Tsavo and Watamu

Highlights from the last month include a trip to Tsavo National Park where the movie about the man-eating lions, The Ghost and the Darkness, takes place.

We did not see any man-eaters but we were chased down by an angry mother rhino and her child. Fortunately, the rhino was intimidated by our Toyota Rav4 and backed down. The animals are much wilder in Tsavo than the other Kenyan parks.

Normally leopards are of the most difficult animals to see in the wild due to their shy nature and nocturnal feeding habits. My friends and I are becoming excellent game trackers and managed to get some close-up shots of this juvenile leopard.

Tsavo reminded me of parts of Boulder, Colorado.

I joined a few friends from Accenture on a trip over the Easter weekend to the coastal town of Watamu. Tourist season never happened due to the economy and we managed to get a fantastic rate at a beach-side Italian villa for the weekend.

I am not going to post the name of this place because of alleged ties to the mafia but here are some pictures.

Our group spent a day trying out careers in pirating aboard a wooden dhow.

The rest of my time is spent doling out work for the Grassroots Business Fund in our efforts to launch a new rural financial services company we are calling, Juhudi Kilimo. When we finally get this thing off the ground in the coming months, I know it will have a tremendous impact on rural poverty in Kenya.

With the spring months on their way, I thought it would be high time to return to the US for a few weeks. I will be attending a wedding in CA and Workshop in DC with the Grassroots Business Fund titled: Metrics from the Ground Up. The outcome of this trip home will likely determine my future in Kenya.

One Month Update

These are some highlights from my last month. I now have a new modem and can connect a little better to the internet.

Masai Mara

Once again my team of Americans, Canadians and Japanese voyaged to the far reaches of the Masai Mara reserve to camp and chase animals.

I managed to spot some lions and cheetahs this time. The Mara is one of the most spectacular parks when it comes to viewing animals.

A lioness even walked under the bumper of our van. I decided to stay in the van. We stumbled upon a family of cheetahs one morning but were quickly crowded out by 50 safari vans full of camera wielding tourists.

Sweet Water

This is one of my favorite game parks that sits just west of Mt. Kenya. Our

group of eight secured some great rates at the tented camps outside a

popular watering hole for giraffes.

I somehow convinced the owner of a 2008 Land Rover Defender to let me take the wheel for a day. The Defender is a cross between a Hummer and a Land Cruiser. Nothing gets in its way.

We drove it across rivers and pounded through thick forests in pursuit of elephants and rhinos.

Horse Races

Nairobi is home to some nice race tracks seemingly left over from the

British colonial days. The Ngong road Raceway came complete with a golf

driving range in the middle of the track. I look forward to attending the Kenya Derby on April 5th.

Ngong Hills

The outdoors of Nairobi are what Karen Blixen made famous in that

book/movie "Out of Africa." My two friends, Kerry and Eline, from

Doctors Without Boarders, joined a human rights lawyer and me to explore this vast region. We climbed the seven hills shadowing Nairobi. We even hired an armed guard in case we had to fend off the bandits, rogue buffalo or lions.

Mungiki Protests

The national underground quasi-mafia group decided to stage a protest

the day I was to visit two of Nairobi’s worst slums. None of our clients showed up for the meeting and we could not understand why. We later discovered that the Mungiki had not only frightened people into their homes, but they had effectively shut down most public transportation for the day with some death threats.

Goat Eating Party

Our chief accountant is getting married in April and he invited me to their “goat eating” party. I have developed quite an appetite for tender goat meat and now prefer it over lamb. The “party” was more of a fundraiser and roast for the bride and groom to be.

Fly fishing with the Hippos

A few brave souls came with me on a treacherous fishing expedition to the hippo invested Lake Naivasha. Hippos kill more people each year in the continent of Africa than any other animal. Juvenile giraffes lined the banks and watched us as we casted for prize black bass. We did not catch a single fish and managed to get the boat stuck a few times but we made it through with no hippo attacks.

Fishing Video

Work

While my blog may not indicate this… each week I work myself to exhaustion trying to make sense of a complicated business with a dizzying financial model. It is extremely challenging and fascinating work. I would like to think it is having an impact on the rural poor of Kenya.

Most of my time last month was taken up with entertaining some visitors

from the Grassroots Business Fund. I had a nice time showing Vinay

and Rafi some of the daily joys and challenges I face in Kenya (like

the internet connection). We ate kilos of Nyama Choma (Kenyan grilled

tender meat) and drank our fill of Tusker beer in remote places like

Kitui and Nkubu.

I visited another village bank in Itoleca and was hailed as Obama’s cousin and offered a boiled goat brain. My favorite town is now located in the lush hillsides of Meru in the northeast part of Kenya. Vinay and I were out with our field staff tagging our client’s cows for an insurance company. We tagged close to 20 cows in two days. I learned all about dairy cow breeds and their corresponding daily milk yields. A Kshs 120,000 ($1,500) Austin Heifer can produce as much as 50 liters of milk a day! This is some serious business.

Mt. Kenya Climb

I successfully reached the 16,355 foot peak of Mt. Kenya. Our stellar team of eight Americans, two Kenyans and one Canadian climbed for three days across spectacular terrain to reach the peak.

The air was thin and the chill wind cut through us like glass, but we managed to prevail against all of Mother Nature's forces. The landscape reminded me of Patagonia, with a dash of the Utah Canyonlands, but populated with trees and plants from a Dr. Seuss book.

In following with standard protocol, our expedition hired five porters to carry gear and cook the food. I had lugged my frame pack and camping equipment all the way to Kenya and, to the porter's surprise, I was not about to let someone else carry my stuff. We hiked to two campsites before our final ascent. The campsites consisted of crude huts that were packed with bunk beds. Nevertheless, they managed to keep the cold at bay.

Paul, our Kenyan guide, was a professional marathoner from the famous Kalenjin tribe of Kenya. The Kalenjins produce a vast majority of the top Kenyan runners and Olympic medal winners. Paul completes a marathon in about 2hrs 20min and had little trouble hiking the mountain. The rest of our team included three Americans from Georgia. Their accents brought back good memories of my days in Nashville.

Other than the occasional fat Rock Hyrax, we saw very little wildlife. On our hike to the bottom, our guide noticed Jaguar prints and trailing hoof prints of the deer-like Dikdik. An angry bull elephant knocked an enormous tree down just as we turned a corner, but stomped away before I could get a picture. Climbing Mt. Kenya has given me the confidence to climb Kilimanjaro or maybe something in the Himalayas.