sky blue sky

Hello! I can’t believe it is already Saturday! Class on Saturdays is not something I am accustomed to, but I don’t really keep track of the days here so I didn’t give it too much attention, especially because the classes here are so interesting and informative. Today we were lectured by Moses Okello, the new center director here. He did his undergrad here in Kenya at Moi University, his grad school work at Iowa, and he earned his PhD in Canada. He is native to Kenya and is an expert in wildlife management among many other fields. I probably learned more from Okello in our 4 hours with him than I learned in entire courses at UW. Okello described the many components that affect water scarcity and it’s implications on wildlife, humans, politics, agriculture, pastoralism, and how all of this affects health needs. I’ll try to explain as best I can, but I know I won’t be able to do justice to the issue at hand.
I already wrote about the core of the problem. Global warming over the last 100 years has reduced the amount of glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro by 90%. It is estimated by the year 2024 that the glaciers will be completely melted. The glaciers are the main source of water for not only Kenya, but much of Eastern Africa. Watch for the term “climatic refugees” in the next few years.
What little water that is available is not being used in a sustainable manner. Because of the corruption in Kenya, water is distributed unevenly. The focus of the Kenyan government is to become more wealthy which, as is true for most developing countries, means expanding on tourism. Therefore the Kenyan government has put into place special programs to protect wildlife by establishing national parks, without consulting the people who live in these areas (the goal of the national parks being to bring in tourism). Therefore, tribes such as the Maasai have been forced to move out of the places they called home, which are also the areas that have access to water. Another way in which wildlife impacts the livelihood of pastoralists and agriculturalists is that they destroy crops and kill cows and goats, essentially removing the only source of money for many people. Now arises and issue of meeting the basic needs of a person. When needs are not met, it is difficult to explain conservation, therefore education alone will not promote domestic conservation.
Poverty must also be eliminated. More on the human-wildlife conflict: many agriculturalists work two jobs. They are also poachers who create traps with to lure wildlife into a hut and then kill them.
Another theme here arises; the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Smaller farmers cannot compete with the more wealthy farmers who can afford technology to pump water from streams into their farms for irrigation. Okello showed us areas right outside our fence where this is the case. Wealthy farmers have tapped a small river fed by springs that runs through Kimana. Some pipelines are placed underground and we could identify one by wet soil in spots, indicating a leak in the pipe—another waste of water! In one area, a farmer damned the spring, forcing it to run straight into his water pumping system and essentially blocking any flow of the river. This means that the further downstream you are, the less water you get until the last drop is absorbed. This type of damming is illegal in Kenya, but is not enforced.
Speaking of illegal activity, farmers use land markers to declare where their land ends. By law, this marker can not extend within 30 feet of a water source. But today we saw a land marker literally 2 feet from the river, something very common around here. Part of the problem is that some people do not know the laws and the other part is that they laws are not enforced by the government.
The beliefs of the Maasai create issues as well. For instance, the Maasai believe that water can do no harm, therefore, they don’t treat their water. On our field trip we saw the stream that most people get their drinking water from. The stream collects agricultural runoff, human waste, and it is the site where many people wash their clothes. It is not surprising to see why so many people are sick here. You can see how complex the problem is but there are SO many more issues that come into play here that I haven’t even mentioned.
Our other field trip was to the Kimana Health Clinic, which was a much bleaker picture than Mburikani Village Clinic. Kimana has an outpatient clinic, a maternity ward, a pharmacy, a public health outreach program, and a lab. The resources available here are bare, outdated, nearly non-existent. There are no doctors here, just one health supervisor and 5 nurses. I was so overloaded with information today, I will just share 3 things that I took home and really made me appreciate what I am so fortunate to have:
1. Women are offered family planning in the forms of birth control (oral and injections) and male condoms. Women often opt for the injections so that their partners don’t know they are on it (if the man knew, it could have physically violent consequences for the woman). Also, women are the only people involved in education about condom use and how it protects against HIV and other STDs. When women come back to their husbands with condoms, the men refuse to wear them.
2. Currently, the Kenyan government gives clinics treated mosquito nets to disperse to pregnant women and children. Though they are given to these vulnerable groups to protect themselves from malaria, once the women come home with the nets, the men take them for themselves.
3. Pregnant women deliver at Kimana clinic. The women are not given any type of pain medication during labor and the labor process is left nearly untouched by the nurses. Women have perfectly healthy deliveries here and before the medicalization of birth in the United States, this is how things were. Instead, we are seeing a high rate of c-sections, which research indicates is largely unnecessary and come with severe health risks for both mother and baby.
That’s all for now. Sorry if this was depressing, but I think people will be interested to hear some of what is really going on in Kenya and most parts of Africa. Tomorrow we are going on a game watch at Amboseli National Park so I hope to have some fun stories about the animals we see! Love to all! Amani (peace).