IT'S A BREEZE
Reaching Loyangalani, the largest village on Lake Turkana's eastern shore, is at least a two-day trip and if you've any sense (unlike us!) you'll take three days.
The road to the lake is rough, preparing you for conditions at the lake itself, which is lies amid hills of ancient lava beds which have eroded to form seemingly endless rock gardens with the stones ranging from pebbles to football-sized rocks.
The track winds through this barren vista while the wind howls across the landscape, tearing at your nerves and clothes with equal relish. But if it stops, you'll fry as daytime temperatures during our stay were within two notches of 40 degrees Celcius, in the shade.
Strangely, the wind blows continuously from the south-east, down from the hills onto the lake - there doesn't appear to be any on-shore/off-shore change in direction with the diurnal cycle.
We sought shelter, battered as we were from three days of hard driving and mishaps, at the Lake Turkana el-Molo campsite (if you think the name is a mouthful, you should see the owner's business card. Reading it, you'd be forgiven for thinking he owned the whole lake and half the rest of Africa!).
It's the first time we've appreciated the word "oasis", with the palm trees offering both shade from the sun and a wind screen, reducing its buffeting to a welcome breeze.
Home Sweat Home
The lake - as you'll read in all the guide books - is home to numerous ethnic groups, including the Samburu, Turkanans and reputedly the smallest remaining tribe in the world, the el-Molo, which has only about 500 members.
The books are also liberal with their use of descriptive adjectives - noble and proud being two favourites - regarding the various tribes but the first impression is the same as everywhere else in Kenya: GIVE ME MONEY.
It seems to be a universally accepted fact among Africans that mzungus/feranjis/white people are a free source of whatever, whose only possible reason for being there is to give handouts to the locals.
It's an exceedingly irritating belief and I find the sight of people of all ages with hands outstretched, demanding, is degrading to both them and us.
There are all sorts of arguments about how poor and deprived these people are but none of them are really valid - these societies existed and thrived for centuries before mzungus arrived to give them things.
Mzungus are largely to blame for the local's expectations - steady streams of tourists who feel good about handing out a couple of pens, a few coins ... and the invasion of aid agencies handing out food and supplies without considering - or possibly caring about - the long-term implications.
Taking Issue
Aid is a complex issue and cannot be regarded in blanket terms but I still feel aid is creating more problems in the long term than it is solving.
Food packages arrive in Loyangalani every second week. This supply has resulted in people no longer needing to sell goats or cattle to survive so herds are increasing in size, beyond the carrying capacity of the countryside - when a drought comes, the devastation will be all the greater, forcing people to further reliance on aid handouts.
Expecting people to manage their herds is unrealistic considering their culture is based around the number of animals a man owns. The more animals the greater his stature. Naturally, everyone will keep as many animals as they can - the poor beast's condition isn't important, nor is the sustainability of the system.
With Thanks
We went to say thank you to Tim for his help in reaching Loyangalani. What started as a brief visit became an evening of hospitality, with Lisa and myself being treated to dinner by Tim and his wife Sherryl and to an afternoon of hospitality by the other members of the Africa Inland Church (AIC).
Having dinner around a family table with the kids (including their 3-year-old daughter finishing dinner, deciding our company was boring and falling asleep on the floor next to the table - I wish I could still sleep so easily, anywhere) was worth a month in a luxury hotel. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
A REAL MISSION
Marsabit, 16 March 2002
My jokingly said "We'll be back in Nairobberi in two days when our truck breaks down," as we left Nairobberi weighed heavily on my mind as the truck groaned loudly and we crabbed sideways to a halt.
Lake Turkana had just come into view as we crested a rise and was tantalizinly close but the left rear main leaf spring had decided to give up the ghost, snapping 5 cm behind the forward mounting point and leaving Wag 'n Bietjie listing badly to port and groaning painfully whenever we tried to move her.
The breakage came barely 20 minutes after we'd emerged - rather muddily - from the first serious obstacle we'd faced that day. We, and somehow we do this regularly, had set off for Lake Turkana about the time the rains chose to leave the clouds, producing expanses of extra clingy clay puddles.
We'd bogged down while slithering across a 300 m long mud wrestling pit. We'd sidled across 250 m of it without mishap but the soggiest section grabbed us as we negotiated another set of tracks and Wag 'n B had decided she was too tired or I was too useless - we slipped straight into the flooded ruts and stuck.
Real Roadeo
It took a long time, along tough roads to reach the point where we could rest in the gunge. It was the third day of hard driving since Nairobberi, the first night spent in Isiolo where the tar road ends. The town has a frontier outpost feel, very different from the rest of Kenya, far less touristic and, somehow, more welcoming.
The people, while fascinated by this pair of mad mzungus who travelled with a white dog, were far more polite and less interested in what we could give them than most locals we've met during our travels.
And the Silver Bells Hotel was a welcome stop at day's end, hungover as we still were. A double bed with private shower and toilet for KSh250 (about $3.50) and pleasant people - we slept well and awoke in a good mood.
The corrugated, rutted road from Isiolo north to Archer's Post was only the warm up for the rest of the day. Along it, we stopped to chat to Pier, whom we'd met in Nairobberi, and the friends he was travelling with.
Long, hot but not as hard, the route to Maralal, where 20th Century explorer Wilfred Thesiger spent has twilight years before being consigned to an English old age home in his last decade (see his book "My Kenya Days" - in fact, read all his books as he wrote well!), is scenic and quiet. Only the small bands of Samburu children disturb the peace with their "Gimme ..." cries.
From Marsabit, where I foolishly - in hindsight - decided not to top up with fuel, we turned north and bumped and creaked our way over the rocky road to Baragoi, stopping when darkness settled to brew tea and dine on such delicacies as peanut butter sandwiches (again!).
Armed Camp
Contemplating bush camping, we reconsidered when a truck rattled to a halt, warning that this was a "danger zone" with gun-toting shiftas (bandits) running around doing unfriendly deeds. We moved on, promptly!
We arrived in Baragoi late, finding a ghost town - no lights, no sign of life and, for us, little hope. Within seconds of switching off the engine, having elected to camp in the main street, shadows from the dark solidified into people and in true African (I can't get over this fact - the average person is just so helpful) fashion, we were shown the hotel - we'd parked outside it - and the night watchman was woken up.
It seems that each town along the road marks a worsening of the way, and Baragoi was no exception. The recent rains probably helped in the degeneration, leaving us to crawl over rain-gouged bedrock surfaces 4x4 manufacturers would give new leaf springs for on their test ranges.
Later, we sailed along rain-smoothed stretches of sand into South Horr where the residents look as if they've just stopped work on a movie set. Almost everyone is dressed in traditional, colourful, heavily beaded costumes - it can't be just to skim off tourist dollars because almost no tourists travel this road and, anyway, who expects to meet a tourist in the welfare department's office?
Nice People
Leaving South Horr the seriousness of the shifta problem was driven home, at gunpoint. We'd slowed down to pass a broken down truck slewed across the road. As we neared it a turbaned figure shot out from behind the vehicle, bringing an AK 47 assault rifle to bear as he came into view.
He, I suspect, was more nervous than we were. Realising we were just mzungus, rather than a real threat, the barrel quickly dropped and a waved apology was extended. We elected not to stop and ask if we could help.
It wasn't too much later that we felt the muddy sinking sensation. We were making slow progress at getting Wag 'n B out, slip-sliding along a metre at a time as Lisa skidded around in search of small stones - it was either that or large rocks considering we were in a large rock garden.
Salvation, some missionaries heading home to Loyangalani, arrived mounted in two Chevrolet trucks with double rear wheels, 6.2 litre diesel engines - one of them turbocharged - and vastly more experience of stuck-truck extraction.
Slinging a chain between his truck and ours, we were out faster than you can say "mud puddle" and on our way. Tim and the rest of the group were travelling slowly as they were using most of their trucks' 2-ton capacities to ferry supplies to their mission.
Hindsight tells me I should have heeded their speed, considering their experience on that road, but I didn't and 2 km further along, we were again rescued when the leaf spring broke.
Lake Truckharmer
Our sighting of the lake coincided with the loud groaning, forcing us to stop and admire both the lake and the damage. Still pondering our lopsided position, Tim and company - by this time they must have considered us a real pair of babes in lava field - arrived to solve our problems.
Tim suggested crawling another 500 m to a level site he had used for emergency repairs.
Tim, his son Luke and assistant Alex - with us doing no more than helping - soon had the spare leaf spring, carried since a replacement operation in Mbeya, Tanzania. The broken spring must have begun its decline a while ago - Western Tanzania's roads, I suspect!
Tim followed us to Loyangalani, making sure we arrived, where we spent two days before starting the trip out, this time heading south before cutting across the bottom of the Chalbi Desert to Marsabit.
Bad Planning
I'm relieved Tim wasn't around to witness the trip out - I'm sure he wasn't thinking anything of the sort, but his helping us made me realise that the trip to Loyangalani was woefully poorly planned: insufficient fuel (we hadn't realised how bad the roads were), insufficient local currency (it's difficult to change it back to dollars if you've got too much) and we had allowed insufficient time, resulting in too much haste.
Emerging from Lake Turkana's surrounding lava beds, we turned east and sped along the sandy track - at 60 km/h Wag 'n B floated over it rather than ploughing through it.
Near the village of Kargi, we hit a bumpy section and, with the tyres deflated for sand driving, Wag 'n B was bouncing her butt all over the place. The stress of watching the (sinking) fuel gauge and the heat had me in bad mood already and the bouncy shook my temper loose (an unusual occurrence, you must admit!), so instead of breaking something, I stomped off with a cigarette.
Kicking the Bucket
Huffing past the back of the truck, I found water pouring out - the water drum's cap had come off. Calm down nothing: I kicked the damned drum, with some gusto. It wasn't until after I'd got a good boot in that reason returned - booting a drum containing 20 litres of water isn't wise.
Hobbling away in extreme pain helped drive this point home. Within minutes my foot was significantly larger than it had been, leaving me to hope it was sprained - I didn't want to think about all those little bones and what local doctors, facilities and medical costs would involve.
The rest of the drive was a little painful but the "fun" wasn't over yet. We took a wrong turn (relying, stupidly, on location coordinates for Marsabit from Footprint's East Africa guide).
Thinking we'd found the laughingly grandiosely titled Trans African Highway, we compounded our errors - again, trusting Footprint - and turned north while the fuel guage went steadily south. 20 km later we realised the error of our ways but by then fuel guage was resting at the south pole.
Turning back, we bumbled south with no real idea of where we were, how far we needed to go or how far the fuel would last. After an hour of crawling along the bumpy road in complete darkness we stopped - more a case of giving up than a strategic pit stop.
Guardian Angels
It is difficult to imagine being any luckier than we were - even if the leaf spring hadn't broken when it did, it would have done so sooner or later, later being without missionary assistance.
Our luck still held and within 5 minutes a Land Rover crammed with people and goods was slowing down even before I waved a torch at them.
The driver happily - it's a big sacrifice, considering North Horr has no fuel station - sold us 20 litres of diesel and told us we were finally on a road going to Marsabit, albeit one way off our course. "When you next come to North Horr, come and see us," he said. "You'll find us at the mission compound." We should have known.
With fuel on board - I had earlier wondered how far the 2 litres of cooking paraffin/kerosene would take us - and the right road under us, we trundled into the night but Marsabit proved elusive and we camped beside the road, sleeping like the dead until 4 am, when the wind was so strong we wondered if the tent was about to blow closed with us inside.Until 4 am, by which time the wind had picked up to the point where we both woke up wondering whether the tent was about to blow closed with us inside. Packing it all away as the first drops of rain began to fall, we dragged our exhaustion-fogged bodies into the front seats and sat staring into the night wondering what we should do next.
Packing away as the first drops fell, we scurried exhaustedly into the truck and sat staring into the night, wondering what we should do next.
That issue kind of decided itself and we awoke to another truck driver enquiring whether we were okay.
We'd stopped, he said, only 3 km short of Marsabit - we could have slept in comfortable beds! Five minutes drive saw us stop stopped at the Jey Jey Hotel and installed in the restaurant for masala tea - one cup of hot milk, a tea bag and some masala tea spice equals a truly refreshing brew - and breakfast.
After changing money at the bank, filling up with diesel and more tea, it was off to bed - before noon - to sleep most of the afternoon away.
|
