Maasai Mara and Mpala and election day!

I’m at Mpala now and it is sooo green. There apparently has been a lot of rain, like basically 9 straight months of rain, which is nice considering the last time I was here the river had dried up. It is also great to see everyone who I worked with last year, and Theresa and Morgan from EEB are working up here for a year. I arrived last night after a long and adventurous series of rides on matatus from Kisumu – the one from Kisumu only made it to Kericho where our driver was arrested (for pulling over and stopping on the side of the road, maybe, which is illegal, maybe?) and then we were at the police station and the police gave us money to get the rest of the way to Nakuru since we had already paid, so we got 200 shillings each and then negotiated to pay only 150, so we scammed the police into giving each of us 50 shillings for our trouble. Sweet, sweet corruption. Anyway, the rest of the way was uneventful except that on the way from Nakuru to Nanyuki I was sitting next to an mzee that I thought I recognized…it turned out I was right and it was Tenai, one of the field assistants/best trackers from Mpala who we interviewed last year when making our video about water, so we went the rest of the way to Mpala together.

Today is election day for the referendum. Everyone is talking about it, and apparently Nanyuki is crowded with people there to vote. I hope it passes – the new constitution will really give people a lot of hope for fixing the country. Then of course I have to hope that it actually does make changes that will help Kenya break away from corruption, and not squash people’s hopes again. There are A LOT of changes, though, and ones that will take a lot of effort and energy and investment to implement. Basically, the whole political system would be restructured, with local county-type borders changing so that there are fewer municipalities and therefore fewer levels of bureaucracy. The court system would be reorganized, with Islamic courts recognized in certain cases. The cabinet of the president will no longer be allowed to be members of parliament as well, and maybe MPs won’t be allowed to raise their pay every time they pass a bill. Land that was acquired illegally will be reclaimed by the government, and the president will no longer have the right to grant land to whoever he wants (which is what after various steps led to the whole Mau forest issue and the deforestation and lack of water etc etc.) SO the people that are opposed to the new constitution seem to be the tribes that are worried about losing the land that was “irregularly” acquired in previous generations. In one Kenyan’s words, the election will go smoothly and there won’t be any violence as long as “yes” wins and the election isn’t rigged…

Anyway, this past weekend I went to Maasai Mara with Darryn and Nat and Marisa and Claire and it was great. Here are a couple of pictures of when we encountered a face-off between a leopard and the hyena that stole a wildebeest from it. I’ll upload more to a web album as soon as I can get internet on my own computer.