Taking pictures of black rhinos in the dark

I went on my first real safari this weekend. It felt like I was back in girl guides except there were boys. We all piled into the van with travel guides, cameras and keenness. We were off to Lake Nakuru to see the Big Five minus one. I recognise that I'm probably the only person who doesn't know what the Big Five are, but here they are: Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Black Rhinocerus and Cape Buffalos. Apparently these are the most dangerous animals to hunt on foot in Africa. Now, obviously, it's very illegal to hunt endagered species so I went armed with a point and shoot camera wearing flip flops and a flowery top. But for the sake of the story picture me as a swarthy character like Hemingway with a shotgun, moleskine notebook and a flask of rum in my pocket.

So the first of the big five I shot was a black rhino in the dark. I'll be the first to admit that it's not easy to shoot black rhinos in the dark and bring home convincing evidence of your hunting prowess. But here's the shot nonetheless.



There were many white rhinos, but apparently they don't count. Perhaps because they come out in daylight.



The second of the Big Five we saw were lions. In particular two female lions chowing down on their freshly killed breakfast while staring down the encroaching hyenas. Yes, the animals are amazingly camouflaged in the dry grass, but if you use your imagination you can see two lions, a hyena and some fresh meat. One only wants to get so close to a wild animal who is gleefully tearing another wild animal with its claws and teeth.


If you didn't think those were plausible trophy photos, I'd love to hear what you think about this next one.



It's my attempt at being artistic, an impressionistic version of a leopard. I favour Monet over say Degas or Matisse but I could settle for Renoir. My friend kindly gave me a realist version of the same image, shot simultaneously but with better effect.



Last but not least is the Cape Buffalo. (I know that's only four animals but I did say the Big Five minus one. Sadly there are no elephants at Lake Nakuru.) This is probably the least impressive animal on the savannah and the most numerous. Allegedly it's prized because it's behaviour is so unpredictable that it's tough to catch. All I can say is this guy wasn't going anywhere fast.

Luo dancing girls

One of the nightwatchmen and I prepared a pan-African meal for all of the guards on duty. By that I mean we used local ingredients to try to recreate a typical Ghanaian meal of banku, tilapia and a fresh hot pepper sauce and shito. Of course there were modifications. We used Kenyan ugali instead of banku (both are made from cornflour but ugali is much harder than banku and banku is lightly fermented whereas ugali is not.) The tilapia we got from a Luo lady at the fish market in town. The Luo are a tribe that live on the shores of Lake Victoria and, according to the nightwatchmen, have the best tilapia in the world. The hot pepper sauce was intact but with a fraction of the pepper a Ghanaian would use. There was no shito to be found - shito is a hoooooot pepper paste made of dried baby shrimps and hoooooot peppers.

The guards couldn't stomach the thought of a fresh pepper sauce with plain fried fish so we fried the fish then fried the fish again in the fresh pepper sauce. They reserved a fraction of the fresh pepper sauce to try on the side. All of this was prepared in the communal kitchen while blasting Ghanaian hiplife from my iPhone to create the atmosphere. The overall result was a meal somewhere in between what we would both eat normally but incredibly tasty and fun.

The most enduring part of the meal is the slow-cooker friendship between me and the nightwatchmen. He was orphaned after his family died in a road traffic accident and lived off the kindness of strangers until he started a family of his own. He now has four children plus an orphaned boy he and his wife care for. The stories continued with heroic feats of killing a (?dead) lion, and tragedy after suffering a vicious attack while on duty that literally left him speechless for a year.

A few days after our feast, the nightwatchmen brought me a cd of traditional Luo music and asked if I would come to meet his family at their home in Langas, a slum outside of Eldoret. That weekend we boarded a matatu (local public transport van) with a bag of groceries in hand and took the 15 minute drive to his house. I was greeted by about twenty kids under the age of eight who had come to see the mizungo (foreigner). His wife recreated our panafrican meal, I was soooo touched. After lunch and some hairpulling (the little girls wanted to see if my hair was attached to my head and wanted to keep a strand each as a souvenir) the kids taught me how to dance to traditional Luo music in the street. It's one of the best weekends I've had so far.

A tale of twins

I have two West African friends, they are sisters. Twins. The first born’s name literally translated means “the first to taste and see the world” while the second born’s name is “the other.”

Yesterday we delivered four sets of twins in four hours. The first were vertex / vertex and delivered vaginally in a multip. Such a common event that nobody thought it was worth my while to attend the delivery.

The second set was a precipitous pre-term breech / breech vaginal delivery in triage in a primip. Neither the woman nor I was aware that she was having twins and the breech was diagnosed as she got on table and the bum was crowning. My internal voice was screaming “God help me I have never done a vaginal breech delivery,” and my outside voice was calling for help, and a line, and oxytocin, and someone to hold the legs, and to push, and to stop pushing, and the head, can I get the head . . . Then all I could hear is mother screaming “Thank you sweet Jesus” when the baby was born. And “Sweet Jesus” again when I told her “watoto mbili.” There are two babies. And help has come. And the babies are rushed to the nursery.

After that there were two more twin breech / breech deliveries. Both C-sections: one in a labouring multip and the other in a pre-eclamptic, anemic primip with O negative blood. Enough to cause palpitations on a regular day but yesterday they seemed like ‘the other.’ I felt traumatized and exhilarated and terrified by the twin breech vaginal delivery. Perhaps the way first twin feels being the first to taste and see the world.

The lifecycle of a Kenyan woman . . . through the headlines

If the newspapers are a reflection of the views of a community, what do the headlines say about the value of the Kenyan woman in society?


"Three in every 10 teachers think it is wrong to dismiss teachers who have sexual relations with students. At least two in every ten teachers think pupils who are sexually harassed by their teachers or fellow pupil are to blame for the incidents."

"Inspired by an ongoing national campaign against violence targeting girls in primary schools across the country, the study painted a grim picture of schools that still perceive girls as the weaker sex. For example, nearly half of the boys in these primary schools believe it is alright to beat up girls in their class, if only to prove that they 'love' them."


"Today, the world marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM (female genital mutilation) to highlight the dangers this traditional rite is causing to millions of girls worldwide. But do we really care? Should the welfare of Kenya's girls and women be our collective responsibility?"


"It is expected that as head of family, the man should shoulder the bigger financial burden. But over the last few decades, women have become increasingly empowered economically. Plum jobs with the attendant high perks are going to women because they are deemed to be more efficient as managers. An iron lady who manages 300 people and is used to getting things done her way is a man’s worst nightmare. His pride will force men to avoid this variety because he fears he may be forced to surrender his authority as a man. And, of course, his ego will also not allow him to play second fiddle."

"Women peak at between 21 and 25 years. After that, it’s injury time physically and emotionally as far as romance is concerned. This is the window that make or break women’s entire lives. . . . After 28, suitors disappear and the girl enters the next phase of her life. . . . After 30 years, fear sinks in and with pressure coming from family and friends to settle down, the standards are lowered even further. She starts casting an eye on married men and eventually resigns to being merely ‘the other woman’."



"Dear Fida-Kenya, I voted against the new Constitution during the last referendum because of issues relating to the abortion clause and termination of pregnancy. What does the law really say about it? -Kamau, Nairobi"

"Dear Kamau, . . . What is provided in the article [of the new Constitution] is that everyone has the right to life. . . . However there are instances where abortion may be permitted under the law - when in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment of where the life or heath of the mother is in danger. . ."


"After repeated childbirths the pelvic floor muscles tend to slacken. . . . Every woman should know how to do the Kegel exercises, the ones that tone up the pelvic floor by controlled contraction release of the pelvic muscles. . . . An electronic pelvic floor exerciser tones up the pelvic floor muscles without much effort on the woman's part."

Every cloud has a silver lining . . .

And every lake should have a pink lining, like Lake Bogoria. It's a small body of water in the Rift Valley that is salty and hot. Honestly, it's hooooot. The temperature reached 39C in the shade and was unchartable in the steam of the hot springs. You can boil an egg in 5 minutes flat on the edge of the lake.


Given that description, one would think the lake would be a barren wasteland. But it's not. It's filled with pink flamingos. Millions of them. Apparently they enjoy a slow roast. It was a truely incredible sight.




Since I'm on the topic of animals, here are a few others that I've seen on my short sojurn. If you have delicate sensibilities you may want to avert your gaze. Unfortunately I don't have a super quick camera so there are a lot of animal derrieres as they turn to run from the girl trying to take their picture.

If you were a rock star, I would be a groupie

Naana to Hillary Mabaye, a gynaecologist who specializes in vesico vaginal fistula repairs. I had seen him do one VVF repair and was in total awe. Then, he came in to help us with a particularly difficult vaginal case and I was blown away. He was completely inspiring: humble, kind and with amazing skill. When I grow up, I want to be a surgeon like him.

Like a bird in the tree tops

I flew into Nairobi on one of the biggest birds the world has seen: a white breasted, blue backed Boeing 747 that nests in Amsterdam. The next day, I flew to Eldoret in Western Kenya. Upon landing, I discovered that I was higher in the sky than I had ever been. At 2000m above sea level, Eldoret is perched on the edge of the Rift Valley with a view of the history of humanity.

Indeed, humanity in all its depth resides here: from the gentle touch of a nursing sister to a patient dying of cancer in hospital to the torching of 50 people seeking refuge in a church during the 2008 election aftermath to the physicality of the long distance runner. This quiet dustbowl of a town betrays little of its stormy past on the faces of its people. Quiet and reserved unlike my kin the Ghanaians who are boisterous and bold.

One of the night watchmen said that Kenya is like the mother of East Africa who welcomes the children (the refugees, the displaced, the homeless) of her troubled relatives who surround her (Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia).

It’s hard to know what to expect when one travels somewhere new. Hopefully, I will be welcomed by mother Kenya too.