Laikipia

A huge rock formation in the distance. As we get closer it resembles the face of an elephant, looking over the savannah. This beautiful and harsh environment has sculpted its inhabitants, both the living and the unanimated. The plants are armed with thorns, trying to protect the tiny leaves against hungry mouths. Aloe plants, designed to collect dew and rain, leading the water into their center and storing it in their fleshy arms. Elephants, real ones, melting into the shrubs, hardly to be seen despite their size. Giraffes picking the leaves that have not been reached by the smaller competitors.

We go on, following the sandy road, covered in dust, dust that is everywhere.  We are on our way to visit a women group in a Maasai village in Laikipia county. The Maasai, nomadic animal herders by tradition, are suffering under the drought. It has become worse in the last years, and finding enough pasture to feed the cattle, goats, sheep and camels is difficult. The men walk long distances together with their animals, as far as Mount Kenya, hoping to find grass. But temperatures there are freezing at night, killing the already weak, half-starved animals through pneumonia and other diseases. Sometimes the men who left their villages with hundred animals come back with less than ten, after many weeks of absence.

In the meantime the women try to survive without the animals. The women of the group we are visiting started a small vegetable garden with the guidance of Joseph Lentunyoi from the Laikipia Permaculture Center. Joseph is a Maasai who became Permaculture teacher because he sees Permaculture as a possible future for his people, helping them to get resilient to the climate challenges. Apart from the vegetables, the women grow aloe and make soap, creams, and shampoo out of it. They collect the fruits of the cacti, the opuntia, that threaten to take over the land, and sell them to the Permaculture Center where they are turned into jam, juice, and wine and sold to visitors and local shops and restaurants.

The women welcome us with a dance. Only half of the group has been able to come, the others are busy fetching water – the next water source is 20 km away and carrying water to their homes has become the main and most important activity in their daily life.

We have come here with Paolo, who has fallen in love with the place and its people years ago and has been supporting them ever since. With his support the women have been able to fence their gardens with solar powered electric wire, so the elephants won´t be able to get in and destroy the vegetable beds any more. Rape, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, beans and herbs are growing under shade nets, supplying healthy additions to their meagre diet, which usually consists mainly of Ugali, a maize porridge without vitamins or proteins.

We chat with the women. They tell us that since the introduction of the vegetable gardens and the aloe project their situation has improved enormously. The meals are better and tastier, and with the additional income from the sale of Aloe products and Opuntia fruits they can send their children to school. Even the men are convinced by their success, and they were given more land to cultivate!

They invite us to a meal of beans, cabbage and rice before we leave. It is delicious. The water we use to wash our hands is collected in a plastic bowl, attracting bees within minutes, hundreds of them drinking the soapy water. Thirsty.

Next steps planned together with the women are to build a sand-dam to collect rainwater, harvest the roof water from buildings, and restore the eroded land.