(Am recycling an old travel piece. The reason? Have been thinking of Joseph, Douglas et al for a while. I wonder how they're doing. It's been a long time.)
It is a fine morning and as I peer out of the window, the azure waters of the Indian Ocean lap at the shores of Malindi, a little tourist town on the Kenyan coast. This delightful town, an important yesteryear port, has an interesting Indian connection: this is where Vasco da Gama is believed to have hired a guide who led him successfully to India in 1498, thereby capping the long search for a sea route from Europe to the sub-continent. After two days of rain the sky looks gay and friendly, and I think I can finally move out of Malindi. I have been staying at the dharamshala attached to the Malindi Swaminarayan Temple. It is the month of May, which is the slack tourist season, and the town is enveloped in tropical ennui. But it gives me the opportunity to make friends with the temple keeper, David, an elderly African who has been around for more than twenty years. To my astonishment, I discover that it is David who cleans out the sanctum sanctorum, lights the incense and adorns the deities everyday. He has been doing this ever since the temple priest passed away some weeks ago. A new one, who must belong to the Swaminarayan sect, is yet to be found. Till then, for all practical purposes, the priest at this Hindu temple is a Christian African who takes immense pride in his work! I see this auspicious confluence of religion and race as a good omen and set off to the village of Gede.
Gede is 18 kilometres south of Malindi and is known for the Gede Ruins, the site of an Arab-African settlement that is believed to have flourished between the 13th and 17th centuries. This is now a Kenyan National Monument and is managed (remarkably well, one must add) by the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). My own interest in Gede lies in NMK but for a different reason. The NMK is the site of a ‘kipepeo’ (Swahili for butterfly) farm and on the day of my visit, is teeming with farmers from nearby villages carrying butterfly pupae for sale. The pupae are exported to live butterfly exhibits in Europe and serve as an important source of income for the farmers. The butterfly farm is an outcome of the remarkable Kipepeo Project, a community-based butterfly farming project developed with the specific intention of getting local communities to develop a stake in the conservation of the neighbouring Arabuko Sokoke Forest.
As a matter of fact, it is the Arabuko Sokoke Forest that has drawn me to Gede, about 120 kilometres away from the port city of Mombasa. For Arabuko Sokoke is the largest remaining fragment of rich tropical forest that once stretched across the East African coast. About 42,000 hectares in size, the forest is rich in biodiversity and is regarded as the second most important forest for bird conservation in mainland Africa. It is the home of the enigmatic Clarke’s Weaver bird (Ploceus golandi), which is found nowhere else in the world, and of the Sokoke Scops Owl (Otus ireneae), which is found at only one other site, in north-east Tanzania. These are only two of the more than 230 bird species recorded in Arabuko Sokoke. Also found here are three rare, near-endemic mammals: the Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus), Ader’s Duiker (Cephalophys adersi) and the Sokoke Bushy-tailed Mongoose (Bdeogale crassicauda omnivora). The forest also supports a population of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana).
As much as I am interested in its wildlife, I am also interested in the people living around the forest. These are mainly the Giriama, an indigenous people who are believed to have originated from present-day Somalia, which lies to Kenya’s north-east. From Gede therefore, I move onward to the village of Dida, which hugs the Arabuko Sokoke Forest in the southwest. I plan to be there for a few days.
The road to Dida is a dirt trail often cutting across the forest. The forest hangs low on either side and travelling here at twilight or later can be quite eerie. My escort is an immensely friendly forester who gets me engaged in a conversation on elephants. He keeps me riveted with anecdotes that illustrate the pachyderm’s intelligence. Among his stories is one of a villager plucked off his bicycle and dashed to the ground as an act of revenge. I swallow, and utter a silent prayer to Ganesha, hoping that I will remain in his good books, at least till I leave the forest.
In Dida I am entrusted to the care of the forest guard, Douglas, who beams as he receives me, having been informed by radio of my arrival. He lives in what turns out to be one of the few concrete structures in the village. It is also very old and looks as if it might collapse any moment. I consider invoking Viswakarma, the divine architect. There is no electricity in Dida, as in most other villages around the forest. However, as I step into the house, I can see that Douglas has taken great pains to make things comfortable for me. His own bedroom has been made over to my disposal with a couple of small kerosene lamps to light it up at night.
One of the first people I meet the next day is Joseph ‘Radio’ Kajomo. 35-year old Joseph has an honest face and an earnest way of talking that makes me take to him instantly. He volunteers to take me around the village and I accept at once. For the next few days Joseph is my constant companion. He carries a small radio with him all the time, which is the only connection to the world in these parts with neither electricity nor newspapers. I am taken to his house where he proudly throws open a battered trunk containing his proud possessions - books. His star possession is an old encyclopaedia set, purchased eight years ago from a second hand bookshop in Mombasa. It cost him 15,000 Kenyan Shillings (approximately 9,000 Indian rupees), a small fortune that he repaid from his farm income in instalments over eight long years.
One of the butterfly farmers whom I met in Gede the previous day lives in Dida. A message of invitation is sent out for me to Douglas, who arranges for me to meet Felix and his wife at their house. Felix is 43, has a gentle beard and a generous grin. I learn that he was once an inveterate small-time timber poacher, who went to prison thrice. After being introduced to butterfly farming though, he has turned over a new leaf. Butterfly farming helps supplements his income from growing maize and plantains. He is now strongly in support of protecting the forest. Felix’s grin grows wider and wider as I am being told all this. “From thief to conservator,” he says, “that’s my story!”
Joseph takes me around Dida and its neighbouring villages, Kafitsoni and Kahingoni. The houses are all located far apart and it takes quite some walking. We talk as we walk; when we fall silent the radio crackles to life. I meet some interesting, even inspiring, people. One of these is an elderly widow, Kadzo Masha, with a reputation for industry. Beginning as a widowed landless labourer, Masha raised her children well and was able to buy land for her family through sheer hard work. At 74, she works daylong on her farm and keeps a beautiful home. I ask Joseph to tell her that she reminds me of my grandmother. Masha is very pleased. “God bless you”, she says.
The staple food in these parts is warri, boiled flour eaten with baked kidney beans. I partake of this simple but filling meal at the home of Thomas Barawa, a village elder. He explains that the people are suffering ever since their entry into the forest was forbidden some years ago, on grounds of conservation. They are now forced to depend on the market for basic necessities such as firewood and charcoal; their nutritional status has fallen since they can no longer enter the forest to hunt small animals, pluck fruits or collect honey.
Before I realise, it is time for me to leave. I want to pay Douglas for all his troubles but he declines. “You are like my brother”, he beams at me, his hands resting on my shoulders. “I cannot take money from you.” Douglas supports a family of three children - they live in his village further south – on his meagre salary. I am overwhelmed by his gesture. As for my guide, Joseph, I dare not even mention that I would like to pay him. It would be an affront after the camaraderie that we have developed. Douglas and Joseph see me off on a rickety minibus to the town of Kilifi, where there will be a connecting bus to Gede. My friends in Dida may be poor, I say to myself, but they have something that money cannot buy. Dignity. I look back towards Dida and say softly, “I came, I saw, I was conquered.” Never mind if Caesar turns in his grave.
(An edited version of this piece was published in The Hindu Magazine, 8 July 2007.)
