Samburu Monkeys

Category: Samburu Survey | Date: Oct 13 2007 | By: admin

As I promised in the last post, I have posted this link to a video that showing how the Samburu make fire for dried sticks. This is how the Samburu people used to make fire before modern fire lighters were introduced. We had to rely on this method after we forget a fire lighter in our car (which was parked 15 km away at Marti) during a Patas’ monkey survey along the Lagat valley

It was late in the evening and we couldn’t find the species required to make fire in the valley. We spent the night without food after the 15km walk to Lagat Valley. The next morning, had to call-off the survey and return to Marti, another 7 hours walk in a temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. On the photo in the last post, we had done about 10 km and had run out of the precious water. That morning, we threw away our raw foodstuff - potatoes, rice and beans to cut on our luggage and save our dwindling energy to walk to the car at Marti.

So my sadness had nothing to do with insecurity! But I learnt a valuable lesson. To pack one item at a time! Next month I will be back and you guess what will be the first item in my luggage!

Back at Marti, I bought a chicken from the locals which was prepared for us as we had animated discussions with the Morans who couldn’t understand why these people have to leave their comfort in Nairobi and subject themselves to the hardship in such remote and insecure places. What they will never understand is that this is adventure to me, not hardships. It’s fun. It’s want I want to do for my country, to help save our planet!

Iregi Mwenja