Schools

Its winding down to the end of my time here, and I’ve been occupied writing out my report/analysis of the rhino monitoring program. Getting out in the field is still at the forefront of my mind, and I embark on every opportunity. Yesterday was a day to join on a venture to nearby rural schools supported by Lewa.

The tasks at hand were to take height and weight measurements of each child in primary school for the purposes of analyzing the success of the feeding programme. In brief, many rural schools are supported by various organizations in the form of infrastructure and/or feeding programmes. Feeding programmes provide two meals a day to children who would likely not even have a chance to eat every day. Parents send their kids to school knowing they will be fed, and schools are supportive since it is well known that concentration levels are directly proportional to full stomachs. Given a handful of basic foods in the mixed mush form of either porridge, corn, maize meal, and/or beans, the children are thought to have a greater chance of survival and hopefully success in their intended achievements.




Heading off to the schools, I expected a lot and a little. I expected what I experienced in the Philippines a few years ago; to be enough of a mystery to those I encountered that I was followed incessantly as numerous pairs of young eyes tried to make sense of who and what I was. I expected to be uncomfortable as the obvious differences unfold between who these young people are and what I might be to them.

It was neither of those.

Of course, the differences were unmistakable, and many times I felt some very curious little fingers behind me tugging at my curls. For the most part though, it was relatively still with content and inquisitive stares overcastting whatever other thoughts the children may have been experiencing during the time we, the foreigners, were present at their school.



Among us was a reproductive health educator with a mandate to inform and discuss serious issues with the young women of the school. The educator took on tough, private, and restricted topics such as female circumcision and tried to convey the message to say no. Whether this choice is a right for these women is a challenge since it may ultimately mean that a non-obliging young woman and her mother may be abused and kicked out of the household with nowhere to hide and/or begin a new life. Sanitary products donated by the staff at Lewa were also distributed to these women, as without they are unable to attend school. Missing a week’s worth of school can be catastrophic for a woman trying to establish a niche for herself in a world where the basics of life namely food, water, and shelter, may be commodities.



One Lewa staff member approached each of us to say one thing, even if it was just a hello or to offer sage words to these women. The only thing I could say were the age-old clichés that I had been thinking about for awhile, lessons that I hope we can all follow and remember when enlightening worlds seems so far away: ‘always remember to follow your dreams, be yourself, and never give up’. I don’t know what or how, if at all, my words could impact these women, and I will probably never know. But I do hope that our presence in the schools that day does something beneficial, and does not harbor on the imbalances of the world’s distribution of wealth and the injustices of what is right for whom.

Five friends and a bag of rice

Makes for a good title, but we actually had way more food than a bag of rice. It started with a bag of rice though…and a great idea; to climb one of the peaks of Mount Kenya, namely Point Lenana at 4,985m (16,355ft) above sea level (I can't take credit for the pic below - its from the net).


Not even thinking about hiring porters, we were determined, ambitious, and frankly, crazy. Bags all packed – food, sleeping bags, tents, clothes, toques, gloves, whatever else we think we might need, five of us from the Crew set off with a guide, Mohammed, from nearby town Nanyuki for what we thought would be a 3 day trek. 2 days to climb to the summit, and 1 day to descend.

It was supposed to be that way. For me, it wasn’t.

It wasn’t the steep inclines we climbed, it wasn’t the difficult terrain we walked, it wasn’t a lack of potable water - thanks to Alex’s UV filter and the mountain’s yummy glacier fed water sources – it was the change in altitude that got me. Thinking about the possibility that it was all in my head, the physical manifestation of something only mental – and maybe it was, I don’t know, since either way somewhere near halfway on the second climbing day, I didn't want to admit that it felt as if my head and heart had switched places. The beating headache combined with a loss of appetite, and a lack of sleep due to the cold shivering previous night’s sleep, put me completely out on our lunch break. I didn't understand how everyone could be hungry since all I felt was the extreme need to lie down and nothing else. I could have sworn I only closed my eyes for a minute; I think I fell asleep since all of a sudden I heard my name and I opened my eyes to see 2 sets of blinking eyes asking me if I'm ok. I wondered if they might be shinning a flashlight directly in my face, since everything was painfully bright, but it didn't seem like the right time they would play a cruel joke; I realized it was all in my head.

My friends talked to the guide, turns out in Mohammed's 14 years of guiding, he had also taken a 28 day course in altitude sickness. He has probably seen it all. He talked to me with the full confidence that I would make it, but on one condition. I was to give him my pack to carry. I couldn't believe it. He was going to carry my heavy pack, tied up to his own, on top of some of the other items he was carrying for us - litres of water, shoes, etc. The guilt set in me, but I wanted to summit, and Mohammed convinced me there was no other way.

And so I fell in pace with whoever was leading and kept walking - higher and higher. I had taken diomox and 4 extra strength pain killers (not all at once of course though I wanted to), but nothing seemed to helped. I kept walking trying to think of anything but who might have forgotten the knife they stabbed in the frontal lobe of my brain. I tried to believe and think positive that the pain would go away soon. The higher we went though, the worse it got and it spread to my entire head. We were luckily kind of close to our second overnight base - Shipton's camp, and Mohammed was determined to get us all there. I kept walking, eventually losing sense of what I was seeing and all I could really do was follow the tracks of the person directly in front of me. It must have been annoying for the Crew member in front of me to have a shadow directly behind them, but I didn't give him much choice.

I arrived at Shipton's with everyone in the late afternoon. Mohammed pointed out a bunk I could lie down on - we hadn't planned on using the lodges since it was more expensive and we had brought our own tents. I didn't care though, I followed Mohammed's advice, and sought comfort in my sleeping bag on the bunk. I don't recall much more except a round robin of friends checking up on me, giving me tea with lemon (Mom – sound familiar?!) and force feeding me per se. We have a damn good crew of people, everyone looking out for each other - would make a good Tim Horton's, or AT&T commercial!

The intial plan for summitting from Shipton's was to wake up around 2am, get ready, and set out at 3am. From Shipton's, it is a straight 700m ascent in the dark, to catch the sunrise at 6:30am. And so the alarms were set for 2am, with clothes and flashlights laid out for quick retrieval.

2am came and went, there was no way I could summit. Another member of the Crew felt the effect of the altitude and the challenging hike from the day before, and decided it was best not to summit either and we would have to miss another day of work to summit the following day. The other three were set on the early morning's insanity, and set off with Mohammed.

I awoke to the sounds of their voices upon their return around 9:30am, though still not feeling quite at par, I arose to greet them. The look on Kate's face was priceless. It was a look of accomplishment, relief, happiness, exhaustion, and bewilderment. Amazing, I was so proud of her. Equally happy and accomplished, Alex and Sean's faces were also beaming. I was so happy for all of them, hugs all around.



We discussed the next set of plans, James and I were set to summit the following early morning, and Alex – a man made for the mountains - was to join us for a second journey up the final lag. Kate was in her words "done with this madness" and left to descend with Sean and Mohammed to head back to Lewa.

Set up with another guide, Elijah, the three of us stayed behind and headed back to our sleeping bags to continue to sleep off the pain of the altitude. Later in the day, we hiked up 200m to acclimatize a little more in the hopes it would help ease us into the lunacy of the summit.

2am comes around, and the three of us are already awake due the fierce winds of the night shaking the flaps of our tent. The night is cold, and the windchill takes our breath away – I hear someone say it is in the minus 10s Celsius. We eat lightly, try to warm up with tea, and meet Elijah. We head up the trail at a quick pace and stop intermittently for very brief moments to get used to our surroundings and get our bearings. Its impossible though to stop for as long as we really need since the winds are too brutal and we need to avoid frostbite. We keep trekking in the dark. At one point, Elijah took a wrong turn and we were momentarily lost until we retraced our footsteps and looked up to see other headlamps and flashlights from other groups climbing the same summit. We keep our pace quick and ambitious, and finally look up to see the last bit of pointed rock to climb over. We clamber over the last challenging section, and we finally stand on the point. The view is exhilarating.



It feels as though we were on a plane, and stepped out on the wing. The clouds are beneath us, the sky is endless, and the climate is ferocious. The feeling is baffling, overwhelming, amazing and breathtaking for where we are and what we’ve been through to get here.

Turns out our pace was too rapid, and we are too early for the sunrise. We have to wait another 30min, which we do with caution. The subzero temperatures are dangerous and we are aware we need to descend rather quickly. We wait for the sun to rise – I have never seen this kind in my life. It seemed we could see the entire sphere emerging at the horizon, we could see beyond just a face of the sun – and we now understand and forget the displeasure of waking up in the wee hours of the morning for this moment.



The sun is up now and its no joke to descend as quickly as possible for fear of yielding one of us to the cold. We head the quick route, down a scree slope back to Shipton’s. High fives and hugs all around, the three of us are likely expressing the same feelings that I saw on Kate the previous day.

After a few hours nap, we commence our descent and final journey home to Lewa. It’s a long day’s hike and today’s soreness reminds me of what it took to get through it all. Mount Kenya won’t look the same to us; even just the name’s mention will likely remind us of the expedition that took us to mental and physical extremes in ways we might not have been ready for but welcomed and overcame nevertheless.

Elephant skin

Elephant skin is nothing like anything else I’ve touched. The hairs feel like whiskers, and the skin is like a soft callus. Holding the trunk, feeling and smelling the essence of elephant with each drugged breathe it takes is the foundation of MasterCard commercials – priceless.

The elephant I’m referring to is the matriarch of a herd that frequents Lewa. At an age estimate of 15-20 years, and an approximate weight of 5000+ kg, this female was fitted with a radio collar last Thursday and Kate and I were fortunate to be allowed to tag along.

In our two-vehicle convoy, we set off with rangers, the vet, other guests, and Ian Craig, the son of the founding family of Lewa. Off-roading in search of the matriarch, we come across her in long grasses surrounded by her three calves and nearby friends. We are positioned downwind from her and a plan is derived for a quick effective immobilization. Tracking the movements of the matriarch makes sense to gain insights into elephant dispersal patterns. GPS collars are relied upon as they communicate waypoints over a fixed time interval – and the one outfitted for this individual is no different.



I watch the matriarch as conversation revolves around the issue of safety and the calves. The calves are not likely to leave her side, but they can be momentarily chased away with our vehicles. At this moment, she has placed her trunk flat on the ground. Feeling the vibrations and low frequency emissions around her – up to 10km -, she is listening through her feet and trunk – an amazing feat for a terrestrial animal. I watch her listen. Is she listening to us? As cognition in animals is sometimes measured through brain size - specifically the convoluted structure of the neocortex to body mass ratios - the African elephant species qualifies as intelligent and sentient. Thought to be able to feel compassion, sadness, and other incalculable traits, I can’t help wonder what she has tuned herself into and what she might be pondering.

Not much she can do now, she is darted and she takes off in fright. It will take a few minutes for the drugs to settle in, but the danger is that her levels of epinephrine can overcome the inhibitory effect of some drugs – depending on the drug, of course. I didn’t get a chance to ask the vet what he used, it would have been one of those curiosity questions that has a place and time – neither of which was right at that moment as we set off by vehicle in hot pursuit of the matriarch. Down ridges, over hills, we bounce along hoping any minute she will show signs of immobility. Finally she comes to a stop and her hind legs give way; she is slowly setting into tranquility. We circle around her and communicate with the other vehicle of the whereabouts of the calves and other elephants. One calf stays by her side, and shows signs of anxiety. This calf is shooed off by the vehicle and one ranger jumps out to blindfold the matriarch with her large ears in an effort to reduce environmental stress on the animal.



Quickly, the 20lb collar is fitted tightly on her, and we seize the opportunity to touch her. We listen to her deep breathing and hold her airway open via the trunk. We are taken away by the whole experience. I think we jumped on cloud 9 with her for a little while.



Using a reversal, the vet brings her out of her sleep and we watch as she slowly finds her way back into the reality of savannah life. She will be tracked for the next 2 years, and she will teach us more than she probably realizes.