After two months of silence, TenCenturies is back on line. Our hiatus coincided with a six-week return to the United States to visit family, start construction on our new house and re-acquaint ourselves with the biking routes in Maine and Minneapolis. This trip home was originally meant to mark the end of our African adventure; the return flight on a one-year round-trip ticket. Life rarely unfolds as you expect. Back in April, when my main mission was raising money to scale up NRT’s livestock trading business, we agreed to extend our commitment for an additional nine months. Investors tend to be more willing to commit funds when they’re confident in management and know who’s running the show. Saying I would be at NRT for another four months (May-August) but after that who knew wasn’t particularly reassuring. The new schedule gives us time to find a successor and make a smooth transition to new leadership.

In case anyone is interested, I’ll be posting that job opportunity soon. If you know anyone who might want to spend a year or two as CEO of NRT Trading, share this blog post. It’s a great job, the living conditions are amazing and the experience is life changing. NRT Trading has received sufficient investment to keep life exciting for years to come. And, there is no malaria and no Ebola here.

100 miles in one day is a lot more fun with friends. Century #9.

There are two types of travelers; those who plan and those who don’t. John and I are solidly in the second category. When we set off on a new adventure we tend to have a rough itinerary and places to stay. Beyond that we pack our bags using a “go anywhere, any time of year for any length of time with carry-on luggage only” packing list and head for the airport. I have a conscious policy of not setting expectations, preferring the surprise of discovery to the risk of being let down. John likes to live in the moment, trusts his ability to cope and happily accepts whatever comes his way. When we left for Rwanda last week to see the gorillas with our friends Chris and Doug Matson, it is fair to say that neither of us had thought much about the trip.

Kigali, capital of Rwanda

As we flew out of Nairobi I was vaguely nervous about Rwanda, my impression of the country having been set during the 1994 genocide where the Hutus brutally slaughtered a million Tutsis in 100 days of unfathomable violence. Given that level of devastation, how much progress was possible in 20 years? It turns out an amazing amount. Without commenting on whether Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a dictator using intimidation and death squads to stay in power or, as Bill Clinton described him, “one of the greatest leaders of our time,” Rwanda is transformed. Kigali tops the charts as one of the safest and cleanest African capitals. Littering is illegal (think Singapore), the infrastructure new and growing and if you ask anyone if they are Hutu or Tutsi they will respond “we are one.” We stayed overnight in Kigali in a sprawling red-brick hotel. The next day we visited the Genocide Memorial – a purposely blunt and disturbing reminder of the 1994 events — then set out for Rwanda’s Volcano National Park and the gorillas.

Entering the Kigali Genocide Memorial where 250,000 Tutsi are buried.

4:05 p.m. I was running late. My brother, Phil, his new wife Leslie and stepdaughter Katie expected to be picked up in Leparua – a teeth-rattling 45 minute drive away – at 4:30. Leparua is the community Conservancy just north of Lewa and just outside the range of Safaricom’s cellphone towers; from a communication standpoint, it’s on the other side of the moon. I’d dropped Phil and company off at 10 a.m. to spend the day in the bush with Silas, our favorite Masaai warrior. It was the first time we’d left guests unattended outside the gate and I was a little nervous. Would they be flush and happy after a day of adventure or dusty, sweaty and irritated, waiting impatiently for me to retrieve them?

I accelerated into forth gear, broke the Lewa speed limit and flew along at nearly 30 mph. Half way there, as I entered the Leparua valley, the hairpin turns, loose gravel and large rocks forced me to downshift into second and slow to 10 mph least the car vibrate to pieces. I ignored a group of magnificent Kudu grazing on a hillside and arrived at the gate at exactly 4:45 p.m., only 15 minutes late and well within “Kenyan time.” I drove up the steep slope to Sila’s house expecting to see Phil, Leslie and Katie sitting in the shade drinking tea. The house was locked and curtains drawn. I took a folding chair out of the back of my car and sat down on the ledge wondering where everyone was.

Pixies appear beside me.

Lewa shares its boundaries with three Community Conservancies: Ngare Ndare, Il Negwesi and Laparua. The Masaai are comfortably in control of Ngare Ndare and Il Negwesi. Laparua is another matter. It is a multi-cultural Conservancy that includes nearly equal numbers of Masaai, Samburu, Turkana, Borana and Somali. Most of the time, community elders are proud of their multi-ethnic success and committed to smoothing over long-standing cultural flash points; but not always.

For over three years there have been good rains in northern Kenya. Herd sizes are way up. The jutting hips and scrawny ribs typical of pastoralist cattle are softened by layers of fat. Semi-nomadic families have rooted, confident that their livestock can find fodder nearby. No one is starving.

This is about to change.

Cattle are plentiful and looking good.

“That was a very bad week for NRT,” Tom Lalampaa sighed as he stood in my office doorway. “I am very glad it is over. Things will be better now. We’ve used up all our bad luck for the entire year in this one week.”

********

The bad week began with the cattle massacre I wrote about in “This is Real Part I.” Several days later, Gabriel Nyausi, Tom Lalampaa’s right hand man, and Nelson, a NRT driver, were returning to the office after a day of meetings. It was dark. The cautious were already off the road, but Gabriel and Nelson wanted to get home. Nelson is a member of the Kenyan Defense Reserve (KDR); Gabriel is a Samburu. They don’t scare easily. Plus, they weren’t on the most dangerous stretch of the road. That distinction belongs to the main route between Seralipi and Wamba; 50 kms of unpaved, rutted, one and a half lane dirt track that winds through a gap in the mountains. It is an ambush waiting to happen.

In their official, dark green Land Cruiser, Nelson and Gabriel rounded a corner and came upon a group of men dressed in military jackets herding goats along the road. Thinking the men were fellow members of the KDR, Nelson stopped the car and rolled down his window. “Jambo” he called. The men darted into the bush and seconds later gun shots ricocheted off the NRT vehicle. Gabriel and Nelson flung themselves forward in their seats, Nelson not quite fast enough as a bullet came through the window, cut a 4 inch gash in the top of his scalp and embedded itself in the opposite door. Thinking he was hit, Gabriel patted his body frantically searching for blood. Fortunately, nothing. A minute later, Nelson recovered his composure and his crisis driving skills. He cranked the engine, grabbed the steering wheel and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. They escaped into the night. A kilometer later the two men switched seats so Nelson could tend to his wound. Gabriel and Nelson returned to Lewa and reported the incident. NRT security decided to respond.

Continue reading →

April 28, 2014. Night. The 330 cattle of KP 21 shifted nervously in their two make-shift bomas. It was dark, the type of impenetrable black where you can’t see a hand held six inches from your nose. The moon wouldn’t rise until 5:58 a.m. and even then it would be a mere sliver of light, the final gasp of a waning lunar cycle. The cattle should have been in Lewa, safe behind stout metal fences. Instead they were held up in Il Ngwesi, spending the night within a ring of acacia branches. There had been a miscommunication about foot and mouth disease vaccinations and the people needed to resolve the problem (me included) couldn’t be reached. Four herders patrolled the bomas’ perimeters armed with flashlights, walking sticks and rungu, a short club with a hard knob on one end. Two others slept nearby in bedrolls next to a small fire.

NRT cattle in an acacia thorn boma.

I know we have fallen behind, so be prepared for me to try to catch up.

Like good Anglo-Saxon explorers, we’ve decided to stake our flag on a little piece of land and name it after ourselves. It is a modest hill just five minutes from our house. Actually, it is a hill from only one direction. From the other direction it is merely a nub of gravel littered with a few ancient lava rocks at the edge of a broad plain. For the time being, though, we’re claiming it and christening it Mlima Knapp (Knapp Hill).

Mlima Knapp

Our blog has been a bit quiet lately. It isn’t that nothing is going on. It’s just that what we are doing is harder to write about. The topics we’re discussing at the dinner table have morphed from heart-stopping wildlife sightings and bird species identification to things like:

“Given all the problems up here, what are the realistic and workable ways to improve conservation outcomes and achieve sustainable economic growth? How can we use NRT’s Livestock to Market business or tourism development as catalysts?”

“Who are the political stakeholders that need to be involved in increasing the number of teachers in the pastoralist communities and how can we keep teachers in schools when they’re being harassed by local warriors, they don’t have places to sleep and they get paid about half the time?”

We’ve moved from the wonders of the place to the nitty gritty of the work.

The hands on work of keeping track of cows when there are no computers available.