The beautiful birds of the Chyulus

Thanks for all your comments about Koikai, and about the elephant. I will take your advice on board and see what we can do, and pass on your best wishes to him. I’ll let you know as soon as I have any news. In the meantime let me tell you of some more pleasant things. This…

Lion Guardians are interviewed for you!

Today we hosted the Lion Guardians monthly meeting at camp. All the Guardians attended, except for Ritei, who was feeling unwell, and couldn’t come. Everyone talked about what had happened during the month, and shared their experiences. We also asked the Guardians your questions. Here I am interviewing Lenkina. And here I am with Koikai.…

Lion Guardians arrive in camp

Today the Lion Guardians are arriving for the monthly meeting, which will happen tomorrow. Some of them have to walk a very long way to get here; some have to come all the way from the other side of the ranch, so they are usually very tired when they arrive. But despite this they are…

Having trouble sleeping? Why not try data entry?

Since the film crew left I have been stuck in the office. Maria who sometimes helps me with data entry when she is not busy in the kitchen has gone home for her holiday, so we don’t even have good food to sustain us! However we do currently have some help from Stephen Melubo from…

My beautiful land..

The other day I was traveling back to camp; I had been to the place where the lion was speared, to investigate what had happened there. I had to get a public bus and since it was full, I had to stand all the way. During my journey I noticed a group of non-Maasai people…

Back in camp

I have just been at home visiting my family, and am now back in camp after spending six days away. It feels like I have been away for a whole month – especially because I don’t normally leave camp, not even for weekends, so now that I’m back in the office I don’t know where…

Goat party!

After the training with the NRT scouts, where we all learnt a lot about lions three Lion Guardians; Mokoi, Olubi and Lenkina slaughtered a goat for our guests. We had to give them a chance to slaughter the goat in their traditional Samburu way so that they could take the goat blood while it was…

Learning about lions

Today was the end of our two days of lectures with the Northern Rangeland Trust. They had come all the way down from the North of Kenya to learn all about lions, and wanted to visit the Lion Guardians to find out how we deal with the conflicts between people and carnivores. This made us…

Mambo, the bush man

Here in camp we have a very interesting friend who occasionally comes to visit us; a strange old man who lives in a cave in the Chyulu Hills. His name is Mambo, and although we don’t know his exact age we are sure he is over 78 years old. When he was a young murran…

Lion Guardians Top Brass

I woke up this morning feeling full of energy. Yesterday I was wearing my traditional Maasai clothes – brightly colored cloths called shukas, and adorned with beautiful beads.   I thought of my important position as Assistant Director of the Lion Guardians program… and that gave me an idea. I put on some smart trousers…