Pendeza Weaving

On many occasions I noticed this sign by the road as I went by tuk-tuk from Nyamasaria back to Kisumu, and occasionally wondered what it was, but the trees by the road were tall and somewhat overgrown, and I couldn't see anything, so stupidly I assumed it was just one of the defunct signs we see everywhere in Africa.

Now, with the aid of Google, I've found this   http://www.pendezaweaving.com/management-and-founders    and have discovered that this weaving workshop started in Nyalenda catholic centre in the early 1980's !   I now WISH I had called in to see what was going on, and to see their weaving.      They spin and weave the cotton grown in Nyanza, and have expanded to another workshop nearer the lake at Bondo,   It would have been good to go and buy some of their products to bring back to Monmouth, for sale through our office and at the market stalls we have each month in town.

They make cotton/wool shawls (as above), cotton baby blankets, floor rugs, various items of clothing, and are now starting to use water hyacinth fibres.

Watch the youtube video !    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW7gs13odGk

I've got it working !

My scanner ... and here is one of the first pictures I scanned.

This is Ahmed, reputedly one of the oldest elephants with the biggest tusks, in Kenya ... somewhere I have photos of the animal when it was alive, up at Marsabit, a mountain in what we used to call the NFD ... the northern frontier district !   (A very pre-independence, colonial name).  When he died in the 1970's, his skeleton was put in the National Museum in Nairobi.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               And here he is, in the flesh, so to speak !   He was protected under a special Presidential decree by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and had armed guards near him, day and night, as those tusks would have been worth a bit.   There were two other slightly younger elephants always near him, sort of companions.   It was interesting very slowly approaching him through the bush, but as I say, the askari's were there to protect us as well as the elephants.       

It wasn't until I saw his skeleton in the museum on my 1996 trip with S. and T., that I realised just how large he was.                                                                  

Kenya, 1996 .... my diary of that visit !

Nice !!

I've been spending 'rest times' (doc recommended I had a rest each day to try and recover quicker from a bug I picked up on my last visit .... but that's another story) .... so I've been using the time to sort through and label old  Africa photos, some from 1968 !   

The crocodile above is one from a visit to Kenya when I took my two youngest children; daughter S. was about 15 or 16 and son T. was 14.   Daughter had been born in Kenya, but left at the age of six months; son was born in the UK, so really, neither of them had the African experience the two oldest daughters had, and as I had inherited some money, I decided to spend it on taking them to Africa !

My diary is stuffed full of all sorts of things; bills and receipts, seed pods, thorns, pressed flowers, etc. etc.   This diary must have started a habit for all my future travel diaries are the same, full of bits and pieces, as well as words !

                                                                                                                                                                    

 

Joseph Adhiambo (whose photo is in the right hand side bar) had originally worked for us as a 'house-boy', and we had sent him to school, and he got a good job in Nairobi, in a tourist shop inside the Norfolk Hotel, and as I had kept in contact, he generously took three weeks leave from his job, to be our driver, guide, guard, companion and friend during our stay.   It was so very kind of him.  

According to the diary, we flew out on Air Madagascar, which I had forgotten.   I have also forgotten (and I quote) .... "The plane touched down on Kenya soil (tarmac) and I burst into tears !   S and T must have thought I was crazy, but I was overcome with emotion at my first sight of Kenya through the plane window after 17 and a half years ..."

"Right at the front of the crowd in arrivals, with a face splitting grin, was Joseph, dapper in a smart business suit which was a bit different to his rags when we first met him in 1968.   Hand shakes, greetings, hugs, laughter .... Joseph then went to get his friend Tony 'and some children' ..."    (Tony owned a mini-bus)   The children turned out to be seven of various ages !   Some were Josephs, the rest I never did identify.     We piled into Tony's mini-bus, and I record that our luggage included a doll's house (again I'd forgotten this !) which we were giving to a school.   

"Within minutes we had seen giraffe and zebra as the road borders the national park .... but at the junction of Uhuru and Kenyatta avenues, the mini-bus broke down !   Tony and Joseph pushed the bus onto the edge of Uhuru Park, and Joseph walked to where he had left his car ...."     Welcome back to Africa !

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

 
I have masses of photos from this trip with the youngsters, but it was pre-digital cameras and so I had what is now an old-fashioned SLR camera and a telephoto lens, to take photos.   I got them all printed when I returned.    I must get my scanner working, and convert them into digital images.    Watch this space !

A quick bit of patchwork

The vicar at the church I attend in Tintern is retiring in a month or so, and many of the congregation are contributing small panels to a wall hanging for her as a farewell gift.  As many of the people there provided baby clothes, bra's (!) and money for me to take out to Africa, to Pandipieri, I thought my panel could show Africa and the 'Nyasaye Ber' motto (God is Good) from outside the community .... and of course, I had to use some of my African wax print patchwork pieces to make it !  

And here is my panel; I've left the edges to be trimmed to size by the lady who is sewing them altogether.  

It was a bit of a rush job; the panels have to be delivered tomorrow, and as I only got the backing material and instructions this morning .... 

Severe drought .... then this. (Report from Reuters)

Raging floods, which have killed 26 people and forced almost 25,000 from their homes in Kenya this month, will exacerbate hunger and poverty among herders who have already lost livestock to the worst drought in five years, charities warned.

Flood waters have swept away almost 9,000 cattle in northern and coastal Kenya, areas dominated by pastoralists who were hard hit by drought last year and in 2017.

Refugees in north-eastern Kenya's Dadaab camp have been up to their knees in floodwaters which have swept away thousands of homes and food supplies, the United Nations refugee agency said on its website, with the rains set to continue until late May.

"Fewer animals means less income, less food and increased poverty," says Piers Simpkin, a livestock expert with the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization.  "If you lose 50 percent of your sheep and goat flock it takes at least 3 years to recover. If 50 percent of the cattle are lost, it can take 10 years to recover."

The flooding came after some livestock herding communities lost their entire herds to a prolonged drought, which the Kenyan government declared a national disaster in February.

Eastern and southern Africa were hard hit in 2016 by drought exacerbated by El Nino - a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean - that wilted crops, slowed economic growth and drove food prices higher.

The torrential seasonal rains have caused landslides and floods in coastal and western Kenya, as well as flooding in Somalia, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The United Nations estimated almost three million of Kenya's 46 million people now need humanitarian aid, along with almost eight million people in Ethiopia and seven million in Somalia.

Some more 'just found' old photos (apologies for poor quality due to aging and dust)

You know I like most animals, large and small .... ants particularly are fascinating, as are beetles and most creepy crawlies.   So I was always on the look-out for chameleons !

My two oldest daughters, 1975, Lake Baringo.  

They were aged 4 and a half, and 2 and a half.

A different chameleon species from near L. Victoria, December 1969

High altitude chameleons, Cherangany,  August, 1969.   

The African holding this pair was very brave; 

chameleons are feared by most local people in Kenya.

Ebola in the DRC .........

Ebola has broken out in a remote region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39899406

But it is in an isolated part of the country, so hopefully should be contained.   AND  there is now a trial vaccine ...

What did we do wrong ?

About seventy years is all the time the European was 'owning' East Africa; we took medicine, religion, education …. and also I think, avarice. The first white men to venture into Eastern Africa were the explorers, but they were soon followed by expanding trade from the coast. It was obvious that easier and safer access was necessary, and a railway was planned …. the so called 'Lunatic Line' from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, to Port Florence, which became Kisumu. It took six years to build, with many deaths along the way of imported Indian workers (whose children and grandchildren formed the core of traders all over Kenya and Uganda). But it opened up the highlands to would be settlers and farmers, the rich 'Happy Valley' set of philanderers and wife swappers, the remittance men, missionaries, doctors, teachers ….

Was that the right thing to do ? European medicine meant that African families who had previously had ten or twelve children, of which perhaps two survived to become adults, now could raise most of them - and created problems for their parents to feed and educate. Education taught children about the world so that they had ambition and eventually wanted jobs that didn't exist. Religion … both Christianity and Islam …. replaced animism and traditional beliefs. And avarice and greed of the wazungu meant the countries natural resources were plundered for the benefit of people in other countries. Now avarice and greed …. and corruption …. is the way of the educated minority in many African countries. Was that what we meant to teach ?

When I first went to Kenya in the 1960's, just after independence, even back then I realised that teaching boys (and later girls) to become 'white collar' workers in Nairobi government offices and businesses wasn't going to work. A young man of perhaps 25 was going to be filling that office job until he was 60 …. thus preventing his younger brothers from taking that job. Training for careers as artisans would have been MUCH more useful for 90% of the students, but the only working white people on view to the newly liberated Africans were doing 'white collar' jobs, so that is what they aspired to.

The draw to the city meant the growth of slums like Kibera outside Nairobi, Nyalenda outside Kisumu and so on, with street children and beggars on every street, pollution, and the easy spread of diseases …. like HIV. And of course, the pull to the cities meant the rural areas were being depleted, leaving the family 'homes' to be looked after and the shamba's dug by the women and the elderly …. or abandoned (although people who die elsewhere are usually taken back to be buried traditionally in the 'home' with their ancestors so there is still a link). When I went to the talk last year in September by Harry Hook, he kept emphasising the fact that urbanisation is taking over much of Africa …. but not to its benefit. Here in UK, the 'country cottage' is the desire of many retiring city workers who have had more than enough of city life !

Perhaps it will take many generations for the people of Africa to realise that not everything 'European' is good. In the time of my great grand-parents, who were born and lived and worked in rural Dorset in the 1800's, around 1900 there was the move, for work, to the south Wales mines. Now, 100 years later, half of my family are back living in the country !  I had a long discussion with Paul at the workshop about the need for his children to know about their roots and traditions. He has taken up my suggestion of writing down his family history for future generations.   There is no need to ape the white man; doing things the African way in Africa must be best, surely ?

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

An almost invisible cicada (another of my recently found old photos.)

  

Soft, gentle beauty

I've been sorting more old photos .... and isn't this just sheer beauty ??

From todays (Kenya) Standard newspaper ... and going to church.

Reasons why Kenya is slowly headed to being a lawless society

What happened to the civic habit and duty of living by the law? Everywhere one looks it is clear that Kenya is sliding into a rather toxic form of lawlessness.

Take our conduct on the road. Minibus drivers, private motorists and ‘boda boda’ cyclists are outdoing one another in their rush to take a shortcut to the next life. Overlapping, overtaking on the left and on blind corners is now the norm rather the exception. Unnecessary shrill hooting is driving other drivers up the wall. And in all this, traffic police officers are concerned almost entirely on collecting ‘levies’ to the exclusion of everything else.

Then there is the noise and the disgusting din and frustration that go with it. From bars, to schools, to public transport, to (God forbid!) the church, it is one continuous blast of high decibel ear-drum bursting, chest-crushing excruciating din 24/7. The National Environmental Management Agency (NEMA) has stringent legislation governing the use of sound generating devices and equipment with the aim of protecting citizens from harmful noise nuisance. Neither the public nor NEMA seem to be interested in conducting themselves in accordance with the said legislations. 

I find it shocking that the church breaks NEMA rules with abandon. Christian leaders and stewards are, by definition, supposed to be on the forefront in keeping the law. Apostle Paul in Romans 13:1 writes “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God”  NEMA is particularly strict on noise-making at night, requiring that a sound producing device must not disturb or bring discomfort to person 30 metres away.

It is not uncommon to have ‘keshas’ (overnight prayers) where prayers and praises are conducted with the help of high powered amplifiers and speakers that keep everyone within a radius of 3 km awake for the duration of the prayers!  Since the time of Jesus to as recently as 15 years ago church worship services have been conducted very effectively without all the gizmos available to today’s clergy. When, for example, the Psalmist (Ps 33:3) says “Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy”, I don’t think he had a 1200 watt box speaker in mind!

Our clergy can learn from churches run by Europeans and Americans (in whose countries it is routine to obey the law) so much about effective use of sound equipment for maximum audibility and minimum noise by balancing sound decibel output and ambient acoustics.

One reason noise infringement thrives in Kenya is that planning and zoning has been thrown out of the window. You will find a church, a kindergarten, disco and petrol station sharing the same space with residential quarters. Surely it is common sense that a church  or mosque should be isolated so that worshippers can rejoice as loudly as they wish without robbing anyone of sleep.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

I can vouch for the noise from various 'churches' and was often woken soon after 4 a.m. by the call to prayer at a nearby mosque.   What we might call 'clappy happy' churches are proliferating in small tin shacks all along the Kisumu Ring Road, opposite Pandipieri and Nyalenda, and the noise is out of all proportion to the size of the buildings, which are about the size of a typical British garage next to a persons house.

The CITAM (Christ Is The Answer Ministries) (Pentecostal) church is the largest church in Kisumu ... its enormous, and I know it has huge congregations, but the noise IS contained.

When I'm in Kisumu, I either attend the services in the Mill Hill chapel, or go to St Josephs (R.C.) church, in Milimani, at which the congregation is around 500 for each of three services every Sunday morning.   They have a Dholuo service at 8 a.m., then an English language one at 10, followed by a Kiswahili service at noon.

The services at St Josephs can be up to two hours long, but at the Anglican church, they are even longer, and there is a limit to what one can take !    Sermons are typically over an hour in length.  Besides, the day I went to the Anglican church, the service went on so long, I was at risk of missing lunch back at the guest-house, so I tip-toed out, watched by the congregation of 500 .... being the only white lady present made it embarrasingly obvious.

Sylvanus update, and some Stapelia !

I just today heard that Sylvanus is still attending the Pandipieri clinic three times a week for his ulcer treatment, which is excellent.   I had feared he might default, but I should have had more faith !   Unfortunately, I wasn't told how his leg is progressing, but will try and find out more.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~ 

Its amazing the old photos I am finding this week; this plant was growing in one of our Kenya gardens.   Its a variety of Stapelia, probably gigantea, and the flowers stink like rotting meat, so attracting flies which act as pollinators.  

And another species of Stapelia, with flowers arranged in a sort of ball on top of the stem, rather than singly.    This one was growing in dry bush country, not our garden.   They seems to prefer dry, stony ground.

The 49th Year, explained .........

I first arrived in Kenya on 12th September, 1968 .... and for many years now I have had the intention or dream of returning for a 'final fling', so to speak, on the 50th anniversary next year, thus making this year, the 49th year !    I have returned to Africa on many occasions since 1979, when we left after a long period of teaching in various schools in western Kenya.    I took my youngest daughter (who was born in Kenya and left as a baby) and my son to Kenya in 1996, to give them a little taste of the experiences their older sisters had.   Then in 2002 I went on a desert trek to Namibia to raise money for charity, and in 2006 went to Egypt.  So together with a visit to Nigeria in 1973, I have seen something of north, south and west Africa, as well as my years in East Africa.  

Like so many people I know, Africa gets into your blood, and you cannot leave it alone, like a persistent itch.   I dream of Africa ... and am reminded of Karen Blixens musing:-  "If I know a song of Africa .... does Africa know a song of me?"  I do know that people in Kisumu remember me, even if I forget their names, for I am often greeted in the streets by people I have only met once, (and I myself met a beautiful Indian lady on a train in Canada I had last seen in her grocer fathers Kisumu shop when she was a child).   The most remarkable was an elderly Luo man I met a few years ago in the main street of Kisumu, who remembered me, (and the name of my first daughter) from when I lived at Maseno, more than 40 years previously.     

I have been searching through old pictures, mostly from re-scanned 35mm slides, to see what are the earliest pictures I have of Kenya .... the sunset was taken in September 1968 from the first house we lived in at a place called Ng'iya; we were there for about three months, and then moved to Maranda in December 1968 to the house in the second picture .... we had actually had to help in the building of this house !   Government officers (i.e. teachers) had to go where they were sent, so we lived in, I think, seven different houses in our time there.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

To change the subject completely, I have been thinking of the current troubles in Laikipia, with ranches and farms (many of which are owned by white Kenya citizens) being invaded by local nomadic tribesmen who burn buildings and shoot workers and the owners, so that they can drive their cattle onto the ranch land for water and grazing, during this dreadful on-going drought.   

Just as the population of Kenya has increased vastly (five times what it was in the 1970's) so have the numbers of cattle, sheep and goats.   The tourist camps, ranches and hotels rightly employ many of the local people, for example, the Maasai and Samburu men are employed as guides and safari drivers.   This brings money and improvements to the local community .... BUT much of this money is spent on increasing the size of herds, which puts more pressure on the grazing available.   

To many Africans, cattle are like money in the bank, and the goats are their larder.   You don't eat your bank balance !   In times of drought and famine, it would be good if there was some sort of government scheme to buy many of the cattle, for slaughter, and turning into meat products ... but who wants money ?   The nomadic pastoralist peoples love their cattle, even if the cattle are starving, and drive them into the reserves in an often futile attempt to keep them alive on stolen grazing until the rains come.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

I was given this 1938 book last week by a friend; its SO very of its time !   This is the sort of stuff that encouraged white settlers !!  

                                

Hans Burgman leaves Kisumu - for the last time ?

I found some pictures on FB of Fr. Hans last mass at Pandipieri ... he must by now be back in Holland.

               Consecrating the host ...                       ... with a large congregation.


                             ... and what looks like a farewell tree planting (below)

So much of what exists at Pandipieri centre, (and at Nyalenda centre - picture above) was initiated by Fr. Hans over the 40+ years he was there.   

His philosophy was summed up thus:-
1. When a community is in trouble, the solution should come from within the community.
2. If you want to be part of the solution, you must first become part of the community.
3. You must first of all use the assets of the community, especially the people.
4. The source of our inspiration is the simple Gospel. In the light of experience it is difficult to see what alternative there is.  

Leaving St Josephs, Milimani, after celebrating his last mass there ... 

I understand there was to be a massive party for him but can't find that on the internet ... yet.   Meanwhile, his jubilee video is still available online ....   https://vimeo.com/71999924

Fight for power takes new forms as Kenyan elections approach - report from Reuters today about Kisumu.

A crowd of elated young men danced outside the market in Kenya’s southern Kisumu city, waving the crisp new 200 shilling ($2) notes that a local politician was distributing from behind a dusty speaker that pounded out music. Shoppers paid scant attention. Cash handouts are common during African elections; in Kenya, the devolution of power to 47 counties has made them ubiquitous in the run up to polls for president, parliament and counties due on Aug 8.

The counties, which manage local infrastructure, were introduced five years ago after a government-appointed international commission concluded power was too centralized in the country and partly to blame for violence that killed 1,200 people and crippled the economy following elections in 2007. The process has been backed by international loans as a way to spread democracy and accountability within a vital Western ally. But devolution has also fuelled local corruption, officials and transparency campaigners say, and with it the prospect of more localized violence come election time. The prize of county budgets worth billions of shillings mean this month's party primaries for the county elections are hard-fought. Candidates often got into debt to try to buy votes, counting on future riches once in office.

Clashes have already broken out, and violent elections could threaten stability in a country that borders two others in turmoil: Somalia and South Sudan.

The interior ministry said on Monday that politically instigated violence had been recorded in 12 counties so far. "Politicians and their supporters have engaged in acts of violence, destroying property and creating disturbance in polling stations," it said. At least 14 civilians and four policemen have been killed in the drought-hit northern Laikipia region. A local politician is charged with inciting violence and arson after invasions of private land by cattle-herders and a spate of attacks on farmers and owners of safari parks.

Kenya's ruling coalition annulled 21 county primaries held on Friday amid widespread anger over shortages of voting materials. It began rerunning them on Monday. The opposition will also rerun some primaries after allegations of rigging.

Rose Onyango, who was selling dried fish in the market near the rally in Kisumu last week, said three members of the county assembly and two aspiring governors had given out cash in the market over the past few days, hoping to win votes. “We just had a woman aspirant an hour ago but she gave it to someone to distribute," the 24-year-old said. "The crowd tore her clothes and the money was splashed everywhere.”

Kenyans are haunted by the disputed 2007 presidential poll. Dozens of men, women and children were burned alive in a church. Others were hunted down by machete-wielding gangs during the widespread ethnic violence that followed. More than half a million people fled their homes. Some never returned. Protests also broke out after elections in 2013, but they were much smaller. A case at the International Criminal Court against powerful politicians, including President Uhuru Kenyatta, helped dampen violence.

That case has now collapsed. Kenyatta is running for a second term and his old nemesis Raila Odinga is building an opposition alliance. Odinga has said mass protests are possible if elections are rigged. But this time it is not winner-takes-all. Devolution is designed, in part, to ensure there will be many winners. "Devolution can defuse massive violence, although it can intensify it in individual counties," said Titus Ogalo, head of the local anti-corruption Transparency International chapter. "People feel, 'Even if we lose the presidency, we have something to fight for at the local level'." The counties get around 20 percent of national revenues. They can also raise local taxes. In return, they must provide most health facilities, preschools, and local infrastructure. Halakhe Waqo, CEO of the government-run Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, said mismanagement is rife. "Every procurement process is a problem. Funds are given to relatives, contracts are given to relatives and tribesmen,” he said.

Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city perched on the green shores of Lake Victoria, is Odinga’s stronghold, dominated by his Luo ethnic group. Residents complain the central government has neglected them for decades. The port is choked by water hyacinth, stranding sun-bleached boats at the docks. The rusting railway has not seen a train for years, and the new international airport has no international flights. Football authorities have stopped holding international matches at the city's stadium because of a rubbish dump nearby.

Reuters interviewed more than two dozen voters: all supported devolution as a way of wresting power and resources from the central government. Many also complained that Kenya's powerful Kikuyu tribe dominates that central government. Devolution, some said, was already helping. Kisumu boasts a few new street lights, freshly erected cement market stalls, gravelled roads and newly painted clinics. Governor Jack Ranguma said he had given 530 schoolchildren bursaries and started a free ambulance service. "I have many top achievements," he said. "The investment in medicine and the investment in physical infrastructure is huge … but a lot of money still remains with national government. That’s a serious challenge that we have."

Asked about vote buying, Ochien'g Obiero Philip, the governor's director of political affairs, said many voters would not show up unless they received a cash payment. "It's something that the voters expect," he said. "It is one of the challenges of democracy in Kenya. People expect handouts to be motivated to vote. It is widespread and the legal framework has never acted on it so it's a loophole."

Some Kisumu residents said construction was sometimes shoddy or projects sat unused, like the padlocked new clinic at Dunga beach where goats lounge on the porch. Ranguma said there was no money for staff. Locals said the contractor locked the clinic because he was not paid. "Devolution has failed here because we have had bad leaders. Many just want the money," said a doctor in the county hospital. He declined to be named for fear of repercussions. Hotel receptionist Victoria Ochieng disagreed. "Do you think those people in Nairobi will do better?" she asked. "We used to have one president and now we have 47. The governor is our president ... At least we can see him and make a request." Each governor makes around 14,000,000 shillings per year ($135,000), including perks, according to the International Budget Partnership (IBP), a global organization that works with civil society groups to analyse budgets in developing countries.  A regular member of the county assembly makes about a third of that, still a premium on the average annual salary in Kenya of 134,000 shillings ($1,300). Officials justify the salaries by saying constituents often seek funds for events like funerals. Many local legislators also take hefty travelling allowances; Kisumu's lawmakers have travelled to Singapore and Dubai, among other places. Ranguma said they were learning about agriculture and devolution.

Waqo from the anti-corruption authority said it has charged more than 300 officials from various counties and is investigating more than 40 of the 47 governors. Charges have been brought against six. After the counties got power and money, many feared violence could follow. "The governors are mini-presidents and those who have muscle or money have the advantage over those with a reputation for integrity," said Kisumu political activist George Ogada. "If the situation does not favour them, then they would prefer to disrupt the election."

Contestants in party primaries are already accusing rivals publicly of rigging. "It starts as propaganda, then it takes on its own life. Each camp prepares to counter the other," Ogada said. "There is a lot of hatred between the candidates."

~   ~   ~  ~   ~

It is not my intention to make this blog into a political commentary blog, but I get news from Reuters and the Kenyan Daily Nation most days, which shows me that my feelings of unease before I left  Kenya in March were correct.   I really do fear for the future of this beautiful country that holds my heart; it seems to be on a path of self-destruction.  

Kuki Gallmann shot in Laikipia.

Report from Reuters, 23rd April, 2017

Gunmen wounded Italian-born conservationist Kuki Gallmann at her conservation park on Sunday in the latest of a string of attacks during land invasions in drought-stricken northern Kenya, which residents say are intensifying as August polls approach.

The 73-year-old author of the memoir "I Dreamed of Africa" was shot in the stomach after the vehicle she was driving in was ambushed by a group of gunmen, a family friend said.   She was going to inspect fresh damage to her property after invaders burned down a retreat there on Saturday. A luxury hotel there had already been burnt down last month.

She was ambushed when she was forced to stop by a tree laid across the track, the friend said. The gunmen shot her, but Gallmann was saved when rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service intervened and fought off the attackers.

Gallmann was first flown to a hospital in the nearby town of Nanyuki to be stabilized. British military medics accompanied her on another helicopter to receive surgery at a hospital in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, a friend said.   Kuki's daughter Sveva -- who herself was shot at in an incident in March -- said that her mother was able to speak.

The Gallmann family own the 100,000-acre (400 square km) Laikipia Nature Conservancy and employ 250 Kenyans on the luxury lodges, ranch, and other businesses on the land.

They also run the Gallmann Africa Conservancy and Gallmann Memorial Foundation, conservation groups focusing on bringing people and wildlife together sustainably.

A wave of violence has hit Kenya's drought-stricken Laikipia region in recent months as armed cattle-herders searching for scarce grazing land have driven tens of thousands of cattle onto private farms and ranches from poor quality communal land.

Many residents of the area accuse local politicians of inciting the violence ahead of the August elections. They say the men are trying to drive out voters who might oppose them and win votes by promising supporters access to private land.

National police spokesman George Kinoti said a local politician was already facing court charges for inciting violence and arson in the area.

"We also wish to caution certain politicians to refrain from making statements that amount to encouraging ranch invasion," he said in a statement.

At least 14 civilians have been killed, including local resident Duncan Murimi, who was shot in the stomach by militias and who died three days ago on a neighboring property. Another Kenyan, Ethaju Eloto, was killed 10 days ago in the same area.  Last month, Tristan Voorspuy, a British military veteran who ran a safari company in Kenya, was shot dead at a private ranch in Laikipia after he went to inspect the remains of a friend's home that had been burnt down.  Laikipia county police commander Ezekial Chepkwony said four policeman had also been killed in a week in the area.

Martin Evans, head of the Laikipia Farmers' Association, condemned the attack on Gallmann and said "dozens of people have been killed or wounded and subjected to robbery and vandalism of their property. Kuki is a world famous author and conservationist -- but the LFA urges sympathy for all."

Raila Odinga, the country's veteran opposition leader, also condemned the attack and said "we have watched in bewilderment as hooligans take advantage of the drought to subject these ranchers to unwarranted attacks ... the government is clearly unable or unwilling to bring these attacks to a stop."

*   *   *   *   *

Kuki Gallmann - such a tragic family - her husband Paulo was killed in a car crash, and their son Emanuele died from a puff adder bite a year or so later.   I briefly met her in the 1970's at a friends house - a very bubbley expressive Italian lady, enthusiastic about Africa and its peoples and wildlife.

The election chaos starting ...........

(From BBC  Africa news)

Kenya election: Kenyatta blames primaries chaos on turnout

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has blamed huge voter turnout for the chaos at his party's primaries on Friday, which led to them being cancelled.

In many areas across the country, there were delays, with some skirmishes also reported as contestants accused their opponents of rigging.

Mr Kenyatta admitted to reporters that not enough election materials had been provided.

The primaries are in preparation for August's national poll.

The election will take place nearly a decade after disputed election results fuelled violence that left more than 1,000 dead and 500,000 displaced.

However elections in 2013 passed off relatively peacefully.  

Mr Kenyatta said his Jubilee Party had underestimated the number of people who would turn out for the nominations.

"Let us avoid pointing fingers," he said in a series of tweets.

Image copyright@JUBILEEPARTYK

Mr Kenyatta called on voters and contestants to be patient as the party prepared to repeat the vote in the affected areas.

The Jubilee party was holding primaries in 21 out of the 47 counties on Friday, most of them party strongholds.

Nominations in the capital Nairobi had already been pushed back to Monday. The remaining counties will nominate their candidates on Tuesday.

Parties must hold their primaries by Wednesday, the election authorities have said.

Last week, similar polls for the opposition Orange Democratic Movement led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga witnessed violence, particularly in the western Kenya region.

Mr Kenyatta is seeking a second term in office.

He is being opposed by a coalition of opposition parties known as the National Super Alliance, which is expected to announce its presidential candidate next week.