To Malanga and back

The ASSETTS – Aruboko-Sukoke Schools Eco-Tourism Training

Scheme – is set up to provide bursaries to children who cannot afford higher education in return for a commitment to helping protect the natural world they live in. A number of schools have signed up to this initiative, and at the end of my second

week in Kenya, I was invited with three of the Arocha staff – Tsofa, Jonathan

, Alex, and another volunteer Jeff to visit a school in Malanga to help a presentation to the Primary School (age 4 – 16) wild-life club, and then hold a seminar for local pastors on challenges to the environment. This would involve an overnight stay – for which the pick-up was required, so yours truly and two others from the party ended up riding shot gun on top of mattresses, diesel generator, and food supplies – for a journey of 2 hours.

What a brilliant way to see the countryside: the rich red sandstone abruptly changing to a paler sandstone and back; clusters of shambas (farmsteads) with goats and occasionally cattle and often small children running around. On the way there was plenty of evidence of the type of farming that has gone on for generation, but which is becoming less and less productive: tress and bushes are cut down and burnt to make charcoal for fuel and for additional income. The maize or cassava that is planted on the cleared ground grows well for the first couple of years as the ash provides nutrients, but soon, the lack of rain and light texture of the sand soil combine to make harvests less and less successful, and even worse, hasten erosion. This year the rains, even near the coast, have been so sporadic that the usual rhythm of planting of crops in April and May with a harvest in July has been upset.

En route to Malanga, we visited a primary school where some of

the desks had been paid for by the church that Jeff, training as a URC minister, had come from in Heswall, Mersey

side. The staff room was worth taking a picture of, in order to put into perspective teaching conditions back home.

We then continued to Malanga Primary School, where we arrived

late, but that wasn’t a problem. The children start school at 6.30 a.m. and lessons finish formally at 3.30, when club activities take over About 120 children filled the library for the Arocha presentation led by Tsofa- which only got off the ground because the two UK volunteers put their churchy skills to work to make up a new power cable for the video projector. We’d left the correct one back Mwamba! The DVD presentation was a Kenyan-produced film to put across the “Don’t eat bushmeat” message. Apparently 3 out of 10 Kenyans are involved in one way or another with the tourist industry. Tourists visit to see the wild animals, but there is an increasing demand for meat by the rapidly increasing Kenyan population (which is growing by 900,000 each year at present – that is the size of a Mombasa every year), and wild animals are becoming an increasing target for meat merchants. It was interesting to watch, and to see how the actors expressions more than the words seemed to generate a response from the gathered students.

Then, just before dusk, we set up our overnight camp in the library where the presentation was held. Mattresses, mosquito nets, bedding etc were all unloaded and set up in the fading light, after which we were driven by a rookie pick-up driver a mile or so down a narrow road to the bustling metropolis of Malanga – no light pollution here – no electricity! We missed the café on our first pass through the village, but that was probably because there was no sign to indicate the mud shack served any particular purpose. Nevertheless a wonderful chicken stew and chapatti meal was enjoyed in the gloom, and then back for an hour so of chat round a fire lit in the school compound – no health and safety police around here! – before the dreaded hour for bed arrived.

8 exceedingly long hours and no sleep later, ( noisy rats were attracted to the maize that was stored on shelves where in a library one would normally expect to find books!) And then there was the visit to the ablutions block…….