Turtle Release

We had our conference at Turtle Bay Beach Club in Watamu this year. A wonderful place! We had 6 days’ of meetings, but also had time to just enjoy the surroundings and the warmth after the cool of Nairobi. Whilst there, I was fortunate enough to witness the release of 2 lots of turtles back into the Indian Ocean. These had been caught in fishermen’s nets, then handed over to Watamu Turtle Watch (www.watamuturtles.com), who rehabilitated, checked and tagged them, and then released them back to the sea. Over the last 4 years they have apparently released over 3,000 turtles back to the wild. Without this scheme almost all of these turtles would have been killed. The remuneration to the fishermen is small in comparison to the (illegal) commercial worth of the turtle; so it is a sustainable programme and does not encourage abuse. What a treat to be there to witness 4 of these beautiful creatures being returned to their natural habitat!

Ethiopian Fare

At the beginning of July, I was in Addis Ababa for 4 days of meetings. Whilst there, my Kenyan colleague John, and I, were taken out for a traditional Ethiopian meal by 3 of our Ethiopian colleagues. I’d had Ethiopian food in Nairobi but this seemed different somehow, maybe because of the setting, or the company, or because it really was the real thing.

The staple Ethiopian food is injera, a thin sour-tasting bread, upon which are served various meat and vegetable dishes (Wots, Tibs and Fitfit) with their distinctive spicy flavours. The Injera is also used to scoop up mouthfuls of the sauces and meat from the shared plate. The main ingredient of Injera is Teff. This is the tiniest cereal and used as a staple food only in Ethiopia, where it is believed to have originated between 4000 and 1000 BC. Injera preparation usually takes two to three days. The teff is ground, then mixed in water along with yeast, and then set aside at room temperature for 2 days so it ferments and rises. After the fermentation process is finished, the mix is cooked on a hot flat iron pan called 'Mitad'. A circular motion is used to achieve a thin consistency. On contact between the hot pan and the fermented teff mix/batter, thousands of tiny air bubbles escape, creating tiny craters/eyes on the side facing upwards, whilst the side touching the hot mitad pan is flat. It’s this porous structure which allows the injera to be a good bread for scooping up sauces. Restaurants will serve your dishes on injera and bring a side dish of rolled-up injera for scooping purposes.
Eating with Injera – Handling Instructions
1. Tear off a small piece (size of your palm)
2. The side with holes is the one that makes contact with the sauce / meat
3. Scoop or grab one or more lots of sauce / meat with the injera
4. Use your fingers (one hand only) to control so that pieces don’t fall out
5. When the excess injera has gone, you can eat the bottom / tablecloth injera. This will now be saturated with the juices and flavours of the sauces.

(Info taken from www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/injera)

Road Hazards

There are many road hazards in Kenya, from potholes, ruts, police checkpoint spikes, vehicles in bad repair and without decent brakes, matatus, and bad driving,.......... to goats, cows, donkeys, camels (!) and generally ‘unaware-of-the-dangers-of-the-road’ pedestrians. Somewhere on the way out of Nairobi to see friends near Machakos on Saturday, I came across another hazard - nails. I discovered a 3 inch nail both going in, and out of my tyre, when I was opening my friends’ gate. Amazingly, even on removal, the tyre stayed inflated – I saved by the tread on my tyres being somewhat deeper than most vehicles around here!

Big ‘wasp’ to big hand!

A lesson I inadvertently learnt at church last Sunday is that it’s best not to swat the ‘fly’ that you think is buzzing round your head until you’ve actually verified its identity. The ‘fly’ in this case turned out to be either a wasp or hornet - I never did see it. Kenyan wasps and hornets look pretty nasty – and I can certainly confirm that it feels pretty nasty to be on the receiving end of a sting! Whilst I didn’t see it, other senses sprang into action: I was immediately very aware of a sharp and painful sensation in the fourth finger of my right hand. Thankfully, I was able to remove my ring before the swelling began. Amazingly this had receded in time for the concert that I was playing in with Nairobi Orchestra that afternoon, but came back with a vengeance as the concert ended. By the next morning, my entire hand was red, swollen, itchy, blistered..... and painful. Doing anything with it, let alone play the flute part of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite as I had the previous afternoon, was out of the question. Cellulitis had somehow set in – I guess that beastly bug hadn’t cleaned its stinger recently!! It’s perhaps a bit grisly to have a photo of my poor hand here (with the left one to show the contrast) but I figure that I’ve previously featured a very dirty foot, so why not this?! I’m very thankful to report that with the help of prayer, a cocktail of antihistamine, antibiotics and hydrocortisone cream, plus resting it as much as possible, the swelling is gradually starting to go down – and I can actually type this without too much discomfort!

How did we get here?!

Last Monday was Madaraka Day, a national holiday in Kenya to commemorate the attainment 46 years ago of internal self-rule. A friend, Annemieke, and I chose to get out of the city for the day. En route, I drove past Nyayo Stadium where various public ceremonies are held during the year,the celebration of Madaraka being one of them. I passed many buses parked alongside the road with various uniformed military and public service personnel going this way and that. I’m sure they were very orderly in the stadium, but outside was a different matter for some of them at least. A few looked decidedly dishevelled, jackets only partly done up; some were talking on mobile phones; guns were carried very casually. Not exactly a picture of military precision.

Anyway, back to the day out. We started out with the intention of driving from Ngong town to Suswa volcano. Almost as soon as we left Ngong, we hit dirt road and seemed to be in a different country altogether with a vast openness, and sweeping views across the Rift Valley. Looking back, the knuckle of Ngong Hills stood out very clearly. Our guidebook was written 18 years ago. It’s normally pretty accurate, but things do change – particularly the condition of dirt roads. Having navigated our way around some shallow gullies in the road, we came to one that was about 5 feet deep. Whilst we could possibly have got around it, it didn’t bode well for what lay ahead. So, instead we had lunch in the semishade of a whistling thorn tree, enjoying the absolute absence of any manmade sounds, and then turned back. By this time, the sky behind us was black with the threat of an oncoming storm. Having seen the gullies in the road, I didn’t fancy being caught out there in a downpour. We had a choice of 3 routes: Go back the way we’d come; Go another way that I’d done the previous year (and which I’d heard since was washed away in parts); or try something new which would bring us out on the Magadi Road. Being adventurous souls, we opted for the latter.

It was great, taking us a different way, and in parts along rocky roads down into the Valley. After driving for a while though, we realised that we’d completely missed wherever it was that we were meant to go, as we’d gone way further than the guidebook was indicating that we should have - and no tarmac road in sight! At one T-junction, children were clammering for biscuits (we had none) or a ride in the car (they evidently had never been taught not to accept a lift from strangers!). We asked for directions for the road to Magadi , and were pointed off leftwards. This road had some vicious bumps over drainage pipes (an indication of what the rains could do). The occasional habitation brought some comfort, whilst signs of electricity caused great excitement! At one point, we were trying to follow some electricity pylons, the logic being that they probably ran parallel to the road – if they did (other than the one we were on), we didn’t see it! We wound up eventually in something that resembled a mud river bed rather than a road, though were encouraged to see tyre tracks. When the river bed became scrub, the tracks ran out……. At this point, two Maasai very handily came on the scene. We asked for the road to Nairobi, figuring that as that was where we actually wanted to go, it would be more useful – after all, we didn’t want to wind up in Magadi as it’s about 100km from Nairobi! They indicated that they were going to Mai Mahiu so could direct us there. At this point, we were flummoxed. Mai Mahiu is a town in completely the opposition direction to the one we had thought that we were going in. How on earth had we wound up there? We had to laugh, especially as the mountain that we’d commented on as ‘looking like Mount Longonot’ was indeed that very volcano that stands out in the view of the Rift Valley from the escarpment on the Nairobi-Naivasha road. The Maasai guided us very adeptly along barely discernable tracks, knowing which would be the best for the vehicle. How we’d have got home without them , I don’t know. It was certainly quite a trip out. Not sure I could retrace our steps, but I do want to find out where on earth we went wrong!

Feeding Frenzy

I seem to be mentioning birds quite a bit, especially since I started feeding them. They are quite fascinating though – even my househelp has started commenting on them. Great entertainment value with their antics, colours and song (they seem to enjoy my fluting too!). It has to be said though that they are very messy eaters. Millet, bread, rice, sugar water etc seems to get scattered everywhere in the midst of the feeding frenzy, giving my plants and balcony a speckled look. I think even downstairs gets a share!

An Unexpected Visitor

A bird in a tree outside? No, this little fella (a female Red-billed firefinch, I think – the ornithologists out there can correct me on that) had somehow flown into my flat and was sitting in the ficus in my living room on Friday evening, seemingly feeling very comfortable there – not at all keen to fly outside into the dark night. After a bit of persuasion, and moving the pot so that the branch he was on was actually sticking out of the balcony door, he eventually left. Thankfully, not too many deposits were left behind!