All Creatures Great and Small

The Masai (Kenyan tribal herders) believe that they own all of the cattle in the world and I'm sure that some of the students at NEGST would have something to say about that. The students here run several cooperatives. One of them are the shared gardens that are about the campus and the other are the few cattle that provides milk. Patrice Penney mentioned that in suburban American the poor are encouraged to do everything to keep their cars--it is their lifeline. In Kenya the life line is one's shamba, or garden. For the students at NEGST the cooperative gardens and lifestock help them to divert what monies they have available to them to pay for tuition.
As you may suspect, Kenya, and all of Africa, present many opportunities to see things you've never seen before or to see things much more often than you regularly would. An example of the former is the glorious Banana Slug. The picture that you see simply cannot do it justice. This "little" friend appeared on the way to dinner one evening. "He" (who knows how to tell gender on these things, I'm certainly not going to pick it up!) was roughly 4 inches long, which would make "him" rather young. The last time I was in Kenya I saw one on the ground that was closer to 8 inches and much more colorful. You can likely tell why it is called a banana slug, especially when bananas here are more like chubby thumbs than cucumbers.
Here's another friend that showed up this morning on the way to breakfast. Maybe I should find another way to the cafe (where a bottle of coke is 20 bob, or 20 shillings, about 25 cents).
On another note: This weekend we had the opportunity to accompany the Penney family on a weekend getaway/short vacation, or safari--every journey is a safari in Kenya. We had the opportunity to travel about 2 hours northwest of Nairobi near Lake Naivasha. This lake is one of a string of lakes as one heads towards Tanzania and Lake Victoria. We stayed on the grounds of the Kigio Wildlife Conservancy. This is a private sanctuary for the Rothschild Giraffe, which is an endangered species. We stayed at a banda, called Mapacha, which is a thatched roof hut. So, in short, we actually did stay in a hut.
This preserve is the on the banks of the Malewa River.We were able to see all sorts of game. We were able to see Thompson's gazelles, Impalas, Dik-dik (tiniest deer--about 14" tall), Water Buck, Zebras, Giraffe, Grey Fox, Colobas (monkey), and Warthogs


Here are some more images taken at Malewa.