- A drive through the Northern Frontier and a walk along the Ewaso Nyiro river provide Rupi Mangat a good opportunity to witness the people at work.
We have to sign out at the police-check post at Isiolo to drive into the northern frontier of Kenya. I’m not sure that if we disappeared in this paradoxical land of harsh but stunning landscapes, the police would come looking for us.
Street vendors with their timeless pieces of smelted metal jewellery and amber beads station themselves at the post while marabou storks scavenge at the dumpsite by the dam where plastic litters a beautiful land of hills and acacia glades, and where camels browse and the desert people cut proud silhouettes.
It’s been a good year. The rains in the latter half of the year flooded the plains and the Ewaso Nyiro river, the life lung of the north, after the drought. Translated into the ‘River of Brown Water’, the river snakes its way from the highlands of the Aberdares and into the Lorian Swamp. Without it, the vast northern frontier could easily turn into the Sahara.
Driving on the new tarmac road, we pass the gates of Samburu and Buffalo Springs national reserves and then the Shaba hill below which lies the Shaba game reserve in just over an hour. In the late afternoon we turn into Archer’s Post, a favourite hunting outpost until the early 1960s, where big-game hunters cooled their beers in the cold springs after shooting the rhinos and elephants that roamed the plains.
Ewaso Nyiro River
Now, Somali and Kikuyu owners operate shops, and Archer’s Post boasts ‘cell-phone charging’ and internet services complete with hotelss like the ‘Accacia Bar’ where Samburu and Rendille drifters mingle with the tourists and truckers while their nomadic relatives keep busy herding their livestock in the plains.
It’s too late for an evening game drive inside the game parks. Instead we stroll down the great river of brown water to the gigantic new bridge spanning it. A flock of Egyptian geese lift in the cooling skies and the majestic doum palms line the river every few metres.
“The Ewaso Nyiro River runs through the national reserves (Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba) and the bordering community conservancies like Westgate, Mpus Kutuk and others,” says Shivani Bhalla, the lion researcher who started the Ewaso Lions Project.
“The river provides a regular source of water for wildlife in the area, like the elephants, big cats and the endangered species such as the African wild dogs and Grevy’s zebras. The Ewaso Nyiro River flooded once again in November, destroying much of the riverine vegetation,” she continues. “However, as a result of the prolonged rains, the area is once again lush, with long grasses and vegetation covering the region.
“After a dry spell and following the severe drought in 2009, it is a welcome change in this semi-arid region for both the local communties and the wildlife. The lions are doing well within the reserves.
The Ewaso Lions project is monitoring 40 lions, including more than 10 cubs under the age of one year. The elephants are back in large numbers making the most of the new vegetation,”
Stone kopjes
All the lions have personal ID files and the project covers an area of over 1,000 square kilometres, including the 296-square-kilometre Samburu and Buffalo Springs.
“Our project,” continues Bhalla, “has increased awareness of the importance of lion conservation and prevented retaliatory killing of lions in the areas.”
Part of the success is engaging Samburu morans in the the Warrior Watch programme to monitor lions, where in traditional days they would have killed the cats to prove their bravery to pass on to the next social rank.
Beautiful stone kopjes pose as works of sculpture along the clear sand beach lining the river. We stop to chat with the Samburu women busy making charcoal. They haven’t cut any trees, they say; the trees have drifted down the river.
The enterprising women hotels live coal in the middle of the trunks and rake the charred pieces before piling them into clay ovens – and all without using a single instrument.
Finally, we reach the new bridge where the big trucks drive above us. Busy swifts fly into their nests and as we turn around to watch the setting sun, troops of baboons from the protected area run to the river for a drink before retiring into the high trees for the night.
Driving past the Ololokwe, the iconic bread shaped mountain of the northern ranges, we spot a herd of elephants by the new tarmac road foraging on the lush green trees. It feels good to see a herd still roaming free.