Today, I've been on a walk entitled "Ivory Belongs To Elephants", from near here to Malindi, the town with the nearest airport, a distance of about 25 km. We started in (warm) torrential rain and ended up in full, baking sunshine! Along the way some 500 kids from the schools along the route joined us in relays, singing and keeping our feet going with cup of youngsters, chanting too. It was good fun, and it felt like a good thing to do. The guy leading it, Jim Nyamu, and his team stayed here last night and then walked all the way, speaking to each new group of youngsters as they joined in, and occasionally stopping to talk to villagers. The message, of course, is that poaching is wrong and they should all work together to stamp it out. Two guys were arrested for poaching near here yesterday, which makes it much more immediate than WWF campaigns...
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| Walkers in waiting at Mwamba Centre |
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| Pinning posters on people |
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| In the pickup going to the start of the walk |
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| Waiting to set off - sheltering from pouring rain |
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| Banner on a bike |
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| And they're off! The policeman starts the walk waving the Kenyan flag |
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| Rain stopped, but still wet underfoot nearing Gede |
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| On the Gede-Malindi road |
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| Jim Nyamu preparing to address another school group |
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| Addressing a village - the green shop in the background had cold Cokes - perfect for an energy boost! |
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| The last few metres - in Malindi, just off the main street |
We got a lift back with some KWS rangers who were passing through Gede, but first we had to negotiate the narrow streets behind Malindi town centre.
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| Not quite stuck in a pickup down a small alley! |
From Gede we took a matatu back to where we started from. A matatu looks and works rather like a marshrutke in Russia - it's a minibus that picks folk up and drops them off at recognised stops and you pay a guy inside who also opens the door for people. It even has fringes round the sunshades, but no curtains...
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| In a matatu - that's a grab-bar for bumpy bits just in front of me! |
Then a lift home from Henry and a nice refreshing dip in the sea before dinner - quite a busy day!
And now I need another wash, because while I was writing an email just now I got poo-ed on by a gecko - apparently not all that unusual, but a bit of a surprise when you're not expecting it!
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