The Milgis Trust

spear covered in Elephants blood

Finding this broken spear covered in Elephants Blood sent a chill through every person present spine… Unfortunately I did not take the photo well, but you can see the ting of red right up the spear to where the man is holding it… It went in deep… thats what we do know.. But where was the owner of the spear, where was the wounded Elephant…

We were walking across the south east side of the Ndotos, on safari.. 25 January 2010… It had been a long day, we were all tired, and ready to get to camp, when suddenly I saw our leader pick up and hold this spear almost dripping with blood… It had only been a hour or so before that the Elephant had managed to get rid of the spear… They say… what happens when Elephants get hit.. first they run, if they are not mortally wounded of course, with the spear in them, usually breaking the shaft, so only the spear end is in the Elephant, until relative safety, where they will pull it out… This is where we caught up with the scene… We had been hearing unusually noisy Elephants, and we saw some heading rather fast over a ridge, but nothing prepared for this find!!

Reference to my blog written on the 10/12/09… We have walked many miles in the last couple of months, across the Matthews and Ndoto mountains and am happy to say its been beautiful, peaceful, and I hope you all have started 2010 as well as I have!!… I’m exhausted, but as fit as a fiddle now having walked day in day out since then!, hardly covered the same trail twice, almost through the entire area of the Milgis Trust, spent lots of time with all the scouts, and generally ALL IS WELL… Except for this new development…

What did we do???… We called for support from as may scouts as we could catch up with, who called in at KWS ( Kenya Wildlife Service), and picked up one ranger, and rushed to the scene… Our scouts knew that a spear is like a finger print, and the owner would be known very soon… Every one knows every one else’s spear!!… Incredible… by 4 am 38 hours later they found the culprit, red handed, as he had the other half of the spear with him!… At this stage we are not alot further down the road to find who is buying Ivory, as sadly we have lost another Elephant down in the lower Milgis to the same fate… But what I know is KWS have done a major awareness campaign, together with the scouts… Elephant poaching is NOT ON… They have combed the area for any sign of the wounded Elephant, with no luck… We can only hope that it is ok…

What we have felt from this experience is that we have full support from the communities throughout the area, which is incredible… Our scouts will continue to be extremely vigilant… And KWS are ready to support us at any time they are needed…

When I first started bloging a year and a half ago, I asked this question….. does a striped hyena, make a noise like a camel in distress? but never got an answer!? Not much known about these beautiful/extraordinary animals? or maybe my blog is not reaching out to the right people?. Is what I have been asking my self!.. But Last night, we watched in absolute dismay as two male Striped hyena fought to the death, completely silent the fight was, all we saw to start with was dust, and two animals battling it out, the loser which was much bigger, kept on trying to run away, but the winner just kept coming, and he had one intention… To kill his rival, which he did savagely, with no distractions , in the end he had him on his back, and he was shaking him like a rag doll… We were utterly amazed at the silence of the fight, not a sound from both sides… The triumphant one left the other for dead, or almost, he lay there, but he wasn’t there in the morning… took off back in the direction that the fight had started, about a kilometre away..

Soon after this extraordinary noise, the same one that we have heard twice before, absolutely like a camel in trouble, rang across the country side… We rushed back to check it out unfortunately we had a weak torch, so could not see too much, and we thought that the fight was continuing, but we realised it was very different behaviour, and it seemed that the female, if it was indeed a female! was putting up quite a fight as well!… But all most like fisti-cuffs, not serious stuff… They then disappeared out of site and sound… We heard nothing more…

Its an extraordinary phenomena.. the transition from drought to floods, soon after I wrote my last blog about the clouds disappearing into thin air!!, they were busy building up out there in the desert!, it poured again with rain in the Karisias, Matthews, and Ndoto Mountains, and every where between, and the massive kilometre wide Luggas, have been roaring with flooded waters, doing their jobs correctly, in draining the area… Its incredible to see the transition, when they are dry they are huge ‘roads’, all day every day there are people, cows, camels goats, elephants, baboons, guinea fowl, etc etc using the huge sandy river bed to walk on, now these huge sandy highways have turned into roaring, raging, dangerous flood water, we all know how dangerous that can be!!.. But every one here knows that one keeps well away from them… If you happen to be on the other side of one of these luggas visiting a friend, when the rain starts, well you’ll have to ‘over stay’ your welcome now as you have no other choice!.. You won’t have to worry about your family at home, as the neighbour will surely be checking out on them.. Thats how the Samburu are! The two pictures below were taken in the same spot, different angle … From highway to flooded river!

Lugga Highway!

Lugga flooded!

I am not up at the Milgis at the moment, but on the radio this morning I asked how things were going!.. I was told … shhhhh don’t even talk… We are ALL so happy, we are all so relieved, We are all silent… SPEECHLESS, just sitting back watching the rain, the water, THE ‘LIFE’ COMING BACK TO THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY!!… What a lovely way to put it!…

YES, IT POURED WITH RAIN YESTERDAY!!!!!…Every where within the Milgis Ecosystem….. Relief… RELief….. RELIEF!!!! All the Luggas have come down in full flood … Every one has a smile on their face!… PHEW.. is all I can say, at this stage… The pressure that was building higher and higher is OFF… In a flash.. I am lost for words!!. Below is the Milgis Lugga..

. From this 9/10/09

To this!!! 10/10/09

‘Little’ Latakwen centre/town, in the middle of nowhere in dry Samburuland, pulled out all stops to take over ‘their’ water, and their nursery school!!… What a party! The Latakwen drinking water project, and the New Nursery school handing over ceremony WAS FANTASTIC!! In fact unbelievable… The enthusiasm was just great… I think the leaders of Latakwen proclaimed a Holiday in aid of having water piped to the little centre, and to the Clinic, and school, and to finally have a nice nursery School!! The community donated 6 goats, rice, sugar for the party! The women were all dressed up to the nines, all the school children all looked amazing, the singing and dancing was just unbelievable… They are so so so grateful, from the bottom of their hearts!! Thank you VOSS and Thank you TOTO TRUST!

The Elders started the day by gathering at the well, and blessed it and the solar panels… Then we all walked along the pipe line, to the Large 10,000 litre tank above Latakwen centre…

All the paintings by Nderitu…

As our contingency of Elders and visitors wondered down to wards the centres main street, we could see the incredible colours, all popping out of their little shops and homes, rushing off to wards the Kiosk [ the water outlet] to greet us as we walked down from the tank!! The atmosphere was electric, we just could not believe our eyes!! Moses Lesoloyia, Milgis Trust manager, gave a little speech, explaining why VOSS [A stylish bottled water company from Norway] had decided to help the people of Latakwen with drinking water… During the singing and dancing, around the Kiosk , our guests from the US, a photographer and a rep. from VOSS, were given traditional Samburu presents, a beaded head band and a beautiful wrap, embroidered with beads with a clear message… ‘If we look after our wildlife, we will reap the benefit’s!!..

Another message…… Conserve your environment get more water!

The Kiosk where the people in the centre collect water…

All the Women dressed up beautifully.. And ’sounds of happiness and gratitude poured out’

Women of Latakwen… Singing songs of Thanks, to VOSS.. Its now become a word and it means ‘drinking water’! Ever since this little centre started in the seventies, they have been drinking brackish water, which makes your tea curdle!..

In the next blog I will continue with the rest of the day… As we proceeded on to the schools, and to the children’s shows of gratitude!!

Money talks!!….

But today I feel much better…40 comments have come winging in, on Blogs that I wrote back in June to yesterdays… I am delighted that somebody… LOTS OF YOU are listening… The encouragement is brilliant… Thank you ALL of you and all the people in the wildlife Direct office for helping me out…The support from your office is never ending.. [Our problem is every day we are on the move so I do all my emailing and blogging with a little Thuraya satelite phone, so checking on the site is difficult, and expensive.. its time I got Thuraya to give me free air time, in aid of conservation!!.] Any one that sent questions on various topics I will answer them in the near future…But one of the last comments… Yes the Grevy, not Grevey!,sorry I think I have been spelling it wrong, is being poached and its a very difficult situation because of the tribal fighting, keeps going back wards and forwards over quite a substantial area, and because the Samburu do not kill Grevys, they tend to settle in to safety, start trusting people, and then suddenly the Turkana move into this area, and the Grevy becomes an easy meal… Also of course the Grevys follow the rain like every one else with their stock so tend to get shot if they are in amounst Turkana… Our scouts have been shot at or threatened a few times…As I say its a grave situation, and very difficult to get on top of…And our managers comment is true…If we don’t get the Turkana to understand the situation en mass, we are going to say ‘good bye’ to the Grevys in the Elbarta plains… One of the most well known grevy areas…

I just keep seeing it over and over again..All I know is that I can’t help but keep thinking that ‘How can people with such pure good tribal beliefs and rules, possibly let them selves get into such an extraordinary problem’… Can’t they see for them selves what the over grazing situation is doing to their land, can’t they see what happens when you burn the forest…Unbelievable irreversible errosion…, terrible 12 feet gullies, large areas with no top soil left, large areas in the mountains that used to be forest, reduced to bear rock… I keep on telling myself maybe its the modern world that we live in that is not helping, nobody is willing to help them selves, because they wait for help from others??…WHY??? Were they doing this 100 years ago?? The other day some women came to ask me for help, because they were were hungry, and their goats are thin, but just a kilometre away was a huge forest fire… I told them I’m sorry I can’t help you if you can’t help yourselves..[ 'My motto' you have to be cruel to be kind' ] I know its either one of your husbands, or sons that has lit the fire… this fire is burning all the trees that saved the day by producing so many seed pods..[ Thanks to Nature, 10/8/08] Its time for the women to gather that ‘inner strength’ and get on top of the problem..

On my last safari we came across many many trees that have been cut down to feed their hungry goats, with absolutely no thought of tomorrow… I saw a film the other day… It was called ‘the tree of life’.. It was about a guy cutting down a tree, in a beautiful forest… The sounds of the cutting disturbed every one around, the animals ran away,and the people just listened, but nobody did any thing… When the tree fell down, the man was so exhausted he collapsed in a heap… When he opened his eyes he found that he was in a desert with nothing… Nothing at all.. When he was trying to find his way out he came across a sapling growing in the desert… He sheltered it with his loin cloth, so as to help it grow… WHY DO WE WAIT UNTIL WE GET TO THIS STAGE BEFORE WE DO ANY THING…I would love to get my hands on that film and show every one in northern Frontier District!

Yes I’m in the Mara!!, with three of our Samburu people that have worked for us for many years, and one scout from the Milgis Trust, all kindly invited by a Spanish couple who walked to lake Turkana with us last year, with the camels…These four men have heard me ‘go on and on’ about conservation, and looking after what is theres!!.. Our friends from Spain wanted to see the famous migration, [ which we have missed by the way!], and also wanted to see the reaction of our men from the north when they saw this amazing place!!.. Lions all over the place, including two very young cubs!! A leopard trying to sleep on a very thin branch, with its kill well out of danger from any one pinching it above it! Two beautiful cheetahs so relaxed with us, they just turned over and went back to sleep! A porcupine trying to hide behind a piece of grass, then deciding to run for it, gosh they can run fast!! A serval cat catching a guinea fowl!, and to end the day… a herd of Elephants all around the car… and as we were leaving being charged by a little four month old baby … It was too ’sweet’ to be true…And by the way we have not seen another car.. hardly!! The Samburu can not believe there eyes!, they are speechless and in awe, especially this after noon right in front of our camp … 11 lions just skirt around a herd of cows!!.. We’ve got lots of work to do in the Milgis, and what I know is these four guys, will take a very clear message back to the north!!!

We have had some big fires last month in the Luggas as well, at least 100 Acacia Tortilis trees.. have been lost lost… [please see THANKS to Nature!! to know the value of these fabulous trees] Many were deliberately started by people who said that a leopard/lion had eaten a goat.. What have they achieved by doing this, because the carnivore moved on, and hundreds of dead trees are left?? One big fire, was a ‘mistake’, [actually the one in the bottom picture] in that a hungry traveller had stolen a goat to eat and he had hidden himself well in the thick bush on the side of the lugga, to cook the goat, but unfortunately his fire caught the bush, and he ran for it! Our scouts followed him, but when he threatened to shoot them they left him to go… Others are started by people extracting honey from bee hives, with the excitement of finding honey, they forget to put the fire out that they lit to smoke the bees out..

The elders visited the base to discuss this problem… They are very angry… ‘This burning has to stop’…They announced ‘Good, I’m glad you are now telling me’.. I answered.!! mmmmmm progress!! I feel…. But even better was the punishment for lighting fires!! If and when they catch the perpetrators, and this is usually quite easy as they check the mans tracks, generally every one here knows every one else’s tracks, its incredible!!.. If not they follow them back to the Manyattas [homestead].. What they will now do, is a group of elders will visit the homestead, in the evening and will start choosing goats that he will pay a fine with.. they will choose the best goats!! The fine will depend on how serious the fire was, and how many important trees were burnt!!.. Once he has paid his fine..He then has to throw a huge ’sikuku’ [party], for the community, before the elders will forgive and bless him..