Kenyan experience

It was early November and the Jacaranda trees were in full bloom throwing a purple hue in the sky over the Kenyatta Avenue in downtown Nairobi. I could see from my little hotel window a slice of Nairobi under transition from winter to summer days. Temperature in Kenya hovers between 240C during the day and 100C at night all the year round. There is no ceiling fan around in Nairobi. Unlike a traditional hot and humid African country (like the west African countries of Nigeria, Congo, Zaire) Kenya with an average height between 5000 and 7000 feet above sea level, enjoys two main seasons: the short rains usually fall between October and December and the long rains from March to June. Nairobi and central highlands are depressingly cold, gray and remain overcast on most days between June and August.

We were luckier. November was beautifully sunny and pleasant. In fact the high tourist season starts from December and continues up to end of March. Tourists mainly visit Kenya for watching game reserves. There are around 210 gazetted forest reserves within the country. Kenya received as many as 800,000 tourists in 2002. Tourism is a major foreign currency earner of the country. A good number of tour operators work round the year with offices overseas.

For me, it was perhaps my fourth visit to that enchanting country. The last one was a decade ago. It is often said that a person living in Africa for sometime is always haunted by that dark continent, although, it is no more a dark continent these days. Memories of Africa, its songs and dances, its relentless fight against colonialism, struggle for independence all go to the blood of a person living there for a considerable part of his life. First few years of my service career were spent in the Southern Africa, where days are sunny and cool, night skies are clearer but different. Stars are not familiar because of their location in their southern hemisphere. Seasons are different too. When it is summer in Bangladesh, it is winter there and vice-versa. Commonalities in Africa (mainly in central and southern) are the same coloured people, dark black skin, curly hair, plated hair for women, similar colourful traditional dresses, patriarchal society with the tradition of chieftainship, similar songs and dances, drum beats, fascination for beer, poor in saving culture and so on and so forth. Because of their alcoholism and utter ignorance, the Indians (mainly from south India) made inroad in the eastern and southern Africa as railway workers, porters, tea garden labourers and small traders. In Kenya, the small trading business is controlled by the Sahs and Patels living in huge garden houses with splashing swimming pool and tennis court.

Between the hectic environment meetings on a weekend, we went on a safari tour of Lake Nakura National Park, 150 km north of Nairobi, a two-hour drive. The park is at the bottom of the great Rift Valley, popularly known as a feeding ground of around 1.8 million Flamingo birds. The park is under the management of Kenya Wildlife Services and is one of the Ramsar sites covering 188 sq. km.

The lake within is a shallow water body of maximum six feet in depth, is saline and provides home to flamingo birds. They feed on algae. In fact these birds fly from nearby Lake Natron in Tanzania, known for their breeding ground. Flamingo lays an egg every two years. Besides, these birds, there are around 450 species of aquatic birds and 55 species of mammals including Rhinos. Between the acacia thorn (locally known as "yellow fever" trees) Rothschild giraffes, impalas, topi gazels, baboons and leopards roam around this national park. Former President Jommo Kenyatta banned hunting animals way back in 1970. It gave a real boost to Kenya's national parks and game reserves.

On Mombassa-Kampala highway to lake Nakuru, we came across a high land, known as the "top of the Earth" on which the Equator passes through. A sprawling tourist bazaar with observation sites, curios and souvenirs abound the area. A familiar tourist spot indeed to take photographs at an altitude of 9,136 feet above sea level. During the journey we ran parallel to Kenyan Railway, starting from the Indian Ocean coast town of Mombassa to the shores of lake Victoria across almost 1000 km. The long stretch of railway line also known as "Lunatic Line" was a tedious journey climbing from the sea-level through desert, grass plain, mountain and forest crossing the Equator before heading down again to the humid areas of lake Victoria. The British Raj thought that the key to penetrating the interior was a railway to the great lake Victoria, a thousand kilometers across some of the most hostile terrain in the world. I had the privilege of travelling the line more than a decade back during my over-night journey by train from Nairobi to Mombassa and back. I was slipping all along and missed the spectacular sights of burnt out desert, infinite stretch of thorn, savannah scrub and walls of the great Rift Valley and so on. What a great misfortune!

The great Rift Valley of Kenya is perhaps the single most dramatic feature on the Earth. Entering the country in the north from Ethiopia through the jade waters of lake Turkana it slices right through the middle of Kenya like a broad knife-cut to enter Tanzania in the south at lake Natron. The valley floor rises from little more than 650 feet above sea level at lake Turkana to reach its highest point at lake Naivasha at 6200 feet before descending abruptly to enter Tanzania. The Rift has thirty active and semi-active volcanoes and countless boiling springs. The Rift stretches all the way down to Malawi and Zimbabwe in the south. Today, the Kenya and Tanzanian sections of the Rift are the world's last treasury of cultures, flora and fauna, both terrestrial and avian, that have continued unchanged for centuries.

On over way back, we visited the Naivasha flower firm using "bio-fumigation" method to contain pests and insects instead of traditional ozone layer depleting chemical of Methyl Bromide. Kenya is the second largest exporter of cut-flower in the continent next to Zimbabwe. Flowers are mainly coronation and lily. A learning experience indeed.

It was sad that we could not visit Maasai Mara National Park, about 150 km. south of Nairobi. The sprawling 150,000 sq. km. park, overlooking Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru in Tanzania, is the home of may carnivores, herbivores and avian. The tribes live there are the Maasai people, a famously proud and independent pastoral tribe, migrated from the Nile some 500 years ago. The annual migration of animals, numbering around 2.5 million (when the migration at its peak), takes place here, when the animals follow the rains for new sweet grass in July or early August. They come all the way from Tanzania's Serengeti reserve to Maasai Mara in Kenya. We did miss the sight this time. May be we will be luckier next time, who knows.

Dr Mahfuzul Haque is the Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forest.