Maasai Ostrich Farm

For a vegetarian to visit an ostrich farm might seem a bit of a contradiction, but I imagined the Maasai Ostrich Farm, an hour outside Nairobi, was more than just an unhappy ending for ostriches. 

A Kenyan keeper shows us where to dip the soles of our shoes in disinfectant and off we set. We pass a huge barn where the ostrich hens brood their eggs for 42 days – twice the length of incubating chicken eggs. They lay 20 – 25 eggs a month over a six-month period.  We don’t disturb them, but examine two eggs on display - one is empty for tourists to buy, the other weighing about a kilo and a half could make a very large omelet.

Ostriches with mottled plumage stride around large pens. We learn these youngsters are ready for the Nairobi market. Any bird more than eight months old would be too tough - though they can be used for breeding or for making feather dusters, wallets and bags. 

After a year males, females and youngsters become distinct. The males turn black, the young are mottled and so are the females – but bigger. The ostriches don’t roam free in the fields snacking around in case lions have the same idea. No, they are in grass runs and in one a black cock ostrich is turning from pink to red.  He has the same idea as a female who advances towards him feathers spread open and shimmering. Inexplicably he walks off in the opposite direction.

Ostriches can run at 65 kilometres an hour and for speed are second only to the cheetah. However, they have only 40-gramme brains. This could account for them burying their head in the sand leaving the rest of their body exposed when lions or other predators are looking for lunch.

One area of the farm is given over to growing sweetcorn. The crop is huge: each sturdy stalk carries a huge corncob. The produce feeds the staff who also grind some up with grass seed and feed it to the ostriches each morning.

The special excitement for us is ostrich riding and (for some of us) ostrich cutlets for lunch. One huge male (ostrich) already saddled – but not bridled –runs round in circles within an open-air arena. His huge pink legs end in just two powerful though somewhat spooky toes. 

We learn this is the only ostrich farm in Kenya, but it does have some Somali ostriches too. These are smaller and have blue skin as opposed to the Kenyan pink. A keeper goes off to rustle up a Somali ostrich for each of us to ride because none of weighs more than 70 kilos. If we did, it would have been the pink one still enthusiastically circumnavigating the riding ring. Sophia, Jeremy and I (one at a time) are lifted aboard the ostrich whose energy is held in check by two other keepers: ostriches are strong and willful. I envisage holding on around the grey-feathered neck, but no, there is a small handle on the pommel of the fabric saddle and I hang onto that. 

Curiously, the most-times omnivorous Sophia cannot bear to eat someone she now knows socially. Jeremy has no such hang-ups and scours the menu for the largest ostrich steak he can find. Fortunately for my credit card whole legs are not on offer. Just then the waiter tells us something strange. There is not one ostrich dish.  I wonder if they have turned over a new leaf, but then I hear him say

“Next time ring us and order in advance, then we’ll slaughter one for you.”

LAOS - LAND OF A MILLION ELEPHANTS

 Laos used to be called the land of a million elephants. Now, due to population pressures, there are less than a thousand and they live in National Protected Areas like Phou Khao Khouay. If these elephants had stayed put in their 2,000 square kilometres of mountains and rivers, all would have been well. But they didn’t. They came down and ravaged Ban Na, a village 82 kilometres from Vientiane. It’s not a new village and was not troubled by elephants before. The villagers grew pineapples and bananas, but when they planted sugar cane, the elephants couldn't believe their good fortune. Why would they waste energy ploughing through mountainous forests, when they could get all they wanted on the easily-accessible lowlands? But the lowlands belong to several farming villages.

Elephants are herbivores, eating up to 150 kilos a day. And they trample all in their path: even a villager once. The people are poor and saw sugar cane as a way out of poverty. It was hard to give up, but if they stopped, they reasoned, the elephants would return to the mountains. But the elephants didn't.

Now the resourceful villagers have turned their despair into hope for a sustainable future for both themselves and the elephants and if you go to Ban Na, you can see how they are doing it.

At the information centre in Vientiane you can read what's available in the village, how much it costs and who gets what. Some money goes on a trekking permit for the National Protected Area. Some goes to the home-stay. Some goes to the Elephant Conservation and Research fund. Some goes into the revolving fund from which villagers can borrow money for seeds, house repairs and school fees. And it's not just Ban Na your money is helping, but other villagers who lose their crops to elephants. Two guides must accompany you to the observation tower. The guides know first-aid, but really, if you are charged by a wild elephant would there be enough of you left to do first-aid on? 

Why is the project centred in Ban Na and not in the other villages? Because Ban Na has a natural salt lick. It is this on which the project pivots. The observation tower overlooks the salt lick.

The walk to the tower is 4.5 kilometres - but easy even for lounge lizards. The first small challenge is a lengthy bridge. It’s only inches above the rice paddies, so you'll not break your neck if you do fall off. Over the bridge, there are interesting things to see beside the path: hibiscus flowers, beehives up tall trees, bracket fungi in several different colours, butterflies including swallow-tails: edible spiders are perhaps the most unusual (and no I didn’t try one). Of the two guides, Bun That, showed us the spoor of a Common Palm Civet Cat and the fruit it had been eating. Zom Pon, the other guide, showed us bamboo beetles eating what bamboo beetles like best: bamboo.

It’s estimated there are 44,000 Asian elephants left in the wild, 800 of them occur in Phou Khao Khouay and about 32 are around Ban Na. Since the project commenced, three baby elephants have been born. So now you see how your visit can influence the survival of the Asian elephant.

Did we see any? Well, I thought I heard an elephant late afternoon, but it was close to dinner time and it might have been my stomach rumbling. So, no, we didn't, but we stayed here in July in the monsoon. You will be more sensible and visit in September, October or November around the nights of the full moon then you should see elephants.

Published by Guardian Weekly 2015 AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK

 “You’ve never seen what?” I ask Zuhura our housekeeper in incredulity? “You are Kenyan and have lived all your life in Kenya and you’ve never seen an elephant? We have to fix that.”

And so it was, that before too long we were on our way to Amboseli National Park three and a half hours from Nairobi on a good day and six hours if the Mombasa Road is in gridlock. We fall into the second category, so arrive at Amboseli Serena Lodge for lunch at about three o’clock.  Undeterred and almost immediately, we are back in the car and out on tour of the Park with Mount Kilimanjaro rising over our right shoulders. At 5,896 metres it is Africa’s tallest mountain and thank goodness nobody suggests I climb it.

Beside the path 15 Crowned Cranes strut their stuff. The enchanting crown, standing upright gives the Crane a somewhat startled look. Only then, do we see why. Two Cheetahs laze in the grass beside them. One languidly raises its head. But the fastest animals on earth know the Cranes will shoot into the air if they menace them. So Cranes and Cheetahs relax in amity and toleration, as indeed do we, over many hours of animal and bird watching.

A HUGE squeal of excitement: Zuhura, or Zu Zu as we call her, sees her first elephant. She is in heaven. And it isn’t just one elephant (usually only males are alone) but two females with babies at foot and a teenager along for the walk.

Amboseli is mainly arid, with spindly Acacia trees dotting the pancake-flat plains. Other than that, only Prickly Pear, towering tree-high, thrives as does other cacti. There is hardly any grass for the majority of the year but April is the rainy season and the Enkongo Narok Swamp, usually only five centimetres deep, is full of elephants foraging up to their waists in water – and loving it.

Nearby, five hippos do what hippos do best: wallow. Suddenly two males rear, open their massive pink jaws and snap at each other. But really it’s far too nice an afternoon to fight, so the great grey thick-skinned beasts subside into the marsh and all is still again.

One or two gnu (which in the car sparks off choruses of Flander’s and Swan’s song "I'm a gnu, I'm a gnu, the gnicest work of gnature in the zoo…”) with long mane and beard are grazing, but not in herds of up to 1,000,000 as can occur in other parts of Africa. Apparently zebra hang out with gnu because gnu are slow of speed and intelligence and hopeless at strategizing. This means if a lion strikes, the swift zebras tear off and the gnu get torn up.  Another reason why lions love them is because they have short memories. If gnu smell lions they all start running in one direction. But after a short time forget why they are running and stop or even wander back to where the lion lies in wait.

Lions were once plentiful in Amboseli, but over time and many changes only perhaps 30% of their historic numbers remain. When Amboseli was claimed a National Park and tourist destination by the government, the Maasai, traditional owners of the land were forbidden to graze their cattle, sheep and goats. In this arid part of Kenya, loss of pastures for the herds is traumatic and hundreds of lions were killed in reprisal. The rare black-horned rhino disappeared over time too with increased poaching. The few remaining were sent to more salubrious surroundings. 

Observation Hill gives a good view of towering Mount Kilimanjano. Apart from that you gaze around 360 degrees of completely flat plain. We hear a trumpeting and, sure enough, two more female elephants appear with calves at heel. Zu Zu is THRILLED. She tells me she imagined her elephant experience would be in tightly forested places where elephants hide behind trees not wanting to be spotted.

“My imagination is entirely wrong!” she chirrups.

Our last sighting of the day is an impressive-sized ball of elephant dung. We drove slowly toward it in congratulatory admiration and what should we find but a dung beetle. It was doing what dung beetles do. They roll an ever-fattening round ball of dung. We imagine it will take him months to roll up this lot.

As the travel books tell you. Clouds top Mount Kilimanjaro 99% of the time. Imagine our joy when leaving next morning for our 6.00 am drive to find it summited in snow. And, better still, gleaming in the sunshine. Perfect. Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest freestanding peak in the world. It is one of the largest stratovolcanoes and is considered dormant. There have been no eruptions in living memory and we hazard a guess that there will not be one before lunch.

Adrian, the driver, promises lions strewn over the track if we take a 6.00am drive. We did, but we didn’t. Adrian assures us that the large hairy animals on our right are lions. Zu Zu hands him the binoculars and he says

“I can’t see very well through the binoculars, but they may be lions.”

“Oh yeah right,” we all say. And he goes back to driving. The two lying down hairy creatures turn out to be hyenas – who can’t be hungry as the most lively thing they do is wave their tails and go back to sleep with Grant’s Gazelles leaping around them.

Nearby, but solitary, stands a warthog: it’s a boar judging by the large warts on his head above his fiercely up-curved tusks.  Later we see a family: dad, mum and three juniors racing along with their tails erect like flags in the air – hilarious.

In addition to the Crowned Crane, we identify many species of birds: Greater Flamingo, White-necked Cormorant, African Fish Eagle, Shining-blue Kingfisher, Sacred Ibis, Kenya Crested Guineafowl and Secretary Bird, as well as unspecific: pelicans, thrushes and finches. It was sad for me to use our bird book to identify them as the entries are annotated in Richard’s handwriting that we had seen, for example, Hunter’s Sunbird in Masai Mara in 1993, the Grey Heron in Nakuru and Yellow-billed Egret in Baringo. They were on our last African adventure together.

The morning we leave, we looked and looked for lions. But failed.

“I’m so sorry Zu Zu that we didn’t see one.”

“It doesn’t matter”, she says. I’ve had two dreams for years. I want my kids to have a good education (and that is happening) and I wanted to see elephants and I’ve seen lots. It’s wonderful.

We all agree with her.

Pampet, a Padaung Village in Kayah State, Myanmar

 Padaung women in Kayah State

Dragon women who carry their burdens lightly

Pampet, a Padaung village, is about an hour from Loikaw in Kayah State in Burma. The Padaung women are famous for the many brass rings they wear which elongate their neck considerably. However, there is much more to the village as we find out. The chief (who is elected by the people) meets us at a junction and advises us what we should take to the villagers. He does not want them spoiled by money, so suggests we take ten bottles of cooking oil and washing detergent. We also take exercise books and pens for the village primary school. Pencils are not so useful, we learn. They use them only until Standard 2. After that, it’s pens.

We take two pairs of glasses to give away. The villagers welcome them, however, I miss an opportunity! At the end of the village they introduce me to the oldest woman who is 79. I should have kept one pair of glasses to give to her  – I will know better next time!

Well into the distance, spreading over terraces, padi is layering the contours of the land. It reminds me of the rice terraces in Bali and it glistens after last night’s rain.

They are growing a crop that I’ve not encountered before. It resembles sweet corn and sugar cane, though looks taller and slimmer than either. I learn it is corn, but not the cob variety. They plant in May and harvest eight months later. The cattle and pigs have the leaves and stems and the women winnow the small tassels to remove the husks. They cook and eat the grain much like rice, but there’s another use that pleases all who try it. They make alcohol: khaung yee. They put some grain into an earthenware pot and then pour over boiling water. They leave it to cool for half an hour. After this they siphon off the liquid and drink it. The first brew is potent. The next and final four times they repeat the brew it is still alcoholic, but less and less potent.

In each of the open sided houses we visit, Padaung women welcome us. Many are back-strap weaving. They tether one end of the ‘loom’ to a horizontal bar that is part of the house. The other end is tethered to a back-strap that fastens around their hips.  One woman is weaving the white tunic that all Padaung women wear over short black skirts. In each of their houses are the fruits of their labour in terms of multi-coloured scarves and shoulder bags.

The chief tells us much about the neck rings. Girls of about four years start wearing a few at a time. Gradually they build up over the years. The woman with whom we are sitting wears 17 rings joined together. She also wears six more that are joined to each other, but not to the others. In all, she wears 23 rings and they weigh an enormously heavy 12 kilogrammes. How they can work in the fields and carry produce on their back to the market is beyond me. While we are there a tuk-tuk tractor arrives and the woman lifts a huge sack of produce into the back: demonstrating how incredibly strong they are despite the rings around their neck.

Happy voices herald the primary school. Inside, there are 65 children and two teachers. There is much bustle, action and noise as well as lessons. We give the two-dozen exercise books and pens to the teachers, but are pleased to see that the children are working with writing books, so ours will come in handy later.

Three little girls, one the daughter of the chief, come to show us their neck rings. Each one has about five. The teacher tells us an amusing story. One little girl has a set of rings that can be opened all down one side so, as the teacher says, she wears them if she wants to and not if she doesn’t!  Another child finds a decorative way of carrying a pen. It is on top of her head and clipped to stay put.

Eventually the obvious questions come up of when and why the women wear neck rings. There are three versions. The first is that long, long ago if a tiger leapt at a woman, the neck rings prevented it killing her.

The second version is that long ago, when the different races moved down from the north through Burma, they wore all their valuables so they would not be stolen.

The last version is because their mother was a dragon and the rings mimic the dragon’s scales. Of course, how silly of me, I should have guessed that.

The road back to Mandalay.

When I’m not writing, I’m reading From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey by Pascal Khoo Thwe. It is an autobiography of the first part of his life in Phekhon, Kayah State and his incredible journey taking him eventually to study at Cambridge University. It is poignant to drive through Phekhon as we start our long road back to Mandalay. Cont. myandering.blogspot.com

We leave Loikaw in Kayah State and drop down to 4,800 feet toward Pin Laung in Southern Shan State. The vegetation changes as we drive. Pine and Teak are everywhere, along with yellow acacias that form arches of gold over the roads. Men with bullock carts loaded with rows of cabbages are throwing them up one by one to waiting men in trucks. The cabbages are stacked one by one, making pleasing patterns both in the bullock carts and then in the trucks. Some plants climbing over trellises remind me of grape vines, but they are chokos, which are fruiting prolifically.

Pin Laung is to be our overnight place to cut three hours off the drive that Win Kyaing would have to do in one day. But we arrive at 10.30 am! As it’s still early, we drive on to Aung Ban.

The soil in Kayah State and here in Southern Shan State is a rich chestnut colour. It is beautiful in places with no flowers, but even more so with scarlet Salvias and red Poinsettia lighting the way. Lower down, Marigolds splash orange and tall Asters bloom blue. We reach Aung Ban and as it’s still early we decide to try to reach Kyause where last year we attended the Elephant Festival.

Every road we take both in Kayah State and Southern Shan State are being improved. And there is plenty of room for improvement. On the roadside, stacks of boulders are hacked into smaller stones, by women as well as men. The old ‘made up’ part of the road in the middle of these huge piles of boulders, rocks and gravel is full of holes so we jolt along. Perhaps the road improvement is being undertaken so that the government can shine in the November election.

I did wonder if Kyause would have a hotel in which foreigners might stay. If I stay anywhere that is not licensed to take foreigners the owners or managers (or both) could be in a lot of trouble. I faced this once years ago and after a tiring drive, then showering and unpacking it was a pain having to pack up and move out. I don’t want a repeat.