Eburru

I am amazed to find myself still waking up at 7 am everyday! Quite literally, I have woken up within minutes of 7:05 every single day, to the point that when I woke up this morning at 7:01 am I thought, "Hum, four minutes early." Silly the way our minds work!
Its been good since today and tomorrow will be spent with Mr. Arensen, visiting the Dorobo and his property along Malewa River.

(Okay, I started this post on Thursday, got too tired and now its Saturday. So! I won't try to continue to present tense...)

History of the Dorobo:
First, a few clarifications for those of you whom I shared about the Dorobo with. I wasn't all wrong, but I was sorely mistaken regarding this specific area that the Dorobo live in. Apparently the tribe is considerably spread out!
We visited a young man aspiring to be a pastor on a mountain called Eburru, which rises 1000m above the Rift Valley to a peak of around 3000m above sea level. Because of this, the area is actually quite lush; there is greenery peeping out of every crevice and rock. Also because of the amount of deforestation and some extremely shady politics, the Dorobo are now mostly farmers.
Let me explain. First, understand that Shel Arensen is a published author several times over, and he is now the editor of a magazine called "Old Africa" which is a magazine all about Kenya's colonial days and is rather popular among the expatriates. Anyways, since he has been the editor of this magazine he has become the fundi of everything that happened in pre-indepenance Kenya, as well as being very knowledgeable of the current goings-on of the Kenyan government. It made for one of the most entertaining and informative 2-hour bumpy-car rides of my life!
Basically, the Dorobo are the Palestinians of East Africa. They are the trodden on, to the point where no one can clearly remember the actual name of the the tribe, but the word "Dorobo" is Maasai for "poor person," and have long been regarded as the lowest form of humanity. To the Maasai it is because they didn't herd cattle; to the Kikuyu it was because they didn't farm. No, the Dorobo relied on the forest: hunting wild boar and buffalo, and harvesting honey with extreme skill. However, when the land was settled by the English at the turn of the century, there was a lot of land divied up between the whites and the Africans. Around the time this was going on Kenya's population was around 2.5 million, and there were about 4000 White Settlers. Now, to their credit the reason they did a lot of this was to end slavery and begin a commerce, but as with all things human, it didn't go completely right.
See, there was 20 million (or billion --Mr. Arensen couldn't remember the magnitude, but it is the ratios that are important to note) acres of land set aside for the various tribes numbering 2.5 million people, but also 14 million acres set aside for the whooping 4000 White Settlers. There was also considerable tracts of land set aside for forest and wildlife conservation. But the Dorobo were left with nothing. They couldn't live in the forest because it was "protected" but they also couldn't live in the rest of the land, because it had been given to other tribes who were already there! Of course the Dorobo weren't the only ones screwed, because most of the other tribes were nomadic or practiced migratory agriculture, and when the Whites started building their farms, some of the key corridors or watering holes were taken from the people who relied on them a few months out of the year. Anyways. That was the first time the Dorobo were forgotten.
The second time was when the First President Jomo Kenyatta took power in 1963. The British government told all its people that if they wanted to leave, Her Majesty would buy their land, since it was she who initially encouraged them to go to Kenya. Because of this, vast amounts of land that had previously been White-owned was now turned over to the newly formed Kenyan Government. Many tribes were quite excited to finally receive back land that had been taken from them, but when Kenyatta re-distributed the land, it was almost solely to his people, the Kikuyu. And of course the forests were still Government owned, so the Dorobo were left a second time without a home.
Even more recently in the Eburru area, the Government came in a moved several close knit Dorobo communities, telling them that they could no longer live even on the edge of the forest, as it had to be used for "other purposes." The land the government gave them in exchange was on the rainless side of the mountain (is that the leeward or the windward?) which had poor soil to farm, was steep, and forced the once-close communities to spread out over several hours hike from one another. It was the last straw for some, and they moved to other parts of the country where Dorobo are still allowed to live on the edge of the forest (but never in the forest), further destroying the community at Eburru.

What We Did!
One of the people to uproot from Eburru and move was the sole elder of the church there. Leaderless and spread too far apart, the Body began to disinigrate. There is a young man named Marten who wishes to become the leader of the church, but has had no formal training and only got to have a conversation with Mr. Arensen on Thursday. (Mr. Arensen was the AIC missionary who started the church, and he is still responsible for its survival, although he is encouraging more and more of the nationals to take responsibility so it will truly be their church --which is why we went to encourage Marten, not take over)
It was incredible to see how this man lived. He is what we here in Kenya called a Jua Kali. Literally, it means "sun hot" but has become slang for day-workers, because they are always out sweating under the hot sun. It is also used to refer to something made with poor quality, under the assumption that someone who only works out in the sun never learns how to make something of high quality. So when we arrived at Marten's house we were met by his wife who informed us he would return "shortly" as he had gotten work that day. His house was probably 7'x14' and consisted of a "main room" which was just large enough for five people to sit against the mud walls and a kitchen/bedroom/washroom. The ceiling was a cavernous 5' high, and was covered in patches of pastic to keep the elements out.
And in walks Marten, all smiles, the sweat still on this brow, jabbering away in a mixture of Kiswahili, Kikuyu, and Maasai about his excitement in the Lord for this body of believers. Luckily, Shel speaks all three languages, and occassionally translated into English so I could understand. After Marten heard I was interested in how they collected water, he excitedly led us out, through other small shambas, past his brothers house (who joined us), and over a hill to where steam came straight out of the mountain. They say there is no surface water, but there is surface steam! Its true. What the Dorobo do is cut off 10' lengths of Bamboo from the forest, then bury the ends in the ground where the steam comes out at an angle, so as the steam travels up the bamboo it cools, then trickles down to a small hole in the bottom where is empties into a 20L jug. You always know where the steam is close to the surface, because it is surrounded in an intensely red clay called Kaolin. Marten said that they usually come in the morning and in the evening to empty their jugs --meaning they get 40L of fresh water a day from these steam vents! And not just him or his family, but everyone on the mountain gets their water this way!
We returned to his house and spent the next hour encouraging him along with two other Dorobo Christians who had heard we had come. It was good to hear what had been going on, and what Marten planned to do to reach out to people. Mr. Arensen is an excellent listener and is quite familiar with the culture, knowing when is the right time to give advice or not.

The Children
When we first arrived at the village centre, the primary school was just being let out, which means we were met by nearly fifty children all shouting, "How a'you?" to which the appropriate answer is, "Fine! Fine!" while their big eyes and small arms reach up to you, begging to be given something or simply touched. They are absolutely fascinated by digital cameras, finding it the most comical thing to see themselves in a picture. Because White skin was the biggest news on the mountain for the day, we were escorted by a gaggle of 20 kids from the centre to Marten's house --at least a mile walk, perhaps more. In fact, most of the kids hung around outside listening, or leading us by the hand as we walked, pointing and showing us different steam vents. I got a few pictures of some who "talked" to me the most: Damaris and Paulo, plus several pictures of the groups of kids following us. Unfortunately, this internet connection is really slow and can't handle uploading pictures.
They are the most beautifully inquizitive children you will ever meet, their eyes full of life and hope that stands in utter defiance of the landscape around them. It was a blessing to be their entertainment for the day, as they were humored by even the smallest and most mundane thing we did. It was fun to be surrounded in their mixture of giggles and snatches of conversations, as they swirled around us as we walked --clearly too slowly for most of the children.
Mr. Arensen told Paulo, who had taken to holding my hand, that since I was White I would get lost unless I had someone to lead me, and the young boy of four or five took his new responsibility quite seriously. And you know? I never got lost. :)


The Food
Have I said enough how much I love chai and chapatis? Well, on this day of visiting we each got four cups of chai and three chapatis. Wow, delicious! But I was so full by the end of it...
After being engulfed in children upon arriving at the centre, we visiting a "friend" of Shel's that runs a small duka. When I say "small" there is underexaggeration in the term. The "seating area" was smaller than a dining room table, and consisted of a small creaky bench and an outcropping of wood on the opposite wall for setting the food. We had to slide in to our seats, and luckily the two Kenyans already there didn't need to get out of their corner, or else everyone would have had to leave the building just for there to be enough space for them to get out. Including his "kitchen" (which was nothing more than a fire on the ground, a stack of chapatis, and the makings of chai), the whole building could've fit inside my room in the Alpine House.
When he brought us our chapatis, he didn't have any plates, so he ripped off corners of Uji mix (think of a bag of flour), set our chapatis in that and served us. Since there was obviously no space inside, people would lean in through the square hole in the wall acting as a window to talk to us. Conveniently, the window was just behind our heads, so we had Kenyans leaning over the top of us to talk, several going off in various languages at a time. It was a fun and unique experience, not to mention the best chai and chapatis I've had!
Next, when we returned to Marten's house after seeing the steam collection, his wife had prepared chai and chapatis for us, which were also excellent, and she insisted on us having two cups of chai! Later that night I learned that for a Dorobo to share their food is the mark of welcome into the community. Being a hunter/gatherer tribe, they historically never knew where their next meal was coming from, so they would never share with outsiders. They still never share with outsiders, so it was an honor to be welcomed into a Dorobo home and fed. This is startkly contrasted with the Kikuyu who will feed you no matter what; if you step into their home, they must feed you.
We experienced this under the Philipino culture as we made our way back to Kijabe: we stopped to visit with an expatriate friend and his wife --he is British, she is Filipino, and once again we were bombarded with food!
Finally we made it back to Kijabe, only to find myself invited to dinner at the Arensens where I was presented with the most delicious kiesh I have ever tasted, sided by a salad containing walnuts from our farm in California!
Needless to say, at the end of the night I was stuffed!

All in all, a good day of traveling, fellowship, learning, and eating! Ah, just what I could spend my whole life doing...