I said I would report on my trip to the livestock market. Here is Part I.

A little after 5 pm yesterday, I returned home encrusted in a layer of sweat and fine red dust. My eyes felt like they were coated in sandpaper and my lips were cracking. I was parched and exhausted. The entire way back from the airstrip, all I kept thinking was “I want a beer.” I flopped on the couch. “Will you get me a beer?” I whined to John.

“No. You should have stopped at Ngiri House on your way home and gotten one there.”

“I was too tired,” more whining. “I need a beer.”

“I am not driving a half hour each way to get you a beer!” He was rather emphatic about it.

I drank a quart of water and my brain started functioning again. A light bulb went on in my head. “Hey, I bet you could get a beer at Lewa Safari Camp. That’s only 15 minutes away,” I pleaded.

John looked at me, shook his head and a half hour later reappeared with 3 beers.

Actually it was an intense and interesting day; full of firsts.

I met Giles, our cattle buyer, at the airstrip at 9 am. I was expecting a little plane, but perhaps not an itty, bitty, tiny one. My feet, let alone my whole body, barely fit through the opening as I squeezed myself into the back seat. Giles climbed into the front, checked the gauges, closed the glass hatch and off we went, flying into the heart of the pastoralist wilderness.

It was a good way to see the landscape. We flew at about 1500 feet above the ground and I watched as Lewa’s yellow grass gave way to rich farm land then desiccated black dirt, stunning volcanic escarpments, acacia spotted desert and finally a twisting, muddy river that emptied into an enormous swamp.

We saw numerous camel caravans along the roads and thousands of goats wending their way into a volcanic crater to get their minerals in bright red salt pools.

Bulesa, our destination, was a spare strip of identical block structures surely funded by USAID or some NGO. We circled once looking for cattle. There were only a few at the market site but we could see others being driven in from all points of the compass. About 20 children ran out of the school to watch us land. A Super Piper Cub is a big deal in Bulesa. I was amazed that our balloon tires didn’t pick up acacia thorns and pop as we bumped to a stop in a pitted dirt field.

The entire Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy Board was there to greet us. We shook hands and completed the pleasantries. The Chairman made a point of introducing the two female board members. “Gender equity” he told me proudly. Two out of ten might not be equity, but it is progress. We piled into a truck and headed out to the cattle market. That is Part II.