On the Mount Elgon every now and then

Every now and then I jump on the carrier of a "bodaboda" (Kiswahili for motorbike taxi) and take a ride  through muddy roads to enjoy the most beautiful piece of nature in the neighborhood, the Mount Elgon.

    This is where the adventure starts: with the Mount Elgon in front of us.

    PICTURE: PRIVATE.

In less than half an hour motorbike ride from my home, in Chwele, one can reach the first villages up on the mountain at approx. 2500 m altitude. The challenging slopes and the muddy roads, specially during the rain season, can only be mastered without further problems by the bodabodas. They, the slopes and the mud, provide a lot of adrenaline for a lot of fun on the way up.

A day ride on the bodaboda, including the guidance services of the driver, will cost 1000kes (Kenyan Shillings) = 8,33€.

   Who sits on the carrier of a bodaboda is in advantage. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

Some facts about the Mount Elgon:

It is an extinct volcano located half in Ugandan half in Kenyan territory and its highest point reaches approximately 4300 m. It is the oldest and largest solitary volcano in East Africa, covering a area of around 3.500 km² (Wiki.).

For those, who love being in contact with nature, hiking, climbing and camping, this is perfect place. A real nature sanctuary in the middle of an awesome scenery and adorned with unexplored caves, impressive waterfalls and a vegetation of an unique beauty.

During my last visit to the mountain, I had the pleasure to introduce it to my Kenyan friends Derrick and Patience. On the back of two bodabodas we reached the village Kopsiro, where I first took them to a walk along the cliffs, having an breathtaking view of the flatlands beyond the Ugandan border.

The very same way leaded us through a piece of forest on the way to the highest waterfall I got to know up there. The water drops approximately 70m down the cliff. An awesome view of an hidden wonder!!!

    Derrick and the waterfall. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

Another 10 minutes walk further along the cliff and we entered one of the many caves scattered on the surroundings of Kopsiro. With an 5m high and 10m wide entrance and two big galleries, it's one the largests in the area.

Hints: don't forget carrying a torch and be emotionally prepared for some bats flying around you. 

    Inside a cave. PRIVATE: PICTURE.

From Kopsiro we continued our excursion. We left the edges of the mountain and headed to its central areas, towards the Ugandan border, aiming the reminiscent local forest, a mixture of rain forest and and bamboo vegetation.

    The "mixed" forest on the Mount Elgon. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

We left our motorbikes at the edge of the forest and went for hiking through the dense green vegetation. According to the locals we would find further waterfalls and caves along that route.

Before reaching our destination we first met a few of the locals_ that area of the mountain is inhabited mainly by the Saboat sub-tribe_  with their oxen on the way. They use to collect bamboo trees in those areas to use in the construction of their houses. A very peculiar encounter indeed! Considering that I was told the Saboat people would be hostile people. Prejudice by side, my Kenyan friends facilitated the communication and at the end those guys seemed very friendly and, like most of the Kenyans, curious about the "mzungu" (Kiswahili for European, or generally foreigner) roaming around in that forest.

    Sabaot guys, their oxen and the bamboo. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

After almost one hour hiking we reached the promised "oasis". And what a one!!

We left the forest behind us as we entered this cleared area. It was cut by an short creek, and at both side a number of flowers of an awesome beauty decorated it.

    Isn't that a paradise? PICTURE: PRIVATE.

We took a break to refresh before moving ahead. Such a nice and relaxing place and this on the slope of an extinct volcano. Just great!!

    Break at the creek: me. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

    Break at the creek: Derrick, Patience and the "bodaboda dereva"

   (Kiswahili motorcycle driver). PICTURE: PRIVATE.

What I didn't realize was that the creek disappeared a few meters after the place where we decided to stop and fell down along an stony wall of approx. 40m height.

Following our friends we found a way down along the wall ann after reaching down had that just paradisiacal view. Behind the waterfall the entrance of an huge cave, exactly like those hiding treasures in the pirates movies. Proper gorgeous!

    A view of paradise in Western Kenya. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

No doubt we had our exploration moment motivated by the exciting atmosphere of the place. We entered the cave and walked into its two main chambers till where darkness allowed us, definitely, far of reaching its end.

In his excitement our guide joked: "if you keep walking ahead you may get ou in Uganda." :)

    The explorers at the waterfall. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

The expression natural sanctuary describes this place perfectly! Although the footprints of the locals can be seen in many areas of the forest, it still seems to be in perfect balance. Rumor has it, that the Bungoma county, in the Western region of Kenya, has plans to transform the whole area in an National Park soon.

A motorcycle ride to a forest on an extinct volcano to explore caves and jump into some waterfalls. If it's not worth adventuring?!

Glad to share with you peeps!

Cheers,

Mácio Simyiu Mzungu :D

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Of how I crossed Tanzania

I managed to got from Chwele, in Kenya, to Nakonde, in Zambia, after literally crossing Tanzania within a week. During those exactly 7 day I drove more the 4.000 km using more than 17 different vehicles, including buses, matatus, tuk-tuk and bodaboda (Kiswahili for motorbike taxi).

    Boiled eggs seller in the bus station of Iringa, Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

That was a trip full of surprises, a huge lesson about how to travel in East Africa and, obviously, an opportunity to get to know more about the the differences and relations between the different countries and the opinion of their citizens about each other.

             

                   The long way across Tanzania. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

               Tuk-tuk station near Mwanza, Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

          Green nyanya (Kiswahili for tomatoes) in Mwanza. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

          Leaving Mwanza, in Tanzania early in the morning. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

In order to get my tourist visa renewed I head to leave and reenter the East Arfican region, which is composed by Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Since the borders to Somalia and DRC Congo are not recommend to cross, for obvious reasons, and I need an visa issued in home country to be able to enter Ethiopia, there wasn't any other choice but to go Zambia all through Tanzania.

And you know what?! I just loved the idea!!

            Another bus station, Singida, Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

From Chwele I headed down south with matatus, drove past Kisumu at the Victoria lake and crossed the border to Tanzania at Sirari. Heading further south on the way to Mwanza, I drove past the Seregenti National Park, crossing the flat land of the Masaai and entering a stony landscape before reaching my destination. Mwanza is one of the largest cities in Tanzania and economically very significant for being at the Victoria Lake.

          Another bus station, Singida, Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

After spending a day in Mwanza I drove to Iringa, passing by Shynianga, Singida and Dodoma in the central region of the country and was surprised by the level of development of a few cities when compared to other areas in Kenya and Uganda.

          View from Mwanza, Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

That was almost a whole day on the road. I confess that at a certain point my arse started hurting, specially when the bus drive wasn't much careful about the bumps, but I had the beauty outside the window to compensate the pain.

       On of the many villages along the road in Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

I drove past wonderful scenarios, sometimes hilly stony areas sometimes endless green flatlands. Uncountable small sunflower plantations scatered all over and the sunflower oil sellers in their wooden stand along the roads. Apparently the main source of income in the central and southern areas. I could also realize tree trunks pieces hanging on other trees along the road what was explained to me later as being the local way of keeping bees (yes! I tasted the Tanzania honey).

      An impression of the stony landscape of part of Tanzania. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

                    Life along the road. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

          The typical sellers at the bus stops. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

I was even more amazed by the first sight of the majestic baobab trees, impressive!! I could stop photographing them emerging out of the ground, here and there, in the middle of the savannah. I could observe dwellings build around them, their shade being used as parking areas for bodaboda drivers or as playground by children.

           Baobab...

          ...baobab,...

          ...and more baobabs. PICTURES:PRIVATE.

After spending a night in Iringa, where I had that delicious "uji" (Kiswahili for millet porridge) at 6am before entering hitting the road, I drove past Mbeya and crossed the border to Zambia between Tunduma (Tanzanian side) and Nakonde (Zambian side).

                Snacks seller. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

In Nakonde an unfortunate happening spoiled my humor for a few hours, but just for a few hour. My computer, camera and some money were stolen from the my lodge while I was having breakfast, meaning I had to spend all the in the police station for them to investigate the case. The way it is, we move past bad things and leave them where they belong, in the past!! Now I had to prepare to head back home along all the way through Tanzania.

 Chai (delicious lemon grass and ginger tea) na keki (Kiswahili for cake). PICTURE:PRIVATE.

The next day I crossed back the border, got my renewed visa to re-enter East Africa, and later on Kenya, prepared to enjoy the other side of the road and to have those feeling, which are worthy living for. :)

          Small market at one of many bus stops. PICTURE:PRIVATE.

Cheers everyone and lot of Love,

Mácio Simyiu.

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Along the way on Luhya land

Some of you may have asked what have happening since there has been a while since my last post. No worries! Mácio Simyiu Mzungu is alive, safe and sound and keeps "along the way."

So, here I am back reporting a little about what happened during the last few weeks after a lot of traveling, exploring and photographing. 

Stone pickers in the Kibisi river. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

Whether in the cabin of a lorry loaded with stones, on the carrier of a pikipiki (Kiswahili for motorbike taxi) or squeezed in a matatu (Kiswahili for small bus) I've been roaming around the western region of Kenya visiting a number of cities and villages.

From the shores of the Victoria lake, through the stony landscapes by the river Kibisi, up to Kipsikrok at 2600 m height on the Mount Kenya I've been diving deep into the Kenyan countryside, into the local traditions, getting to know the people and learning what to live in those vicinities is about.

Around here one doesn't have to cover long distances to experience the extreme differences on the scenario, people and traditions. During a short excursion to the land of the Sabaot on the Mount Elgon I've visited their bamboo and mud houses, a perfect combination of the locally available resources and climate adapted constructions. In Kisumu, at the Victoria lake, I tasted the clay stones eaten by the Luo people as a source of iron. Yes! They eat earth! In Chwele, the place I currently call home, I started greeting the locals in their local language, Kibukusu, a language I first got to know it existed two years, ago. 

Meanwhile I also got used to the variety of the Kenyan cuisine. I became a huge fan of Ugali, a kind of porridge or polenta prepared with maize flour and considered the Kenyan national dish. There is also Gidheri, originally a Kikuyu meal, an simple mixture of boiled beans and maize. But my favorite till now is Pilau, brought to the East African coast by the Arabs, it consists of rice prepared with meat and spiced with cinnamon and cloves. That's tasty!

I can not try to describe my hosts without mentioning their hospitality. I was received Chwele, land of the Bukusu, with open arms and after a short while accepted as one of the them. They expressed their wish to have me as a member of their community by giving me a seasonal name as all other members of this community have. So, lately I've been called by the name Simyiu, which in Kibukusu means "drought" and is related to the fact that I was born during the drought period.

As a proud new member of this community it's my duty to know it, its traditions, its people, language and its environment. As if my inherent curiosity wasn't enough! Here I am now, exploring villages and cities, mountains and rivers, getting to know the different tribes and sub-tribes, languages and dialects and contributing for the development of it through my volunteering work (stuff for a future post ;)).

To dive in this new and fascinating world with its contrast-full nuances has been overwhelming. It's been inspiring to see this people tackling everyday life with determination and simplicity on these scarce neighborhoods. Fact is, this immersion is kinda pushing through a sobering process after so many years living in European standards and showing me how life in most, emphasis in "most", countries in the world really looks like. This feels like stepping the ground bare feet again after a long time.

'm learning the lessons and welcoming all the changes inspired by this unique experience. This is how it's supposed to be when you're "along the way" and the main reason why I decided to be on it.

For the great moments I've had and for those still to come for they are worth living.

Bying it on!

Cheers everyone!

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A Question of Water

Who doesn't know that water is an issue in African countries?

The scarcity of water in Chwele. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

There are geographic and climatic factors which define the seasonal scarcity of water in the different landscapes across the African continent, in some cases the lack of water can be related to precarious level of development of an specific country and, in some other cases it can even be related to conflict situation and the refugee flows caused by them, but in the majority of cases populations have to go through the hardship of having no water due to maladministration, incapacity and the bad will of the politicians supposed to represent them.

Queue for fetching water in one of the wells. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

The inhabitants of the village where I live, Chwele, in Western Kenya, have been suffering for a few weeks with the lack of water in their taps for a ridiculous reason. Actually, Chwele has enough water in its underground and enough reservoirs to store and distribute it. The one thing missing is the electricity to put the pumps to work and bring all this water up to the ground. Now comes the best, the electricity is missing because the local political administration didn't pay the bill and after a few months of public debt the local electricity supplier, the company Kenya Power, cut the lines leaving the population without water. Baaaah! What a shame!

Queue for fetching water in one of the wells. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

Children queuing for water at one of the wells. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

Schools, hospitals, the market, the second largest open market in Kenya, have no water. The ordinary population, most of the times children, must walk long distances to the few boreholes and wells available, face incredibly long queues and pay at least twice as the normal price in order to have some liters of water for theirs basic needs. The 20 liters jerry cans can be seeing in every corner of Chwele being dragged by children and grown ups, from early in the morning till late in the evening, weekdays and weekends.

I am glad to be living and working voluntarily in Chwele as part of an German organisation, Open Hearts e. V. (www.openhearts.jimdo.com), which is diminishing the emergency of the situation. At the right time we just finished the drilling works of a new and very central borehole facilitating the access of the population to water with better quality and, truly, for a symbolic price. We have been supplying market facilities, schools and ordinary households with clean water for two weeks now with an average of 200.000 liters/day.

To start a speech criticizing the incapacity of the politicians, the corruption in the country, the abuse of power and the exploitation of the misery of the population for political purposes is, as hard as it my sound, useless. Till now there are only speculations and no official position taken from the local administration predicting the return of the water supply. In the meantime the citizens keep on chasing after water to fill their jerry cans and praying for the pumps to start working again setting and end to this crises.

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Plantains for matoke

Matoke is the Swahili word used to describe both, plantain as well as a meal prepared with it. The locals boil the plantains covered with the own leaves and mash them after that. Easy, nutritional, cheap and really tasty. Give it a try!

I recently took this great shot of a lady preparing “matoke” (Swahili mean. plantain) for a wedding in the church of my friend Job Matimbai, in Chwele.

Plantains to prepare matoke. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

Cheers peeps!

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The beauty of the Kenyan ethnic diversity

I come originally from Brazil, a country where people celebrate their ethnic diversity. We Brazilian are born of a mixture of many races coming from different corners of the planet: the primordial inhabitants of that ground, the indigenous, the Europeans, mainly the Portuguese colonizers, and the Africans, brought to the American continent as slaves. Centuries later, another immigration waves coming from countries like Italy, Germany, Japan, Poland, even from Lebanon and Armenia gave the country the face it has today. It sounds really like a big "soup of races", as we use to call ourselves, but nothing compared to what one can experience in some African countries. Living in Kenya has given me the chance to grow into these diversity and to learn about its people.

Bukusu  lady in the Chwele market. PICTURE: PRIVATE

So, what did I get to learn about the Kenyan people so far?

The population of Kenya is composed by three main groups or folks, the Bantu people, speakers of the Bantu languages and originally from the central western part of the continent, the Nilot, or Nilotic people, mainly inhabitants of Central and East Africa, and the valleys of the Nile river, and the Cushitis, originals from the "horn of Africa", region composed today by countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. This a group of minor significance in number of inhabitants in the country.

A Masaai grandma. PICTURE: PRIVATE

These three folks are divided in a number of smaller ethnic groups or tribes, sub-tribes and smaller groups, the clans, dispersed all over the country. According to recent statistics the population of Kenyan is formed by 42 tribes. Till now I got to know people from a few of them, like the Luhya, Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Kamba, Luo and Masaai.

My friend Nicole Achieng, a Luhya girl with a Luo name. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

In Chwele, Western region of Kenya, where I'm living the predominant tribe is the Luhya. The Luhya belong to the Bantu people and can be subdivided in another 18 sub-tribes, each of them speaking a different dialect or variation of the Luhya language. 

The Bukusu, the people I have the pleasure to live with, is one of these sub-tribes and they speak the language with the same name, kiBukusu. Now it gets more interesting! These sub-tribes are composed by even smaller groups, the clans, which also have specific internal rules and traditions. Omutukhwika, omulako, omukimweyi, omurefu, etc. are examples of clans of the Bukusu tribe. Now consider such a hierarchy in each one of the 42 tribes. That's what I mean with fascinating!

Mrs. Matimbai, my host and friend. From the
Luhya tribe, Bukusu sub-tribe. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

There are a few tribes among those 42 I'm sure you must have heard about, e. g. the Masaai, the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu. The Masaai are those slender tall guys wrapped in red, frequently also blue, "blankets" (in Kiswahili shuka) one can see in movies and advertisements "jumping" in the savannah. They typically wear colorful beaded earrings and necklaces and are known to be a tribe of warriors. These guys belong to the Nilot people.

A Sabaot boy. The Sabaot is a sub-tribe from the Kalenjin. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

The Kalenjin, on the other hand, got a lot of reputation through sports. Some of the best marathon runners in the world are Kenyans, and almost all of them come from this tribe. Like the Masaai, the Kalenjin are also Nilotic people.

Recently I went on a excursion to the Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano on the surroundings of Chwele and up on the mountain I got to know some of the locals, the Sabaots, a sub tribe of the Kalenjin. These guys are used to the life in high and hilly areas and to lower temperatures. This one of the few tribes that used to practice female circumcision.

Ms. Cheptarus Sang, my Kalenjin friend. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

What to say about the Kikuyu tribe? 
This tribe is original from the central part of the country, which includes the capital, Nairobi, and is the largest tribe in population. Approximately 20% of the Kenya population is Kikuyu. These guys are known for being merchants and business people. It's maybe also important to mention that the actual Kenyan president is a Kikuyu.

Yvone Wanjala also a Luhya and Bukusu. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

The complexity resulting of the many tribes, sub-tribes and clans in Kenya is just enormous. As a reflex of that, you can imagine how culturally rich is this country.

All the different traditions, typical meals, the seasonal names and number of  languages. A child growing up in a three languages environment is a very common thing around here. Contrary to what one may think the Kenyans live in peace with each other regardless of all their ethnic particularities.

Rose's fruits stand. Rose is also a Bukusu. PICTURE: PRIVATE.

To learn about  the Kenyan people and get entangled in their traditions has been an amazing and incredibly rewarding experience.

Cheers everyone,

Mácio Simiyu (my Bukusu name :)).