Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I think it would be a bit of an understatement to say that over the past couple of weeks I have been a little bit busy. I will try and keep this as brief as possible I promise.
The weather has been almost as crazy as me these past few weeks and the rain has been chucking it down. However there has been a lot of sun too and a little rain couldn’t interrupt my recent stride, or sprint. I have been quite manically busy (just a shame it’s not all been for work). Following my last post I have been all over the place – quite literally. I made my way up to Kilifi to go and see the Coastal Forest Conservation Unit, who I will be working with a fair bit over the next couple of years. The guys there are great and really know their stuff, and more importantly know what they do not know, which is surprisingly important and very hard to find out here. We had a very productive meeting and I was given a report to read through and some great contacts of people who had done work on the Kayas which might be useful for my project. After the meeting we arrange for me to come back later in the week for one of the staff members to show me round the Kaya forests in the area, so that I could get an idea of the locations and accessibility of the sites.
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| Butterfly by one of the Kayas |
Instead of heading back to Mombasa and then coming back up to Kilifi later in the week, Warren, one of the guys I met at the St George’s dinner offered to put me up in Kilifi for a few days. His place (well his Dad’s place) is incredible. They own one of the largest dairy farms on the coast, so have an extensive amount of land. Their house is beautiful, with incredible views of the creek which is even more stunning when you are swimming in their pool! I had a comfy bed, warm shower, swam each day, ate good food, played with the dogs and got quite a lot of work done. That is a life I could certainly get used to...
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| A moth that landed on me when working on the terrace |
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| Windows - the cat who thinks he's a dog |
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| Pool looking over the creek |
Of course Warren wasn’t about to let me stay on the farm and not have a look around and get to know the place. So I joined him on a couple of trips around the farm checking up on cattle and staff. I was even made to drive the 4x4 whilst they loaded up the truck with sisal – a plant that is used for its fibres (kind of like hemp). Whilst showing me around Warren told me about the eco-friendly stuff they were already doing like collecting the cow manure and using the methane to power the dairy barn, and his plans for the future, such as agro-forestry projects using slow-growth woods. The place is great, and it was wonderful to see people in the farming industry taking environmental issues seriously and really trying to work out how it applies to them and what they can do that will be both economically beneficial to them, but also in the interest of preserving their surrounding environment.
Once I got back to Mombasa I had one day before I was whisked away on a Safari to Tsavo East. It was fantastic. We had a great group of people and saw some amazing things, including Lions, Crocodiles, Hippo and a Cheetah! We spent the night camping, cooked sausages and schmores on the fire and had such fun.
We watched the sunset, and the sunrise. I did a bit of the driving, and we spent the majority of two days laughing, hanging out the windows of the cars looking at animals. It was quite possibly the best couple of days in Kenya to date (or at least till that point!). We got back on Sunday evening, and after lunch with the guys I then headed into town to go and get the night bus to Nairobi.
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| Our Safari Group |
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| Sunrise |
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| Cheetah! |
I spent 3 days in Nairobi meeting with botanists from the National Museums. Again they were so helpful. I have been given data on plant species, advice and contacts to get in touch with. The head of the herbarium, Dr. Malombe is a great guy, and I found out that one of the guys who has given me some of the most important data that I will be using for my species analysis is actually one of my friend’s Dad! Kenya is a very, very small place. I also met up with a friend from the UK who was out in Nairobi working with the MEAK charity (http://www.meak.org/) who were out performing life-saving heart surgery on children from around Kenya. The work they do is incredible, and I spent a fascinating evening listening to their stories about the patients they see, the hospitals they work in, and the incredible things that they do.
After collecting the data I headed back to Mombasa. After a minor incident in a tuk-tuk which involved a man-hole, my shoulder and a metal bar I finally caught up with the others. Then the rest of the week was busy preparing for my birthday party! It was a BBQ with the joint themes of Naughty and Nice mixed with Tree huggers. Some of the costumes were very impressive and the night was fantastic. I knew about half the people there (about 50 turned up), but I got to know pretty much everyone and apart from one or two minor injuries (or mementoes as I like to think of them) a great night was had by all.
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| Some of the guys in their fancy-dress |
On the Saturday after chatting to my Dad, we had a big fry up and then spent the afternoon working off our hangovers in the water wake-boarding (I was not quite as good as the last time, but put it down to the bindings being too big for my feet), and in the evening when to a friend’s fundraiser for the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust (http://www.rhinoark.or.ke/) which involved eating a 3 course meal and spending the night dancing and drinking at Il Covo – it really was quite gruelling J
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| Me wake-boarding! |
You would have thought that by Sunday I was ready to collapse, and I was. However that is not the Mombasa way! On Sunday we had a group bonding session for Vagazzles... This is the team that I am in for Diani Rules next weekend. In short it is a charity fundraiser which involves lots of teams, games and drinking. More to follow on that shortly. However, Sunday I feel was a minor taster. Lots of messing about by the pool, frozen T-shirt contest which we won (obviously), many people being up-ended into the pool, and a lot of laughter. It was quite possibly the best way to end what was a quite fantastic weekend.
