Thimlich Ohinga

Unesco announces new heritage sites around the world

The Thimlich Ohinga is the largest and best preserved dry-stone wall settlement, typical of Kenya's Lake Victoria region.

The settlement, situated north-west of Migori town, is thought to have been built in the 16th Century and appears to have served as a fort for communities and livestock.

Unesco called it "an exceptional example of the tradition of the first pastoral communities in the Lake Victoria Basin".

Thimlich Ohinga

Thimlich Ohinga Cultural Landscape
Location within Kenya
Location	181 kilometres south of Kisumuin Migori county, on a gentle sloping hill 46 kilometres north-west of Migori town near Macalder's Mines
Coordinates	0.9731°S 34.2583°E

From Wiki:

Thimlich Ohinga is complex of stone-built ruins in Migori county, Western Kenya, in East Africa. It is one of 138 sites containing 521 stone structures that were built around the Lake Victoria region in Kenya. The main enclosure of Thimlich Ohinga has walls that vary from 1.0 to 3 meters in thickness, and 1 to 4.2 meters in height.The structures were built from undressed blocks, rocks, and stones set in place without mortar. The densely packed stones interlock. The site is believed to be more than 550 years old. The area is occupied the Luo people. 'Thimlich' means "frightening dense forest" in Dholuo, the language of the Luo. 'Ohinga' plural 'Ohingni' means "a large fortress" in (Dholuo).

Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf)

I always wanted to go to Lake Rudolf after I read the book:-   'Journey to the Jade Sea' by John Hillaby before I first went to Africa.  Its the lake used for some of the filming of 'The Constant Gardener', which if you've seen it, shows the harshness of the landscape ... and the beauty ...

(I see my copy is suffering the ravages of a 50+ year old paperback book .... I must do some repairs !)

We managed to visit Lake Rudolf/Turkana at least twice while we lived in Kenya; quite a trip, both times, but an amazing place to visit, deep in the deserts of northern Kenya.  More of that later, perhaps ....

So I was saddened, in a way, to read the following article:-

By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, MANAMA, Bahrain, Jun 29 – A UNESCO panel on Thursday added Lake Turkana, a conservation hotspot in Kenya and a candidate site for the birthplace of mankind, to the list of endangered World Heritage Sites.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee expressed concern about the disruptive effect of Ethiopia’s Gibe III dam “on the flow and ecosystem” of Lake Turkana downstream.

The impact “poses further threat to the site,” UNESCO said in a statement on Thursday issued from Bahrain.

Located in northwestern Kenya and known as the Jade Sea, Lake Turkana is the most saline lake in East Africa and the largest desert lake in the world.

Its islands are breeding grounds for the Nile crocodile, hippopotamus and several snake species while the lake itself is important to migratory birds.

The area is also a possible site of mankind’s birth, hosting the fossil deposits at Koobi Fora.
The remains of many early hominins have been found there, including Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

“The Koobi Fora deposits, rich in mammalian, molluscan and other fossil remains, have contributed more to the understanding of paleo-environments than any other site on the continent,” says UNESCO.

“The geology and fossil record represents major stages of earth history,” it adds.

The lake itself is 249 kilometres (155 miles) long and 44km wide while the protected area, known as Lake Turkana National Parks, comprises three adjacent reserves — Central Island, South Island and Sibiloi parks — covering a total area of 161,485 hectares (400,000 acres).

The lake, however, is endangered primarily by Ethiopia’s construction of a hydroelectric and irrigation dam on the Omo River, which replenishes the lake seasonally.

The dam threatens to disrupt seasonal flooding that is essential to the reproductive cycle of the lake fish, with an estimated 300,000 people depending on fishing Turkana for their livelihoods.

The irrigation project is also expected to significantly reduce the total amount of water entering the lake.

Many fear that the two Omo River projects will cause the lake level to reduce dramatically — by several tens of metres (dozens of feet) — echoing the environmental disaster previously seen in the Aral Sea, in Central Asia, which dried up after its feeder rivers were diverted for irrigation schemes.

UNESCO opposed the Gibe III dam, Africa’s highest at 243 meters (800 feet), which was inaugurated at the end of 2016 and also serves to water vast new sugar cane plantations.

“The dam’s impacts on the lake water levels are already becoming evident,” UNESCO warned.

“The data provided shows an overall rapid decline in water levels since January 2015 when the impounding of the Gibe III reservoir commenced, and that seasonal fluctuation patterns have been heavily disrupted.”

UNESCO lamented the absence of proper environmental assessments and warned of “potential downstream impacts on [Lake Turkana], such as reduced water flow and contamination from fertilizers and pesticides”.

“Although the scale of the project has been reduced, it is likely to increase water consumption from the Omo River,” it added, meaning less water reaching the lake.

The southern part of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley is also designated a World Heritage Site.

In Kenya, Richard Leakey, a renowned palaeoanthropologist and conservationist, welcomed the endangered listing but doubted it would save the lake.

“I think the more attention we can get for the plight of Lake Turkana the better, but I don’t think necessarily that UNESCO can do anything for Lake Turkana,” Leakey told AFP.   “UNESCO declared it a world heritage site many years ago, (but) the situation in Turkana continued to get worse not better,” he said.

Plus ça change, I suppose ............ nothing stays the same.   People need water .... 

Photos taken in 1977, showing just a tiny bit of the lake shore, covered in dry volcanic rocks.

Tasty !! (Or nasty)

From a recent Daily Nation:

Police in Nakuru are holding a man suspected to have been selling cat meat to unsuspecting samosa vendors in the town.  The man was arrested after he was found skinning a cat on Sunday.

Speaking to journalists, the suspect, James Kimani, claimed he has sold over 1,000 cats to samosa vendors and a hotel in the town since 2012.   The suspect said he started the business after he “identified a gap in the market”.  However, he said his clients do not know he has been selling cat meat to them.

CAT SKINS

According to him, he has a market for cat skins and that he earns at least Sh500 for every cat he slaughters.  “I began this business in 2012 after I saw there was need for the meat by samosa sellers. I tell my clients that I get the meat from Gioto (a popular dump site) but they do not know it is cat meat,” the suspect told journalists.

He was arrested at Railways area within Nakuru town while skinning a cat.  He had already slit its neck and was in the process of removing the skin.

UNFIT FOR HUMANS

“This means the foods we are eating here in town are questionable. He has said that he has a ready market and has slaughtered over 1,000 cats. It is traumatising that he has market for cat meat and skins, it is shocking,” said Mr Maina Saitoti, a resident.

“He has disclosed he sells the cat meat to a hotel in town. Feeding people with such a meal is not fair,” said another resident, Mr Paul Asika.   “Whoever is doing this business, selling something not fit for human consumption should be arrested,” said Ms Emma Aoko.

The residents beat up the man before he was rescued by police officers and locked at the Ukulima Police Post. 

Dr Githui Kaba, a veterinary officer in Nakuru County observed the act is a criminal offence and against public health laws.   “According to the Meat Control Act and public health descriptions, it is dangerous to eat uninspected meat and meat from animals not prescribed to be food animals; a cat is not a food animal according to the Meat Control Act,” Dr Kaba said.

Should I rename my cat 'Samosa' ?     I don't think so .... poor puss !

Ebola .... and malaria ....

There is another ebola outbreak in the DRC .... Democratic Republic of the Congo .... with the disease first appearing in a rural and hard to get at area .... very poor roads, tracks really, and with virtually no health care.   Ebola has spread to the city of Mbandaka, on the Congo river, which is the 'road' to other parts of the country and the capital, Kinshasa.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) are working in the area to try and contain the outbreak, to stop it spreading to Kinshasa, and thence to other countries along the Congo River.  A vaccine still in development and licensing after the last outbreak of ebola in three west African countries two years ago, is now being given to health workers most at risk.  There isn't enough of the vaccine to vaccinate a population of several million people.  

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And in Kenya, the rains have been torrential this spring, with thousands of people flooded out of their homes along the coast, and in the refugee camps in the north-east of the country.  Following rains come mosquitoes and then malaria.  

Update on 'The forty-ninth year' .... and a diagnosis !

https://luolaughter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-forty-ninth-year.html

I wrote about 'the forty-ninth year' last year, I think in April.   I had always had the desire to be in Kenya on the 50th anniversary of my setting foot in Africa for the first time, back in September 1968.   However, ever since I returned last year, I have been suffering from some mysterious infection or illness, which I briefly mentioned in that posting, and at long last, after 14 months and many, many tests, have a diagnosis as to why I have, in the past year, had one cold after another, pneumonia, noro-virus, encephalitis, urinary infections, and so on.   I have been suffering (possibly for many years) from coeliac disease !   This has manifested itself in my immune system not working, continual tiredness, weight loss, lack of bodily temperature control, ataxia, etc. etc.  

(Gluten free bread, by the way, is FOUL !   It is dry and crumbly, and toast made from it, shatters, like a broken car windscreen !   But being 'gluten-free' is no big deal, its necessary, and I'll cope with it.)

But anyway, I had some months ago decided to abandon the '50th year' visit to Kenya, and go instead on another visit to Jerusalem.  It is very expensive, but I will use the remainder of the money I had put by for one more Kenya visit, and somehow scrape together the rest.  Determination is my middle name !!

So this year, I'll be swapping this ......

.... for this .....

Army Worm

I remember in the early 1970's, there was a lot of work being done, studying army worms, at I.C.I.P.E. ( the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi).   Now there is a new threat.   

This shows people in Vihiga, which was only a couple of miles from where I used to live at Maseno, about 25 miles west of Kisumu.    It was an article in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago, about a slightly different caterpillar called the Fall Army Worm, which has somehow crossed the Atlantic and is now present in Africa.  It reports that this caterpillar can devastate maize crops almost overnight.  

Subsistence farmers can be ruined if this 'worm' gets onto their crops.  The moths can travel more than 60 miles in a night, lay 1,000 to 1,500 eggs, which hatch out into the caterpillars, which then munch their way through maize, millet, sorghum and other crops.  

Genetically modified crops have an immunity to the pest, but these are not grown in most of Africa, because of cost.   Many subsistence farmers keep some of their best maize seeds to plant the following year.   

Eradicating hunger in Africa could be put at grave risk because of this 'worm' ....

Lost photo found ........

I was looking for this one when I wrote a posting about mountains .... 

A thin person on top of Menegai crater in 1969, a steep old extinct volcano near Nakuru, where we lived for a couple of years.    Goodness !   To be that skinny again .... !!

Reduction in flying toilets !!

Kenya's very strict plastic bag ban seems to be working since it was introduced 8 months ago. 

(Picture and article adapted from The Guardian)

Children now playing on what was a huge rubbish dump, mostly composed of plastic bags.  

Waterways are clearer, the food chain is less contaminated with plastic – and there are fewer “flying toilets”.

A year after Kenya announced the world’s toughest ban on plastic bags, and eight months after it was introduced, the authorities are claiming victory – so much so that other east African nations Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan are considering following suit.

But it is equally clear that there have been significant knock-on effects on businesses, consumers and even jobs as a result of removing a once-ubiquitous feature of Kenyan life.

“Our streets are generally cleaner which has brought with it a general ‘feel-good’ factor,” said David Ong’are, the enforcement director of the National Environment Management Authority. “You no longer see carrier bags flying around when its windy. Waterways are less obstructed. Fishermen on the coast and Lake Victoria are seeing few bags entangled in their nets.”

Ong’are said abattoirs used to find plastic in the guts of roughly three out of every 10 animals taken to slaughter. This has gone down to one. The government is now conducting a proper analysis to measure the overall effect of the measure.

The draconian ban came in on 28 August 2017, threatening up to four years’ imprisonment or fines of $40,000 (£31,000) for anyone producing, selling – or even just carrying – a plastic bag.

In Nairobi’s shanty towns, one immediate impact was on the practice of defecating in a plastic bag, tying it up and then throwing it on to the tin roofs, a convenience known as “flying toilets”.

In the Mathare community, this is good news. Since the ban was introduced, many more people are using a communal toilet, which charges 5 Kenyan shillings (4p) for single use or 100 shillings for a month-long family pass.

The facility is on the bustling thoroughfare leading down into Mathare valley. One of the administrators Caleb Omondi said he has already noticed a difference now that flying toilets are effectively prohibited.

“The number of users is now much higher. We used to get about 300 people a day. Now it’s over 400,” he said. “I’m overjoyed. This is making the community cleaner and we get more income.”

Old photos, 1 ... Mountains (and a few hills)

I've been sitting out the awful chilly, wet spring weather sorting old photos and slides from the late 1960's onwards, and thought readers might like to see some of them !  (It's just me, showing off really !)   I must apologise for the dreadful state of some of these pictures .... they have suffered the ravages of time, dust and damp.

So .... some mountains:

Mount Kenya, jagged bare rocks - all that remains of an eroded volcanic plug; a real mountaineers mountain, not for an easy stroll or even a hard trek, like Kilimanjaro.

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Fancy coming out of your tent at dawn, and seeing the highest mountain in Africa !  The twin peaks of Kilimanjaro, from Amboseli Reserve, on the Kenya/Tanzania border, with the highest part (Kibo - 5895 metres, or 19,341 ft) on the right, and Mawenzi, on the left.   Kibo is regularly climbed by intrepid tourists; it takes five days for the expedition, with guides, and the risk of altitude sickness, but many do it.  (I never did, but my parents-in-law climbed it in their late 50's, and survived to tell the tale !)

And from the Tanzania side, with Kibo to the left and Mawenzi to the right.

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"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills ..."  (Karen Blixen in 'Out of Africa').

We took my mother on her first day ever in Africa in 1969, for a picnic on the Ngong, and some elderly Maasai men came and squatted down to talk to us.   They were naked except for a blanket draped loosely over one shoulder .... and it was quite breezy .... and my poor mother didn't know where to look ! 

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One of my father-in-laws pictures, taken from the plane on the way to/from Kenya.  The Rift Valley, with Mt. Longonot nearest, and Mt Suswa further away.  Both are virtually extinct volcanos, though both still have active fumaroles emitting super-heated steam.  Suswa has lava tunnels which can be explored.   We climbed Mt. Longonot one day ... 

... the gully that led to the top was dry, lava gravel, and mother-in-law and myself decided the best way to proceed was to sit, and slide upwards on our butts .... two or three metres upwards, and slip one metre downwards .... but we got to the top eventually.   Coming down again was fast and furious, sliding with the lava gravel !

I loved the mountains and hills, and we explored the Chyulu's, the Aberdares, the Cherangani's, and many hills and mountains northwards to Lake Rudolf/Turkana ... 

.... maybe I'll add some pictures of them another day !

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Couldn't resist another of Kili, this time taken from Tsavo West National Park.  Just imagine what the first white explorers thought when they saw snow virtually on the Equator !

Daphne Sheldrick

This amazing lady who rescued so many orphaned elephants over the last 40 years has died a few days ago at the age of 83.  

photo from Daily Nation

Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a conservationist famous for her work rearing baby elephants in Kenya and fighting for the protection of the species, has died aged 83, her family said Friday.

"Daphne passed away the evening of the 12th April after a long battle with breast cancer, a battle she finally lost," her daughter Angela wrote in a statement.

"Her legacy is immeasurable and her passing will reverberate far and wide because the difference she has made for conservation in Kenya is unparalleled."

KENYAN

Sheldrick was born in Kenya in 1934, and spent nearly 30 years working with her husband David who founded Kenya's biggest National Park, Tsavo East.

After his death, she founded The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT), famous both for its contribution to conservation and to tourists who flock to the Nairobi centre daily to witness orphaned baby elephants being bottle-fed and frolicking in the mud.

"Daphne was the first person to successfully hand raise a milk dependent new born elephant and rhino, knowledge that has seen more than 230 orphaned elephants saved in Kenya, and countless other infant elephants in countries across Africa and into India," read a statement on the trust's website.

With their mothers shot by poachers for ivory, or dying due to frequent droughts, or human-wildlife conflict, scores of baby elephants found their way into Sheldrick's care.

MILK FORMULA

However, it took her 28 years to discover the magic milk formula that would keep alive the baby elephants, who cannot survive without it under the age of two.

But milk is often not enough. Dedicated keepers spend 24 hours a day with the elephants, highly social and emotional creatures who are often severely traumatised when they arrive at the orphanage.

"The infant is very fragile. One must think in human terms for an elephant," Sheldrick said in a 2004 interview.

When they are about two years old, the elephants leave the orphanage for Tsavo park where they try to join a new herd in what can be a long and difficult process.

However they continue to return to greet new elephants and their keepers for years to come.

'SHE LIVED ALONGSIDE ELEPHANTS'

Sheldrick's work has featured on countless television programmes and documentaries, while she also wrote several books.

In 2006 Queen Elizabeth II appointed Sheldrick Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the first Knighthood to be awarded in Kenya since the country received independence in 1963, according to the trust.

The Kenyan government in 2001 presented her with a Moran of the Burning Spear (MBS) decoration — one of the country's top honours.

According to the Great Elephant Census project, African Savanna elephant populations fell by 30 percent between 2007 and 2014.

"Daphne lived alongside elephants and learned to read their hearts, much as they read ours - she understood their fragility, their intelligence, their capacity to love, to grieve, to heal, to support one another and she took those lessons to the global stage," read the tribute to her on the trust's website.

"In doing so, Daphne became a leading voice for elephants, never through a desire for the limelight, only ever driven by her belief that elephants, and other wild species, have a right to live a free and protected life - just like us."

(Report from Daily Nation)

Another video made by Nigel

And finally, a video about the workshop and the work being done there.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oKDEonKWx0&feature=youtu.be

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Hands around the World is constantly considering how much support and ongoing financial help to give to our projects; they all need to become self-supporting and this is our aim for Paluoc.   Some of the projects we supported and built up in the past have completely changed the purpose for which they were built, but that's fine; nothing stays the same in this world !  

Projects develop and turn into something we never thought of; for e.g. the project in Benin where we built a school on stilts (to allow flood waters in the rainy season to flow underneath it) ... has now developed with an orphanage, and since we shipped out a tractor and equipment  some years back, they now have managed to buy some land near the school, and the tractor is used to farm it, and grow food for the school and orphanage.  In addition, the school gains income from the tractor being used to plough other land ... not what we anticipated but local needs being met, and local people benefitting.

HATW has the motto ... "Giving a hand ... not a hand out"  and helping hands and encouragement have worked wonders in many African countries and in India.  

Stevens story ...

Steven Juma is an orphan; I first met him at Paluoc four years ago.   Paul allowed him to live in the tin shed on site as a sort of caretaker; now see how he has blossomed and grown up into a fine young man with skills !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=567fId3YNy0&feature=youtu.be

Kennedy

Kennedy has been training and working at the Paluoc carpentry workshop in Kisumu for about 3 years now.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxeU6A4PHco&feature=youtu.be

Take a look at this little video !   Its good to see him again; Nigel (one of the volunteers I went to Kisumu with in 2011) has returned to advise at the workshop, and to update HATW.  Bonaventure has moved on and is working for himself elsewhere now.   Stephen Juma is still learning and has made furniture and so on for his tin house on the site ... another video will be on here shortly ..........

More on the new 'rift' ....

Reading more recent reports in various newspapers, both here in UK and in Africa, opinions still seem to be divided as to the cause of the crack that opened up in the area near the Maai Mahiu to Narok road.

One said "Geologists have said that the fault line is as a result of the Somali tectonic plate pulling away from the African one as a result of activity in the earth's crust."

Really ??

Another is very firmly of the opinion that the crack was in fact formed by erosion of soil beneath the surface due to recent heavy rains in Kenya. A look at satellite optical imagery indicates that similar erosional features can be seen elsewhere in the region suggesting that these flash flood events have caused erosion before. This agrees with what local geologists have said and previous studies have concluded – rainwater has washed away deep layers of loose volcanic ash deposited by previous volcanic eruptions in the rift valley. 

Two new pictures from Reuters:

Where has the soil from the hollows been washed to in the first photo ?    Or were the hollows along the crack there for years, just waiting for the top layer to collapse ?   It could have been scary if a tractor had been ploughing and suddenly disappeared into one of the holes !   In Europe and the US there have been many cases over the years of sink holes suddenly opening up in roads, under peoples gardens, and with cars falling into them.

(Later)    I just remembered these photos taken about 1972 ... 

I wonder if the erosion gully (photo above) started out small as in the Reuters photos ....

... and might even end up like the above .... Chebloch Gorge in the Kerio Valley ??   I'd love to go back to the Kerio to see how the geography has changed .... 

"Fake news" about last years elections now comes to light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=525TpQNmbAI

There has been so much in the UK news lately about 'fake' news and Cambridge Analytica's part in various elections, and several governments perhaps producing 'fake' news .... that the above YouTube video is interesting.

This being Easter, one is reminded of what Pontius Pilate said .... “What is truth?”  

What indeed !

Is the Rift Valley rifting ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-43501954/huge-crack-opens-in-kenya-s-rift-valley

I hope the link to the BBC item works .... but if not, this huge deep crack has opened up in the Rift Valley near Suswa, and is several miles long, cutting through the Nairobi to Narok road, which I frequently travelled on in the bus !

It has been suggested that the recent heavy rains after a year of drought, plus seismic activity, have caused it. 

This is not many miles from the semi-dormant volcanoes of Mt Suswa and Mt Longonot.  Suswa has miles of lava tunnels, and I believe the local Maasai still take tourists on walks through the underground tunnels.  We climbed Mt Longonot a long time ago (45 years ?!) and there were steam jets puffing away inside the crater, indicating some activity deep within the earth.   

A bargain !

Doing my usual trip round the charity shops, I found this in Oxfam .... for £1.50 !!

Not something I need and probably will never use as I've never been to Zambia and am not likely to .... but I couldn't resist it; good descriptions, and wonderful colour illustrations of all the birds.