A walk in Logologo

This past weekend we traveled once more to Logologo - the Rendille village that we visited with Karen and Lourne (Tim's relatives) 2 weeks ago.  You may remember the pictures of the road and the immense difficulty of mud and pot-holes.  We have had more sun than rain in the last few days, so the road has dried out and is quite passable now - no vehicles were stuck along the way.  However, the severe erosion and the pot-holes continue to make the trip extremely bumpy and slow - we likely averaged 30 km/hr instead of the 15 km/hour of 2 weeks ago!  Perhaps because I wasn't looking down at the mud so much this time, I was able to watch the scenery a lot more.  It was much more obvious to me this time that we were driving around the Marsabit mountain, and down onto the lowlands, which is where Logologo is.  It was also clear to me how dazed I was at everything I was seeing 2 weeks ago.  It felt good this time to feel like my head was not up in the clouds somewhere.   At a few points along the way to Logologo, we saw large groups of baboons on the road.  Being the Canadian that I am, I was thinking it would be great to get pictures, but the driver never did slow down - here they are just rather large pests and not seen as photo ops!  Once again we stayed at the Isogargaro women's centre.  This organization hosts many of the NGO's who come to Logologo, and is quite a comfortable place to stay.  Logologo is very rural - the residence we stay in is a traditional Rendille home.  It is very much liking camping - just up off the ground.  The bathroom is the one where you are in an outhouse, but just squatting over a hole - rather rustic!  One of the services they offer is a school for those who have to shepherd their animals all day long, but who come back at night so that they are able to take some classes.  Here is their classroom:

We arrived in Logologo thinking that we were going to have a meeting with some of the people from the community. However, most of those people were involved in a local wedding.  The pastor who was officiating at the wedding was at least 2 hours late - that is quite often the norm for events here in Africa!  Hour long sermons, and 2 hours late for weddings - I hope I can remember the Canadian way when I return to work in January!  However, for we Westerners it was a little bit frustrating.  Basically we sat and played cards most of that afternoon as the wedding ended up going into the supper hour and our meeting never did happen that day.  However, we did go for a little walk, and came across this group of women in traditional dress heading towards the wedding.  I tried to be discreet in taking a picture - I don't do discreet very well - but hopefully it will give you a sense of how very colorful they were:

For me, one of the highlights was going for a walk through the field that evening as we went to meet one of the child mothers who has been recommended to Sauti Moja for sponsoring.  As we walked along, the sun was just beginning to set, and the animals were being brought back to the village for the night.  Because of all the rain lately, the field was covered in small flowers and lots of greenery for the animals to graze on along the way.

This is the group of us who were visiting.  Two of the staff from Sauti Moja Tanzania are here to do some work.  The male Kenyan who is walking with us is our driver for this trip.

 The sun was just going down - it was quite a peaceful time to be out walking - and a relief to feel a bit cooler after the extreme heat of the day.

 This was such a lovely picture of Africa - watching this woman walk across the field towards her home in the setting sun...

 All around us the animal herds were heading towards their homes for the night.  The sound of bells on the necks of the goats was all around us. In the distance we could hear some people singing.  Occasionally there was the braying of a donkey.  It was while we were walking through these fields that I got this almost surreal feeling - Holy Hannah - I'm in Africa!  Somehow I just couldn't stop grinning at it all.  It was most definitely a walk that will stay with me when I am back in the deep freeze of Saskatchewan and wondering just what this trip was all about - it will be one of the places I return to in my mind when I need to re-connect with Africa.

 I will leave you with this picture of this child mother with Tim.  She was dressed in her finery from attending the wedding in the village that afternoon.  She and Tim had a good visit - it was an upbeat way to end our day of sitting and waiting.  In Africa, very little is done in a hurry - it's both good and somewhat frustrating to let go of our time-driven agenda, and to learn to just sit and wait - all will be well - even if it is not in a hurry!