Adventures in … Life

At the end of my walk on Wednesday morning I met a very interesting man. His family runs a hospital in the area, he has some fish ponds and his family also owns a 30 acre forest nearby. He said that it was 2km away. We made plans to meet again at 7:30 on Friday morning to walk to the forest. When we left the house on Friday we figured we’d be gone about 2 hours….we should have known better. As we set out Kevin told us that it was 5km, not 2km. That still wasn’t too far.

So we headed down a dirt road that went behind our house. Very quickly you felt like you were no longer in a large town. It was quiet, the houses didn’t have electricity, and the people just seemed different. We were back to the world where people were surprised to see wazungu. As we walked Kevin quizzed us on the Swahili we knew and taught us new words. As we got farther into the bush Kevin seemed to know more and more people. When we asked him why he told us that we were getting to his ancestors land, which meant that everyone around was somehow related to him. Various family members would come out and walk with us for a bit and then head back home. Kevin was so friendly and helpful. Most people spoke a combination of English and Swahili, but those who could only speak Bokusu (the local tribal language) Kevin would translate for.

After around 1.5 hours we arrived at the forest. One of the important aspects about his forest was that it was a forest made up of indigenous plants and trees. Which is rare as most land has been cleared for farming or been cleared and then planted with eucalyptus trees? His family really wants to turn it into a park that people can come for picnics, camping, walking and experience/see the old indigenous ways, a sort of Kenyan Plymouth Rock. They have already started putting up signs and have built a few buildings. In the first picture you can see (L-R) Kevin, Mark and Patrick (the caretaker of the forest and Kevin’s cousin) standing in front of the welcoming hut. Patrick took us all on a walk through the forest. They say that there aren’t too many animals b/c most of them have been scared off by the people. (Although Kevin did tell us there were monkeys in the area that could be seen in the early morning.) They have been trying to get grants from the government to do more improvements, including putting a fence around the forest to keep the animals in, but as of yet they have been unable to secure funding.

After walking for awhile we came to the herbal clinic/nursery. There they grow plants/trees to make herbal medicines out of and have a clinic with an herbalist. We saw rows and rows of small trees all with purported medicinal healing properties. They took us through the workshops where they clean, dry, and prepare the medicines. There was around 30 – 40 drying racks for different herbalists. Every Wednesday herbalists from all over the area come to trade recipes and techniques.

After leaving the forest we headed back to Kevin’s family’s house. There we met his 72 year old grandmother. We spent about an hour resting there. We talked about how many children she has and where they all are. One of her daughters went to the US to study at Champaign, IL and is still living there. This woman lives an hour walk from town with no electricity, and yet she still communicates with the daughter via emails (which another daughter delivers). Technology is amazing sometimes.

We left her house and proceeded to the great grandmother’s house. She was 101! She spoke no Swahili, so everything had to be translated. It was a bit confusing, but very cool none-the-less. After sitting with her for awhile (she was sitting on the ground and didn’t look like she could walk,) Kevin told her she was being rude and she should get up and show us that she could walk. Given that we couldn’t speak her language it was hard to argue. So she got up and came outside to take a picture with us. In the picture she doesn’t look nearly as old as she did in real life. She was pretty much blind, but she told us that she knew we were wazungu because our hands were so soft! Before she left she gave us 6 eggs in thanks for visiting her!

Finally we started the long trek home. At this point it was 2pm, we hadn’t eaten anything, and I was completely out of energy. Kevin tried to teach us some Bokusu on the way back, but I barely had enough energy left to put one foot in front of the other. We finally arrived home at 3pm. It was totally exhausting, but well worth it. We got to see a beautiful forest, see an herbal clinic, and meet some new and interesting people. We’ve got days and days in front of us to rest!

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