Living in the Rift Valley, being with the Maasai each day was a very happy experience. Creativity and generosity were all around us. Life in Maasailand has not been easy. A long period of drought, a mirror of the experience in South Eastern Australia, has meant that the cattle and goats, so central to Maasai life, have struggled to find food. During this period of drought the journeys for the Maasai men grew Read more ...]]>

Rift Valley, Kenya 2010 © kb

Living in the Rift Valley, being with the Maasai each day was a very happy experience. Creativity and generosity were all around us. Life in Maasailand has not been easy. A long period of drought, a mirror of the experience in South Eastern Australia, has meant that the cattle and goats, so central to Maasai life, have struggled to find food. During this period of drought the journeys for the Maasai men grew ever longer, as they searched for pastures to feed their animals.

It has rained recently in Maasailand, the rivers flow strongly and the landscape has turned a tinge of green. The droughts, however, will come again.

The changing weather patterns of the Rift Valley have placed great pressures on Maasai culture and cultural practice, particularly as the men are be forced to spend longer periods away from home in search of pasture. Individuals may also decide to move to urban areas to escape the drought and the economic pressures that the drought brings. In doing so leaving there own precious culture behind them. Cultural practice becomes harder to maintain as the droughts deepen.

What is needed now is a set of ideas about the future, how will the Maasai cope with the social and environmental issues that confront them?

Film essays of Maasai life explore the ideas and hopes of a group of young Maasai men and women. The Maasai allow us in to their world, a world, on the surface, so different from ours, but in many ways so similar.

Emmanuel Parsimei © kb

There are so many impressive people in these films and I would like you to meet some of them. EMMANUEL PARSIMEI plays a major role in narrating the scenes of village life and cultural practice.

Amos and Lilian © kb

In Olmaroroi Village we visit the house of AMOS NKARIO NCHIPAI and LILIAN NTIETOI to discuss the changing relationships between Maasai men and women.

Esther Kiraine Nchipai witih her children © kb

ESTHER KIRAINE NCHIPAI takes us on a tour of her house, a house she, like all the women in Maasai Land, had built herself from the sticks and cow dung used to construct Maasai houses. ESTHER talks about her life and demonstrates her skills in jewellery making.

Gideon Meyoki © kb

GIDEON MEYOKI leads the dancers into Olmaroroi Village as they perform a series of traditional songs and dances that feature throughout Film essays of Maasai life. The songs and dances were performed with enormous skill and are:

1.   Nampa sung by warriors during the celebration after a raid

2.   Olempirai a song in praise of brave, strong warriors in an age group

3.   Kurja a song by warriors praising girls of their age

4.   Osinkolio loo-nkishu sung by girls praising warriors after a successful raid

5.   Pilipili sung in special ceremonies, the dance includes jumping high and dancing vigorously. Pilipili was also performed in ceremonies involving the passage of a rite including Eunoto, the graduation from moran-hood to junior adult hood and Emowuo olkiteng, a ceremony before circumcision, and during circumcision ceremonies

6.   Enkijuka a sacred song, sung when the warriors are away from their homes in the bush eating and feasting on meat. It is a prayer song and a direct prayer to God for more favours during the period of moran-ship. The song is performed in shrines and special prayer places in the bush

JOHN SALAASH KARINO and MOSES PARMALE SUPAARI were always there telling us stories or helping with the information needed to make Film essays of Maasai life so compelling. Moses is eloquent when describing the importance of education to young Maasai people.

A group of young Maasai girls; JOYLYN NASAU, SUSAN SISIAN, AGNES KINTA, ELIZABETH MPONINO and ALICE LANTOI, recite a poem written by EMMANUEL PARSIMEI called Who cares for me in which they capture the dreams and hopes of a young Maasai woman. Emmanuel’s poem is published in the creative cowboy blog Who cares for me?

I will leave you to explore the Maasai world in this series of creative cowboy films. For more detail about each film in the series Film essays of Maasai Life go to the documentary page on the creative cowboy films website.

In this issue the theme is vanishing worlds as we think about what is happening to culture and nature at film locations where the Creative cowboy crew has worked.

We have written these articles because many of these issues are profound and will eventually impact on us all. We Read more ...]]> creative-i magazine provides news about Creative cowboy film projects around the world. creative-i includes images of the places, of the people and of the art, so important to making our projects a success.

Sitting on the beach in North Eastern Tasmania (We walked on a carpet of stars Creative cowboy films) JULIE GOUGH and I contemplate Aboriginal Tasmania as we gather material for her work Locus which was to be exhibited at the 2006 Biennale of Sydney.

PETER HYLANDS: Does anyone remember?

JULIE GOUGH: There are lots of different layers of what remembering might be and I get a sense when I am in this part of Read more ...]]>

We walked on a carpet of stars

Sitting on the beach in North Eastern Tasmania (We walked on a carpet of stars Creative cowboy films) JULIE GOUGH and I contemplate Aboriginal Tasmania as we gather material for her work Locus which was to be exhibited at the 2006 Biennale of Sydney.

PETER HYLANDS: Does anyone remember?

JULIE GOUGH: There are lots of different layers of what remembering might be and I get a sense when I am in this part of Tasmania, at particular places and particular times that I have heard something that sounds like a voice and you are thinking what is happening, who is here? That’s what I think is possible, that memory can link you in to another dimension of people in place.

In a way being prepared or having some knowledge of the past can provide a bit of a key to understanding that you are hearing a voice, not a squeak in the sand or the roll of your water bottle in your backpack. Wait a minute, it is an understanding.

Making Locus

PETER HYLANDS: Why do you think we should remember?

JULIE GOUGH: I really do think, especially in these telling times of global torment, I really think that remembering can slow us down and we can consider more carefully what each of us is doing on the planet, to each other and therefore to ourselves. That’s significant and important.

When I was making a lot of art that was quite angry and related really strongly to particular events that I found in history books or newspapers from the 1960s, around the time of my birth, about assimilation and about children being removed ……. You become something you are not happy with……. I was becoming quite specific and it was a dead end street of feeling just anger with no release. And moving away from that kind of work and trying to inhabit a place and understand what has happened here. That’s what I think best serves me.

Now we travel to the very North of Australia to yet more islands, the islands of the Torres Strait, and to the voice of ALICK TIPOTI.

The Torres Strait

“We are known today as Torres Strait Islanders after CAPTAIN TORRES. CAPTAIN TORRES and CAPTAIN COOK, they came through Zenadth Kes (the Torres Strait). That is when we discovered them. They didn’t discover us, we definitely discovered them”.

The detail in ALICK’s print “Aralpaia A Zenikula” (courtesy the artist and The Australian Art Print Network) and the great skill required to carve the master for this work as a negative image, ready for printing, is remarkable.

Aralpaia A Zenikula

Alick Tipoti

What strikes me about ALICK TIPOTI is just how much he knows about the culture of the Torres Strait and how much he cares about that knowledge. As one of the Torres Strait’s internationally recognised contemporary artists, ALICK, now in his mid thirties, diligently speaks about his culture through a powerful combination of art making, song and dance as he blends tradition with contemporary techniques and media. His considered view of his culture is remarkable.

ALICK, recognised because of his great skill as a print maker, is now also making masks such as those featured in his exhibition Mawa Adhaz Parual at Canopy Artspace during the 2011 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, in which Alick had created a room full of sorcerer’s masks, each a powerful sculpture from the Torres Strait, each a reflection of cultural memory for us all to share.

“My art is based on legends of the Torres Strait where I depict my interpretations of the land, the sea, the sky, and the many different living creatures and spirits that exist here in the Torres Strait – as with other artists, I use my art as an educational tool, teaching people about important cultural events, practices and beliefs from the past”.

It is evident that these works are guided by the cultural practices, past and present, of the people of the Torres Strait in which ALICK’s responsibilities are to document the stories and the songs and relationships that the artist has with his culture, from Badu Island and the mid-western island group in particular. These documents of culture created to guide future generations of Torres Strait islanders.

“We speak our language. I am 35 years old and I am blessed that my father and my grandfather taught me the language and I speak it fluently, I am so proud of it. Language is the core of the culture”.

ALICK’s language is Kala Lagaw Ya, Mululgal Nation. What ALICK understands very clearly is that language is the critical element that binds cultures together. Language is a precious cultural foundation in which oral histories and legends are kept safe. What is important here is ALICK’s leadership in describing the role of language in nurturing culture and heritage in the broadest sense and in enabling the understanding of the meaning and purpose of visual art and of other artistic and cultural activity.

This idea that language is a vessel that contains and nurtures culture and heritage becomes even more important when languages and histories are oral rather than written, as is the case for Australian indigenous languages. Language is the root of belonging to and identifying with culture.

When the song cycles lay broken there can be only trouble ahead.

So what is happening to indigenous languages in Australia? Of about 250 indigenous languages spoken before Europeans arrived around 140 are still spoken, of these well over a 100 languages are critically or severely endangered with often only part of these languages, perhaps phrases, in use. As these languages are lost, with them goes all cultural memory and important knowledge about place, about environment, about ceremony and cultural practice. Leaving what remains, perhaps the artefacts, the rock art and bark paintings, impossible to interpret.

Only 10 per cent of indigenous languages, the great knowledge tape of Australia, remain strong. On the Australian mainland predominant speakers are Arrernte, Djambarrpuyngu / Dhuwal, Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri.

Central Australia

What younger generations of indigenous people in Australia do now is critical for Australian languages, those languages formed by place over thousands of years. Less than half of all young people who live in the remote areas, where indigenous languages remain strongest, can speak an indigenous language. Away from these remote places around 5 per cent of young indigenous people can speak their own language. This all puts what JULIE GOUGH and ALICK TIPOTI have to say in sharp perspective.

Despite endless international research findings to the contrary, the bilingual indigenous educational programmes commenced in the 1970s in Australia, are now under threat.

Policies such as those in the Northern Territory of Australia, introduced in late 2008 (and under review today because of the resulting decline in school attendance of Aboriginal children), that stipulated that each day the first four hours of teaching at indigenous schools must be in English, severely restricted the opportunity for bilingual education, further endangering precious languages and cultural traditions.

When I think about Australia I often think about the Aboriginal elders, imagine if your grandchildren were taught and spoke in a different language to you (and so did all their friends) and they could not speak in your language and you could not speak in theirs. That would be devastating.

Hunting and gathering in Arnhem Land

There can be no possible advantage to Australia in creating monolingual, that is English only speaking, indigenous people. It would be better to respect the enormous cultural and language heritage that still exists in Australia and to move to a new future of respect and understanding.

A bilingual heritage can be a great advantage in life, ALICK shows us how. For me my early education was in the German language and I have never felt that this was in any sense a disadvantage, probably the opposite, because through languages grow a greater understanding and knowledge of the world.

In many parts of Australia today ‘country’ has fallen silent, apart from perhaps JULIE GOUGH’s squeak in the sand or the roll of her water bottle in her backpack, or perhaps a distant sigh as the wind blows the branches of a eucalypt tree. The loss to the human world is great, let us stop it here.

There is no official art centre at Utopia, Niagara Galleries relationship with Utopia artist ANGELINA Read more ...]]> At the Artlore office in Alice Springs MARC GOOCH (Artlore) and BILL NUTTALL (Niagara Galleries, Melbourne) talk to PETER HYLANDS about the development of contemporary art practice at Utopia. Utopia, an area of just under 2,000 square kilometres, is semi-arid desert country to the north east of Alice Springs, inhabited by Aboriginal people, who live in a number of communities or outstations across the Utopia lands.

There is no official art centre at Utopia, Niagara Galleries relationship with Utopia artist ANGELINA PWERLE is facilitated by MARC GOOCH and JANET PIERCE of Artlore. MARC is the nephew of the late RODNEY GOOCH who managed the CAAMA shop, the art, craft and music outlet of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association and Utopia Batik, he was art co-ordinator from 1987 to 1992.

RODNEY is credited with encouraging and enabling the many artists of Utopia to pursue international careers in the arts. The late EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE was one of these artists, now regarded as one of Australia’s most significant artists of all time. MARC and his partner JANET worked closely with RODNEY GOOCH and continued his work after his death.

ANGELINA PWERLE was one of a group of women who produced batik for the CAAMA shop. She was also a participating artist in A summer project, the seminal event that inspired the first Utopia canvases painted in the summer of 1988-89. BILL NUTTALL first discovered ANGELINA’s work in 1993 when he came across a sculpture that took his breath away, the sculpture was by ANGELINA.  Here BILL speaks about ANGELINA and his long term relationship with this significant contemporary artist.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since we first crossed the sandy river bed and drove through the ‘front gate’ and into Utopia. Utopia, an area of just under 2,000 square kilometres to the North East of Alice Springs, is semi-arid desert country inhabited by Aboriginal people. An art movement has flourished there and from the mid 1970s non traditional media such as acrylic paint and canvas have been used.

Aboriginal art of course Read more ...]]>

Humpy at Camel Camp, Utopia

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since we first crossed the sandy river bed and drove through the ‘front gate’ and into Utopia. Utopia, an area of just under 2,000 square kilometres to the North East of Alice Springs, is semi-arid desert country inhabited by Aboriginal people. An art movement has flourished there and from the mid 1970s non traditional media such as acrylic paint and canvas have been used.

Aboriginal art of course means a continent of creativity,  a vast range of styles and materials, depending on the region and its cultural traditions. This is part of why collecting Aboriginal art is such a complex, enthralling and engaging thing to do. It is the great art of survival, the cultural maps of food and water, it is the art of the spiritual, the recognition of connection to place and the land. It represents the constant monitoring of the land, not stilled by time but always contemporary and enquiring.

Angelina Pwerle painting at Camel Camp

Utopia has been particularly important in the recent history of Aboriginal art and cultural practice as it was the heart of a women’s art movement of considerable distinction, producing, now internationally famous women artists, their work including batiks, carvings and paintings on canvas. These works are embodied with traditional meaning and are a spiritual and historical record of culture and law.

This was to be the second of three journeys over a period of two months filming Bush plum, our current project. Fires still burning around us, as they had done two months earlier, we made the 250 kilometre journey to our destination on Utopia.  Along bitumen covered roads at first and then an hour or so to the north of Alice Springs, the turn off and onto the sandy bush roads of the Northern Territory which lead us to Utopia. We rattle our way along the sandy tracks, clouds of dust trailing behind us.

On the road, King Brown tracks and Land Cruiser tracks

On this journey we are taking two four-wheel drive vehicles full of supplies, our swags, a great deal of water and of course a lot of technology, cameras, computers, sound recording equipment and lots more. There are eight of us, two our Aboriginal friends, sharing their knowledge of country and culture.

Our swags

After the fire

We see more and more wildlife, the Wedge-tailed Eagles and other birds of prey, and here in the lizard kingdom, it is not hard to spot a large Sand Monitor (Goanna) or a Dragon catching the early morning sun on the sandy roadway, their numbers boosted by the large mouse plague, a great feast, that accompanied the unusually wet seasons in Central Australia.

The Bearded Dragons sit dangerously on the road and try to defy any attempts to move them to a safer spot, happily we were more stubborn than they were. The Central Netted Dragons scurry off the road in front of us, leaving their smaller footprints in the sand. Here the shy Perentie (Australia’s largest monitor) also lives, elusive despite its considerable size. These lizards, part of dreaming, important in Aboriginal culture.

New growth after the fire

Catching the morning sun

There was a gallery of reptile species, suddenly a King Brown glides its way across the road in front of us, only slightly smaller than the Australia’s Taipan, the King Brown or Mulga Snake can reach three metres in length and because of its size produces large quantities of venom. This is a place where you keep your eyes firmly to the ground and where you avoid walking through clumps of long grass. We tread carefully on country.  The King Brown, because of its size is easier to spot. The Desert Death Adder is almost impossible to see with all its camouflage and relatively small size. We stop every few minutes, cameras at the ready, as some of the reptiles obligingly allow us to film them and do so even in macro.

Goanna

The flowers are out too, framed by their background, the red earth of Central Australia, the Billybutton, Sturt’s Desert Rose, the floral emblem of the Northern Territory of Australia, and the Bush Plum. Australian Deserts, these semi-arid lands, can have a relatively significant cover of vegetation, species adapted to these harsh conditions with a complex range of mechanisms to ensure their survival.

There are deserts or parts of deserts in Australia with a lower density of vegetation, the Stony Desert and in parts the bare windswept crests of the Simpson Desert. The flourishing native plant life in parts of arid Australia tricking the early settlers into believing these lands could be used for farming.

Desert Rose

Billybuttons

There was a mass extinction of native species in Central Australia in the 1930s because of the introduction of feral predators, inappropriate land use and increasing non-indigenous settlement of the region.

Among the animals to become extinct was the Desert Rat-kangaroo, adapted to the harshest conditions in Australia, but sadly, no match for European settlement. By a trick of language the exterminators of this beautiful animal can reassure themselves that nothing of great value has been lost. All this once again diminishing the traditional food supply for Indigenous Australians.

Collecting Pencil Yams, river bed Utopia

A successful gathering, Pencil Yams

Through the Utopia front gate and we take the track to the small outstation where we are working. Here there are traditional bush shelters and a largely traditional life of hunting and gathering.

On this occasion the camp food supply is supplemented by the tucker, the fruit and other goodies, that we had taken with us. Oranges are particularly important, providing a large dose of vitamin C. We pull up at the camp and are greeted by everyone. The place is full of smiling faces and the wagging tails of the camp dogs.

It is great to be back.

The metapatterns of nature, of science, of art and everything are down below. We are flying over Lake Eyre and then tracking north to Alice Springs, the final destination on this trip. The patterns that emerge could be an image from an electron microscope or a view of distant galaxies through the eye of the Hubble Space Telescope. The repeated patterns of nature are all clear in the dry air, a micro-organism, a leaf, in a Read more ...]]>

Lake Eyre in flood

The metapatterns of nature, of science, of art and everything are down below. We are flying over Lake Eyre and then tracking north to Alice Springs, the final destination on this trip. The patterns that emerge could be an image from an electron microscope or a view of distant galaxies through the eye of the Hubble Space Telescope. The repeated patterns of nature are all clear in the dry air, a micro-organism, a leaf, in a galaxy, all in art and design.

It is not surprising that the art of Central Australia has become one of the world’s most significant contemporary art movements with its startling explosions of colour and form.

Down below are the ancient trading routes of Australia’s Aboriginal people. These ancient pathways of trade following the rivers and waterholes, routes that were also the paths of dreaming ancestors.

The patterns plants make

Rivers of sand

Down below are the ancient rivers of sand of the Lake Eyre Basin. Their names resonate in the European history of Australia, the rivers that flow when Queensland floods, the Georgina, Diamantina, Thomson and Barcoo Rivers, and Cooper Creek. Then there are the rivers of central Australia such as the Finke, all flowing into Lake Eyre where the water remains until once again it evaporates in the shimmering heat to reveal the dazzling salt pans once more.

Art or nature?

The rivers have flowed for consecutive seasons in Central Australia after years of drought and during a much needed wetter period have kicked started the nature of Australia. In these precious places nature responds to water in the most extraordinary ways allowing many species to breed and to increase dwindling numbers once more.

We are working down there in a place we have always loved. So what is it like? It is both a harsh land and a delicate land. To walk on the pristine untrodden river beds of sand seems a desecration of the patterns of nature, a hundred different impressions in the miniature sand dunes left there by the birds, marsupials and reptiles that inhabit this land.

An ancient pathway

What we are doing here is another story for another time. But in the blog The world we make I write about the impact of our actions on the traditional lives of indigenous peoples. Even the remotest parts of Central Australia are not immune from our actions.

A distant galaxy?

For now freshwater ecosystems may not be as damaged as those elsewhere in Australia but they are under threat from introduced species, from domestic herds destroying precious riverside vegetation and the thoughtless actions of introducing plant species into the delicate and arid environment.  These ancient and arid landscapes provide us with a sensitive record of environmental change. The Centre’s transverse and longitudinal dunes sensitive to small changes in both climate and hydrology.

Pollution over Alice

The recent great wets of Northern Australia have further distributed the introduced African species Buffel Grass. The Buffel Grass now covers large areas of the country around Alice Springs displacing native grasses. After the wet period the now dry Buffel Grass stands waste high covering the desert floor. When it burns it burns much hotter than the more delicate native grasses and when it burns the intense heat kills the native animals who cannot escape from it and the desert trees and shrubs adapted to lower intensity fire.

Once again this damages the traditional food supply of indigenous people who rely on the fruit and roots of native plants such as the Bush Plum.  The situation also represents a danger to people, particularly indigenous people living in remote places. During August much of the area around Alice Springs was on fire, by mid August 2011 more than 650 square kilometres of country surrounding Alice Springs had been burnt, destroying ecosystems and polluting the atmosphere.

Buffel Grass burns around Alice

And worst to come will be the danger posed to Australia’s Great Artesian Basin and the major river flows into the Lake Eyre Basin from coal seam gas extraction processes occurring in Queensland and the little understood impact of these activities on aquifers and natural water systems. The Lake Eyre Basin covers around 1,170,000 square kilometres of arid and semi-arid Central Australia. There is a lot to lose.

Rock Wallaby

The images in this blog were taken by ANDREA and PETER HYLANDS during the later stages of the Australian winter.

The importance of education to indigenous peoples around the world is increasingly significant because of the speed of the economic and environmental changes that help create the numerous pressures that now face indigenous communities. These pressures include encroachment of traditional lands, loss of traditional food source, loss of vegetation and biodiversity, climate change, population increase and changing economic structures and opportunities, to name a few.

Education has the capacity Read more ...]]> Creative cowboy scholarship to Maasailand 2011, Bachelor of Science in Medical Microbiology

The importance of education to indigenous peoples around the world is increasingly significant because of the speed of the economic and environmental changes that help create the numerous pressures that now face indigenous communities. These pressures include encroachment of traditional lands, loss of traditional food source, loss of vegetation and biodiversity, climate change, population increase and changing economic structures and opportunities, to name a few.

Education has the capacity to relieve poverty and disadvantage. The more and the higher educational standards, the greater the options and opportunities for indigenous communities to maintain their cultures and generally improve their economic circumstances and status.

While the approach to education by indigenous peoples around the world may vary (and often does so because of unfortunate past experiences), a non traditional education is likely to be regarded as an important ingredient in defining the future and a necessary addition to traditional education and knowledge.

In this blog FRANCIS NKODIDIO, a recipient of a Creative cowboy tertiary scholarship, writes about why he believes university education will benefit him and his Maasai community.

PETER and ANDREA HYLANDS

Empower to power

Written by FRANCIS NKODIDIO, Kimuka Village, Rift Valley, Kenya

Francis and Esther Nchipia at Olmaroroi Village

My name is FRANCIS NKODIDIO and I am from Kimuka Village, in the Rift Valley province of Kenya.

I have applied for a course in the field of medicine, medical micro-biology and was successfully admitted into the school at Jomo Kenyatta University of agriculture and technology (Karen Campus) Nairobi. I am the first Creative cowboy scholar Maasai student. Maasai are one of the most oppressed and marginalized indigenous communities in terms of education, social and economic development.

I promise to work extra hard in attaining a first class honors degree.

I came to being one of the scholars when I met PETER and ANDREA HYLANDS in the Olmaroroi area when I was taking part in the beautiful Maasai dance. Introduction to them led to a deeper discussion about my academic background, my family background and my future in education. They promised to communicate with me when they went late in the year 2010.

The moment I qualified to be a scholar was very important to me, since I am like the head of a fully abandoned family. Dad left us 13 years ago and mum has been taking care of us since then.

After completion of primary school in the year 2005, I had to stay at home and went back to school to redo my primary school course since I had no financial support to go back to school. The following year 2006 I sat for my KCPE exam again when I was 16 years of age and emerged the best overall.

A group of good Samaritans from the Nomadic Kenyan children education fund based in Virginia USA introduced me to the organization and I applied for their scholarship which allowed me to undertake a full high school course. Let me say my education has been based on scholarships from well-wishers. I went to Narok boys high school, adjacent to the Maasai Mara game reserve in Narok County and was enrolled in form one on 9 Feb 2007.

My big dream to go to university started in high school and I worked hard and harder until I graduated on the 10 November 2010 with a qualification to attend university. Since my high school, I never lost focus on my education. I worked hard until I made it to pass well.

After school, I joined mum to look after our eleven goats, which gave us little milk for morning and evening tea. All in all I never lost focus until I applied for a volunteer job in my former Kimuka primary school, where I am currently working as a volunteer teaching mathematics and science. I believe community service is a good job with miraculous results.

I am motivating my younger brothers to work hard in school. My younger brother William Rempeyian did not go to school until I had completed high school. The little money I left in high school as a prepaid fee is what is keeping him in school now at Kibiko day secondary school. Now that the school is cheap and the ksh.13000 has paid for his for year course. I am happy he is working hard and harder now since he has no problem in school fees.

Why I want to pursue a course in Bachelor of Science in Medical Microbiology and the importance and benefits of the course to the Maasai community.

It’s a scientific course which is open and relevant in working towards the ‘2030’ Kenya industrial development vision. Studying in the field brings a lot of opportunities for me and to my community, the Maasai people.

The course is important because of the reasons that include:

• I will be a role model to Maasai children in schools and motivate them to work hard
• I may have the opportunity of bringing into the community, medical donations and support where people have been neglected
• Work with education bodies to go round teaching the least educated Maasai people about education especially those in Saikeri, Nchoroi and Mosira which are the Maasai regions in most need
• I will have the opportunity to be a direct link to government institutions such as, the National, Social and Security Fund (NSSF) and the national hospitals that may create the opportunity to raise the living standards of the Maasai people by saving money for their old age use. At the moment, no Maasai person is aware of saving in these institutions and the benefits this has
• I will acquire enough knowledge through brainstorming with other students from the most favoured communities like the Lou, Kalenjin and Kikuyu on how to acquire grants and scholarships to education, assisting more Maasai youth to attend university
• Create or join bodies like the current Maa University Students Organization (MUSO) that enlighten Maasai people on the importance of education as a means of empowering young people
• In the future I hope to be able to establish a medical and private educational center for Maasai children and parents

My sincere gratitude and thanks go to my mum, VIGINIA, the Creative cowboy directors ANDREA and PETER HYLANDS, and not forgetting the supportive Macconet director EMMANUEL PARSIMEI, for their support in making my dream a success towards this golden chance of education.

May God bless you abundantly.

FRANCIS NKODIDIO, Creative cowboy scholar 2011, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Karen Campus) Nairobi

In the Creative cowboy film Changing times a group of young Maasai girls; JOYLYN NASAU, SUSAN SISIAN, AGNES KINTA, ELIZABETH MPONINO and ALICE LANTOI, recite a poem written by EMMANUEL PARSIMEI SUPARE called Who cares for me? In their reading the Maasai girls capture the dreams and hopes of a young Maasai woman.

Here is EMMANUEL’S poem.

Who cares for me?

1

I’m just a girl child, it sounds good, but oh no!

To my father I’m just a source of Read more ...]]>

Who cares for me?

In the Creative cowboy film Changing times a group of young Maasai girls; JOYLYN NASAU, SUSAN SISIAN, AGNES KINTA, ELIZABETH MPONINO and ALICE LANTOI, recite a poem written by EMMANUEL PARSIMEI SUPARE called Who cares for me? In their reading the Maasai girls capture the dreams and hopes of a young Maasai woman.

Here is EMMANUEL’S poem.

Who cares for me?

1

I’m just a girl child, it sounds good, but oh no!

To my father I’m just a source of income

To my mother who bore me

A beast of burden in the home

To my fellow pupils especially boys

A beautiful flower to be admired

And to the old men, ooh a juicy fruit

But to be eaten raw

2

It all started before I was born

When my mother received a harsh warning

Make sure you give birth to a boy

Little attention was paid to me after all

Girls like all women, are not to be noticed by the society

As I grew up I was always reminded, would you please sit like a woman

Talk like a woman, what crime did women commit

To suffer all through their lives?

3

When it was time to go to school

I rejoiced thinking that, this was the end of suffering

But to my great surprise I had been mistaken

Just like at home, girls in school do donkey work

They fetch water and collect firewood, smear or mop the floor, while boys are learning

Poor me who cares, I’m asking?

4

My mother makes me stay at home

While my brothers go to school

To a girl’s place is just but in the kitchen

Therefore one has to be trained thoroughly

Does she know I really hate this?

5

My parents want me to be circumcised

And I know it is wrong practice

Circumcision removes all the joys part of life

My people help me

For I’m just but only a girl child!

6

My father thinks of marrying me off

In order to get school fees for my brother

To him education for girls is meaningless

I have feelings for my education dad

Please let me complete my education dad!

Does he care about my feelings?

7

I have been assuming that

Marriage is a bed of roses and honey

But aah to a Maasai woman

It is like a small hell on Earth

To her husband, a property to release his frustrations

And her in-laws a beast of burden

Who cares? Maasai women want change!!!

Emmanuel Parsimei Supare

PETER HYLANDS reflects on our own conduct towards nature and the impact our conduct has on indigenous cultures.

“We spend an awful lot of money on art galleries and concert halls so we can celebrate our own achievements and this is of course quite right and proper, but I think it should be taken into consideration that there might be another Rembrandt born, there might be another Mozart born, but if you exterminate an animal like this, it Read more ...]]>

African Buffalo

PETER HYLANDS reflects on our own conduct towards nature and the impact our conduct has on indigenous cultures.

“We spend an awful lot of money on art galleries and concert halls so we can celebrate our own achievements and this is of course quite right and proper, but I think it should be taken into consideration that there might be another Rembrandt born, there might be another Mozart born, but if you exterminate an animal like this, it is gone forever and no amount of technology will recreate it”.

GERALD DURRELL

The rains come to Maasailand

The hazards of filming in remote locations include being eaten, bitten or squashed by a range of wild things. The list of these wild things is long but includes crocodiles, alligators, pythons, tiger sharks, stone fish, hippos, lions, elephants, hyenas, taipans, brown snakes, cone shells, scorpions, mosquitoes and spiders. It probably sounds odd to say it, but I actually like the idea that the possibility of being eaten still exists in the ever diminishing wild places on earth.

Kenyan Nile crocodile

In our lives we count ourselves to be very lucky in having lived with, and sometimes rescued, some of the most poisonous and dangerous creatures on earth. We learnt that it is perfectly possible to share the earth with wildlife. The most painful thing I can remember from years of close encounters with wildlife is a jellyfish sting off the coast of Penang.

The very worst idea is to go to a place, set up home, and then systematically destroy everything that surrounds you, callous and unknowing.

If we know about and respect the animals and plants that we share the earth with, and critically important for our species, that we protect and respect wild habitats and do not continue to endanger biodiversity, we will come to understand that the survival of species of all kinds, animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and plants, are directly linked to our own futures.

I often think about GERALD DURRELL and what he would think if he could see the state of these things today.

“People understand what we are talking about, people are starting to realise the rate and veracity that we are tearing up our ecology all over the world. This is not just a question of saving fluffy animals or a beautiful looking panda. In actual fact what you are doing is trying to save yourself and this is the most important thing. Animals are a barometer, they show you if they start declining, they show you that you are doing something wrong with your eco-system and if your eco-system collapses on you because of this, then you become extinct together with the animals”.

GERALD DURRELL

Culture and nature

We travel from Kenya via the Middle East to Australia, from living in a tent in the Rift Valley to a hotel on Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is above us. We go from a tent with no electricity or running water and surrounded by wild animals, to every comfort imaginable and only humans as companions. I am not far from my old office on Sydney’s Circular Quay, and outside, the hustle and bustle of ferries, which pass in a dance like procession in the view framed by our bedroom window. This is familiar territory, it is good to be back in this great global city.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Glass of wine in my hand, I reach for the hotel’s lavish publication sitting on the unit above the fridge. I flick through the pages of smiling faces, spas, vineyards, restaurants and beaches. There towards the middle of these pages is an article; climate change is unproven, the science is not there, the world is cooling and on it goes. I think to myself, what an earth is this doing in the pages of this book? I suspect this is a paid advertorial, unannounced, by a member of the highest per capita carbon polluting nation on earth, defending their patch and economic place in the world. Meanwhile the Maasai walk for water.

What I see in the natural world makes me think of the impact of its decline on the indigenous cultures of the world and the idea of the connection or disconnection of peoples to the natural systems of the world we live in.

In terms of human society, the world’s indigenous peoples are in the frontline when it comes to the impacts caused by the destruction of the natural world, whether home is deep in a rainforest, in a remote dryland or the most distant ocean, no one can escape our actions. We impact their worlds and a way of life and the cultural traditions that accompany it.

Make no mistake, indigenous people are our barometer too.

In Maasailand, drought has made life increasingly difficult, the often daily walk for women and children to collect water grows ever longer, the distance travelled by the men to find pasture for the cattle and goats grows ever further. The men face long periods away from home, so do the young male children who help their fathers to look after the animals. The young child with a spear minding the goats is a long way away from a classroom and education.

When the rains don't come to Maasailand

The reality for the Maasai is whether or not their traditional way of life is sustainable, given the significant changes to weather patterns in the Rift Valley. If the dry conditions continue or become more severe what can be done to defend and maintain long standing traditions? In the Creative cowboy series, Film essays of Maasai life, we explore the pressures on culture and community and on traditional ways of life from a range of external influences.

Many Maasai now see education as essential to the future of their children, particularly the opportunity to access senior school and tertiary education.

There is far less wildlife in the Rift Valley than there once was, much of its destruction occurred in the earlier part of the twentieth century and much of what remains is in game reserves such as the Maasai Mara. The great biodiversity, the wildlife and the habitat of the Rift Valley have played a significant role in sustaining Maasai culture by providing other income sources through tourism and employment, much of it knowledge based. The Kenyan and Tanzanian Governments are very aware of this.

Maasai know a lot about their environment and the species with which they live, they understand in great depth the impact of a changing climate and its impact on their traditional sources of income. Loosing cattle or goats in drought is an economic disaster for Maasai families, it can also mean starvation.

What is evident about Maasai society is that environmental changes combined with external pressures will continue to have a significant impact on Maasai culture in the next few years. Not least, is the relatively new trend, and perhaps economic necessity of selling off traditional lands for development, partly forced by changes to the patterns of nature, including of course, rainfall.

“We find people who have had lots of cattle losing them and their life style completely changes. You find people moving to town to get other jobs… Climate change can be attributed to the loss of culture”

EMMANUEL PARSIMEI

As well as the changing climate threat to indigenous culture and tradition, other threats can be imposed by non indigenous cultures on the traditional ways of life of indigenous peoples. The clearing of rainforests around the world is an example of this.

Billabong in Kakadu

I will now take you to Australia’s Arnhem Land, when I look at the early photos of Oenpelli, taken by the British anthropologist Sir BALDWIN SPENCER about 100 years ago, it is possible to identify changes in vegetation, today there are fewer trees on the Oenpelli flood plain. The introduced water buffalo and cattle have done their work on the edges of billabongs, erosion and the destruction of native vegetation result, disturbing the breeding grounds of native birds and animals.

Sitting by a remote billabong in Arnhem Land is a different experience to the one it once was. We go back to 1935 and far away to Gordonvale in Queensland. The Australian Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations released its first batch of cane toads imported from Hawaii (cane toads are native to Central and South America) at Gordonvale in that year, in an experiment to reduce the impact of  cane beetles on sugar cane crops in North Queensland.

The cane toad had little impact on protecting sugar cane crops but proceeded to devastate wildlife populations including marsupials (such as Quolls), birds and reptiles. This happened because cane toads are highly toxic when eaten. The vast numbers of cane toads have also had an impact on other amphibian species in the parts of Australia where they now exist. For a very long time, little was done to slow the spread of the cane toad. In Australia the cane toad is not officially recognised as what is described as ‘a threatening process’, because not all Australian States consider toads to be a problem (cane toads have not spread to all of the states for now). There is a greater effort to slow the spread of the cane toad in Australia today but the problem is now so overwhelming and the cane toad is so widely distributed that it is too late to repair the immense damage done.

In the early 2000’s the cane toads’ front line crossed Arnhem Land and Kakudu, they have now reached the Kimberley in Western Australia, and, to the south, the southern parts of Queensland and on into New South Wales.  Once established in a place, cane toad numbers increase rapidly, and disastrously for Australia’s wildlife, are highly toxic in all their developmental stages: eggs, tadpoles, toadlets and adult toads. They have no successful predators in Australia.

The enormity of the wet season in 2011 looks as if it has accelerated an increase in numbers of cane toads in Australia’s Northern Territory and North Queensland.

The Stone Country, Western Arnhem Land

Traditional owner (Creative cowboy’s Knowledge, painting and country) JACOB NAYINGGUL talks about the impact of the arrival of the cane toad in Arnhem Land on a traditional way of life (from a conversation  with Australian Broadcasting Commission’s TIM LEE in 2006).

“Yes, yes and traditional teaching. Goanna’s name is in teaching ceremonies, too. I’ve seen 50 or 60 dead Johnson’s freshwater crocs, bellies up, and I thought straight away they might have been having a feed at cane toads”

“It would be wise to recognise that and try to put some thought – how we would save the goanna”

For JACOB also, sitting by his remote billabong in Arnhem Land is now a very different experience, gone, much of the wildlife, and gone, much of the Aboriginal peoples’ traditional food source. As a consequence of an ill conceived act a long time ago, one thoughtlessly introduced species in Australia, will continue to have a significant impact on the traditional food sources of indigenous people. This impact risks, not only long held cultural practices, but the health outcomes for indigenous people, already suffering health consequences from the introduction and to the easy access of the modern western diet, fast and packaged foods laden with sugar and salt.

Water, water everywhere

One hot and windy day on Erub BULLY SAILOR described to me his fight for sea rights. These rights, so essential because of the plundering of the sea and destruction of the reefs by fishing fleets coming to the Torres Strait, diminishing the future livelihoods and food sources of the islanders.

BULLY on Erub

This led me to contemplate some of the other issues faced by the salt water or sea people of Northern Australia (both Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people).

For at least a generation the ‘walls of death’, that is when drift nets become ghost nets, have floated silently through Australia’s Northern seas, nets lost and discarded by fishing trawlers and fleets from distant lands. These nets, up to four kilometres in length, continue to fish as they float unattended through the ocean, an indiscriminate and silent slaughter in the ocean, and later when the nets are washed ashore, an indiscriminate slaughter on the land. The dolphins, the turtles (there are six species in the region), the sawfish, the dugongs, the sharks, the fish, the birds, the seals – the list goes ever on.

In the last few years a remarkable thing has happened, in collecting these nets from land and sea, an indigenous art movement has come to life. Here is an extract from the GhostNets Australia website.

“The remoteness of northern Australia restricts access to plastic recycling plants in both other parts of the country and the world. Consequently disposal of the huge amount of rubbish found on these beaches has placed an enormous burden on local refuse systems (mostly landfills). A solution to this dilemma has been through an innovative project where GhostNets Australia, through its large network of renowned fibre artists, facilitates workshops that marry traditional weaving and fibre techniques with these modern materials. The result is fantastic artworks”.

Mornington Island Dancers

The discarded nets are collected by indigenous rangers and the artists themselves, if animals and fish are still alive they are disentangled and set free. What needs to happen of course is for the regions governments, particularly of South East Asia, Japan and Taiwan, to toughen the laws relating to international fishing activities and to register and inspect fishing nets on a regular basis. All nets should have an electronic tag so that owners can be identified and lost nets located. While indigenous people are in the frontline of the consequences of this destruction and desecration of the sea and its creatures, current behaviour can be in no one’s interest, particularly that of the international fishing fleets themselves.

Purple Spider dancing on Erub

What is obvious from our own travels in the Torres Strait is that some of the regions islands are very low lying and only just above sea level while islands such as Erub (Darnley Island) have volcanic origins and have, as a consequence, a significant amount of land that is well above sea level. Conversely, the top Western group of Torres Strait islands, mangrove country, composed mainly from sediments deposited by the rivers of nearby New Guinea, are very low lying and increasingly subject to flooding. There are of course a number of other islands, particularly the coral cays, in the Torres Strait facing a significant danger of flooding.

The Torres Strait Regional Authority estimated that:

“Approximately 27% of our island communities are affected by climate change”

KEN THAIDAY Snr on Erub

The changes are higher tides, stronger winds, changing rainfall patterns, increasing temperatures and changing disease patterns. Many of the trends and patterns occurring in the Torres Strait are unknown to oral histories, which means there are no ways of knowing what the changes will bring, changes well beyond the ability of the islanders to influence other than building defensive walls to keep the sea out, a short term solution at best. These changes are delivered to the islanders by the polluting industries of the western industrial countries and of Asia.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park ends as the Australian mainland ends at the tip of Cape York Peninsula, the park ending where the Torres Strait begins. the ecosystems to the north of the park, the corals and the species that live there unprotected.

PETER HYLANDS comments on some of these issues in Australia’s precious and remote places:

“Because of the destruction of habitat and other influences such as the spread of the cane toad affecting a decline in Australia’s biodiversity this is a time when Australia’s islands should be acting as an ark for many of its endangered species. Even the remotest and most precious islands are now under significant pressure from foolish managed investment schemes, mining and resource activities, inappropriate tourism developments and the establishment of detention centres to name but a few. Destruction of biodiversity or cultural assets can be the result of ignorance or can just be a case of being out-of-sight and out-of-mind.  Barrow Island, Christmas Island, in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park major industrial developments on Curtis Island and Balaclava Island, the danger of port developments to islands such as Peak Island and the dangers of  industrial development to the reef itself, then the significant West Atlas oil spill or the environmental and cultural destruction on the great Murujuga (Burrup) are examples of how things could have been done differently – there are so many more.

Australia’s Kimberley is now also under great pressure from resources and energy developments, once places or species or cultures are destroyed they can never be made again. The legacy of these actions, turns out to be particularly hard on indigenous people, causing loss of country and culture, long term displacement and division within communities. The later, so often part of a game plan to achieve the required outcomes. Australian media are so often missing in action when it comes to these matters”.

As the sun sets in Darwin

I had arrived in Darwin the day before.

It is morning now. I open the curtains and look out across Darwin and its harbour. The sun shines brightly, in the morning sky there is the slightest hint that the wet season is on its way.

I do not feel this is the best morning of my life. I leave the room and go down to breakfast. Soon I am in a cab Read more ...]]>

A sad evening in Gunbalanya

The first journey: a state funeral

I had arrived in Darwin the day before.

It is morning now. I open the curtains and look out across Darwin and its harbour. The sun shines brightly, in the morning sky there is the slightest hint that the wet season is on its way.

I do not feel this is the best morning of my life. I leave the room and go down to breakfast. Soon I am in a cab back to the airport to meet ANTHONY MURPHY, then the director of Injalak Arts and Crafts, who had been on a trip to Adelaide to see his family.

The Injalak trooper (a 4 wheel drive) was parked in the airport carpark and ANTHONY and I were to drive to Gunbalanya that morning. I meet ANTHONY in the arrivals hall, he had been up most of the night.

We stand in front of the large painting of a rainbow serpent in the arrivals hall, the sign below describing the work and the artist. The sign, already with its white stickers, their purpose was to obscure the artist’s name.

“I will drive ANTHONY”

We head out of the airport carpark, both feeling the same deep sadness. We stop for supplies on the outskirts of Darwin.

These infrequent shopping trips for people who live in remote locations in Australia are a chance to stock up with items that, back at home, would either not be available or be too expensive to contemplate. We stock up the trooper and continued on our journey. The drive took us through Humpty Doo and through the Kakadu National Park to Jabiru.

Then the familiar turn off to Gunbalanya, now 60 kilometers away. The trooper comes into its own, the trail of red dust behind us. Here we are at the East Alligator River crossing, traditional owner JACOB NAYINGGUL’s crossing, where a few days earlier, we had been filming JACOB crossing the river, backwards and forwards into Arnhem Land.

In a few days the slowly flowing river will become a powerful and deep body of water, strong enough to take with it even the largest road train that dares to cross it. The river is about to cut off Arnhem Land for yet another wet season, protecting it from the outside world.

River crossed, we were driving through JACOB’s country, the road smoother now as it had been graded in preparation for the funeral. The Arnhem Land escarpment in view, we drive on past Wulk billabong with all its lilies and two large crocodiles. We arrive in Gunbalanya and head to Injalak Arts and Crafts.

We unload the shopping and carry it up the stairs into Anthony’s house, a tropical building on stilts. In the living room plaster ceiling panels are missing courtesy of a cyclone the year before. We settle in and cook an evening meal. Sitting on the balcony that evening we looked towards Injalak Hill, the sun setting over the billabong, the whistling kites make their last calls of the day. We think of WAMUD NAMOK AO.

The next morning we walk over to the Injalak Arts and Crafts building. The trooper will be used as the hearse in the funeral procession that morning so we all set about cleaning the vehicle. ISAIAH NAGURRGURRBA, GLEN NAMUNDJA, GABRIEL MARALNGURRA, GRAHAM BADARI and DON NAMUNDJA plus the usual Injalak Arts stalwarts were all there. Between us we removed the accumulation of Northern Territory dust, cleaned the windows and swept out the inside. The trooper shone in the light, it had never been so clean. This group of great artists had cleaned and polished the vehicle for their long time mentor.

Meanwhile in Sydney that same night, KERRY O’BRIEN, ABC television presenter, reported;

“Remote Australia has had its first state funeral honouring an Aboriginal man they called “the Professor”. In death, he’s known as WAMUD NAMOK, and he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia five years ago. He was a famous artist who won a prestigious Telstra Art Award in 1999 and whose works feature in major public collections around the country. He’ll also be remembered as a man of science, who generously shared his unique knowledge of the landscape and fauna of Western Arnhem Land. 700 people turned out to pay him due homage”.

My part in all this came about through collecting art. Our first visit to Australia in the mid 1970s was the moment that we discovered Aboriginal art and along with other artists the work of WAMUD NAMOK. WAMUD’s generation of artists were very special indeed, their work steeped in knowledge of country and culture, work deeply rooted to place and caring for country.

The earliest work by WAMUD in our collection goes back to 1968 and the latest works include some of the artists most recent. WAMUD’s work has had a great influence on our lives, in both giving us great joy in owning it and for teaching us about another culture, half way across the world from our belonging.

In late 2010 WAMUD NAMOK was honoured with a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. It was Creative cowboy’s  honour that our films about the artists of Western Arnhem Land were shown throughout the duration of his exhibition.

The second journey: a walk from Saim to Madige

The walk to Madige in 1899

KEN THAIDAY’s memories from childhood told him that there was a great distance between the Villages of Saim and Madige. For a young child, and before there were modern roads and cars, it would have seemed like a long way.

Many of the houses in Saim are built at the edge of the beach, on the zone where the coconut palms meet the sand. During a high tide the waves almost touch the walls of some houses. The main street, which is the only street, is lined with coconut palms. The village shop is busy all day and the village children play games of chase, they run through the village and its gardens, and much to the irritation of the elders, throw things at each other.

It can be windy in Saim. In fact it is windy for much of the year. Happily tropical cyclones are rare in the Torres Strait. During summer, that is early in the year, the prevailing monsoon winds blow from the northwest at around 20 km per hour. During the winter (April to November) the winds turn to dry south easterly trades that gust at around 30 km per hour.

Alag mask, tradition has it that when someone is wearing an Alag mask you do not call his name. If you do the results can be painful. I will leave you to guess who is inside

Because of the reefs, wave heights rarely exceed 3.5m and are always lower during the monsoon period. The seas can be choppy making trips in small boats dangerous during certain periods of active weather. To some extent the islands are protected from the large swells generated in the Coral Sea which are blocked by the northern most extension of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Torres Strait can be a difficult place if you are a camera person dealing with the chop of the sea and the gusting winds. Our bedroom overlooks the ocean, the wind blows in through the louver windows blowing the curtains so hard that they are parallel to the ceiling. They stay that way all night long as the wind howls around us.

Ken fishing in Madige

KEN THAIDAY is staying at Sarah and Pau’s house on the opposite side of Madige to where we are staying in Saim. We decide to walk to Madige to see KEN, at a guess the most likely place to find Ken will be on the jetty with his fishing line.

What seemed to the young KEN THAIDAY to be a great distance turns into a short walk as Saim and Madige have both expanded along the shoreline, almost to meet each other. The area between these villages was once a sandy track surrounded with a beautiful beach lined with coconut palms. It is the place where KEN remembers the villagers dancing and where he learnt to dance as a child.

Today the area has been cleared and filled in with rubble to create what resembles an untidy car park. In one part of this area the new health centre stands. Most of what is left is empty, with the exception of a couple of rusting containers and a large stack of abandoned cement sacks, perhaps the remainder of a construction project long ago, the cement now turned solid as rock.

At the far end of this space is a hill in an area called Proserpine, this is KEN’s land.

I am not the only one to reflect on the changes on Erub.  Artist, CLINTON NAIN, also reflects on these changes in his work Erub has a bitumen road now. This painting is owned by the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.

The third journey: crossing the Rift

Ben is getting nervous

It had been very dry. I had a sense that BEN was starting to get nervous. The hippos were also getting restless forcing their huge bulk sideways and upwards through the water that remained in the river below us. Their grunts grew louder.

Time to go, the black clouds started to roll over us. The baboons started to run up the river bank opposite to us gathering up the babies as they ran. A dozen or so Guineafowl, one behind another, ran along the banks edge, silhouetted now, legs working furiously and heads down.

There are no bridges here, so a rising river means a long wait until the river recedes again. Back in our vehicle with BEN at the wheel we drive swiftly up the dirt track leading from the river. We are not the only ones in a hurry. A group of Maasai with more than one hundred cattle are also on the road, soon we are in the middle of the herd. We move gently along with the animals.

BEN looks more anxious. Then we are through, accelerator down we speed and bump our way towards the new camp. Then it happens, the lightening and the rain. A sudden torrent fills the air to turn the African dust to a slippery mud, the rains have come at last. I have a sense of joy, for so long in dry places where the rains have failed. Now the rain will provide the pasture for the animals of the Rift Valley.

Rob, our cameraman, shouts,

“look the whole place is underwater”

It had all happened within moments. Our problem was now getting across those rapidly rising rivers. The rain was so hard that it was impossible to see the track ahead now lost in the flooding rain.

We had three rivers to cross to get back to the camp, we arrived at the last river just in time, a few moments later would have meant spending several days here, then we were through.

This was to be a night of luxury away from the tent. Soon we were sitting at the bar, whiskey in hand, watching the rain pouring from the roof and  filling the river next to us.

The animals were happy that night. When the rains come a remarkable change takes place. What was dust coloured landscape yesterday now has a tinge of green, the first growth of the wet.

After the rain