Don’t mess with baboons!

As you have already guessed through previous entries… baboons figure in the list of our main worries. This is especially true in the case of the human-habituated troops that roam freely around the village and its outskirts. This animals approach houses to scavenge on rubbish and organic residues, and it’s pretty frequent to see them close to our house. But their courage doesn’t end there: they adventure inside the houses, where they will shamelessly steal any onions, bananas and other fruits and vegetables in their reach. Hence, one of our rules is keep always the doors closed!

Feeling lazy... (Photo: Gillian Boehm)

Needless to say, if you encounter a troop of these animals in the forest, and they don’t run away (and don’t think otherwise: this is the most usual scenario), you don’t have any other option than politely wait until they decide to let you pass. And seriously, you don’t want to do it otherwise: a male baboon standing in his back legs may be as tall as many girls I know, being much heavier and having way longer fangs than them.

Nevertheless, although they can be cocky and defensive, they don’t dare to attack humans. But this is not the case with other, often more innocent, beings: two weeks ago, they slaughtered and ate one of the guardian dogs of a hotel.

A simple piece of advice: if you come to Africa, don’t mess with baboons!

My article in front page!

My article about the Common Fisheries Policy Reform is published in the October Number of the Quercus Magazine... and not only that: it is in front page. Can't believe it! I needed to share this with you!

Diving adventures

Most of you can already guess, from previous blog entries, how happy I become on boats, in the water, over the water, below the water or, simply, around water. And most of you already knew my personal taste for diving. Well, it comes that the Southern Kenyan Coast and, more concretely, the Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Protected Area, are presumed the best diving grounds in Africa, and ranked among the best ones of the world. And yes, I have already taken the opportunity to profit of them in several occasions.

My limited Scuba experience doesn’t let a big room for comparisons, but I can affirm that these reefs are amazing. The first days I tried it, I saw sea turtles, enormous lobsters, lion fishes, giant clams and star fishes, and a huge diversity of colored fishes of all sizes.

But that’s not all. I decided to take a further step, and take the Advanced Open Water Diver course. Hence, during the last weeks I have had the opportunity to do deep dives (when I encountered even a shark), drift dives and night dives, before completing the course. As well, these weeks I have seen whales and lots of dolphins during the sails to the diving sites. I hope I will keep on diving regularly during my time in Kenya!

Friends of Shimoni Forest (FSF)

Time for introductions and greetings! FSF are one of the CBOs (Community Based Organizations) of Shimoni, and one of GVI’s partners. And I have the privilege of being working very closely with them! But let’s see what this association is all about.

FSF work with the aim of preserve the Shimoni Forest. OK, I know it was pretty obvious after reading their name, but let’s move on. The forest is already very disturbed, and is isolated of the rest of coastal forests in the Kenyan coast. However, it hosts a huge biodiversity, and sustains the livelihoods of people in Shimoni and neighboring villages, who obtain from it charcoal, wood for construction and furniture and plants which are used for their healing properties (traditional medicines). Moreover, it also provides other services, like water and air purification and other ecosystem services.

However, the forest is endangered by an unsustainable use of resources. Irresponsible charcoal production, logging for timber (very often done by people from upcountry, which obtain from it a benefit the local community never sees) and urban development has alarmingly reduced the surface of the forest, which is so important for the locals. Even if sometimes they are not aware of it. The fact that the land is owned by government officials who live far from here and own the land due to obscure reasons, and hence can sell it at any point without any previous warning to not very scrupulous resort projects, really doesn’t help.

But FSF are perfectly aware. And they have taken a lot of initiatives in order to preserve their forest. The most remarkable one is the creation of a tourist trail that goes through the forest, visiting the most remarkable sites (including the mangroves and the kayas, or traditional sacred places). They account with a team of 3 trained guides which bring the tourists through the forest, teaching them about the animals, the plants and their traditional uses and the local culture. They also sell T-shirts and polo shirts.

And what do they do with the benefits of the trail and the merchandising? They re-invest it in the local community, giving scholarships to kids that want to continue their studies through secondary education and buying medicines for the local dispensary. They also organize a lot of awareness-raising events.

Can’t wait to start working more closely with them!

You realize you live in Africa when...

... your only measure of time is based on sunset and sunrise.
... you are awaken early in the morning by: the mosque calling to prayer, the fish eagles or a monkey entering your room.
... you start to think that the protein content of your diet is alarmingly low.
... huge tragedies with hundreds of victims happen only some hundreds of kilometers away from your house regularly.
... you cannot see the other persons around you at night, but still somebody greets you from the dark.
... electricity shutdowns are a part of daily life... in the case you have electricity.
... your conception of hygiene and tidiness become "dangerously relaxed" compared with the ones you brought with you from home... and you don't remember where did you leave them.
... a monkey pooing in your work-mate's bed, which is only one meter away from yours, is a matter of routine.
... you have been bitten by leeches, mosquitoes, sandflies, flies, horseflies, caterpillars, spiders... and many other things you are unable to identify.
... the kids from the village greet you with a song every time they see you... about 10 times per day, all the several hundreds of kids.
... bribing police officers is nothing estrange.
... you see as many young female prostitutes as young male prostitutes.
... the moon, from time to time, changes radically its coloration.
... you can see the milky way crossing the sky from horizon to horizon absolutely every night.
... all the fruit you eat is fresh. Always.
...chocolate is motive to enormous happiness.
... the thing you fear most to encounter while walking alone are baboons. As well as the thing you fear most to enter your house.
... you enjoy of the pole pole way of life.
... you think that passion fruit juice is the most awesome beverage you can have.
... you don't understand why is it absolutely impossible to find a decent coffee in a country that grows one of the best coffees of the world.
...

A sykes monkey, in our garden.

The Shimoni caves

Shimoni signifies, literally, “the place of the caves”. This is due to the presence of some huge caves under the center of town. But, before continuing, let me give you a short briefing in geology: long ago, this part of the coast, as well as Pemba and Zanzibar islands, were underwater, and covered with coral reefs. With time, this reefs emerged, and their rest formed a particular kind of soil called “coral rag”, characteristic of this area. This kind of geological ground has numerous caves, and other features, like the fact that the soil can never develop too much, being rarely thicker than 20 cm. Hence, the forest trees cannot grow too high, and their own weight will eventually throw them down.

And we come back to the caves below Shimoni. These caves have a regrettable legend and history behind them, and they tell us something about an often ignored part of the history of this part of the continent. During not so long ago, on the days of the Zanzibari sultanate, slave trade was one of the main sources of richness and trade for the Swahili people, who embarked on long trips far inland from which they returned charged with ivory and human cargo. Before embarking towards Zanzibar, these hopeless souls were “stored”, without any food and only salt water to drink, in these caves, were many of them often starved to the death after a strenuous trip on foot from their original land. Chains in the walls are mute witnesses of this tragedy.

Nowadays, however, the only beings that use these caves are several species of bats. And the people from the village offer guided tours through the caves, where they tell the visitors about the history of their village and slavery. And all the obtained profits are invested in medicines for the local dispensary and aids to the schools and other community projects, serving to pretty different purposes than those of 150 years ago!

Kiswahili course

Do you guys remember that I wanted to learn Swahili? This week I had the opportunity. Profiting from the end of Expedition and the break, me and the new GVI interns have attended and intensive and exhaustive Kiswahili (the Swahili name of Swahili language), that filled our brains with a grey and thick cloud of exotic nouns and weird grammatical structures. For all those who may be interested… Kiswahili verbs are similar to those in Basque language!

During class time.

Pole pole

Pole pole, waiting for the sun to set, during Ramadan.

Some of you maybe remember how I described the rhythm life runs with in Madagascar. In Malagasy language, they had an expression to describe it: "mora mora". It means something similar to "little by little", "slowly, slowly", "without hurries", etc. And it was used to describe the way of life in the Red Island.
Here in Kenya, I have already had the opportunity to enjoy of and suffer their own definition of the same concept: "pole pole". Curiously, "pole" means "sorry", and they say "sorry sorry" to mean "little by little", as if they excused themselves for taking their time.
However, even if in the beginning it can result annoying the speed at which things happen in this country, I have come to a point in which I'd rather enjoy of it. And when you enter in the "pole pole" way of live, your happiness increases and your patience develops to yet unexplored spheres.

Sunset in Wasini Island

A thousand silvery spears

With a little more of a week of delay, it's time to speak a little about last Friday's encounter on the waves. While sailing on the periphery of the Kisite-Mpunguti MPA, we spotted a humpback whale on the distance. For our population studies, we need to photo identify our spotted animal, and hence we chased the whale for obtaining photos of its tale. Was it aware of this? We ignore it, but the whale delighted us with the show of its huge tale clapping steadily against the water.

Amazing? Yes, of course. But not as much as what was about to follow. This whale conduced us, without meaning it, towards a new encounter with marine mammals. Suddenly, we found our boat encircled by a pod of about a thousand long-snouted spinner dolphins. For more than an hour, we simply stared at the spectacle of nature around us. The dolphins surfing in the board of the boat, the synchronization of dozens of dolphins jumping out of the water at the same time, the games among them and the absolutely amazing spins that give the name to this particular species. We took around a thousand photos of this enormous pod, and even our captain, Faridi, was stoned in amazement, as it was the first time he saw this kind of dolphin.

Maybe you know already know what a humpback whale is, but maybe this particular species of dolphin is new to you. Long-snouted dolphins (Stenella longirostris) are a small species of dolphin, length 1.3-2.1 meters. Their coloration varies greatly among different geographical areas, being common a 3-toned pattern. They have a long and slender beak and a erect dorsal fin that helps in their identification. They live in pods from 5 to 1000 individuals, generally in open waters. However, their most characteristic feature, and the one they owe their name to, is their habit to perform high spinning leaps. More recently, they have also been known for having been slaughtered by the tuna purse-seiner fishery, particularly in the eastern tropical pacific.

Close encounters of the wet kind

You are snorkeling a transect in the marine reserve, doing one the reef fish surveys with your workmates, and you are approaching to the end, where the boat is waiting for you. But, suddenly, you realize of the presence of three tourist dhows encircling something just in front of you, and moving steadily in your direction. Until this circle closes around you, and the herd of dolphins that was being chased by them appears underwater in front of your wide-opened eyes. And you find yourself surrounded by nine dolphins that are swimming around and below you, neither you of them caring about the boats in the surface. Concretely, seven adults and two calves.
During some minutes, you can just breath enough to get underwater once again. During that short spam, all your attention is focused on those  playful creatures that look at you, encircle you and explore your reactions like thinking "what are this guys doing here?". You can barely swim at the same speed, which they have considerably lowered to approach you. And you can feel their eyes fixed on yours, while you swim parallel one to each other, sharing that magical moment of cross-directional curiosity. And you can also hear and feel in your skin the sounds they make, as an additional way of testing who or what you are, or like if they were discussing whether you are a threaten or simply something weird to look at.
But finally, these ghosts of the depths disappear once again, crossing to the other side of the limit of the underwater twilight, as fast and suddenly as they appeared. And you get back to the surface, trying to recover all that oxygen that you have not missed almost at all during the previous five minutes, simply amazed of the experience you have just lived, you mouth wide opened, shivering and astonished.

Bottlenose dolphins in the Kisite-Mpunguti marine park

Apologies

It was time already, yes... but since I came back to the island, my possibilities to update the blog depend not on the Internet availability, but on the electricity. Basically, even if my new work computer's battery has a lifespan way longer than the previous one, I still depend on the generator to refill it. And, once it's done, I must first work on other things before I can even consider to update this Blog. Hence, sorry, I have tons of adventures to share, but I am afraid it will take some time...