In June 2014 Bev found its way to Nairobi to begin a month-long journey through Kenya and Uganda. One of the major causes on her visit was to meet up Jared, a Ugandan university student who she have been sponsoring for days gone by 18 months.
Bev's timing was perfect: the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival was to take place a day or two after her arrival in Kenya and so which was the very first destination. Moses and Laura, friends of OTA and owners of Mara Explorers camp in Maasai Mara, were in Nairobi and were cajoled into joining the trip north. Then they invited Scott and Helene, a British couple driving their Land Rover around the continent while they identified how to pay their retirement. And so our small band of intrepid travellers started the two-day journey to the far north-western corner of Kenya. escorts Adelaide
We encountered a couple of sceptics who have been dubious about the capability of the OTA van to get at Loiyangalani and to cross the desert to Marsabit. But Francis handled that Toyota such as a true professional inspite of the rain, mud, steep ascents and descents, loose stones and every other obstacle imaginable. In Maralal we had to locate our police escorts to accompany us further north. There were only a couple of occasions when Bev found the requirement to gently push the young soldier's gun from pointing directly at her - he was very relaxed about carrying this kind of weapon, but we perhaps would have been convenient had he been a bit more attentive.
The initial morning of the Turkana Festival was fantastic. Fourteen ethnic groups from northern Kenya gathered in Loiyangalani, each creating a traditional house, donning traditional costumes, dancing traditional dances and singing traditional songs. The atmosphere was fun as each tribe tried to out-sing and out-dance each other. Unfortunately, this was the very first year the Marsabit County Council was running the festival and it would appear that they didn't take much advice or assistance from the organisations who had been involved previously. This system was ignored and we found ourselves doing the scheduled 8am hike up a mountain to see rock art in heat of the midday sun. Adelaide Escorts
The second day was even less organised as we all waited for Deputy President Ruto to arrive before any activities could start. His scheduled arrival at 11am didn't occur until 3pm and the scheduled activities turned out to become a political rally. This is perfect for the locals who do not often see their MPs, but for foreign tourists it wasn't the absolute most exciting "cultural event ".
From Lake Turkana, we headed east to Marsabit where we had a slight accommodation disaster but a good food find. While Bev, Francis and Tracey headed into town for lunch, Scott cooked at camp for the remaining portion of the group, including our police escorts. Pasta with vegetables - not quite what soldiers in northern Kenya are used to and they were a little nervous about this mzungu food.
Continuing south, the next stop was Archers Post where Bev spent some time at the Umoja School. It's a brand new school with only 14 students, and so Bev spent the morning teaching science to the whole school. They made rockets and learnt about air pressure. In the afternoon Francis took Bev into Samburu National Reserve where a lion walked not five metres after dark vehicle!
We said good bye to Scott, Helene, Moses and Laura in Nairobi before travelling west to Busia. There we stayed with Chrisphine and spent fifty per cent of a day at the Blue Bells School, again dragging all of the students outside for a technology lesson. Lots of education throughout Africa is taught straight out from the text book, sitting in class and answering questions. So to get off the desks and try things out for themselves was a small novelty. Bev has plans to go back to East Africa later on and we hope that she will have the ability to take more time with the teachers to exhibit them different ways of teaching rather than simply rote. Know more