightseeing. The morning sightseeing began at 9 a.m. Everyone was there, after having not hit the sack the night before until 10:30p.

We started at the national museum. A wonderful, unexpected attraction was to see the lines and lines of Nairobi school children on an important field outing. I explained to the kids on my safari that most Kenyan children never see a wild animal. One of the main attractions for them is the central exhibition hall with its huge display of stuffed big game.

We raced through the museum, noting the brilliant exhibit of the different gourds from around Kenya, representing the different cultures, tribes and languages. The floor-to-ceiling pyramid of more than 150 beautifully decorated gourds is an impressive lesson on how diverse the people of Kenya are.

It was then to the Early Man Hall. As I’ve written before, this is one of the finest exhibits in any museum in the world. The Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg gets close, but Nairobi actually displays for the public seven of the most important original early hominid fossils, including Turkana Boy.

We then went into the city and walked the streets from Parliament to the Stanley Hotel. I’m able to describe history, politics and relay many funny stories on this section of the trip. We were really lucky to have such a beautiful, fresh day, too. At the Stanley we enjoyed their famous coffees, pastries and Stony Tangowizi for the kids, and took some time to look at the beautifully restored early colonial bar on the second floor.

An unexpected bit of excitement was when Ellery was stopped on the stairs of the New Stanley by a reporter from Nairobi’s hip talk radio, 91.5. Ellery is a soccer star at school, and the reporter wanted to know his impressions of the recent sale of Ronaldo from Manchester United. (Ellery thought the transaction was a bit excessive.)

The afternoon began at 2 p.m., with hardly an hour free time in between, and once again everyone was there. We traveled to the suburb of Karen and started at the Kazuri Beads Womens Cooperative before visiting Giraffe Manor. Even smaller Phoebe was photographed stroking the giraffe head which was easily twice her entire size!

I feel very strongly that visitors to East Africa need to see more than just animals, and this first day in Nairobi opens many eyes and hearts to the hopes and miseries of this wonderful place. You can’t drive to Karen from Nairobi without driving past some slums. And the traffic — what locally we call the “jam” – is an unbelievable reality of modern life in Africa. One porter at the Norfolk Hotel told me it takes him nearly 2 hours each way to commute to work, when five years ago it was only 30 minutes.

Needless to say, everyone was exhausted. Great way, I think, to attack jetlag!

Kenyan Youth?

Kenyan Youth?

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The talk on the streets in Nairobi, today, is that all the Kenyan leaders have to go. Wipe the slate clean. Out with the old!

Kenyans are absolutely fed up with their government. No one’s attempted a poll, but my informal and unscientific survey of my friends here suggests 90% of Kenyans don’t like or want their leaders. And the remedy? Universally, everyone says young people must come forward to assume the reigns of power.

Of all East African countries, Kenya is the most tribal. The British colonial government supported the Kikuyu over all other tribes, giving them a leg up on development. The west supported the Kikuyu during the Cold War. So the ethnic divide was encouraged, even nurtured by the developed world. The old “divide and conquer” mentality.

It is striking that no matter how educated a Kenyan may be, their allegiance starts with their tribe. They buy their tribe, marry their tribe, socialize with their tribe and vote their tribe. Peace in Kenya comes when power is satisfactorily allocated tribally.

And like all historic tribal conflicts – northern Ireland Catholics or Balkan Muslims – over time these socio-religious divisions ultimately become economic ones as well. In Kenya, the Kikuyu are the rich and the Luo are the poor.

That’s a generalization, and to be sure, Luo politicians aren’t poor. But even as they race around town in their Mercedes, they champion those in the slums, those out of work, and those whose attempts to disengage from poverty seems hopeless. Because the majority of the poor are Luo. But there’s plenty of poverty to go around in Kenya, and of course it extends to many Kikuyu. But Kikuyu politicians are the free marketers, the small government champions, the ones who break the white collar laws the most often. The generalization that the Kikuyu are the rich and the Luo are the poor is more important than its qualifications.

But all politicians are rich. About the only project on which leaders from different ethnic groups cooperate is how to pay each other outrageous salaries.

And it may just be that this rich-poor divide is prying open the eyes of many Kenyans. Luo and Kikuyu leaders are all rich. And all are elected by a majority of people who are poor.

But what to do? Kenyans may universally disavow their leaders, but they seem unable to disengage from the tribalism that keeps taking them down the same, doomed path. No tribal-less leader has ever emerged. No man or woman has ever tried to appeal to a broad swath of Kenya. They all emerge from their own ethnic groups. When they finally reach positions of power, their main fortress is their tribe.

The wisdom of the street in Nairobi, today, is that everyone old has to go. Youth has to emerge. There is a real hope that some of the student leaders might emerge as the new political leaders.

I doubt it. In March, a hotly contested battle at the University of Nairobi for student council president, between David Osianyo (Luo) and John Ngaruiya (Kikuyu) was even financially supported by the country’s two main political parties, the PNU (Kikuyu) and ODM (Luo). The dissident student protest in March of this year, which disrupted traffic for a day and led to some serious police violence, was orchestrated by student David Otieno (Luo), and it was Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga (Luo) who gained most by the affair.

That’s sad. If the new “youth” leaders can’t come from the university, where will they come from? High schools?

Kids on Safari

Kids on Safari

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Today I return to Africa for six weeks to guide two families, including some very young children. I’m often asked, is a safari a right experience for a kid?

I’m guiding two back-to-back families, one of my favorite guiding gigs. Kids are fabulous on safari. They’re uninhibited, socially immature, reactive – all the things we would want for a technicolor experience! They’re honest.

Parents and grandparents are constantly asking whether children can (a) take the long flights, (b) take the long rides, (c) have the attention span, (d) will eat the foreign food, and (e) will get sick.

The fact is that these are questions in many cases that the adults are asking about themselves. They are valid questions, but they don’t apply any more to children than adults.

Children are much more flexible than adults, and that’s probably why they do so well on safari. I’ll be guiding more than a dozen kids in the next 6 weeks, 10 of them are under 10 years old, and 2 of them are 5 years old. Frankly, I think an African safari is a better trip for a 5-year old than visiting European capitals!

Parents and grandparents often seem very concerned about whether the kid “is old enough to remember anything about the experience.”

There are quite a few seventy-year olds I guide every year who remember nothing. Some kids will remember; some won’t. (My own children seem to remember more about what they did on safari when they were 5 and 6 than I do!)

But more importantly, remembering an experience is not necessarily the most important thing. There must be thousands of important experiences a toddler will never recall, yet which shaped his personality and character. I can think of few better things in today’s myopic if xenophobic age than to thrust toddlers into alien, exciting environments, and to foment the idea that “different is good.”

And just as important, it’s what the parents or the grandparents will remember. The lives of parents and grandparents don’t stop just because they suddenly have children to care for. It’s part of our existence, our evolution to nourish and nurture, but not just our offspring, ourselves as well! We, too, learn from our children, and their perspectives during an African safari are absolutely some of the best there are.

I have often seen parents and grandparents reaching near moments of epiphany on safari as a result of something that a young child sa1d or did. That’s priceless.

The family safari is for everyone, not just the kids. And I can’t think of a more synergistic vacation, one that is likely to achieve a more memorable and lasting result, than an African Safari!

Is Kibo a good company?

Is Kibo a good company?

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From TopNotcher22@

Q.    What do you know about Kibo Tours in Tanzania?

A.    Kibo is one of northern Tanzania’s better and more reliable companies, and also one of its more successful businesses, so if you’re planning a safari with them, you’re on the right track.  Like a number of equally good Tanzanian companies, though, it’s two main problems are that it offers no good services in any of the neighboring countries –  such as Kenya or Rwanda – and that it has no representation outside Tanzania.

Oil Spots

Oil Spots

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A Tanzanian conservationist is denied entry to a Manyara tourist lodge, because it’s a “no-go for natives.” Can someone tell me what century we’re living in?

The immediate fault is with the Chinese, an almost off-handed exportation of the racism and exclusionism in their own society. The secondary fault is with corrupt Tanzanians, who are proving they’re almost as bad as the Kenyans. And the way was paved for it all by the fight for democracy by the west!

Let me link the dots in this wadoadoa.

Madoa mbukubwa
Last month, David Maige, gathered some of his family for an afternoon outing to Lake Manyara Lodge, one of the most beautiful places in Tanzania to enjoy a cup of tea. The lodge is perched on one of the most dramatic examples of the Great Rift Valley, directly over Lake Manyara National Park with spectacular views.

He was stopped at the gate by guards who told him that the hotel was a “no-go for natives.”

Maige, who was born and raised in Manyara and is now an employee of the national parks, reported the incident to Tanzania’s Minister for Tourism, Shamsa Mwangunga. As reported in Tanzania’s Guardian newspaper, Maige said, `Honourable Minister, as domestic tourists, Tanzanians are facing discrimination at the hotel. We are not allowed to approach the facility, let alone getting in and being served.”

Ms. Shamsa hightailed it up to Manyara, made a surprise visit to the lodge and confirmed the barrier policy. Over tea over the Great Rift, Ms. Shamsa was told by two property heads (again as reported in the Guardian), “Our hotel is close to a residential area, and so we felt it necessary to control unnecessary influx, taking into account that we have suffered three robbery incidents.”

Kali ya wadoa
The first three lodges built on the Tanzanian northern safari circuit were in the early 1960s by a Swiss company: one in Ngorongoro, one in the Serengeti, and the one under discussion at Lake Manyara.

By today’s standards they’re very simple, often called plain, but I’d rather think of them as Frank Lloyd Wrightish. The problem was that as soon as travelers began using them, they stopped working. The outside was beautiful, but the inside didn’t function. Water supplies had been poorly engineered, and it wasn’t too long before water rationing at all three lodges was in place. Sometimes not having a toilet is better than having one that doesn’t flush.

Less than a decade after they were opened, Tanzania and Kenya had the great fight that sealed the borders between the two countries. Kenya embraced Wall Street. Tanzania embraced the Rising Sun, and terrible shortages of all things necessary to hotel management were no longer available in Tanzania. Things went from bad to worse. Water rationing no longer occurred, because there was no water at all.

In those fateful days of the 1970’s, EWT would often bring food and water with our safari vehicles if we were staying at those lodges, which at the time were the only lodges there were.

Bad engineering. Loss of patrons. Complete lack of use. At 20 years old they were already museums.

Wadoadoa wa PingPong
As I’ve often written before, the 1980s heralded the RETURN OF CAPITALISM to all of Africa, including Tanzania. Today, Tanzania has some of the most beautiful lodges in Africa.

In days of swank and style, it was even harder to do anything with these three poor lodges. Most of the time, they were owned and operated by the Tanzanian government. You could get great deals and stupendous views without water.

To its credit the Tanzanian government tried everything to offload the albatrosses. A number of good companies partnered with the government to try to rehabilitate the lodges, including several very reputable South African companies, and even the giant French Accor company (that owns Sofitel and Novotel). But to no avail. Ownership went back and forth between hopeful private enterprises and the Tanzanian government.

Kidemokrasi kidoa… labda, kidogo
While all this was happening, prior to the end of the Cold War, the west had opened the bank vaults to any country willing to embrace “democracy.”

President Reagan instituted a new and very important officer in all embassies world-wide, the “Democratization Officer.” Democracy meant capitalism. The World Bank insisted that everything, even small little parastatals like organized big game hunting, be privatized. Aid flowed virtually without any accountability, if only the country gave the U.S. embassy’s Democratization Officer and the New Capitalism a rousing welcome.

Tanzania privatized mining. Airlines. Electricity. Big Game Hunting. But every day the American Democratization Officer came to work, those three historic lodges were still owned by the Tanzanian government. Shame, shame. More money, please.

U.S. Aid financed engineering consultants, business consultants, financial partners, ecotourism partners, and soon everybody was getting a little bit of American money to do their thing for these poor three lodges, and there were so many routes for funds that nobody could count the total.

Unbounded, unaccounted for, U.S. Aid. So lots of private people and companies owned, at least for a little while, these three lodges.

Still, no water.

One report by the IPP Media in Dar-es-Salaam estimated that the total inflow and outflow of U.S. and other western capital for these poor three lodges could have rebuilt the entire tourism industry in Tanzania multiple times over. What happened to all this money?

Not only in tourism, but in any industry with such rampant transfer of unaccounted for funds, a lot blew into the opened pockets of people positioned along the route.

Mafuta madoa
China has had a historic presence in Tanzania starting in about the 6th Century. Later, they built Tanzania’s railway. But the surge in capitalism in China meant China needs oil. BP Shell had long given up on the East African coast, but not China.

I’ve written recently how China may have discovered (or think they will) oil in northern Kenya. With mind-boggling speed, they built a road 300 miles into the desert to get ready. I have wished and dreamed for this road for 33 years. It happened in six weeks between two of my safaris!

In Tanzania, they’ve been looking and looking and looking for oil. Capitalism works best when you don’t admit it. But I must admit I can’t find hard evidence for the following presumptions, so in the spirit of true capitalism, here goes:

In January, 2007, I took one of my safaris into the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge (one of the poor, little hotels) for tea and a terrific view. We had heard the lodge had just shifted ownership, again. There was a bunch of young Indian Tanzanians in the lodge looking very hopeful. I asked what they were doing, and one gave me a card that said “Hotels & Lodges, Ltd.” and identified himself as the new owner. But he wouldn’t give me his name, and there was neither a name nor contact address on the card!

The rumor on the circuit — recounted to me multiple times — was that an Indian Oil Exploration company that was owed a lot of money by the Tanzanian government to help China find oil, was given these poor three lodges instead of cash. If I didn’t have to spend so much of my time finding lions, I would be deeper into Google to prove it. Any help will be appreciated.

China’s method for doing business in Africa is exemplary capitalism: “International observers say the way China does business—particularly its willingness to pay bribes … and attach no conditions to aid money—undermines local efforts to increase good governance,” claims the Council on Foreign Relations in its excellent June, 2008, monograph on China, Africa & Oil. Sounds like the Chinese would make excellent Democratization Officers.

Mwisha Madoa
In March last year, I took my group again to the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge for tea and the great view. There were guards at the door who didn’t want to let us in, this time.

There was construction going on, they said, and it might be “dangerous.”

I saw workmen. They were Chinese workmen. And they were wearing pyramid straw hats. I managed to get in, anyway, and I was told that tea was no longer Tsh. 1000/- (about 10 U.S. cents), but now U.S. dollars 5, because it was “now good tea from China.”

I paid U.S. dollars 5 for each glass of tea. It wasn’t any better. The view was outstanding as always. And in between looking over breath-taking Ngorongoro Crater, I chatted up the barman who said the Chinese now owned the hotel and we’re remaking it for Chinese tourists expected to flood into Tanzania faster than crude out of the Zanzibar reef.

“Can I come back?” I asked meekly.

He wasn’t sure I’d be let in the next time.

I’ll be trying again in a few weeks. I’ll let you know.

Kenya is Sick

Kenya is Sick

by Arusha ♥ 2 Comments

Forty-six years ago, today, Kenya became independent. It’s a holiday, today, but Kenya’s too sick to celebrate. I wonder if it’s going to make 50.

Most safari travelers make their plans about a year in advance, although I do have reservations for my 2011 Great Migration Safari. But for those travelers whose horizon is more distant, I’m telling them they better at least for the moment forget about Kenya.

This is painful and terribly disappointing to me personally. And, by the way, it isn’t just American tour wholesalers who are preparing for life without ole Kenya. So is Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga.

I hasten to add that Kenya’s fine to visit, now. In two weeks I will be traveling with a five-year old, among 13 children in a family of 20, in Kenya. Today, Kenya, is one of the most exciting, safe places to visit in Africa.

But we are right now planning for a new era of stable business we hope will begin towards the end of next year. The last thing we want to do is jeopardize a fragile business recovery with unstable politics. And right now, Kenya seems on the brink of 2012 disaster.

Last week the IMF, supported mostly by us in America, wanted to help bailout Kenya from its victimization in this world recession. But Kenya couldn’t take all the money! There was … no place for it to go!

Last week Kenya refused $440 million in IMF bailout money, ending up taking only $210 million. I use “Refused” in the Kenyan vernacular. The IMF could not release money available for emergency development in Kenya, since that must necessarily go through government channels to be dispersed, and well, there aren’t any government channels!

Neighboring Tanzania got $340 million and is set to get twice as much next month. Most of this emergency development funding is to restart tourism and agricultural industries. The money goes to the Ministry of Agriculture and is then hopefully dispersed to credible projects, and food starts growing, again.

Kenya has a Ministry of Agriculture, but the only transactions occurring there are the payment of the salaries of its ministers and bloated bureaucracy. That’s because there is no plan for the Ministry of Agriculture. There’s no plan for any of Kenya’s 54 ministries except to pay salaries! There’s no plan, because the government is unable to pass any legislation at all, like a national budget!

Parliament is stalemated as the two parties in the coalition government block every initiative of the other. Completely embarrassed and fed up by the situation, Kenya’s Speaker of the House tried some imaginative maneuvers including cleansing Parliament’s budgetary committees of the main coalition members who were blocking action. But that failed, too. There weren’t enough members left who hadn’t already taken sides. The Speaker stands abandoned in a desert of corruption and political idiocy.

So the emergency funding that comes from the developed world is limited to fiscal rather than economic stability. The money Kenya did take basically props up the shilling and keeps the country from going bankrupt, paying interest on debt and politicians’ salaries. Good grief, Kenya even closed the primary schools in the country, because there isn’t enough money!

This isn’t tenable, even among the vast majority of Kenyans. With Kenya’s leaders totally out of touch with reality, the vast majority of Kenyans are very angry. Local newspapers are screaming. But nobody’s in the streets – not even the students – because there’s nothing anywhere that can replace the mess that currently runs the government. Like an American district court judge up for reelection, all the electorate can really do is shout, “No!” and therein seethes the time bomb.

No new, young politicians or cross-ethnic alliances are emerging. The election of December, 2012 will be a rematch of 2007. The better ideology is held by the ODM party (Orange Democratic Movement) led by Raila Odinga. But like in 2007, Raila won’t be allowed to win by the powers-that-be controlling the election, who are all in the other party. The results will be the same: a tightly contested, corrupt election that spawns violence. But this time, it will be much worse than 2007.

Already, Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister and head of the ODM, is spending more of his time abroad preparing for the post-apocalyptic scene of 2012 than he is at home trying to make the alliance work, now.

In the last two weeks he was in the U.S., Iran and the Sudan. Obama chose not to meet him and underscore the septic divisions in his country, but Michele Obama did meet with his wife. Clearly Odinga is building some type of international awareness of his capacity to govern Kenya, and clearly he expects trouble before it happens.

While I’ve often written that many of Africa’s problems come from a near immoral colonial legacy coupled with a definitely immoral Cold War legacy and thus the responsibility mostly of the developed world, things have changed in Kenya. The outside world is really trying to be extremely generous, given the world recession. Obama has written letters; Hillary Clinton has appealed publicly; and our own excellent ambassador, Michael Rannenberger, has steadfastly offered to help Kenya, if only it will help itself.

So far, it won’t. December, 2012, looms as ugly as anything that has happened in Africa, before.

KWS beats WWF!

KWS beats WWF!

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Once again, the Kenyan Wildlife Service has demonstrated field science capabilities that far exceed its size, putting to shame better known wildlife NGOs like the WWF.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that a foundation of almost all field science is a census of the things you’re studying? Yet except for recent work by the KWS in Kenya, East Africa has had no reliable animal counts for years.

The Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) is the only organization that puts out wild animal numbers with any regularity, and they admit in doing so that they are “guesses” and not compiling true field censuses. The FZS 2007 annual report claimed to fund a large census project, but the project basically was to analyze census techniques rather than actually counting animals.

The KWS has released detailed census numbers on a variety of animals over the years. The most recent census was of Grevy’s zebra and elephant in the Laikipia region of central/northwest Kenya. It will have a profound impact. The numbers of both animals are increasing very fast. This even while other NGOs are claiming Grevy’s zebra are decreasing. These are the first hard numbers to be seen in several years.

How on earth can researchers proceed with animal conservation programs, without knowing simple numbers of the animals?

The last good lion census was in 1990. The FZS conducted a hippo survey in 2006. There have been numerous censuses of mountain gorillas. AND … that’s about it! Until last year’s KWS census.

Much of the problem is political. Animal censuses, even within certain protected wilderness areas, come under the authority of the government gazetting that protected area. It’s often an embarrassment when the government is incapable of even contributing to such a project, so.. they end up stonewalling it.

In many cases, the regions that require a good animal census extend into several different regional areas, involving multiple authorities. And to really make matters difficult, these are often served by competing NGOs, each anxious for the citation.

Somehow, the KWS got through all this. And a good list of good NGOs are those who assisted them: African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Saint Louis Zoo, Oregon Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, Zuercher Tierschutz, Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), Marwell Conservation and the Grevy’s Zebra Trust. If anyone were to now ask me to advise what wildlife organizations are good ones, I’d go to this list.

U.S. WARNS KENYA

U.S. WARNS KENYA

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Our president meets Tanzania’s president, and nobody cares. Not even the Kenyans over which it was all about.

You probably didn’t know that a week ago President Obama met with Tanzanian President Kikwete, the first African head-of-state to meet with our new president.

In fact, the only mention of the meeting in the U.S. came in an Associated Press release whose topic wasn’t this important meeting, but “Life in the White House.”

It was an important meeting at several levels. There haven’t been that many heads-of-state to meet with Obama, worldwide, yet. And it came on the same day as Obama’s detention plan was released followed the controversy with losing funding to close GITMO. It was probably a pretty busy day for Obama.

The hour-long meeting was twice as long as scheduled.

The meeting, according to reports in East Africa, was entirely about Kenya. The Obama administration is growing increasingly worried about the Kenyan coalition government.

Former President Bush also used Kikwete as a go-between to get messages to Kenyan leaders without going public.

The message was clear: get back on track, or face “serious actions” by the U.S. These serious actions will most likely start with a refusal to give Kenyan politicians visas to enter the United States. This relatively benign sanction bites hard and has been used often before, since most Kenyan politicians’ children study in the U.S. and many have investments, here.

There is a lot that isn’t secret: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Johnny Carson, and our current ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, have publicly expressed increased alarm at the pace of implementation of the Kenyan reforms that created the current coalition government. There are two specific actions that the U.S. (and its partners) are waiting for: (1) create and adopt a new constitution; and (2) develop a mechanism for discovering and possibly punishing those who promulgated the election violence of 2007.

These issues are in the forefront of the Kenyan public’s universal criticism of the current government as well. The dynamic Kenyan newspapers are filled every day with details and commentary, mostly rebukes of the current political leadership. It just doesn’t morph into violence, as it did during the election.

What does all this mean?

This is par for the course. Except for very vociferous newspapers, the public doesn’t seem disturbed. Regarding this single aspect, it’s probably not a good sign for Kenya’s future, but I do know that for tourism it’s very good… at least for now

The Kenyan public gets disturbed or elated only during elections. (The one exception to this has been the students, but remarkably at the moment, even the students are quiet.) The complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction are never-ending, but never erupt into any kind of disruption until the election cycle nears its end. We’re still 3 years away from another election.

Hopefully, the U.S. pressure will work. Three years is not as far away as it might seem.

POACHING WAR?

POACHING WAR?

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The Tanzanian military is poised to enter game parks in anti-poaching capacities. Poaching is probably on the rise in this economic downturn, but this just doesn’t bode well.

Two weeks go, Tanzania’s Tourism Minister, Shamsa Mwangunga, announced that Tanzania’s military is being trained to enter the national park to deal with “sophisticated poaching syndicates and networks with international links [that] are swelling and imposing a serious threat to our helpless-wild-animals.”

In a truly laughable incident, the Minister reported conviscating zebra meat and hides that he said were headed to a “Pakistani niche.” I’m not sure what the “niche” is, but Pakistan is about as far from Tanzania as Disneyland in Paris.

There’s something more going on, here. I’ve written before how poaching always increases during economic downturns, and I’ve also written about how the breakdown of the CITES convention banning ivory sales has also contributed to increased poaching. But something just doesn’t sound right, here.

The Tanzanian military may be among East Africa’s best – after all, it was they who ousted Idi Amin. But they are still a rowdy bunch compared to the heavily trained and educated park ranger. I, for one, wouldn’t want them in my wilderness.

The end of April there was a huge explosion at a military ammunition depot in Dar-es-Salaam that has still not been explained. The BBC reported on May 20 that eight Tanzanian soldiers in Dar-es-Salaam beat a traffic policeman senseless; the man was only saved by a crowd of on-lookers who started shouting at the soldiers. And perhaps most noteworthy, a recently released transcript from a court case in Arusha last February named former Tanzania Peoples’ Defense Forces officer, (read: “soldier”), Nathaniel Kiure, guilty of illegal possession of giraffe meat and hides.

Hmmm.

People need to eat. Soldiers are people, and as reported by the Arusha Times Tanzanian soldiers’ pay is falling behind. Like many places in the world, recruits to the military often come from industrious if ambitious lads who have hit a brick wall in their search for a regular job. They’re already mad. Now, if they’re not being paid, and maybe not being fed very well, what are they to do?

CRY LION!

CRY LION!

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

Cry Lion! Blame Maasai!
Blog 12.5.9.1

Lions are in rapid decline. But celebrity scientists and popular media like National Geographic are sensationalizing the problem with a racist swipe at the Maasai.

There has been a barrage of appeals from wildlife organizations and celebrity scientists recently for funds to “save lions.” Three months ago, National Geographic sent an urgent appeal to donors to replenish a $150,000 emergency grant it had given well-known conservationists, including the film-maker Dereck Joubert, to save Amboseli lions.

In February, the prestigious African Wildlife Foundation sent out an urgent memorandum from CEO Patrick Bergin for $85,100 to save Tarangire lions.

In March, CBS’ 60 Minutes featured the decline of lions by interviewing Dr. Laurence Frank of the University of California Berkeley, who actually claimed on air that it is likely the lion will go extinct, because… Maasai are poisoning them.

In all the above it was the Maasai’s fault. Frank claimed it was poisoning. National Geo said it was spears. And AWF claimed it was stealth murder of undefined sorts for lions killing domestic stock.

The remedies – which I consider outrageously laughable – were to (AWF) build high wire fences around domestic stock; (NatGeo) compensate Maasai whose stock had been taken; and (60Min) collar every lion and track it, then send a text message to Maasai cell phones when a lion is found in the area.

I can’t believe this.

Let me catch my sanity before I continue. First of all, I believe this nonsense is a logical marketing ploy in today’s milieu of needing to affirm imminent doom. And simple doom, not complicated doom. We can’t handle complicated doom: The swine flu is going to wipe us all out. The recession is a depression. Iran and North Korea are going to blow up Guam. Maasai are killing lions.

Lions are in decline. And they have been in decline for the better part of a half century, and that decline has accelerated noticeably in the last decade. A half century ago there may have been as many as 200,000 lion in Africa, and today there are around 30,000.

But it isn’t due to any simple act, like Maasai aggression, which can be remedied or forestalled by building fences, compensating herders or putting collar data on Facebook.

It’s due to many reasons, and one of the least direct ones is human/animal conflict. Certainly anything that effects local populations, like an economic downturn, is going to stress all sorts of fragile ecological dynamics. Yes, Maasai probably are killing more lion now than a decade ago, and especially this year, because the Kenyan government has closed the public schools for lack of money, and there are a lot of kids with less to do.

The grain that was supposed to be distributed throughout Tanzania and Kenya has been mercilessly diverted by corrupted officials themselves stressed by less aid, and undoubtedly every remaining goat or cow is more precious than ever. There are fewer tourists to provide jobs, and sustenance living is becoming more pronounced. There are all sorts of end reasons why Maasai probably are killing a few more lion than they used to.

BUT THAT ISN”T THE MAIN PROBLEM. And these cockamamy remedies will do little but limelight the organizations and celebrities promoting them.

Let’s move to some real science.

Recently, the Kenyan Wildlife Service completed careful review of more than 250 studies submitted them in the last decade regarding lion declines. The results were unequivocal.

According to Dr Samuel Kasiki, KWS’ deputy director for biodiversity research, the problem is climate change: specifically, extreme weather and air pollution.

“We have only begun some serious work in this area and perhaps in five years time, we will be in a position to talk more confidently on the issue,” Dr Kasiki said in an interview for Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper. With the care we should expect from real science, he went on to explain that adequate scientific data on climate change and global warming and its impact on wildlife is still lacking in the country.

Whereas poisoning, spearing and gruesome lion kills of goats are satisfactorily documented?

Kasiki’s initial findings make for fascinating science. One of the many discoveries he would now like to fund for more study was that increasing temperatures and poorer air quality are leading to a reduction in the lions’ manes. It has been shown that lions with better manes enjoy longer reproductive life-spans and higher offspring survival. The lack of a better mane – due to global climate change – ultimately results in fewer lions.

“The lion is more prone to rising temperature levels, which consequently leads to abnormal sperm and low sperm count,” Kasiki reported. He also documented that lions’ hunting success declines as temperatures rise.

Perhaps the most respected lion scientists in the world – someone who has dedicated his life to lion study – is Dr. Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota. Packer has spent much of his life in East Africa.

His studies are voluminous and therefore difficult to compile in one page urgent memos or air on prime time TV. But his more than 30 years of careful study has detailed lion decline, especially through periods of what he calls “mass die-offs.”

I hesitate to simplify his extraordinary science, but I think it’s fair to say he believes that like Dr. Kasiki, climate change is the ultimate villain.

His most recent findings target outbreaks of canine distemper virus (CDV) and infestations by a tick-borne blood parasite called Babesia. The two diseases are normally completely unrelated and in a more balanced ecology would be very unlikely to occur at the same time.

But climate change changes this. First in 1994, then again in 2001, and now maybe again now, what Packer calls a “perfect storm” of extreme drought followed by heavy seasonal rains – a growing condition common on the equator with increasing global temperatures – triggers the two devastating diseases to converge.

When they did in 1994, the Serengeti lost a third of its lion population. The same thing happened in Ngorongoro Crater in 2001.

And it may be happening, again, today. Not those troublesome Maasai spearing or poisoning lions; not the revenge of school kids on vacation, but … climate change.

Packer even discovered the exact link of the tick disease to the lion. It wasn’t that ticks were infesting lions directly, but rather, through Cape buffalo. And forgive my interjection of non scientific anecdotes, but in the last few years we’ve seen more and more lion feeding on buffalo.

Rarely, do we find buffalo actually hunted then killed by lion – that’s really too difficult for most lion. But we often see them feeding on what had to have been a buffalo that had already died before the lion found it.

Climate change, Packer explains, has seriously weakened buffalo populations. Buffalo eat grass; only grass. Droughts wipe out the grass. Downpours following the droughts (a climate change phenomenon as explained above) bring out the Babesia-carrying ticks en masse which then infect the buffalo big time. The buffalo die. The lions feast on weakened, parasite-infested buffalo. Lion infected with CDV then get the double whammy from the tick, and… die.

“CDV is immunosuppressive—like a short, sharp bout of AIDS—thus greatly intensifying the effects of the Babesia,” Packer said. This co-infection, or synchronization of the diseases, caused the mass die offs, Packer and his colleagues concluded.

Packer warns that as temperatures continue to increase producing these drought/flood conditions on the equator, “potentially fatal synchronized infections are likely to become more common.”

So I’m now appealing for your urgent $50 donation to end – once and for all – climate change.

You see, the real reason is more onerous, complicated and far more difficult to deal with than what I consider a near racist swipe at the Maasai. Calm down, America, and enact Obama’s energy policy please.

Hominid Uno?

Hominid Uno?

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

New research nails man’s birthplace near the Kalahari Desert. Science continues to trump the dwindling support for creationism or anything anti-evolutionist.

Today’s announcement by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania that continuing analysis of worldwide human DNA nails the birthplace of modern man near the Kalahari is a much sexier story in the U.S. than elsewhere. And I like that. Sort of like the continuing twisting of the screw of “I gotcha” into the bungled cork ideology of intelligent design, the last and dying religious ideology about hominid creation.

New research puts our birthplace in what is now the Kalahari Desert. Less than 100,000 years later, a few dozen of our surviving ancestors migrated into the Middle East to create modern humanity.

Olduvai Gorge has always been one of my very favorite places on safari. The first picture that I ever had taken in Africa was of myself spreading my arms above Olduvai Gorge in the early 1970s. Not a year has passed since that I haven’t visited it multiple times.

The spectrum of public interest and debate that has accompanied my developing love for the paleontology of Africa is mind boggling. In my career in Africa the science has increased more than anyone could have imagined. But so have the social politics of evolution.

Emerging from the liberal society of the 1960s, evolution was hardly more controversial than gravity. A generation later state legislatures were outlawing it. Science leaped forward while American society uturned back to the Dark Ages.

This was almost exclusively an American phenomenon.

For years, literally generations, paleontologists have postulated that our birthplace had to be in Africa. This wasn’t just because that’s where the vast majority of early hominids were found, but also because diligent (I should say, ‘unrelenting’) science in related areas like geology and chemistry were coming to likewise deductions.

The first real hard scientific evidence came from three pioneering academics in 1987. Publishing somewhat to their peril, they described their discovery of Mitochondrial Eve. Rebecca L. Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan C. Wilson described a shortcut if blueprint for later, more thorough DNA analysis of where man began.

It was very hard science and that was very hard for much of poorly educated American society to grasp, and easy for fanatics from the pulpit to contest. But for most of us half-educated dimwits, it was extraordinarily exciting.

But it was the human genome project that reenforced “Mitochondrial Eve” in spades. Two scientists from the University of Cambridge used the results appearing in the genome project to conclude in a May, 2007, study that not only did we originate in Africa, but all of us are ancestors of a small band (several dozen, maybe) of modern humans who entered the Middle East from Africa 50,000 years ago.

Toomas Kivisild and Phillip Endicott were not field researchers. They were numbers guys, crunching the data collected by the genome project in their offices in England. It was, as they said, “simple numbers.”

The earliest hominid may be 7 million years old, but they all died off. All of us are related to someone who walked out of Africa into the Middle East only 50,000 years ago.

Now, continuing study of the human genome project has added even more to our understanding of that “first man.” Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania has determined that maybe 100,000 years before that fateful crossing into the Middle East, the ancestors of that small band of humans was formed near the Kalahari Desert. That is when modern man emerged as a mutate from earlier forms of hominids.

That makes us the newest and most youthful of all forms of hominids, probably including the otherwise short-lived Neanderthals. We’re a mere 150,000 years old. Of the as many as 20 other forms of early hominids, none lived for less than a third of a million years.

We’ve got a long way to go to be Hominid Uno. Hope we can make it!

Elephant Suit

Elephant Suit

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

There is no question that it is becoming more dangerous for tourists interacting with elephants. But is the $850,000 award to an injured tourist in Kenya the right response?

Last November a Kenyan court awarded Wendy Martin, the wife of a British diplomat at the time serving in Kenya, 65 million Kenyan shillings in compensation for injuries she suffered in a 2000 elephant incident at the then new Il Ngwesi Lodge in northern Kenya. (This represented about half of Martin’s claim.)

It is a horrific incident, and you can read Martin’s own graphic and terrifying description from her own site: Wendy Martin’s own story It is remarkable that she survived.

Many don’t. According to Singapore’s Straits Times (April 8, 2009) more than 700 people are killed annually in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. We don’t have a reliable count of elephant deaths in Africa, but last year the BBC claimed that about a dozen tourists annually are killed as tourists by elephants in Africa. And according to the Save the Elephant Fund, there are probably hundreds of villagers annually killed in Africa. I think it is more likely in the thousands.

And that’s the point. I’ve written before that a convergence of otherwise unusual circumstances requires that we be overly vigilant right now with regards to elephant encounters. These include the economic downturn, the reduction of habitat, and the increase in elephant poaching. Kenyan law compensates each villager for “death or destruction” by elephant with 30,000 Kenyan shillings (about $250).

Why should Martin get $850,000?

On April 8, a Dutch tourist was killed in India’s Kazaringa national park while on a guided bird walk. His small group was accompanied by two armed rangers, who did fire at the charging elephant. The other tourists escaped, but he was killed. Based on Martin’s award, his estate is now contemplating a massive suit.

The question as to why tourists ought be treated differently in such litigation to local citizens suffering the same or worse outcomes is not a flippant or rhetorical one. Tourists are not expected to be familiar with the areas they visit. Their “adventure visit” is often contracted by numerous disclaimers, but at the same time by assurances that their hosts know what they’re doing.

In Martin’s case (according to recently released testimony), there could also be the specific negligence that knowledge of an errant elephant family moving onto the estate was known the night before the incident. Martin also claimed that she was “pushed” into going on the bush run somewhat against her own better instincts, and apparently the judge accepted this claim.

There is also the reality that one British tourist is worth to the Kenyan economy a geometrically larger amount than one Kenyan farmer.

Nevertheless, I think this is wrong. The British are currently very reluctant to release aid for building Kenyan roads, because they doubt the Kenyans are capable enough of building a good road, and that corruption is likely to divert the allocated funds. Why does the wife of a British diplomat expect the management of a new and somewhat experimental tourist facility would do any better?

Il Ngwesi where Martin visited was a new local community based tourism project. These projects represent a wonderful new direction that much investment has taken in East Africa in the last decade. Part of this dynamic, however, is that relatively unskilled and untrained local villagers assume much of the management and guiding of these establishments. That’s wonderful, too, but it’s clearly not as professional as a long-established bush camp in South Africa, for instance.

And this dynamic is well understood. Consumers attracted by the “ecotourism” component of a tourist offering must understand that the “guide” who meets them at the front door is not an elephant Ph.D. researcher or Zimbabwe certified bush guide. In the vast majority of cases the project “guide” has had little schooling and even less training with regards to foreign tourism. Consumers must be sensitive to the fact that enthusiasm might trump safety.

Most elephant incidents of which I’m aware — including my own clients’ near escape of a March, 2007, incident near Amboseli — do not have the several incriminating factors of Martin’s epic. Clearly this is one for the books, a precedent that may be defining the thresholds of responsibility and the monetary levels assigned them.

But one factual number tells me something’s not right: Wendy Martin’s horrible incident is not equivalent to the death of 3400 villagers. And right now, that’s where Kenyan law stands.

Rumblings in Kenya

Rumblings in Kenya

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Secretary of State Clinton expressed concern about the political situation in Kenya, as she should. But I don’t think violence is on the horizon.

Several weeks ago Clinton sent a letter to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga expressing several concerns about the state of the coalition government trying to run Kenya. And last week Parliament opened but didn’t, as political wrangling over how Parliament in this new coalition era should be run.

The Kenyan coalition isn’t working the way the parties agreed more than a year ago; and not just the U.S., but much of the world including the master of the coalition design, Kofi Anan, has severely criticized Kenyan politicians.

There are a myriad of disputes. The most prominent is who gets to appoint top civil servants: the President (Kibaki) or the Prime Minister (Odinga)? The grand coalition document divided the ministries between the two men, but appointments of certain powerful positions immediately under the very top management was never addressed. And there are some appointees, like the civil servant responsible for distributing food aid, who span multiple ministries’ portfolios.

So far, President Kibaki has muscled his way on this issue, and for a while Odinga let it go. When a scandal broke out about the distribution (or lack of it) of grain, Odinga’s power base got hot. There was violence in the slums where the initial post-election violence of 2008 began and where Odinga’s heart of power truly resides. The Nairobi slums are not just the most numerous single demographic in the country, it has among the highest voting turnout of any group and it is squarely behind Odinga, the “champion of the poor.”

Then came the thorny issue of the method of determining who was responsible for the 2008 violence and what to do with them. I see an incredible analogy here with our own recent disclosure of the “torture memos.” And so there is a philosophical red flag thrown up by Obama when his administration insists that Kenya determine the raw facts and prosecute those responsible, but is reluctant to do so at home.

Neither Odinga or Kibaki really wants to pursue this “truth and reconciliation commission”, and admittedly there is more at stake than just this single issue. Obama and the EU are wrapping this issue to the general state of corruption in the country, which seems to be getting worse, not better. I’m not sure, though, that the way to tackle systemic corruption is through the extremely sensitive issue of who started the 2008 violence. Street wisdom believes that there were few sitting politicians at the time who didn’t contribute to the chaos.

Is the coalition unraveling? This weekend the Odinga camp called for new, immediate elections. I don’t think that’s serious; they’re just trying to find a way to calm what is certainly a growing uneasiness among their base. But will it come to outright violence.

I don’t think so.

This weekend Nairobi newspaper columnist Dominc Odipo summed it up well: “We’re better off than in 1989″ was the title of his column.

“What was it like …back in 1989? “ Odipo asks. “There was only one legal political party, and its leader, President Moi, was the undisputed, all-powerful political head of the country. There was no question whatsoever about where political or State power lay.”

Odipo referred to an important speech that was delivered at the time by Moi’s Minister of Agriculture, Elijah Mwangale.

Pointing at the President, Mwangale intoned: “You speak of the public will. There is enshrined, in human form, the popular will! Even the lobsters and the fishes of the sea, out to the 200-mile limit and beyond, pay obeisance to our great President!”

Odipo then went down a list of important men at the time, all of whom are either (a) happily obscured in deep retirement, (b) dead or (c) missing.

Odipo continues: “Twenty years on there can be no doubt the country has moved … in the right direction. Yes, we have not yet been able to reign in corruption, impunity, negative tribalism and other national ills but, on the political fundamentals, we have certainly trudged ahead.

“Today, any adult Kenyan, man or woman, can register a political party and have it operational within only three days. To the best of my knowledge, no citizen is being held in any torture chamber anywhere in the country.

“There has been another sea change. There is no undisputed, supreme political authority in the land. Political power is being shared, even if not yet equitably as required in the spirit of the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement.

“Power has also largely been demystified. If President Kibaki today tells you to jump, you don’t have to. You can look him in the eye and tell him to get lost.

“We have come a long way since 1989. And don’t you ever forget that!”