Being
a native Kenyan with in-depth knowledge of both the people
and the landscape, Sam was our ideal host for today’s
game drive, and boy did he deliver. We saw elephants, lions,
antelope, in fact the whole gang.
Sam's knowledge of botany, entomology and indeed anything
remotely Kenyan is unsurpassed. At one point he explained the
extraordinary relationship which exists between tiny stinging
ants and a particularly thorny bush with strange black pods as
fruit. Each little black pod of fruit has a small hole in the
top, which is the front door to an ants house. The plant sustains
the ants, who in return protect the plant. Sam demonstrated by
tapping a pod as if he were an animal looking for a bite to eat.
The ants went berserk their tails flicking high, all swarming
to the point of contact with the bush.
We stopped to picnic under
acacia trees by a river bank early afternoon and watched spellbound
as a 20ft crocodile slithered off its mud bank into the murky
waters. As we prepared for our return to Nairobi the next day
Harmon, Paul, Sam and I discussed the forthcoming week’s
schedule. We had agreed to undertake work with Sam at a drip
irrigation facility he is installing for a Maasai community on
the outskirts of Nairobi. Paul suggested that we undertake work
in Northern Kenya repairing several bridges, stringing another
and carrying out some roofing work at a school in Pokot. Harmon
said it would be a shame not to utilise a workforce productively,
and I just shrugged, reminding these three great champions that “Hey,
that’s why we’re here!” Sam graciously acknowledged
that the new plan was for the greater good, so it was decided.
After a night in Nairobi we would head North for phase 2, but
tonight would be another night under canvas. |
