Believe it or not, I decided on Monday that my next post would be about hunting. John and I are back in Kenya for three weeks and we spent the weekend outside of Tsavo East National Park, home to many of Kenya’s last “big tuskers;” elephants whose tusks each weigh over 100 lbs. It is also home to the Wata people, a culture intimately intertwined with elephants. More than any other Kenyan culture, the Wata rely on elephants for their sustenance, their status, their incomes, their rituals and their sense of history. Wata are elephant hunters. They are poachers.

Big tuskers outside of Tsavo East National Park

Daraja and NRT need your help!

We have reached pledges totaling $20,450 out of the $60,000 that we need to raise. That is a good start, 34%, but it is time to do more. Is there anyone out there that intended to pledge but had it slip their mind? If so, now is the time. Anyone who thought about it but hadn’t made up their mind? Now is the time. Anyone who thought that others would give enough? Now is the time. Anyone who has already pledged but on second thought wants to be even more generous? Now is the time. Step up and help us reach our goal.

We are raising money to support Daraja Academy build a new set of classrooms so they can double the number of girls of poverty they are training to be leaders in their communities. In exchange they will promise a specific number of seats for young women of poverty from NRT conservancies. A huge win-win for both Daraja and NRT girls.

We can do this with your help. Every $100, $500, $1,000, or more will be going to a great cause.

Remember, for now, just send me a pledge at jknapp@usinternet.com. I’ll contact you when and how to actualize the tax deductible donation.

Thanks in advance.

John Knapp

1. Read it “Flowers for Algernon“, a short story written in 1958 by Daniel Keyes.

2. Drive your car closer and closer. The rhinos will then vacate the ford with a couple of feints towards the car, which, of course produces a few squeaks from the passenger sitting on the side of the car closest to the rhinos.

3. Gather about 50 people, including vets, sharpshooters, game wardens, security officers, drivers, pilots, scientists and spectators, a helicopter, multiple trucks and cars and a couple of heavy duty Volvo FL12 off-road trucks with built-in hydraulic lift arms. Then dart the rhino to knock it out, implant a transponder into its horn, manhandle the rhino around that so when it wakes up it dashes into a crate designed for holding rhinos, lift all 3,000 lbs of rhino aboard the truck and drive it to the Sera Rhino Sanctuary. All the while, have the services of two vets to make sure the rhino isn’t harmed in the process.

Let’s look at #3 in more detail.
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John Pameri, Lewa head of Security

On Monday, Anne, Sara Bonino, and I were watching a black Rhino being captured, loaded on a truck and shipped to the Sera Rhino Sanctuary. John Pameri, Lewa’s head of security told me that it was a dream twenty years in the making.

A Black Rhino on Lewa.

Kenya has about 640 black Rhinos. A week ago Lewa protected 73 of them but that will soon be down to 63. Ten, along with four from Lake Nakuru National Park and six from Nairobi National Park are being trans located to the Sera Conservancy Trust about 50 kilometers north of Lewa. This is a historic moment for Kenyan wildlife. In the 45 years since 1970 the 20,000 Kenyan Black Rhino population had been reduced to about 400 in the late 1990’s. The number has grown to around 640 Rhino living in private sanctuaries and National Parks. This is the first time that the Rhinos are being re-located to their traditional grounds to be protected from poaching by the local pastoralist community. The 20 rhinos will be fenced in an area of about 25,000 acres within the Sera Conservancy Trust.

Ian Craig inspecting a poached Rhino

Ian Craig, one of the founders of the Lewa conservancy and of the Northern Rangelands Trust is a principal driver of the Sera Rhino Conservancy. One of his dreams was to motivate and empower the local communities so that they would have both the desire and ability to protect local wildlife. The Sera Rhino Conservancy is an embodiment of that dream. Registered in 2001 under the umbrella of NRT, Sera Conservancy Trust has been an active member of NRT taking part in women’s beading, livestock to market, rangelands management and good governance. They have come to realize that hosting the Rhino sanctuary benefits them in many ways. The local community got jobs as the sanctuary was built and they will see more in providing security and management for the Rhinos. In addition the Rhinos will provide a tourist draw leading to future economic development. Hopefully, they also realize that as Rhinos are part of their heritage and natural environment, the Rhinos have an intrinsic value as well.

Okay, this is a bit complicated. I would like to get pledges for donations for a school here in Kenya that would be a great benefit to students from NRT schools. $125 can secure a spot in a high quality school for a poor girl for a year. $500 can ensure her secondary education. Random-control test based research shows that education is the most effective way to raise individuals and whole families out of poverty. In developing countries, every year of education makes a real difference to income.

Let me tell you about the school first.

Daraja Academy is a girl’s secondary boarding school that specializes in preparing women to be leaders. They focus their recruiting on Kenyan girls who perform well in primary school who are extremely poor yet demonstrate leadership potential. It is located in Northern Kenya between Nanyuki and Doldol, just outside our Naibunga Conservancy.

They have an excellent reputation. I believe that 82% of their 2014 graduates qualified for university and 100% are doing some sort of post-secondary education. That puts them among the best secondary schools in Kenya. The only cost to the girls’ families is for transportation fees (about $50 per year). All other necessities, medical care, uniforms, education fees, and school materials are provided. I met several of the teachers and their dedication and ability are impressive.

Could one of these girls in Biliqo Bulesa Primary go to Daraja Academy?

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I could tell Sori was getting restless. Sori is the field manager for NRT Trading’s BeadWORKS business. She’d been sitting on an unyielding wooden bench for nearly three hours surrounded by 21 somber Samburu women dressed in their best go-to-meeting finery; layers of colorful, flowing kanga and head-to-toe beads. Sori, in her modest, black, floor-length Muslim dress and bright orange head scarf, was a gold crested raven among butterflies.

The 21 women were an unofficial delegation from the Kalama Conservancy. They’d arrived unannounced slightly after 11 am and asked to talk to the NRT leaders. For some of them, Lewa was the farthest they had ever been from home. The women were nervous. They wanted to discuss Kalama’s recent suspension from NRT and its impact on their ability to earn a living. Kalama’s problems were not their fault, they insisted. They were just women who wanted to use their hands to make beautiful things to earn money to send their children to school and to pay for food. They should not be punished for the wrong doings and corruption of 5 male members of the Kalama Board.

The Kalama delegation

Ten Centuries subscribers will note that it has been a while since our last post. Christmas and an extended visit to the United States have come and gone. Life took a slight detour in early January when chest pains and elevated blood pressure sent John to the emergency room while we were in California visiting our parents. He emerged from the hospital a couple days later with two shiny new arterial stents and instructions not to return to Kenya for over 30 days. I, on the other hand, needed to get back to work. So off I went leaving him to recuperate on the beach in Los Angeles, playing golf with my uncle and riding his bike hard enough to test his refurbished cardiac plumbing.

John, back on Lewa, watching the sun rise this morning with a tall, quiet visitor.

We don’t carry the camera as much and new bird species that stay still long enough to take their picture are getting harder to find but we still are here and looking around. There are five new bird specie pictures on the Bird Gallery page. New types of Hornbill, Dove, Barbet and Chat graced our deck since I started putting out bird millet (Is that cheating?) as well as a new type of Plover we spied near the road.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way” Charles Dickens, A tale of two cities

In my case, I was going to the Farmers Choice Abattoir and then to the Keekonyokie Abattoir. (Nothing implied here about which is heaven or hell or best or worst.) Both have the same functionality: Cattle arrive at one end and beef exits the other. The basic processes are the same utilizing knives, saws, washtubs, hooks and hoses. However, there are many differences. Farmers Choice is more automated. It has much higher levels of sanitation and it serves a more upscale market. But what was most interesting to me was the different organizational structures.

To maximize utility and minimize the cost of beef to the consumer, an abattoir must operate at capacity, work efficiently and every part of the animal must be used. Farmers Choice and Keekonyokie attain these goals in vastly different ways.

Farmers Choice abattoir

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Off to the opera

“Do you want to go to the opera?” Jo O’Brian, our boss Mike Harrison’s wife, asked. “It’s Don Giovanni. I’m not sure if it will be live or a movie. It’s up in Nanyuki and Maggie and Al are putting together a picnic. It should be fun.” I immediately said “sure.” Formal entertainment around here is so rare that I’d attend just about anything; certainly Mozart and maybe even Wagner. John and Mike pursed their lips, looked skeptical then hesitantly agreed. They would go for the food. I could tell John was already planning to endure the experience by loading up on “savory bits” and wine and then sleeping it off during the show.

Don Giovanni in the bush, with an official play-bill and everything.