To Mbita and Nakuru

I am excited to go on the trip on the first of October. We will be away for six days, going to both Mbita Point at Lake Victoria and Nakuru/Njoro for interviews. We leave at six in the morning and only manage to leave Nairobi after 1,5 hour after having picked up both my Italian and Kenyan colleague and stepping by the office. As soon as we are outside Nairobi, there is less traffic on the road and somehow it feels a lot safer. We stop in Naroq for breakfast: chai with mandazi. The chai is basically hot milk with a tea bag in and preferably with sugar: it certainly provides energy. As the two women in the company, we start looking for a clean toilet. Most toilets are pit toilets and not always so clean; toilet paper is very rarely provided. We have some time, because one of the car tires had a slow puncture. We walk up the street not bothered by anyone, passing a few donkeys, noticing that it is quite warm, and actually find a cleaner toilet. Standing outside on my own, the owner of the shop to which the toilet belongs tries to convince me to come into his shop. This stops when my Kenyan colleague returns. I should really learn to speak Swahili; that makes you less of a tourist despite the white skin.

The hope to come across some more hitchhiking Masaai, and then to make that one photo we missed out on earlier, disappears when we turn north to Kisii, where another tribe dominates. The landscape changes quite dramatically: from a dry area to a much greener and densely populated area. From almost no houses we go to many houses with small plots of land. Goats are now tight to the land or the side of the road and no longer walk around freely, being herded by a boy or man (I don’t remember seeing any women herding cattle). In Kisii we have a nice lunch in the garden of a hotel; outside the hotel the city is very busy and a huge market is being held. Thursday seems to be a market day in this area. However, we don’t have much time to look around, since we have an appointment at 16:00 with the host of the institute. So, back on the road towards Mbita Point. At the last junction before Mbita, it doesn’t seem far anymore. We are wrong. The road is full of holes and bumps and we have to drive very slowly for at least another hour. We are lucky it hadn’t been raining, because then the road would become a mud pool with holes and bumps and we would have gotten stuck for sure. However, I don’t mind. It becomes clear that we won’t not be able to make the appointment and phone our host agreeing to meet him the next morning. For the first time, I am at peace with this and not too Dutch – there is really nothing we can do about this and no way to go faster. I decide that it is better to enjoy it: the road feels quite adventurous (which is nice as long it isn’t your daily road) and the area is beautiful. Sometimes we see the shore of Lake Victoria and all the time some nice green mountains. We are close to Ruma national park.

I am sitting behind the driver and have very little leg space. I have short legs, so that’s not really a problem, but my knee –which I strained a few month ago with running- starts hurting after sitting folded in the car for a long day. I am not the only one who feels the need to stretch our legs, so we stop at a small village close to the lake. We walk the few metres from the car to the shore of Lake Victoria. Someone related to the chief of the village welcomes us and explains a bit about the village and the region. While listening to him about 15 children gather behind us. They approach us very slowly from behind, touch our arms (white skin) and run away. It is a very strange experience. I have seen this on tv, but always thought it was a little strange (saying that, I spoke to a Kenyan man, while waiting for the principal of the college of social sciences and humanities for 2,5 hours, who had studied and lived in Russia for six years. He told me that children there were really scared of him, never having seen a black man, and some people tried to see whether the black could be scratched off.). Apparently, these children near Mbita mainly knew white people from tv. In a way, tv had mediated between us: they knew white people from tv, I knew their behaviour in encountering white people from tv.

We hit the road again, quite literally, to try and arrive before dark. Few Kenyan roads are illuminated at night, many people and animals may still use them, and it is better to leave the roads at night. Finally, all tired, we arrive at Mbita, and drop our stuff at the guesthouse of the institute. Malaria is endemic in the area and we are very happy to find mosquito nets around the beds. On our way to find a place to eat – we don’t want to go far – we stop briefly to see how huge fish caught in Lake Victoria are brought to shore, are weighed, and put in a van for export (they are not for the Kenyans themselves). We end up at a guesthouse, the owner of which has studied at Wageningen University. This is not uncommon: many people I have spoken to so far have studied (or have friends who studied) either in Wageningen (when their work related to agricultural, biological, or environmental sciences) or at UNU-MERIT in Maastricht (the more policy-oriented people). In a period in which the Kenyan newspapers are filled with articles on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague planning to prosecute the suspects of the violence in Kenya, it is nice to speak with people who don’t ask you right away whether you are from The Hague.

The next day we get up early to meet our host at 8:00. The Kenyans seem to go to bed early (it is getting dark at 18:30) and also wake up early. We have very interesting conversations with two research teams who also show us how their research works in practice in the field. One of them joins us in the evening and brings us to a beautiful place on the Lake, built and run by a Norwegian. We enjoy dinner in the ‘Holiday Inn’ although I doubt that it belongs to the chain of hotels I associate with the Holiday Inn.

The initial plan to spend the Saturday in the area (and sleeping in a little bit) while the Kenya researcher accompanying us would return to Nairobi is changed. One of the research teams (on push-pull technology) had offered us a visit to see and speak with some farmers employing push pull technology. So, on Saturday morning we get up at 5:30 to get to the ferry that will bring us across a part of the Lake and to a much better road than the one we had used to come to Mbita. Thinking we had been getting up early, on the lake shore it is already busy. Women are bathing or washing their clothes. A guy drives his car into the lake to wash it. The lake can certainly be used for many purposes, but it raises some doubts about the cleanliness of the water. The ferry itself is also quite busy. At the beginning we sit at the passenger deck with the other passengers. However, there are not enough places for everyone (and the trip takes 40 minutes) and when we discover that we sit right in the smoke of the exhaustion pipe which – I can assure you – doesn’t smell good and cannot be healthy, we join the guys in the car. Very close to the meeting point with the organizers of our trip to the farms, we stop to have some breakfast: chai and (a lot of) very nice mandazis. We then visit six different farms in two areas. It is so beautiful and so incredibly green here. Going a little inland from the main road is something I have never done before. We speak with the farmers (the first three speak English) about their land and the technology and how it has benefited them. The stories are pretty similar, but they give us a nice example for our research. Whereas the stories about the push-pull technology are similar, I learn more about Kenya, the Kenyans and the individual farmers. One had been working in Mombasa a part of his life, but, like the others, came back to the farm when he retired. That seems to be common –speaking to the driver of the office who lives in Nairobi with his family, he said that Nairobi will never be his home and he will go back to his land when he finishes in Nairobi. I haven’t figured out whether people get pensions, but the land seems very important. The farmers are quite different too. One, probably about 70 years old, was very friendly and quite cheeky, flirting with the girls. He makes a big impression. His shirt is torn, whereas another famer walks around in a shirt, trousers and shoes, and another one bare feet. We speak to one female farmer (but someone had to translate) who shows us how she cuts the grass for her cattle. It seems quite traditional, but before she starts cutting the grass, she puts her mobile phone on the side.

On the way back we stop at a big rock and a lot of children join us. We also briefly stop at the sign of the equator because we just drove from the northern to the southern half of the world (and the other way around a few hours earlier). We have a nice lunch in Kisumu, for me ugali with some vegetables and for the others ugali and meat. The initial plan was to spend the night in Kisumu, but we decide to drive directly to Nakuru, so we wouldn’t have another long drive on Sunday. The road is good, we pass the big tea plantations at Kericho and our colleague buys us roasted maize. Then there are some road works and there is a detour for all cars.

This road is not covered with asphalt and it starts raining. Suddenly, we stand still. The cars and trucks in front of us stand still and many cars follow behind us. Trucks and cars in front of us have gotten stuck in the mud. We cannot go back or forth. At some point however we decide to try and get passed some other cars, despite the muddiness and deep holes. I am not sure how, but we manage. The driver tells us that it would not be clever to wait: the more cars pass, the worse the road gets. It is also getting dark. A bit further, another diversion. Many cars stand still on the road and we are directed to a small side-road. We are not sure about this, but cannot go back. We end up in a residential area, but there is a way out. Much later than planned and all tired, we arrive in Nakuru. We see a ‘hotel’ where the electricity doesn’t work in the rooms and which seems to have no customers and then decide to go to a better hotel, where we ask for the cheapest rooms which are fine and also have mosquito nets; the lock is not so great, so I place the chair in front of the door. Without dinner, we go to sleep.

Sunday turned out to be a rest day. In the morning, after doing some work my colleague and I went to an internet café to check whether there was any news from the office. Two white people on the street and immediately we are targeted: ‘I’ll show you where it is for free ; I am Frans Bauer’ (a terrible Dutch singer), and then wants to sell us cards because he is an artist. Mbita had not been such a touristy place and walking around with two Kenyans had also protected us from those targeting the tourists.

We walk back along a touristy market. The morning with the farmers had caused me a bad sunburn in my neck and I decide to buy a scarf to protect my neck: it cannot handle any more sun and it is hot. I ask my colleague to do the bargaining, because I am quite bad at that, and he manage to get me a reasonable price. We pick up the other colleagues to buy some fruit for lunch (orange, apple, pineapple, banana) which we eat picnicking on the grass belonging to the hotel. The plan is to visit Nakuru national park that afternoon. But at the end of the picnic the thunder starts and then the rain. Going to the park is no longer an option: the risk that we will get stuck on the road is too large as the roads turn into mud pools when it rains as we had also seen the night before. In addition, life stops in Kenya when it rains. Most of the time, they know it won’t last long and it usually rains in the evening, so there is no point in going out. I explained that if life would stop in the Netherlands, not much life would be going on. So, we spend the afternoon watching photos on the computer to show each other a bit of Italy, Norway and Sweden.

Fortunately it stops raining in the evening and we go out for food. After a whole afternoon with four in a small hotel room, it is nice to go out. The scarf has become quite unnecessary against the sun, but I now use it to keep warm. We drink a Tusker watching some English football on tv and then have a really nice evening and dinner (ugali with vegetables). We discuss all sorts of issues, differences between Italy, the Netherlands and Kenya with regard to religion, marriage, etc. –finding out that European women are for free, no goats in return, is a good surprise for the driver; finding out that the father of the bride in Kenya sets a high price and that the family of the husband is trying to lower that seems not too respectful towards the bride to us Europeans; drinking cold beer is strange for the Kenyan whereas drinking warm beer unacceptable to us. Since we are four, we decide that it is safe to walk back rather than take a taxi. And probably safer to walk back than take a ‘bike taxi’ – a bike with a seat on the back of the bike.