Back to school

On Friday afternoon we were very lucky to be welcomed to the Karaguririo elementary school in Mukurwe-ini. It is currently the best preforming school in the area and match with Elm Street Elementary in PEI.

The school has over 500 students going from nursery to grade 8. (Nursery would be the class before junior kindergarden in Canada). With that many students, it was surprising to find out that each grade level only has one class. That means that in one room there are over 70 grade 7 students with just one teacher. I can’t even imagine the work that faces the teachers with that many students to educate, prep for and mark all their work.

The school day starts at 6 am with students responsible for cleaning to school after walking up to 5km to get there. By 7am classwork starts and continues till 5pm. At least one teacher stays at the school until 6:30pm so that students may finish their homework before they go home as many of them don’t have lights. That amounts to a 12hr school day. To add to this, the students go to school 7 days a week (only in the afternoon on Sundays). Finally, most schools have a break in August, one in April and one in December. This school however only takes the December break

We got to spend some time with the grade 8 students, or the candidates. They are referred to by this term because they will be writing the national exams in November before finishing elementary school. Three days of exams determine in large part what high school the students will be able to attend. Although parents in Kenya have the right to send their children to any school they chose, financial considerations are often a deciding factor. If a student does very well on the exams they can be offered a scholarship to allow them to attend some of the better high school, even boarding school in Nairobi.

We also meet a number of different classes, heard a number of songs created by the class to remember to material learned and were honored to be asked to plant a tree on school grounds.

 

Billeting with a director

On Thursday night I had the opportunity to stay with Joyce and Joseph Maina. Joyce is one of the directors at the Mukurwe-ini Wakulima Dairy. She is one of three formidable women that sit on the council which runs the dairy. She also runs a large dairy farm currently milking 4 cows, 2 dry, 3 heifers and a few calves, along with goats and coffee among other things. Her husband is a retired teacher that worked in the national school in Nairobi. Their three daughters have grown and live away from home, one of their daughters living as far as Germany.

Joseph and I talked about the education system which was a real treat for me as a former teacher. (I’ll talk more about the school system in a later post as we’ve visited a local school).

The evening included learning how to make ugali, getting to taste a traditional bean and corn dish, watching some soap operas and discussing the work of a Kenya to have the rights of transgender recognized (following the news report on the victory). I must admit that the highlight of the evening was finding out that I would not have to use a choo (said “cho” which you would know as an outhouse) as the house had a running toilet. Unfortunetaly I did not get a picture of their home or one of them, hopefully I’ll get a chance to before heading home.

It was very nice to get a chance to have a Kenyan night with a very welcoming family.


PS. You might have noticed their last name. Yup, my furry northern girl has a common name here in Kenya.

Belated birthday pictures

Sorry for the lateness of this post but I thought I would finally share pictures of my birthday celebration which was highlighted by a homemade, from scratch cake cooked on the stove (no oven in our house) courtesy of Francis along with some fresh pineapple.

Rite of passage of sorts

This week started off with a rite of passage of sorts. It was bound to happen at some point in my veterinary career so I consider myself lucky it happened here in Kenya making for a rather interesting story. You see, this week I was attacked by a cow for the first time (that I can remember at least).

I’d visited this farm twice so far and remembered it as having a crazy cow. When we got to the farm this week I referred to the animal as crazy I was told I was over reacting but I remembered the farm and the cow. It was my turn to go into the pen so I took a deep breath and crawled into the milking pen as our fantastic driver (and cow whisperer) worked on getting the cow into her stall. As I got up, I was greeted by the head of a cow rushing into her stall and pushing her way throw the boards to pinning me against the wall of her milk pen.

Looking back on it now I can laugh at the whole situation remembering people yelling at me to get the hell out but being in shock as I looked at the cow pinning me and wondered how I was going to get out of there. I do realize how lucky I was. The cow could very well have come at me through the milking pen as I was crawling in and trampled me with no place to go. It could have been very messy.

We returned to the same farm yesterday to finalize our work there and as we were about to leave, the cow tried to push her was throw her feed bunk to get at us proving once and for all that she is the Crazy Crazy Cow. I’ve attached a picture of my friend, she’s the one on the left.

 

Afternoon out in Samburu

This afternoon, we spent some time out in the park. Before even leaving our rooms we were greeted with the site of three kudus.

Along the drive, we were all hoping to see some Simba or lions. The drive started with a group of giraffes feeding near a family of elephants.

 

We then had another visit with our friend the leopard. He was sitting in the same tree as yesterday but this time he (or she) had lunch sitting nearby.

 

 

Our journey continued but still no sitting of the simbas. As the vehicle was moving along, I spotted two young cheetahs sitting patiently. They likely are the same young ones we saw yesterday with their mom but this time they were on their own. From the looks of things, they must have been waiting for mom to bring home dinner.

 

We did not spend much time with the cheetahs because the radio chatter had us moving along quickly. We hoped our driver Simon was on the hunt for the lions but we couldn’t be sure as we weaved through different trails, radioed back and forth with another driver and backtracked a few times. As we finally reached the other vehicle, we finally saw our simbas or rather our shebas (lionesses).

The two of them were moving along so Simon repositioned our van. His years of experience allowed him to figure out the best spot.

 

In fact, one of the lionesses came so close to our van that we couldn’t see her. She stopped in the shade at the front of our van.

 

We stayed with the ladies a few more minutes before continuing on. In doing so, we were treated to seeing two oryx locking horns.

 

Not far from them was another family of elephants. It is here that we got to see a 5 legged baby elephant (lol, that is what Simon called him).

 

We also got to see it drink from its mom.

 

On the other side of the trail from the elephants was a pair of giraffe males fitting it out. The pictures just have them look like they are cuddling but let me assure you, the heads were swinging.

 

 

 

 

Wild dogs, a jackal and a full on hunt

 Wild dogs, some of the hardest animals to find out on safari or so I've been told

 Hunting a dik-dik

 

 Jackal

 

 A red-billed hornbill. You probably know him better as Zazu.

 Having a scratch in the acacia tree

Grant's gazelles

Elephants, Cheetahs and a Leopard

This weekend, on our time off, we've treated ourselves to another safari this time in Samburu National Park. Here are just a few shots from our first day out in the park. Sorry my post is so short but the pictures will mostly speak for themselves.

 

P.S. To those wondering, the money I raised for VWB did NOT go to paying for my time on safari, that cost comes out of my own pocket. 

 

 



 Elephant mud bath

 

 Dik-dik close up

 

 Anyone want some lunch, it's tasty?

 Leopard

 Three cheetahs

Before and After

Last week, we finished our construction work. Well, at least the first visit of construction to the 25 farms that were selected as treatment farms. We also did some follow up visits to farms we had worked on in the last three weeks but whose cows have not been using the stall for one reason or another.

On our second last day of construction work, we worked on three farms. The first I’ve nicknamed “cute calf farm” since during our first visit, the cute calf was tied just outside the cow’s pen. This heifer cow had never used her stall before but after a bit of work to give her a bit more space, she had a new place to call home. We got a call around lunch time from her happy farmer to let us know that the cow was comfortably laying in her pen for the very first time. (If nothing else, I was part of making a difference for this one cow on this one day!)

We then went to “break a leg farm” so nicknamed because we could very easily envision one or both cows doing just that. The cows were obviously not using their stalls (see picture below). After a great deal of panga work to loosen soil, hammering, sawing, shovelling, discovering the partial remains of a cow, measuring and sweating, the cows had a new place to call home. Remains to be seen if they like it as much as I do.

 

 

Our last farm of the day was a challenge of a different kind. It involved discovering that I react to Stinging Nettle. Thankfully I was only out of commission for 10 minutes as Anika and Derek worked on the wonderful renos. At this farm the stall were what we call not too bad, just a few bars to move and a “boob rail” to move up so it can be a neck rail. That being said, it still took a fair amount of time to finish, partially due to the not so happy neighbours that disagreed with the removal of a few boards on their side of the property line.