Current Fighting Over Land In Kenya
Standing on a hill outside the village of Mohonia, you can see much of the broad savannah that reaches from the foothills of the Aberdares to the base of Mount Kenya 40 or 50 miles away. With this bird's eye view, you can also see one of the great conflicts that is brewing in Kenya, the endless hunger for land from the country's incredibly fast growing population.
What had been untouched bush even as recently as a decade ago is now being cut up in a checkerboard of cleared land to support new shambas, or small farms, often of between an acre or two. Walking the ten miles between Mohonia and the village of Lamuria, Ayub and I passed a scene which encapsulated what is at stake: outside the fence of a shamba, four zebra grazed placidly while, no doubt, gazing longingly at the protected corn. In short, as the demand for ever more land increases, Kenya's wildlife and environment lose.
Alex Keto
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The Death Of Lake Naivasha
Naivasha, Kenya's highest freshwater lake in the belly of the Rift Valley, is most likely dying. At least that is the conclusion of Chege Kiara who works at the Elsamere Conservation Center on Naivasha's shores. Already in the past ten years, the average depth of the lake has shrunk from eight meters to five meters, he said. He expects the lake to dry up completely at some point in the not too distant future.
If so, a major factor in the death of the lake will be Valentine's Day.
Lake Naivasha, Kenya's highest fresh water lake and source of water for extensive farms, is rapidly running dry. Exactly why is a mystery, but many believe the foreign owned farms are pumping too much water.
John Kibrenga Richanga: A Mau Mau Fighter
Geoffrey Karanja, a tall, lanky Kikuyu, introduced me to John Kibrenga Richanga, a veteran Mau Mau fighter now 85 years old. Richanga stood about five and a half feet tall, not an unusual height for a Kikuyu, had a fringe of white hair, and appeared to be in good health. For the interview, Richanga invited me into his home, a three-room wood shack on his shamba, or small farm.
Since Richanga didn’t speak English, he spoke two or three sentences in Kikuyu which Ayub Githaiga Ndungu translated. In contrast to many people I have interviewed, Richanga began at the start of his story, continued logically and coherently through it, and then allowed a time for questions to clarify any points.
John Kibrenga Richanga served as a foot soldier for the Mau Mau before being captured by British security forces. He views the war as a success which led to independence.
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The White Settler
It would be tough to come up with a better pedigree for being a White Settler than the one Niels Fjastad has. Even in the womb, he was part of the settler community.
Niels’ father, Nils emigrated from Sweden in the first wave of settlers in 1913, a wave that would lay the foundation for Lord Delamere’s dream of turning Kenya’s central highlands into the white highlands. In addition, Nils was a close friend of Bror Blixen, the husband of Karen Blixen who wrote Out of Africa. Bror Blixen mentions Nils in his own memoirs.
The History Of a Mau Mau Medic
I was fairly skeptical about the efficacy of bush medicine until Ayub Githaiga Ndungu plucked a handful of Ajuga Remota, a ground cover plant, and told me to chew the leaves. Rarely have I tasted anything so bitter since the leaves were full of natural quinine and backed up the claim it was a natural cure for malaria, at least in the opening stages of the illness.
Joram Gitei Githaiga, a Mau Mau medic, in 1972 after leaving the forest long after independence. Encountering bitter feelings in his home village, a year later he fled to Tanzania for several years. Ayub recounted his story. Joram died in 2003
Ayub learned the medicinal uses of the plants and herbs in Kenya’s central highlands from his grandfather, Joram Gitei Githaiga, who, in turn, used his knowledge of plant lore to serve as a medic in a Mau Mau unit based in the Aberdares. Sadly, Joram died in 2003, and I only learned his story by talking to Ayub.