It’s not often that our Project Coordinators get the chance to sit behind a computer. Steve Mwasi is particularly difficult to pin down to a seat for more than a day – he needs to be in a surrounded by elephants otherwise he gets all jittery but I finally managed to get him to sit still for a few hours. Steve recently went through the rigorous Ecotraining and received his certification with flying colors making him one of a handful of Kenyan Field Guides to have completed FGASA (more about that HERE). As many of you know, Camp Kenya has been working within Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary for quite a few years now and we have been making tremendous progress. I asked Steve to share a little bit about what our gappers have been up to this year:

Wildlife Conservation in Kenya has been a challenging issue and achieving the required results takes time and patience. I have been working with   the company for the last three years and primarily involved in conservation projects. For the last one year I have been directly involved with conservation programs within Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary. We have planned and executed quite a number of conservation activities in the sanctuary.

This year, we have been focusing on improving the roads of the sanctuary by pouring red murram on the damaged parts of the road. The gappers, as always, were ready and eager to start digging out trenches to drain all the water which flows on the road. Tour operators claim they fear taking tourists to the sanctuary simply because they might end up incurring additional cost in maintaining the safari vehicles and tourism is critical to the sustainability of the sanctuary which is entirely owned by local communities from within the area. No tourism = no revenue = no safe home for the elephants. Our volunteers were determined to finish there ear marked portion of the of the road despite working under the scorching heat and after three days of hard work they managed to complete the required section of the road and all felt there work was really rewarding. So we welcome more efforts so as to make the sanctuary user friendly and ensure more tourists visit the sanctuary.

Then the moment arrives which everyone really looks forward to: the time of chasing goats and giving them deworming medicine. Some thought it was all fun throughout but a moment of reckoning came when some goats could not swallow the medicine and vomited it all  up on the faces of some gappers! Those who thought they were strong runners decided to give the goats a chase and it was constant running battles. Well, I never imagined imagine some could talk to goats in order to plead with them to swallow the medicine  and just when we thought it was working, the goats decided to spray all the medicine  back on to our faces! Healthy livestock in the area is equally critical for the surrounding communities who are really dependent on their livestock for income and thus the program has really has really obtained goodwill from the local community and they really appreciate it. In fact the exercise has been broadcasted and advertised in the local FM radio station which has positively enhanced Camp Kenya’s conservation and community initiatives in the area.

And if there is one activity that everyone loves to get involved in…is of course one which does not involve much movement. Over the past six months we have been painting a host of educational murals on the walls at Ngozini Primary School. They loved it and so do the school kids! Drawing and painting the learning diagram aids at the school has been really helpful to the students as they have such limited resources and visual aids. Ngozini Primary has one of the most active environmental and wildlife schools I know of and the children here are the custodians for this strained ecosystem where humans and elephants have little choice but to learn to live amongst each other. Hopefully, we are all making that a possibility.

Steve Mwasi

Camp Kenya

We certainly hope for global Peace One Day but we are going to keep Peace everyday. Yes, yes, I know I have been going on about this for a while but there is a lot to go on about. We were very lucky to have Mike and Jag with us over through our Peace One Day event in Camp Borneo. They have cut an amazing video!

Big thanks to Mike and Jag and do have a look at what happened in Tanzania HERE and Kenya HERE. We are in this for the long haul!

We are all smiles here at Camps International. Our September ’09 Kenya Gap Expedition just got back from Camp Tsavo where they spent the week as our ambassadors for Peace One Day. After they wiped all the dust and dirt off from the road trip, the stories and the pictures came flooding in. This was a very special week for all of us as our Gappers teamed up with children from Sasenyi Primary School and spent the week together on game drives, making elephant dung paper and preparing for a series of fun events and performances to be held at the school. It’s been a great privilege to be part of this global movement and who better to tell the story than the very people who lived it…(a big thanks to all of you!)

copyright: michelle de herder

Living on the periphery

Copyright: Michelle de Herder

Our experiences in Tsavo began when we visited Sasenyi Primary School, and were welcomed by the Deputy Headmaster, Fred. The situation at the school was very depressing, and confronting. Through stealth and secrecy, we deduced that the annual government funding Sasenyi gets is approx. 109,000Ksh. This is approx. $1780AUD – a sum that an average private school student in Australia pays quarterly. This struck us as somewhat unfair. The next day we were invited to visit 15 children’s houses, and these kids would subsequently be staying with us at Camp Tsavo. These families would have to fit upward of ten people into houses that were no bigger than our bathroom at camp. They would have a separate room for cooking, with no ventilation and fanning apparatus to prevent smoke inhalation. The kids would also have to walk considerable distances to get to school each day; one group visited a number of children that lived up to 7 km away, meaning a 14 km trip per day. That is not taking into consideration how far away water was, and how many trips a day family members would need to have adequate supplies.

copyright: Michlee de Herder

Whilst visiting these families, we asked them how big a problem the native wildlife caused for their crops. Elephants = Hassle town. The elephants would come and trample valuable crops – there was no effective way to consistently prevent this. Some villagers would make noise and shine lights in an attempt to scare the elephants. However, this was not a guaranteed method of getting rid of the elephants and as they mainly came at night, the villagers would not always wake up in time. As well as this, there were scorpions, spiders and snakes for the people to worry about. There is also no separate area for the animals kept there to be – which means that there are some hygiene issues as small children and dirty animals are forced to co-inhabit. In some cases, goats and chickens would need to sleep directly beneath and/or adjacent to the family. The sleeping quarters were also located right next to the food preparation area, which meant more hygiene problems. Domesticated animals, such as cows, are extremely helpful as they assist in carrying water to and from the home (up to seven hours return). Significant absence of H20 – to have enough water for cooking, many kids could not wash properly.

Bridging the Divide

Copyright: Rebecca Mursell

Fifteen children came from Sasenyi Primary to stay with us at Camp Tsavo for three nights. One of the first activities we did was making paper out of elephant poo, aimed at

Copyright: Lisa K. Niemeyer

highlighting that even though elephants may destroy crops, their excrement can be used to begin a sustainable lifestyle. This point was driven home even more so when we visited the Imani Womens Group, who grew mushrooms from elephant poo fertilizer and sold them to the community at a much cheaper price than the local market. We also went on safari with the kids, who had not seen any of their native animals despite their close proximity. We saw lion cubs, elephants, giraffes, a number of four-legged antelopey things and warthogs. All of this hopefully made a profound effect on the children – Fred told us it had been the best experience of his life, and said it was a successful step in bridging the gap between humans and wildlife.

Human-Wildlife Cooperation…

Moving on, Human/Wildlife Peace Day was quite a success. Loved the volleyball. The officials that rocked up were the Education Officer, the Headmaster and the Local Chief. The HIV/AIDS Awareness Group performed a play entirely in Swahili. It was funny,

Copyright: michelle de herder

apparently. Everyone  seemed to get it, and hilarity ensued. There was a goat, which interrupted the first half of the program with its incessant bleating. Suspiciously, goat was served for lunch, and no further evidence of aforementioned goat could be found. The group that had stayed with us in Camp Tsavo performed a brief play about poaching and the far-reaching consequences it has for not just the community, but the entire universe. Even though this was also performed in Swahili, it was

relatively easy to follow, and quite funny, as the boys playing the poachers were quite expressive in their actions. There was a dance performed by some of the women with lots of jingling and an interesting instrument we had never seen before, that looked like it had been made out of a funnel and a hose.

It was ‘well’ entertaining. The final performance was the school children’s dance, who invited us to join them. We did, and quite possibly damaged the school’s reputation beyond repair. Can’t teach a white person to dance! A few tears were shed as we left that day. Despite the conditions that the villagers had to live in, they were nothing but accommodating and welcoming. They took great pride in what they had, and were not embarrassed of their situation, only seeking a way to better it…

copyright: Lisa K. Niemeyer

PS> Loads more photos HERE!